Most of us have heard the story of the man who joined Program because, despite his religious faith, he could not stop his addiction. When he asked why he could not stop although he was a religious man, his sponsor replied, "Because your God is too small."

After taking Step Three, the man told his sponsor he now understood God for the first time in his life, but his sponsor shook his head and said, "Your God is too small."

The man worked the rest of the Steps and started to feel fairly confident that he had improved his conscious contact with his God as he understood God, but still his sponsor would say, "Your God is too small."

Then he began to meditate as well as to pray; and gradually his experience of his meditation began to show him what his sponsor had meant. The man had misread Step 11 -- he thought it said, "Sought through understanding to improve our prayer, meditation, and conscious contact with God." But it doesn't, does it?

We can't improve our conscious contact with God on our terms. To do so is immediately to adopt a God who is too small. Improving our conscious contact means being available to whomever or whatever God may be; and -- as the man found -- meditation and prayer, rather than dependence on religious or non-religious ideas we may have adopted, are the key.