"A man was lost in the desert and was near death for lack of water. Soon he came across a pump with a canteen hung on the handle and a note. The note read as follows: "Below you is all the fresh water you could ever need, and the canteen contains exactly enough water to prime the pump." What would you do?

Now that’s a question of Faith. Each of the steps in our program has a principle behind it, and Faith is the principle of the third step. The Step is: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Turning my life over to the care of God was a no-brainer for me. I believe in a power greater than myself, and it’s comforting to trust in a loving caring God. But turning my will over is a whole other story! That means complete surrender. And that requires Faith.

It’s so hard to surrender my desire to control people places and things. I wake up, say the third step prayer, and give all my problems and concerns to God. By the time I hit the freeway I’ve got most of them swimming around in my head again.

I have a sponsee who is working her third step, so we talk about faith a lot. I tell her what I’ve learned is that we “practice” faith, and that yes, it can be a daily struggle. Fortunately, this is a program of progress, not perfection. Four times in the Big Book is the phrase “faith without works is dead”. So we’ll keep working at it.