Working Step 11 from the beginning

Step 11 has several parts to it, and I've made different progress against the different parts at different times.
In the very first weeks of recovery, I interpreted the entirety of Step 11 as "Spend time with God."  It's a good thing I had already been through Steps 1, 2, and 3, because before those Steps, I hated the very concept of God as I had understood Him.  Spending time with that God wasn't in any list of things I wanted to do!  But thankfully, I (mostly) worked the Steps in order.  I had already, in Step 2, revised my concept of God to one that could actually keep me sober given the reality of my addiction.  So then my job in Step 11 was to learn more about this new concept of God.  I started praying in the morning and evening and over every meal.  I once again started studying the scriptures that I used in my faith tradition, spending as much as an hour a day.  I joined a study group led by a deep thinker who had been through those scriptures with a fine tooth-comb.  I'm afraid I was a bit of a pain in that study group, because I kept stopping him to question his statements.  He'd make some broad theological statement, and I'd object.  "Wait a minute!  Where does it say that in the scriptures??"  Thankfully, he could answer me over and over.  More than that, he'd point out several places in different sections that all worked together to reinforce what he was claiming as true.  I was astonished.  I'd read those scriptures all the way through at least five times in my life (on the way to hating the concept of God), and had never put them together the way that he did.
 
In that study group, I learned that my new concept of God had actually been in the scriptures all along - that it was my own interpretations of "church teachings" that had led to my "old ideas."
 
But Step 11 has specific parts to it.
 
"...sought through prayer..."  I hadn't used prayer much in my life.  I never saw much sense in it.  My old concept of God was so remote from anything in my real life that praying seemed to be a useless thing.  So I decided to follow Step 11 and pray to my new concept of God.  The result is that I have been amazed, time and again, how prayer fixes my life.  It changes my attitudes and brings me serenity even in the middle of the problems.  And sometimes, I have seen true miracles in answer to my prayers:  healing of long-term and short-term diseases, a car engine that fixed itself, and more.  If this sounds strange, I assure you that it is all true.  So I have learned that prayer really does work, and the better my conscious contact with God, the more powerfully it works.
 
"...sought through ... meditation..."  This one is harder for me.  I hate to be idle, and meditation feels like idleness.  It took me several years of recovery before I would even try meditation.  There's a great humorous AA talk by Earl H. about learning to meditate, and it describes me.  I've tried to still my mind, to empty my thoughts, to relax, and thereby to listen to God.  Sometimes, it works for me.  More times, my mind just keeps spinning in tight little circles.  So I still (after 14 years) have much to learn in this area.  But one thing is true: when I practice meditation, I come out of that 20-30 minutes more at peace with myself.
 
"...praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."  Very different approach to prayer, as opposed to "God, please bring me a Ferrari," or "God, please fix my boss so he won't harass me."  But now I use this form of prayer frequently during my day.  As I finish each task, I turn back to God and ask, "What do I do next?" and I listen.  When I feel a sense of guidance, then I pray, "Thank you, God, for your direction.  May I have Your strength to do it well."  In other times, I find that my prayers (over meals, for instance) are routinely and amazingly centered on thanks for ordinary things:  "Thank you for this food.  Thank you for this beautiful day (It's raining).  Thank you for useful work that helps other people.  Thank you for my wife and our kids and their families."  By the time I'm done with thanks, there just doesn't seem to be anything further that I need to ask for.  But I continue to ask for what He would have me do next (sometimes called the Next Right Thing), and the power to do that.
 
One last point about Step 11:  I started following Step 11 within the first two weeks of recovery, just as soon as I had a concept of God that I could live with.  I did some work on all the Steps 1 through 12 in those first two weeks, and then went back and started again to do them in a more complete way.  I was desperate to save my life and convinced that my acting out would kill me in a fairly short time.  These SA people told me to "work the Steps," so I did.  My wife was gone; I had no work; I had nothing else to do that was at all important.
 
A few years later, I was a bit frustrated that my sponsees were not finding the same experience I was.  When I examined what I was telling them to do, though, I realized that I was starting them with the "more complete" version of the Steps.  That wasn't what I had done!  Now, when someone comes to me in early recovery, the first thing I tell them to do is to start praying, even if they don't believe in it.  I tell them to pray morning and evening and over each meal, and to pray out loud even if it's uncomfortable.  I also tell them to examine their daily life in those evening prayers, and to assess how well they've done.  And I tell them to go to lots of meetings, and to share in meetings about their experiences and what is working for them.  I have them keep this up for about two weeks before having them start in detail on Step 1.  I tell them this, because this is what I did.  It worked for me, and it seems to work well for them, too.  It is only some time later that I tell them that I've had them working Steps 10, 11, and 12 from the very beginning.