You can substitute for the universe, the program and people in it, or nature and I'd say it still works. Just how you frame prayer or meditation. One of the definitions of prayer is a solemn request. The purpose of having "God" in the 12 steps is to have a belief in something "greater" than yourself. To me the group of alcoholics who got me sober is something "greater" than myself because I truly couldn't do it alone. The prayer and meditation can just be used almost as a manifesting of intention. If I pray that I be more tolerant patient and kind to those around me, than that's more likely to be on my mind whether I'm intentionally sending that prayer to a deity, the universe, nature, or the idea of the group as a whole. I say this as a 12 stepper myself that is non religious. That being said a lot of people use God or a deity as a higher power, but just saying it's certainly not a requirement.

If you want to detach step 11 from it's Christian roots, you cannot just substitute "God" in its wording. That yields nonsense, as you are stating correctly.

The aim of Step 11 is "knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." In non–religious terms I would call this aim "committment".

The means of Step 11 to achieve commitment is spirituality, spirituality being a set of basic convictions that provides meaning, purpose and a sense of belonging.

A "neutral" Meta—Step 11 might be worded something like:

"We consciously develop a healthy spiritual basis for our live, gaining motivation and comittment through it."

As any religion, philosophy, ideology or other system of basic convictions can provide this spiritual basis for an individual, the formulation of a more concrete and helpful Step 11 will differ between e.g. communists, buddhists, naturists and epicureans.

It's simpler than all that. Satanists would say God is just You, or some version of yourself that is all the things you wish you could be. The fact that you are there praying means you have a good idea of what needs to change, and are searching for the strength within yourself.