As I mentioned in my post the other day, my one main goal this week is to review Step 7.
To start, I’m re-reading Step 7 and highlighting points I feel I can work on to complete it (or at least move on to Step 8):
The humble heart we developed in step 6 brought us to our knees in step 7 to ask the Lord to remove our shortcomings. When we
had progressed to this point, we were ready to pray without any other motivation but our desire to become one in heart and in mind with Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. No longer were we satisfied with a change in habits or even in lifestyle. We were finally ready to have God change our very nature.
I really feel I need to pray on my knees more often. I do offer prayers in my heart but haven’t been as diligent about kneeling to pray. I think I’m a bit scared to actually “change my very nature”, scared or lacking faith or both.
…we regretted that even in recovery we still could not remove our own shortcomings.
Having felt a portion of the love of God, we desired to give up all our sins, even all inclination to sin, so we might know Him better. Finally, voluntarily, with all our hearts, we offered our whole souls to God and asked Him to forgive us and make us in His image. We had finally come to realize that no other name, no other way nor means, can give us a complete remission of our sins. Holding nothing back, we pled with the Father that He, in His infinite mercy, would forgive us for all our pride, transgressions, and shortcomings. We asked that He would grant us grace, that through Him we might maintain this new way of life.
Giving up “all inclination to sin” is another big step, something I know I won’t be perfect at but something I want to do. It’s all about trusting in God’s will, truly believing that what HE has in store for me is better than any and all of the world’s luring temptations or even the good things of the world.
Asking the Father to forgive me of all my pride, transgressions, and shortcomings seems pretty daunting too.
The Lord did not begin such a revolutionary change of our entire character until we allowed Him to do so. We had to surrender every particle of self-sufficient pride and admit that our efforts to save ourselves had been insufficient…
We had not become entirely free from the desire to sin. We had to learn to accept life on God’s terms and wait upon His purposes and His timing—even in the removal of our shortcomings…We finally abandoned the idea that we could become perfect by ourselves, and we accepted the truth that God desires us to conquer our weaknesses in this life by coming to Christ and being perfected in Him…
We who have embraced these principles must warn you that you cannot expect to take this step without sacrifice—and rightly so.
Pray humbly for God to do for you what you cannot do for yourself
By keeping a simple prayer in your heart, such as “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?” or “Thy will be done,” you will be continually reminded of your total dependence upon the Lord.
Here’s one review I just did on one of the questions I answered earlier about humility:
It’s good to go back and review all this again. I’m grateful to be making a bit of progress and recognizing areas that I need to improve in with the help of the Savior.
Personal Prayer, asking God each day what He would have me do – these are ways to show my humility.
I’m grateful that Jesus gave His life for me and has shown me the way via His example. I’m grateful to have the program to guide me along a path of full recovery from addiction. I know the program is another way to show humility, as long as, when I get there, I don’t start comparing myself to others.
Hasta manana!
Nate
Here’s another review of an entry:
Again, it’s nice to be able to go back and read this as a good reminder on feelings I had back then and even today.
I love Caleb and Madi and Chloe. I know I’m not perfect with them but I know that through humility I can raise them in truth.
Tonight was Caleb’s first soccer game. Overall we did really well as a kindergarden “swarm of bee’s” soccer team. We won 1-0 – little Max scored the only goal.
Caleb did pretty good, although by the end he started just pushing and not really playing the game. But I worked hard to be positive with all the boys and really talk them up. It felt good.
Here’s one more review:
Today I sense that the biggest reason for not making a lot of progress is FEAR: fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear that I won’t be able to do this (which I WON’T if I try to do it all on my own), fear that I’ll keep falling back in to temptation, which it seems I have a bit with dabbling around on Facebook (I haven’t “relapsed” but haven’t fought off lustful temptations either).
I need to really fervently pray and ask God to help me get over this fear.
Nate
I’m grateful to be doing these reviews and making goals to break my fears through Jesus Christ.
Hasta manana!
Nate
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