What's Your 3rd Step Prayer?
 

I was searching around online for AA related stuff, and I found Dr. Bobs Third step prayer...


THIRD STEP PRAYER used by Dr. Bob

Dear God,
I'm sorry about the mess I've made of my life.
I want to turn away from all the wrong things I've ever done and all the wrong things I've ever been. Please forgive me for it all.
I know You have the power to change my life and can turn me into a winner. Thank You, God for getting my attention long enough to interest me in trying it Your way.
God, please take over the management of my life and everything about me. I am making this conscious decision to turn my will and my life over to Your care and am asking You to please take over all parts of my life.
Please, God, move into my heart. However You do it is Your business, but make Yourself real inside me and fill my awful emptiness. Fill me with your love and Holy Spirit and make me know Your will for me. And now, God, help Yourself to me and keep on doing it. I'm not sure I want You to, but do it anyhow.
I rejoice that I am now a part of Your people, that my uncertainty is gone forever, and that You now have control of my will and my life. Thank You and I praise Your name. Amen.


Here's mine...

Dear God,

Thank you for taking my resentments, fears, and negative emotions. Please give me the power to continue the action of giving them to you, so I may continue the action of doing my best at doing your will. Thank you for letting me trust you, for I know now that I cannot handle everything and, everybody by myself. Please help me recognize when I'm being selfish and self-seeking, so I may use that energy to be selfless and help consider others feelings and actions. Please continue all my positive actions, and I promise to take it day by day.

Thanks again God!!!

Tom


That's what I could think of brainstorming. I'll probably edit it a bit. If you would like to post your own version of the Third Step Prayer, please do.


Tom

I only use 2 formal prayers Tom
The Serenity and The Lords Prayer

the rest vary with the situation.

Blessings

Help!

Alcoholics Anonymous
Big Book Page 63

We were now at Step Three. Many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him: "God, I offer myself to Thee-to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!"

Once I reached step three my sponsor took me to a privet location (church) and we both kneeled held hands and said the above prayer.

I use the third step prayer in the Big Book. It's good enough for me. The reason I'm here is because I kept making up stuff as I went along. Now I just try to follow directions.

I use the prayers listed in the big book as a basic foundation,like Music the 3rd step and 7step prayers are good enought for me but I do like to add...thank you!

lol best :)

Take my will and my life
guide me in my recovery
show me how to live

i now, and have for sometime use the Set Aside prayer...

God,
Please help me set aside
Everything I think I know
About myself, my disease,
These steps, and especially You;
For an open mind
And a new experience
With myself, my disease,
These steps and especially You...

What's/what was my 3rd Step prayer.....? None.....being an atheist upon entering AA, and with an atheist sponsor, I simply did what the 3rd Step suggested [regardless what 'many' of the founders (note, it says many and not all) did]..........I MADE A DECISION to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understood Him.....whatever that was, or was going to be....and I went directly on to Step 4.

I'm a firm believer that simpler is easier.....I just luv simple..... (o: Why complicate a simple process.....?


NoelleR

"Dear God,

I'm all yours..do it!

Amen

Kevin

It is said we should keep things simple so ...Help! works for me.

A prayer I truly like (fits my name as well) is a prayer that was brought to the USA by a Cardinal that lived up here in Boston.
The prayer of St Francis.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

An alternate translation is found in Chapter 11 of the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions", a book published by AA Services (Alcoholics Anonymous).

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.

best I was laughing with you, you often make me laugh, beautiful prayers, I love the St Francis prayer and I believe that was Bill W's fave too.

Kevin

I like this question - some of these responses managed to make me giggle on a pretty crappy night here at work....so I thank you for that....

It was a very big deal to me to memorize the third step prayer right outa the book this time. Because last time I was in AA ... third step - is where I went back out.

I was still angry with God, you see.

So this time ... I wanted to to it 'as suggested' ... ver batim.

Then there's responses like Best .... heehee.

yeah - sometimes - there's not TIME to 'bla bla bla' all that stuff.
"Help" has do be it. That's great.

Boy do I know that one.

Mostly - but I think this is more a eleventh step thing ... I say something like
'This is not my life any more - it's yours ... thy will, not mine"
somewhere in that neighborhood ...
depending on my mood ... which can be just about anywhere.

... as soon as I open my eyes.
after a year - it's become habit.
SOmetimes - I don't realize I've said the prayer -
until I think about it later.
I miss some days - but I WILL try to
'get 'er done' by the time I'm getting started.

Although this list has more prayers on it than 3rd step prayers I have found it useful to me. Here is a list of suggested prayers from the Big Book.

For easy reference the listing is set up as page number : sentance number
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suggested Prayers in the Big Book

page : sentance
63 : 9-12 Third Step prayer.
67 : 3-6 Fourth Step resentment prayer
68 : 22 Fourth Step fear prayer
69 : 18 Fourth Step ideals prayer
69 : 23 Fourth Step sex relations amends prayer
70 : 12 Fourth Step prayer for ideals, guidance, sanity, and strength.
75 : 15 "We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better
76 : 5 "We ask God to help us to be willing
76 : 6-9 The Seventh Step prayer
76 : 18 "We ask until it comes.
79 : 5 "We ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing.
82 :5 "Each might pray about it, having the other one's happiness uppermost in mind."
83 : 6 "......asking each morning that our Creator show us the way of patience, kindness, tolerance, and love."
84 : 20 "....we ask God at once to remove them."
86 : 13 "....we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken."
86 : 16 "....we ask God to direct our thinking....."
86 : 21 "....we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision."
87 : 6-11 "....that we be shown all through the day...."
87 : 19-20 "....ask for the right thought or action....."
164: 8 "...in your morning meditation....."

Beautiful thread, thank you!

I doubt the existance of God, but I use the prayers as basis for meditating upon the spiritual nature of the universe. A all powerful and infinite God might not exist, but the higher power that I created in my mind is what keeps me sober.

I follow the BB instructions exactly

so when it says:

I do so, and change the wording to best fit whats going on, voicing it without reservation

sometimes it's as simple as

Mr Wiiiizzzzzzzzzaaaarrrrdddddddd!!!!!!!!!!

sometimes I have a long talk with God

Sometimes I use Chuck C's version which is "OK Dad, reporting for duty"

thee's thou's and wilt's don't work for me, My God isn't frickin Shakespeare FFS

If Bill and Bob had their own third step prayer, and it says the wording is optional, I fail to see how people that follow instructions by shaping their third step to fit their belief system exactly like the BB suggest to do is not following instructions, but I'm kind of silly that way, I read stuff it says to do in the book and believe it.

Dear God

Please help me stay out of your way today.

Thank you

xx

as it is in the big book,,my sponsor pointed out to me that is says you can change the wording,but i aint taking any risks,,as in im not putting my two penny worth in as far as that prayer is concerned,my prayers usually last a good ten minutes with my thanks,praying for others,the serenity prayer and the lords prayer,,but the third step prayer is bang in the middle of all that.every morning and every night when i go to bed.i just got the little book called 12 step prayers,got lots of others in there too,the beatitudes,st frances prayer etc.its a lovely little book!