Big Book on Step Seven

[nandm]

Humbly asked God to remove 59:14

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Here the program of action is laid out for us to examine. If we have taken the first two steps toward recovery, we can now decide whether we want to continue. To go on as we have been, or to accept a way of life based on the conscious awareness of the existence of God, what is our choice to be?

Awakening spiritually does not stop us from being human. At times we willfully disregard the will of our Higher Power. We try to apply these principles in every area of our lives, but being human we sometimes fall short. The benefits of trying to lead a spiritually based life are so great that we return to the path as soon as we recognize the errors of our ways. As we progress spiritually, the time we spend in the darkness of self-will lessons and the time we spend in the Sunlight of the Spirit lengthens.

[nandm]

Seventh Step prayer 76:6-10

When ready, we say something like this: “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellow. Grant me the strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen. We have then completed Step Seven.

The Seventh Step prayer is an expression of humility. We are acknowledging our need to have God’s help in overcoming our defects of character. We have analyzed our character and admitted to God, ourselves and another person, what it is in us that blocks us off from God. By doing this, we become ready to have God remover our defects of character.

This is not a self-help program. If we were able to live up to our ideals, we would have done so. We are powerless to bring about the total rearrangement of our ideas, emotions, and attitudes that is necessary if we are to live this new way of life. We adopt, as a new guiding principle for our lives, the search to find and do God’s will. We place ourselves in the position to receive God’s help by making a conscious decision to abandon our old idea that the application of self-will would produce happiness and satisfaction.

By allowing God to make use of all aspects of our characters, our strengths and our weaknesses, we more completely abandon self-seeking and self-centeredness.

We allow God to determine which aspects of our character are most useful. What we perceive as a weakness may make us more approachable to others. What we perceive as a strength may diminish our usefulness. We let God decide.

If we were able to do God’s will we would. By practicing the principles of this program we learn how to access this Power greater than ourselves. One of the techniques we use is to ask for help in prayer.

We do not seek God’s help to accommodate our self-seeking objectives. The new focus of our lives is to find and do God’s will for us. Our seeking will result in our finding God’s will for us. God’s power is available to us for the asking. With it we will be able to overcome the temptation to act in self-seeking ways.

The steps are not magic tricks that fix us at first try, but rather techniques for living life successfully.

[nandm]

Freedom 87:7

We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only.

Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it. This old adage rings true. We know the baleful results of achieving our selfish ends. We decided in the third step to quit playing God and instead turned our will and our lives over to the care of God. When used properly, prayer turns us into a mighty tool to be wielded by God.

[nandm]

[nandm]

[least]

Thanks for your help Nandm! I've just done step seven and actually I re-do it every morning when I wake up. Each day is its own struggle and I must deal with my shortcomings on a daily basis. So every morning, after thanking Him for waking up healthy, I ask HIm to help me get thru the day as The Best Person I can be.

I find that helps me a lot, as each day is a struggle, not just to stay sober, but to stay sane and reasonably happy with what I have and who I am.

Thanks!