One of the challenges I have faced during my Christian/recovery walk is the willingness to allow God to have all of me. This means the good, the great, the bad and the ugly. It is hard for God to do his work through me when I am still holding onto old stuff. As most of you know, I am a big proponent of the 12 Steps. The steps basically lay out a “step by step” approach to clean up all the wreckage our past behavior has created and gives us hope in living a new, transformed life.
The first 3 steps are all about surrendering to God…”I can’t, he can, I think I’ll let him.” Steps 4 and 5 are the first 2 steps in the “clean up” phase which are steps 4 thru 9 and involve taking an honest look at ourselves through a personal inventory (step 4) and then sharing that inventory with God and someone we can trust (step 5). Steps 6 and 7 are what I refer to as the lost steps. Many of us take our personal inventory and give it to God and then immediately make amends to everyone we have harmed (steps 8 and 9) and then we are off to the “grow up steps;” steps 10 thru 12.
Steps 6 and 7 are steps that cannot be bypassed if we truly want God to have all of us. Step 6 “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character” and Step 7 “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings” is what separates a recovering person at peace from the recovering person who is in constant turmoil.
For me, I need to do steps 6 and 7 every single day or I start messing up again. From my personal inventory I know where my weaknesses are and it is thru steps 6 and 7 that I give them to God daily. All of my weaknesses i.e. “character defects” derive from fear and the results of my fears vary but they usually come in the form of pride, envy, anger, lust, greed, gluttony and sloth, you know…the seven (7) deadly sins. I learned a long time ago, if I didn’t turn my fears over to God each and every day, my day transitions into a day run by EGO (Easing God Out) and those days are always a struggle for me.
If you find yourself constantly reverting back to old behavior in order to handle life’s challenges, then my guess is you need to take a serious look at your defects of character and write down all the crap you do that you wish you didn’t do. As I mentioned before, all these behaviors derive from fear and they all can be classified in the 7 deadly sins. And, oh by the way, they didn’t name them the 7 deadly sins unless they were indeed deadly.
If you want to hear a real life version of doing the 6th step, I will be interviewing a fellow recovery friend this weekend at the Next Step Worship Celebration at Ginghamsburg Church. My friend just completed her first round with step 6 and will share with all of us what it was like and what it means to her new faith journey. The Next Step begins at 6:30pm and Ginghamsburg Church is located in Tipp City, Ohio on County Road 25A, just west of interstate 75, and south of the State Route 571 exit.
P.E.A.C.E.
Jay@eaglelaunch.com