Step 7
November 14, 2010 at 11:26 am 1 comment
Humbly ask Heavenly Father to remove your shortcomings.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this step, hence the month-long lag in getting it posted. At first this step seems pretty easy and obvious, and in many ways it is. We have already admitted that we, by ourselves, are powerless over our addictions. We have admitted that God can restore us to complete spiritual health. We have decided to turn our wills over to God. Step 7 seems like a pretty logical step in this process, therefore.
I think that what makes this step difficult, though, is that we have to truly believe that in asking we will receive. It is one thing to believe in the possibility that Christ’s atonement might be able to remove our shortcomings, but it is quite another to believe that He actually will. We tend to believe that we have somehow sinned beyond our allotted amount, that the Atonement is sufficient for everyone else’s sins, but ours simply require too much of the Savior.
I appreciate that this step begins with the word “humbly.” Humility, as always, is perhaps the most important ingredient to this step.
Entry filed under: Religion. Tags: addiction, addiction recovery, Atonement, Faith, Forgiveness, God, Jesus Christ, LDS, LDS Church, Religion, Repentance, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1. Sarah | December 4, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Agreed… I think this is the hardest part of repenting in general: The faith required to believe that Heavenly Father can quite literally remove our mistakes from our past. I don’t know that I’ll ever perfectly understand. I do know that it is real. I have felt it in my own life and the lives of others. Thanks for this reminder.