“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 fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen. We have then completed Step Seven.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 76
I like to be right. I like to determine outcomes. I feel comfortable knowing. I outrun God and force solutions. This is my pride in action. Pride almost always leads me to self-will. If I already know, then I certainly don’t need God’s help—not when I am God.
Humility—a genuine humility—is the opposite of my pride. It is not just the opposite, but the answer to my pride. The solution. But humility is difficult. It involves a right relationship with my Higher Power and a trust that God can and will make better outcomes than I do.
The heart of Step Seven is this one-on-one relationship with my Creator. While our sponsors and program friends can provide insight into our shortcomings, only our Higher Power can remove them. And he will only remove them when I ask.
What will God remove? Whatever is no longer working. He removes the seemingly good as well as the bad. But I have to give it all to him, because I don’t always know what needs to be removed. This is where real trust and humility come in.
I love the Thomas Merton prayer. I regularly attended a women’s meeting in my old town, and this was the closing prayer to that meeting:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself,
Nor do I really know myself. That’s the line that always gets me. I have been living the program, two programs actually, for many years and I always find myself right back here. I am only getting to know who I am. I do not really even know myself. There is so much humility in this realization. I am admitting to God that I just don’t know. The prayer continues:
and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
I am going to be honest. I do not know what God’s will for my life is. I know that God wants me to stay sober and sane, both in AA and Al-Anon, but that is all I really know. I really don’t know how my love life will turn out, I don’t know if I will be able to stay in my current career until I retire. I don’t know if my sponsorship or friendships will continue. I don’t know if my son will ever be able to live on his own. I don’t know—I don’t know. So, when I tell you with certainty that I am following God’s will, that statement is completely ego-driven. I say it to look good in AA. Like I have my shit together. The truth is this: I feel like I make so many mistakes, say so many of the wrong things, and do so many things that are not in my best interest.
And yet I do want to follow my Higher Power’s lead. That is what I want to do but so often in my humanness fall short of. But the prayer considers this as well:
But I believe this: I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire.
When I recognize that I don’t know what God’s will is and make an honest plea in recognition of this, I am gaining humility. I am admitting to God that I do in fact want to follow his plan for my life. God only wants the best for me. And here is God’s promise:
And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it at the time.
Therefore I will trust you always.
“Therefore I will trust you always” is the most important part of this prayer to me. It is with actual humility that I make this statement. I am telling you, God, that I don’t know and giving it all to you anyway. There is humility in the acknowledgement and humility in the offering. This is exactly where God needs me to be in Step Seven. Only then, by my humble offering, will he remove what is no longer working. He will clear up the constant confusion. He will keep me in today. He will point my attention to someone I can help. He will give me a program.
The last part of the prayer:
Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear.
For you are ever with me, and you will not leave me to face my troubles alone.
God, thank you for giving me the humility to re-work my steps. I am especially grateful today for the revelation inherent in Step Seven. I have been sober awhile, but I still have so much growing to do. And you have promised that you will never leave me. You are my constant companion and I humbly bring everything to you today. I leave the good and the bad at your feet. I trust you today.