Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

 

To me, the key word in step seven is "humbly."  There can be no pride nor arrogance left as we approach God with this request.  I think step seven is sometimes misunderstood and that can leave people discouraged.  Let me explain with a story:

Several years ago, I received a letter from a young woman who was addicted to heroin.  As her need for the expensive drug became more urgent, her ability to hold a job and make money legally became non-existent.  She did what most addicts do eventually and ended up in jail.  While she was incarcerated the time of which I speak, a Christian minister came to the jail on Easter Sunday. The young woman went to the meeting.  Afterward, she asked the preacher what she had to do to end her torment.  When the preacher left, she gave the young woman a Bible and told her she was now saved.  For a week, this young woman felt really good.  She felt as if her feet weren't touching the ground.  Jesus had taken all her sins and saved her.  But by the second week, she was in deep despair.  Memories of her sins and shortcomings came back to her with a vengeance and she struggled with depression.  She wrote to me, asking one question: why?  

The answer was a simple one: she had asked Jesus to take away her pain and sin; she had not asked him to remove her flaws and change her character.  She had not given her will to Him.  She had not asked for a new heart.  She hadn't paid the price of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  She had not really repented of her sins.

What she had done right was to take the first step back toward the Light of Christ by attending church that Easter Sunday.  In that Light, it seemed as if the first things she saw were her sins.  For the first time, she began to feel a sincere remorse for what she had done.  That was why she was depressed.  She thought Jesus had forsaken her.  In truth, He was right there all along.

She wasn't able to turn her life around that time.  Someone bailed her out and soon she was right back into her old life.  The roots of her repentance were too shallow.   It took several more trips to jail, several more lost jobs, and shattered family relationships before she took the serious and sincere step of reaching out to the Savior.  She has had a year of sobriety and has learned that it is not the easy process she thought it was.  In fact, it is the most difficult thing she has ever done.  But she is learning that it is worth it.  She is beginning to rebuild her life.  She is beginning to be productive again.  She is beginning to have happiness - true happiness - again.  She is working hard to rebuild those damaged relationships. Most importantly, she loves Jesus Christ.

Our relationship to Jesus Christ in that sense is as one who owes a debt - a debt s/he cannot pay.  Jesus as Savior pays our debt to justice.  In so doing, He offers us mercy - mercy we do not deserve.  But He now "owns" our debt as it were.  His spiritual solvency makes up for our spiritual poverty and insolvency. We can love and praise Him for the rest of our lives and never pay Him back.  We dishonor Him if we accept His grace lightly.  Grace is free to us, but it is not cheap.  We were purchased with the most precious blood in all eternity. We are His.

Step seven is a serious step.  It is the step that really begins our spiritual rebirth with all its pain.  In addition to the usual suggestions, here is one more: on the list of sins and shortcomings that you began in step four, look at the side of the paper that says: Lessons and Growth.  If you have not taken the time to harvest your experiences, begin to do so now.  Spend time in prayer and meditation.  Allow you heart to go deeply into the experience.  Consider in your mind the following (if you have not already done so in steps four and five):

• What was I thinking and feeling?
• What were the consequences of this choice?
• Was there a time when I could have made a different choice for a different consequence?
• How did I feel afterward?  How did others involved in the situation feel and act?

You don't do this to rake up the past.  The past is one of those things none of us can change.  This is about perspective for the future that can lead to the serenity we seek so that the past no longer haunts us.

Then write.  As a result:

• What have I learned?  What choices am I making in my life now that are different from those I made at the time?
• How have I grown as a person?  How has my character changed?
• How do I move forward from this experience with the dignity of a penitent and humble heart?

Then, list in hand, pray to God for each specific sin, shortcoming, or flaw.  Humbly ask Him to remove those flaws one by one.  Then put Jesus Christ first in all that you do, being patient with yourself, for the process is not easy ~ but worth it!

"When be put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.  Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities." [1]

[1] Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, May, 1988, p. 4)

Text © 2012 Gebara Education

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