Essay

Set Aside Prayer

"God, I offer myself to Thee -- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!"


After writing and sharing our fourth step (completing steps 4 and 5), we need to go further still. On page 76, we find the directions for steps 6 and 7. In step 6 it says that ‘We were entirely willing that God remove all these defects of character." (There is a very important direction associated with Step Six in the Big Book which is often missed. It says that "if we still cling to a defect we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing." So if there is a shortcoming that we are not willing to ask God to help us with, we pray for the willingness until it comes. This should not stop us from going on to Step Seven with the shortcomings we are willing to ask Him to help us with.


The difference between saying I’m entirely ready and being entirely ready is the core of why so many people don't make it through the steps. So, I'll say a quote that so often comes to mind when dealing with this. "Words are Cheap!" This program is one of action. Anyone can say anything: it's the person's actions that will dictate whether they are being entirely ready.


If we end up clinging onto our shortcomings like precious stones, we'll never let them go no matter how much we say we will. An analogy that one of my sponsors once gave me went something like this: Suppose you want to be struck by lightening. If the storm comes and you run and hide deep in a hole, the likelihood of you being struck by lightening is probably zero. However, if you run to the highest mountain with a golf club wielding it into the storm as high as you can, your chances have gone up dramatically.


Going to any lengths means you are ready for a change and we rely on God to help us. Sometimes these changes happen overnight without seemingly a lot of effort. Sometimes God wishes for us to do more. I'm always blessed when I do more and am open to it.

Discussion

Can we remove our own defects?

If we could have removed these defects, I believe that we would have removed them ourselves. They are a manifestation of my unmanageable life. I’m powerless over them and only God can remove them.


Although there isn’t much written in the Big Book about steps 6 and 7, there is discussion about the essence of these steps in the previous chapters without mentioning their names. Our unmanageable life, our agnosticism, our need for God in our life, the way we deal with resentments and fears in step four, they are all parts of step six and seven.

Ready VS Willing

To be entirely ready, means that we’ve done steps 1-5 and doing that work has made us ready to have God remove them.



However, we may not be willing. Being ready and willing are different. For example, you can get yourself ready to go to the store in the morning by taking a shower, brushing your teeth, dressing, eating breakfast, etc... However, if someone calls and invites us to the beach, we go with them instead. We lost our willingness to go to the store. We did all that work to go to the store, and then lost willingness to go. Without willingness, we will never go.



Our willingness then becomes the most fragile aspect of our recovery. On page 76 in the Big Book it says "We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable." We need this in order to continue through the steps. As we become ready for each step, we have to maintain our willingness to continue through them or we’ll stop half way through and slip back to where we were before.



Although we think we are ready and willing to have God remove our defects, we may find that it’s a little harder than we think. Somehow we cling to some of our defects and don’t’ understand why. The following, is a way of helping us understand our defects better.


Defects VS Assets

Many of our defects end up being Assets that have become twisted from our own self will. We don’t want to let go of the asset part, but we use this asset and twist it at times and that causes a block to our HP.



After working steps four and five, we’ve become more aware of our defects. The main defects were resentments, root fears, selfishness, dishonesty, self-seeking, and being inconsiderate. To these we added related defects that we became aware of when we considered our part.



To understand our defects better we can create a table that shows these types of defects. The following table is an example of such a table. We can look at a thesaurus for antonyms for those defects we’re having difficulty finding the asset to.



ASSETS-Attributes and characteristics of God's Will

CHARACTER DEFECTS-Attributes and characteristics of Self Will

Forgiveness, acceptance
resentment
faith, courage
root fears (specify)
altruism, interest in others
selfishness
considerate, unselfish
self-seeking
honesty
dishonesty
being considerate
being inconsiderate
humility, seeking to do God's will
false pride
Giving, sharing
greed
Contentment, generosity, being grateful for what I have got
envy
taking action
procrastination
moderate eating
overeating
self acceptance
self-criticism
minding my own business
gossiping
acceptance, self-forgiveness
guilt
accepting, minding my own business
being controlling
trust
jealousy
patience
impatience
tolerance
intolerance
gratefulness for what I have got
self-pity
humility
self-justification


All of these defects, liabilities, when balanced become assets. However, there are character defects that are just that and not assets driven to extremes by our self will run riot. Examples could include stealing, lying, etc...