Step Seven

Now that we are entirely ready,  we move on to step seven.

"Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."
    Taken from The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions   pg.70


One of the sayings I often hear is "We are responsible for the effort and God responsible for the results."  I like this saying because it helps me with being humble.  When I put in the effort and things work out well I want all the credit.  That is my self centeredness taking over.  The same self centeredness that is at the root of my disease.  By doing the work in the prior steps I have made the effort.  Now I ask God to remove my shortcomings. There have been times where specific shortcomings have been removed rather quickly, such as the obsession to drink and drug.  Others have taken a little longer.  Perhaps because I wasn't entirely ready to have them removed or perhaps God still wanted me to have them.  I have found that my shortcomings don't always stay removed and can creep up at any given time.  By practicing the steps the process has gotten easier and I find that I can adapt and grow more readily than I could in the past.  Depending upon the situation and how strongly I feel or how deep rooted my feeling are can make all the difference in the world.  For me trying to remain open minded is the key. Remember back in step three when we decided to turn our will over to a Power greater than ourselves.  This step for me actually tests how well I turn my will over.  The main thing that I need to understand is that I get well in God's time not mine.  

[ibizan]

i am usually aware of my shortcomings and am much quicker to recognize when they are at work......and prompty try to ameliorate them!

[Punkinhead75]

headed for the dictionary on that one.  LOL!!!

[narla]

ameliorate-make or become better  LOL

Beat you to the dictionary,sorry

[ibizan]

i meant promptly not prompty!i like different words that make ppl go look them up.....i learned many when young for in catholic grade school i was always talking out of turn...the nuns said if i wasn't always having my own conversations with other kids i might learn something!i replied why can't u teach me something interesting????that went over like a lead balloon.....so many times as a punishment they made me write my master word list of 75 words 25 times each....it never broke me....THEY never broke me!i am also in recovery from 12 years of parochial school from the 60's and 70's!!!!!:)))))