Seventh Step Prayer

Even though it is now August, the eighth month, I asked all those involved with this blog (me) if I could post something from the step corresponding with July, the seventh month, and it was agreed (unanimously!) that this would be fine.

The Seventh Step Prayer comes to ETA from Alcoholics Anonymous - we borrowed it.  Here it is:

"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."

What I would like to stress to you is that the prayer doesn't ask the old HP to remove a specific (or every) defect of character.  It asks that only those which stand in the way of my usefulness to Him and my fellow man be removed.  That means that the old HP gets to decide which defects stay and which ones go (see Step Three).  

Nor does it ask that the defects be removed for ever and ever amen.  That indicates the old HP will be changing my defects of character around at His convenience (see Step Three).  Whenever He needs me to do His will, He will put into place whatever is required - including defects.  Don't believe me?  Look in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions book of AA under Tradition Three and read about Ed, the car polish salesman.  Bill Wilson and the gang practiced numerous ugly defects there.  The old HP needed them. 

This is not to say that we can run about with our shortcomings on display for all to see and experience and then blame my poor behavior on the old HP.  I lived like that in active alcoholism and drug addiction.  That didn't work out so well, (although it did bring me to sobriety) because I damn near destroyed myself and the lives of those around me.  But it does mean that, when I practice a defect, I talk it over with the old HP and my sponsor, decide how I could better handle a similar situation in the future and move on.  I don't beat myself up or magnify the situation into an Earth shattering event.

Have a good and sober day.