Step 7 - Humbly Asked Him to Remove Our Shortcomings

This article is written by Brenda L. She has been in recovery over 6 years and is deeply connected to the recovery community. Brenda is a Co-Leader with Project HEAL, a Christ-centered recovery group in Sacramento, CA.

hu·mil·i·ty

/(h)yo͞oˈmilədē/

noun

noun: humility

A modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness.: "he needs the humility to accept that their way may be better". synonyms: modesty, humbleness, modestness, meekness, lack of pride, lack of vanity, diffidence, unassertiveness

Since Step Seven specifically relates itself with humility, we should stop to think about what humility means and how the practice of humility relates to sobriety. Humility is the foundational Principle of each of the 12 Steps and without some degree of being humble, we cannot stay sober at all. Many of us haven’t acquainted ourselves in practicing humility as a way of life, and most of us take pride in highlighting our own achievements.

We go over our material blessings and our worldly gains and we believe that man-made perfection lies ahead. We believe the lack of, will disappear, and abundance and security are at the forefront of our own intellect and our own hard work which shapes our destiny. Of course, we value hard work, and we appreciate material achievements. However, we cannot believe that these are the natural desires to our main objective in life. There is no greater class of people who have lived their life and made a worse mess out of this way of thinking than the addict. We fight at the demands for money, property, prestige, and romance. We strive for these!!! When we are successful, we drink/use to dream greater dreams and when we are feeling defeat and distress, we indulge in our addiction to oblivion. But there was never enough of what we thought we wanted. We suffered from the perspective that our spiritual values and character growth had to come first. Character or comfort?

Unless we grow in humility, we don’t stand a chance to stay sober. Without humility, we will have very little chance of ever becoming truly happy or living with purpose. We are not born with humility and it certainly doesn’t come naturally! It takes a bigger person to take the back seat.

We all come to God spiritually sick in our addiction and addictive behaviors. I have never met an alcoholic or addict that did not have a spiritual illness. If we learn that the lack of power is our dilemma, we have to create a new and improved relationship with God. We need God to be more powerful than ourselves.

This new relationship with God invites us to surrender to God our weaknesses in our addiction. Our surrender offers no alibis or defense for our addiction. Our new awareness understands our spiritual illness, and we ask God for strength. We ask for protection from resentment, self pity, and selfishness. We ask for wisdom. We ask for God’s will and the spiritual strength and physical strength to align our new selves with what God would want us to be in our transformation.

We still have shortcomings, imperfections, and character defects, but now we can be truthful; and sincerely pray to God to remove our deficits and by doing the suggested Steps, we can now commence to Step 7. Our new relationship with ourselves and God precedes Steps 4 and Step 5. The new tools we have for self examination come easier and more natural.

A Spiritual Experience as mentioned in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous on page 567 outlines a spiritual experience: 1) immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, followed by a 2) vast change and feeling and outlook, 3) a profound alteration in his reaction to life: that such change could have hardly been brought by himself alone. God and our recovery gets us this new way of thinking, feeling, and being. There is nothing to lose in prayer but a chance to stay sober and have peace of mind.

The restoration of our mental and physical health is in direct proportion to how well we turn our life and our will over to the care of God in Step 3, and we continue this practice as a way of being. Remember it was agreed in the beginning we would go through any lengths for victory over alcohol (or victory over any addiction) (Big Book, pg. 76).

What does any length look like? Here are the suggestions: 1) Get a sponsor 2) Work with Others 3) Be of Service 4) Build a Relationship with God. Are you willing to go to any lengths for your recovery?

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility, value others above yourself, not looking toward your own interests, but each of you in the interest of others.”

Philippians 2:5

Humility is the way we change life. It takes great strength to be humble—we understand where our strength comes from. Humility sends us to serve. Look at your life today, not on the world’s measurements. We take measurement on how God will measure us. He was perfect, He was God. He had rights and he gave up those rights to gain Humility through obedience.

#ProjectHealSac