Dec. 21, 2014 - Step by Step

The Serenity Prayer

Step by Step

Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014 

"Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." - Alcoholics Anonymous, Step Seven

Today, let me not be too eager to take the vital action of the Seventh Step for, if I act prematurely, the defects I ask to be removed but am not truly willing to surrender may come back and bite me in the form of a slip or relapse. Step Seven is the culmination of the previous three Steps in which we first make our "searching and fearless moral inventory," and then admit "the exact nature of our wrongs" to "God, to ourselves and to another human being." But the Sixth Step may pack the most potent punch in that it requires us to be "entirely ready" to have the Higher Power of our understanding to remove our shortcomings. If today is the one that I decide to take the Seventh Step, grant that I be genuinely ready so that I may not later take back a defect that could be yet another of my downfalls. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2014