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.
The above prayer is called the seventh step prayer, and no, we don't have to pray this as written. Sometimes using standard or written prayers seems less personal than we think our prayers should be. There is some truth in that, but there's something to be said for something that has been thought out and written down, even in personal conversations.
I'l give an example as a quick aside, and then I'll get back on topic. The other day my wife apologized, and I asked her for what. Her response was that she felt sorry that she was sick. I told her that I was sorry that she was sick and that I wish I could make it all better. The Lupes had been doing a number on her, and she was understandably discouraged. Then she said, "You didn't sign up for this [her having an incurable illness and being sick often]."
"Yes, I did," I responded.
"You did?"
"Yes," and this is where the prepared became more powerful than anything I could think of at that moment, even in an intimate and personal conversation. "For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health." Now the truth is that we wrote our own vows and did not say those prepared lines at the start of our marriage, but they are so well known that they still said exactly what I meant. Leah's my wife, I love her, and I signed on for whatever may come as long as it's with her for as long as God lets me breathe. Period.
So, yes, we can say the seventh step prayer our own way, and in our own words. I usually pray it saying Daddy rather than Creator in all honesty. But there's something powerful about this prayer as it is written. It gets to the point, and it leaves nothing out, and it means I surrender and give God permission. I mentioned at the beginning of the year that the third step to freedom is surrender. Yesterday I went on to say that no lasting change can be made without our being willing to let God change us, mold us and remove from us everything and anything that He wants and needs to. Here at step seven, we check ourselves and see how real that surrender and willingness is. The truth is that none of us can surrender and agree to be molded 100%. None of us are ever, at least not on any consistent basis for any long period of time, ready to have God remove everything about us and in us that runs on our will rather than His. We like being the caterpillar sometimes, and are a little afraid that once we totally and completely become the butterfly we won't be us anymore. We believe it will be less pleasurable and fulfilling to fly with a purpose than to crawl through the mulch munching leaves. So, we hold onto parts of our old nature as though it were a legitimate act of self defense to do so.
Humility is not groveling. It is not humiliation. It is important. It is to remain teachable and having the desire to seek and do God's will instead of our own. Humility is therefore key to the ability to surrender It is the main ingredient to producing the willingness we need to let God mold and shape and make of us what He wills.. And, humility is not some magic virtue that suddenly appears in our lives. Humility is a choice.
Humility is the choice behind the choice that Jesus tells us to make every single day. We must first decide that God's ways are not just different than our ways but better, agree with our Creator that the life of the butterfly is better than the life of the caterpillar. We have to come to the place where we realize popular wisdom is wrong and that it is better to serve on earth and in heaven than it is to rule in hell. Then we can agree to any cost we have to count, any trouble that we need to endure, take up our cross (willingly walk onto the platform of our own hanging and die to self) and follow wherever He leads us, knowing that it always leads to death of self and our will before it leads to the life that's worth living and never ends.
This prayer, this step, is an expression of humility and an accumulation of all the journey that precedes it. Daddy, Lord, Master, Creator. I can't do anything worth anything on my own, and I can't ever be good enough or in control enough or unselfish enough. I need help. I give you all of me, the good and the bad because I'm not holding anything back, nothing is mine, I am completely and totally Yours to do with what You will, because I know that whatever else that entails it also means helping me to be free from the bondage that's become normal in my life. It means that I get to fly and serve, like a butterfly that spreads life as it goes from flower to flower. I am willing and give you full permission, I even ask that You take away anything and everything from me and out of me that would get in the way of me being who You want me to be and doing what You want me to do today. I can't even want this without Your grace, so I ask for the strength to do Your will, which includes the surrendering that I am now doing. Help me as I leave here and go about my day. Amen.
Yeah, we could do something like that, but isn't it all covered and easily said with
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.
If we were willing yesterday, let us put that willingness into action today. Let us surrender, die to self and follow Him, no matter what that means or where that leads, no matter what He needs to change or remove in order for us to do that? I promise life is better as the butterfly. Oh, and we're not let us, but more us. The caterpillar is the larvae stage of the butterfly. Who the caterpillar is has always been the preparation for what it will become. But the butterfly is the completion. It is who it is. We are not less who we are when we die to self as weird as it may seem. When we are completely transformed into the new creation God is making of our lives only then will we feel totally satisfied and content, because only then we will be the most us that we can ever be.
Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on
January 5, 2016.
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