We must work with God in order to experience change

Perhaps you have noticed that God does a lot of the hard work of Step Six. But this does not mean that we are passive observers waiting for God to suck out our shortcomings like a shop vac.


Our undesirable habits hinder our ability to thrive. They show up as faults, weaknesses, failings, limitations, obsolete survival skills and more. They trigger guilt and shame. They embarrass us.


God wants us to live in peace, experience joy, purpose, meaning and satisfaction. It should be obvious that God is in agreement with us that these limitations need to go! But here’s the other thing about God that is super important to keep in mind.


He is not like our codependent mothers, willing to go to any lengths to help us avoid the consequences of our actions. He is not like our codependent fathers, who also go to any lengths to keep us from continuing down a self-destructive path. He is not like our siblings or friends who pick up our tabs or let us crash on their new sofas because they are afraid we will die out in the world under a bridge. Or, for those of us in less dramatic circumstances - all those people who are so afraid of hurting our feelings that they never rumble with us about the impact our limitations are having on them.


God is not willing to go to any lengths. He is only willing to go as far as we have invited him to travel with us. He will NOT come in and over run our unwillingness. He will not remove defects we are holding onto. God has boundaries. Our willingness is the key that unlocks the door that invites God in so that he can do his work of removal and restoration. God respects us enough to allow us to decide our readiness for transformation on our own timeframe.


The thoroughness of our willingness is our choice and our responsibility. There is no extra glory and bonus points for rushing; there is no shame in being honest about our ambivalence.

A Meditation Moment

Imagine yourself free from the impulsiveness of your shortcomings. What if your defects of character no longer controlled your decisions, relationships and enduring vulnerabilities? How might your relationships improve? Would your ability to work with others change? How about broken relationships? Do you think others might be more willing to give you another chance if you were not repeating the same old patterns of harm?

What if…all the things you were afraid to change were the true obstacles standing in your way to the life of your best intentions?

These are the days that must happen to you.

~ Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”

Overcoming character defects takes practice

Recovery is a lot like working out. It builds muscles that are relational, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. My gym mentor likes to remind me of a training principle she calls - “What the heck?”. I’ve never been able to do a pull-up my entire life. Last week I managed 3. What the heck? I had not been practicing pull-ups because I did not believe it was possible for me to ever succeed at doing one. However, I have been faithfully doing the exercises my mentor prescribed for me to do several times a week. These are not marathon workouts. I’m talking twenty minutes a session, three sessions a week. I don’t break out in excessive sweat or groan and moan like a cow in labor as I practice. The routines are challenging but not intimidating.


Evidently, they are also effective. When she asked me to hop up on a stool and grab a bar above my head, I thought she was going to let me hang there and decompress my back. Instead, she challenged me to try a pull-up. What. The. Heck. I could do them!


All the steps, but particularly Step Six, is an awful lot like going to the gym, putting in the time, and one day - “What the heck?” - happens. You change. Maybe at first this change is minimal, even discouraging. But if you continue stepping, over time willingness increases and so does capacity to live differently.


I did not lie to my husband about my rug purchase. I also did not purchase a rug that exceeded our budget. We had no conflict and I had no need for shame or guilt. I didn’t even register the story as a big deal until I was working on this project. Suddenly I thought, “What the heck?” The old me would have lied; the not quite as long ago me would have not lied but it would have been a struggle to do the next right thing. What the heck? When did honesty become my go-to practice? I could not tell you. It’s mysterious. It’s a God thing.


It took a long time. There were many backslides and face plants along the way. But at some point my readiness invited God to change me. And he did.

Living as if God is at work

Perhaps more challenging than acknowledging our own limitations (after all we have plenty of experience in that department) is making sense of this notion that God can remove our shortcomings. We struggle to understand who God is and how he works in our lives.


Father Joe Martin entered treatment for alcoholism in 1958. His recovery experience gave him the unique capacity to help ease the suffering of those affected by substance use disorder. Once Father Martin talked to Terence T. Gorski, author of Understanding the Twelve Steps, about God’s role in the Sixth Step. Father Martin said, “God gives us the courage, the strength, and the means whereby to correct our character defects. But we’ve got to do the correcting,”[4]


We ask for guidance, inspiration, courage and strength. We trust God is listening. We wake up each morning mindful that we have asked God to remove our defects AND we go about living as if he has done so. Suppose my husband asks me how much I paid for the new rug he discovers in our entrance foyer. We have a housing budget and we are on the verge of going over budget. If I tell him the rug cost $50.00, then all is well. The budget can absorb it. But what if the rug cost $150.00? I am going to be $75.00 over budget. This is going to raise more questions about my commitment to our shared budget goals. I don’t want the hassle. There is a good chance I can get away with telling him $50.00 because he would not know the difference.


But I would know that I was lying. Dishonesty is a shortcoming that I have given God the green light to remove. I can tell the truth and this gives me the encouragement of knowing that God is at work and I am working at believing God. If I lie, I realize that this particular defect is alive and well and I have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what’s up with my lying. This will initiate the amends process. Either way, I am not without hope. I have a plan for dealing with my shortcomings even as I have hope that God is removing them.


Either way, I have work to do. I prepare each day to live as if all my shortcomings are removed by practicing living without them. I have other steps to practice at the end of the day when I review my day and discover that God is not done with me yet.

God is too generous to "need" us to fix ourselves

In the Sixth Step, we believe that only God can remove our shortcomings and heal our enduring vulnerabilities. If we wrestle a bit with the truth of our desire to control, succeed and dominate, we may find willingness to surrender them once we see how hurtful they are to us and others.


But even our most sincere willingness will not be enough to help us complete this step if we have concerns about God’s intentions toward us. In my own recovery, this was a huge stumbling block. My exposure to God’s people filled me with some false impressions about God; my understanding of him needed to grow before I could let go of anything that seemed to help me cope with my life.


I had often wondered if God wanted his people to sacrifice and suffer without regard to their own wellbeing. It seemed a likely possibility when missionaries came to our church and told their stories of sacrifice. Although they often glowed with the zeal of true converts I often wondered: is this for real? I especially remember a favorite hymn that often accompanied these testimonials, “Every Day with Jesus is Sweeter than the Day Before”. (The lyrics, in case you are interested: Every day with Jesus Is sweeter than the day before, Every day with Jesus I love Him more and more. Jesus saves and keeps me. And He's the one I'm waiting for. Every day with Jesus. Is sweeter than the day before[3]) I could not understand God from this framework of seeing, especially in early recovery when I was being encouraged to feel my feelings, get more honest - all without my favorite numbing agent.


Other times I wondered if God was more like Santa, running his heavenly operation via a series of quid pro quos. I follow the rules; he gives me goodies. I disobey the rules; he sends a small plague to whip me in shape.


Who can trust a god like this with our defects of character?


Fortunately, I learned that I did not have to trust a God that demanded sacrifice, perkiness and shady backroom deals.