Tag Archives: Forgiveness

Step 2: Hope – No One is Too Broken for Christ to Fix

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“Principle 2: Come to believe that the power of God can restore you to complete spiritual health.”

Step-2 - Hope“Hope” is the gospel principle assigned to Step 2 in the ARP manual, A Guide to Addiction Recovery and Healing. Hope for what? What do those working Step 2 of the 12 Steps hope for? We hope that as we have admitted our powerlessness to beat our addictions by sheer willpower in Step 1, Christ will, in fact, heal us personally. The question is not, “Will Christ help those who repent turn their lives around?” Nor is it, “Can people recover through the grace of Jesus Christ?” No, the question is, “Will Christ heal poor, rebellious, sinful, broken me? Me personally? Not all those other people out there, but will he actually heal me?”

You see, by the time we get to the 12 Steps, most of us have tried every other way we know to fix ourselves and we have failed. Our greatest fear is that the 12 Steps won’t work either, and we will, in fact, turn out to be permanently and hopelessly broken; too broken for even Christ to fix.

Boyd K. Packer shared this in October 1995 General Conference: “The gospel teaches us that relief from torment and guilt can be earned through repentance… there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no offense exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness.” (Emphasis added.) Steps 4-10 are the repentance process. President Packer’s words tell me that when I have worked those steps with a sincere heart, to the best of my ability, I can receive forgiveness. Knowing this, and believing that these words cover all of my sins, I can dare to have hope that I can be healed.

If all the willpower in the world has been unable to fix me, then how am I going to make it through the repentance process?

“Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart; teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil, with their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Alma 37:33 emphasis added).

Understanding Grace Gives Us Hope

In the Bible Dictionary, grace is defined as “divine means of help or strength” given through the “bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ” (“Grace,” 697). This gift of divine strength enables you to do more than you would be able to do if left on your own. The Savior will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. His grace is the means by which you can repent and be changed. (A Guide to Addiction Recovery and Healing, p. 9)

No one is more broken than Christ can fix. Thinking that I am so powerful and wonderful that my ability to be messed up is greater than Christ’s ability to fix is arrogant and prideful. It is a lie; a lie planted in my brain and carefully nurtured by Satan. By working Step 2 I receive hope that through grace the Lord will help me overcome what I cannot overcome by myself.

  • Do you believe that Christ can and will fix your brokenness, personally?
  • If you do believe it, what are you willing to do today to prepare yourself to receive that gift?
  • If you don’t believe it, what are you willing to do today to let go of the lie that tells you that you are either beyond Christ’s ability to fix, or that He has rejected you.

Please share your thoughts about this post by commenting below.

Related Posts: 12-Step Fears of Failure, Step 11: Receiving Meaningful Personal Revelation,

Paul’s Thorn – Weakness is Not Always Removed by Faith, Steps 1, 2, and 3: I Can’t, He Can, I’ll Let Him

Forgiveness – the Essence of Step 8

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Forgive others and reward yourself with peace.
(Found on Lisa Raye’s Facebook Page.)

Forgiveness is the central principal discussed in Step 8 of the 12 Steps.  All things are created spiritually before they are created physically. (See Moses 3:5–7; Genesis 2:4–5.) Step 8 is the spiritual creation of the reconciliation and restitution that will actually happen in Step 9. In order for me to accomplish this spiritual creation, I need to become intimately acquainted with forgiveness.

Step 8 asks me to consider two different aspects of forgiveness: asking others to forgive me, and forgiving those who have hurt me.  In either case, sometimes the other person isn’t even aware that they need my forgiveness or that I need theirs.  It is interesting to me to ponder how easily people give and take offense in this world, sometimes without even being aware of it. Sometimes people hold resentment in their hearts for years, sapping them of joy and preventing them from living in a state of peace.

Forgiving Others

When I hold resentment in my heart, I am the one who suffers.  I have heard it said that holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It tears me up inside, consumes my spiritual and emotional energy, and blocks me from feeling the Spirit. Some people think that we should only forgive someone if they apologize.  If the offender doesn’t apologize they don’t deserve my forgiveness, they reason. We don’t forgive others because they deserve it. We forgive others because we deserve it! (shared at church recently by Deron Brent Horne). I hate living in a state of resentment!  I owe it to myself to let go of those feelings and let them float out of my life like helium-filled balloons.  I do it for myself, as a way of taking care of myself.  I do it to get my life back, and my laugh back. How, you ask? Here are two methods that help me.

Tell Myself Another Story

When someone does something that makes me angry I learned from Kimberly Schneider to tell myself a different story. I ask myself this question: “Under what circumstance could this person’s actions have made sense?”  Then I make up a story, which I know is probably not true, but makes me feel better and more able to blow off the perceived offense.  Did someone cut me off in traffic?  They might be worried about something that is going on at home, and I might have been in their blind spot.  Did someone fail to deliver on a promise? Perhaps they got a bad night’s sleep or a call from someone with bad news or they were just having a senior moment. The story doesn’t matter!  Just thinking about the incident in this way helps me to let go of it.

Detach with Love

I learned in Al Anon years ago about how to “detach with love.” It is a principle that enables me to not take offense, and to let go of resentment toward someone close to me who says or does something that hurts me.  Rather than obsessing about what happened or what was said, I separate myself from the offense without separating myself from the person.  For me it works like this. I have an imaginary bubble that I can deploy at a moment’s notice. It surrounds me and a little bit of personal space.  The person on the outside of the bubble may be lashing out at me, hurling hurtful words in my direction, and my bubble allows the message in without the hurt.  If there is any truth in the message that I need to consider and respond to, I can do so, without getting caught up in the delivery method. The negative aspects stay on the outside of the bubble, with the person they come from. I can still love them, but I don’t have to allow their words to hurt me.

Asking for Forgiveness

When I make a list of people who have hurt me and forgive them, as Step 8 asks me to do, I am having a very personal and meaningful experience with forgiveness.  What better way to prepare myself to ask others for their forgiveness?! If I have done things that were harmful towards someone else, who might be hurting inside because of my actions, even if I make amends, or restitution, it might be very difficult for them to forgive me.  When I, myself, have recently gone through the process of forgiving others, I am in a better position to understand how difficult it may be for someone to forgive me, even if they are willing to do it. In Step 8 I am not actually asking anyone for forgiveness; I am becoming willing to make amends and to be reconciled to those I have hurt.  I won’t actually figure out exactly how I will approach the other person until Step 9, and I certainly will not be actually making the amends or making restitution until I get to Step 9.  But until I truly become willing to do it, and let the Lord heal my heart, I will never be ready to do it, and will live with broken relationships indefinitely.

  • What resentments are you holding in your heart?
  • What are you willing to do to let go of them so that you can progress?
  • Are you willing to do whatever it takes to be reconciled to those you have hurt? If not, what can you do to help you become willing?

 

Forgiveness – Working Step 8

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Step 8: Forgiveness

Sometimes when we think of Step 8, we focus exclusively on making a list of all the people we have harmed and becoming willing to make amends to them.  That is, of course, a critical piece of the repentance process and the work we are doing with the Steps. But it is interesting to see that the ARP Guide to Addiction Recovery and Healing first devotes significant time to the importance of identifying those we need to forgive and forgiving them.

Why are we asked to focus on forgiveness first?  The Guide says that it is important to do this so that we are not distracted by resentments when we try to list those we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them. That is an important reason, but I think there is another.

We are about to ask someone to forgive us.  We are about to ask someone we have harmed in some way to accept our apology and let go of any feelings of resentment they might have towards us.  That might be a very hard thing for some people to do.  Perhaps they have been hurt multiple times by us. Perhaps we have promised to change in the past, maybe more than once.  Perhaps there is broken trust between us that will be difficult to rebuild.

If I have just been through the forgiveness process myself, I can have empathy for those to whom I am trying to make amends.  I can look them sincerely in the eye and tell them that I know I am asking a hard thing of them. And I also will know how relieved they will be when the burden of resentment they have been carrying is lifted.

What resentments are you carrying that you are ready to let go of?

Forgiveness: Left on the Cutting Room Floor

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Image of old clips of film laying on the floor. Jeremiah 31:34

“And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Even though I work my program and share the hope and the good news that through the power of the Atonement we can receive all that we need from the Lord to be cleansed and draw near to Him, I sometimes find myself dwelling on my shortcomings rather than my progress. It seems especially difficult to let go of past mistakes and forgive myself despite having a sure testimony that the Lord has forgiven me.

So what are the implications of the Lord’s promise in Jeremiah 31:34 that He “will remember their sin no more”?

I imagine myself standing at the judgment bar with the Lord standing by my side as my Advocate.  The movie of my life is playing.  Scene after scene plays out on the screen.  Some scenes surprise me – I had forgotten all about those things.  Sometimes I know what is coming next, and the thought of having to watch it in front of everyone makes me cringe.  Wait! What? We jumped right over that scene! Hooray!

What happened? That scene was left on the cutting room floor. Why? Because once I had repented and the Lord had forgiven me, he “remembers it no more”. That is forgiveness! If he doesn’t remember it, it cannot be a part of the movie of my life! My movie has been edited and all the bad parts for which I have repented – all the parts that fill me with shame and guilt – have been removed.  I may remember them, in order to protect myself from making the same mistakes again, but the Lord has forgiven and forgotten.

Divine forgiveness – good news indeed!

  • What part of your life do you hope will be a scene left on the cutting room floor?
  • Have you done all you can to fully repent of it?  What do you still need to do?
  • You may remember, to keep yourself from making the same mistake again, but have you forgiven yourself?
  • What will you do today to forgive yourself and move on?

Please share your thoughts about this post by commenting below.