Clean hands and a pure heart ensign
I had only heard that part of the message I thought condemned me. Truly, just as was promised in 2 Nephi 9:42, the Lord was opening the scriptures unto me!įor example, when I went back and looked at those verses I mentioned earlier that had bothered me, I found I had not been hearing the whole message.
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With this new perspective, the scriptures started to take on deeper and more hopeful meanings. Hope continued to dawn on me as I started to turn to the Lord “with full purpose of heart” (Mosiah 7:33), willing to see myself as a fool and admit my “nothingness,” (Mosiah 4:5, 11 or in other words my total need for Him. That began happening for me as soon as I got out of isolation and started going to meetings. I began to think: “If they can quit, maybe I can, too.” I have heard it said that the first thing a person experiences when they start attending Twelve Step meetings is a rebirth of hope. There I met people who were being freed from a variety of destructive behaviors. I started studying the Twelve Steps in earnest when I began attending Heart t’ Heart meetings.
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Paradoxically, admitting my powerlessness did not make me feel hopeless. As Alma had promised, by being compelled to be humble, I had finally been brought to a “preparation to hear the word” (Alma 32:6). The facts of my life bore witness to me of my powerlessness so plainly that I could not deny the truth in Step One when I heard it. I could not deny that when I weighed the years of effort I had put into trying to quit against the results my efforts got me, “nothing” was a perfect description. Now, somehow, life had taught me the truth of it in an irrefutable manner. In Heart t’ Heart, each of the original Twelve Steps of AA is paraphrased in a “scriptural version.” The scriptural version of Step One reads: “(We) admitted that we of ourselves are powerless, nothing without God.” Here was that principle of “nothingness” that I had so long resisted. I have gained so much through attending Twelve Step meetings in the Heart t’ Heart program. AA refers to this as “bringing the bottom up,” or in other words, “getting” the message without having to experience the worst consequences addiction can bring. If I could have one wish, it would be that the testimony of my own experiences might help others to turn around where they are, rather than have to experience the full pain of devastation that continuing in addiction will surely bring. When the course is as painful as addiction, graduating as quickly as possible makes a lot of sense. If we haven’t learned the lesson yet, it keeps coming back until we “get it,” but if we can show Him we have learned the lesson already, we can “graduate” and we won’t have to go through the sting of further “learning experiences.” In some educational programs, you can take a test part way through the course, and if your test results show you understand the current topic, you can move on to the next principle. We can respond to the humbling events we have already experienced and thus not require still more serious and painful humbling. Those of us who have been compelled by addiction to be humble face a great opportunity. Whatever we lack will get attention, one way or another. One may be scorched by humiliation, so pride can be melted away. A relevant insight may be contained in reproof. If we are too contented, a dose of divine discontent may come. If we have grown soft, hard times may be necessary. Maxwell described this painful teaching process: God allows us to experience the natural consequences of our actions until we finally learn that “wickedness never was happiness” ( Alma 41:10). I ought not to harrow up in my desires, the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction. The Lord loves us and wants us to repent so we don’t have to suffer, but agency is a sacred principle, and He will never violate our agency by forcing us to do what is right: It seems it is the Lord’s will to let us learn from our own experience to distinguish good from evil, to learn what works and what doesn’t work. (Mosiah 4:5 Alma 26:12) (Heart t’ Heart scriptural version)
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(Heart t’ Heart traditional version, adapted from A.A.)Īdmitted that we of ourselves are powerless, nothing without God. We admitted we were powerless over compulsive addictive behaviors-that our lives had become unmanageable.