Hurts, Habits and Hangups
A 12 Step Program for Healing the Natural Man
(Adapted from the LDS ARP Program)
Step 1-
Admit that you, of yourself, are powerless to overcome your hurts, habits and hangups and that they are making your life unmanageable.
Step 2-
Come to believe that the power of God, through the Atonement, can heal “all our ills.”
Step 3-
Decide to return your will and your life to God the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Step 4-
Make a searching and honest inventory of yourself.
Step 5-
Admit to yourself, to Heavenly Father, to proper priesthood authorities when necessary, and to others, those personal characteristics that need to change.
Step 6-
Become entirely ready to have God remove your shortcomings.
Step 7-
Humbly ask Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, to heal those shortcomings.
Step 8-
Make a list of all people you might have negatively impacted and seek to make restitution to them whenever possible.
Step 9-
Make a list of all people who might have harmed you and through the Atonement of Christ, frankly forgive them.
Step 10-
Take daily personal inventory and when you are wrong, promptly ask Heavenly Father for help.
Step 11-
Seek through humble prayer to know the Lord’s will and to be empowered to carry it out.
Step 12
Having had a spiritual awakening as result of Jesus Christ, share the message of Hope with others and practice these principles in all you do.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Mormons, Addictions and Weaknesses
The idea of a blog is for people to communicate and add their imput to mix. Within the LDS church we are good at so many things. Some areas, though, we struggle with--this is one of them.
To admit we have a problem is not a very Mormon thing to do. We are taught to become self reliant, to solve problems and to serve one another.
What happens when we run accross a habit, a behavior, an action that is bigger and stronger than we are. What do we do now?
What we do is learn the Atonement; not the one we thought we knew, but the one which heals and empowers. We come to learn the Savior that loves us, cares about us and requires our complete surrender to Him so he can provide the healing we so desparately need.
In short, we must admit what we do not want to admit. We must admit we cannot do it on our own, that our own efforts have failed. And we must, finally, recognize that the Plan of Happiness provided that we would never be able to exalt or heal ourselves. It was not in the Plan.
To heal from an addiction is to come to know better our Heavenly Father and His eternal love for us. It means we will come to know better what we can do and the long list of things we cannot do on our own. Thus, it means we will learn to trust and listen and change.
So, run down to LDS Social Services, get the ARP manual and lets go.
Are you ready to change yet?
To admit we have a problem is not a very Mormon thing to do. We are taught to become self reliant, to solve problems and to serve one another.
What happens when we run accross a habit, a behavior, an action that is bigger and stronger than we are. What do we do now?
What we do is learn the Atonement; not the one we thought we knew, but the one which heals and empowers. We come to learn the Savior that loves us, cares about us and requires our complete surrender to Him so he can provide the healing we so desparately need.
In short, we must admit what we do not want to admit. We must admit we cannot do it on our own, that our own efforts have failed. And we must, finally, recognize that the Plan of Happiness provided that we would never be able to exalt or heal ourselves. It was not in the Plan.
To heal from an addiction is to come to know better our Heavenly Father and His eternal love for us. It means we will come to know better what we can do and the long list of things we cannot do on our own. Thus, it means we will learn to trust and listen and change.
So, run down to LDS Social Services, get the ARP manual and lets go.
Are you ready to change yet?
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