“Defects”
“We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
Step Six
After taking the Fifth Step, many of us spend some time considering “the exact
nature of our wrongs” and the part they’d played in making us who we were. What
would our lives be like without, say, our arrogance?
Sure, arrogance had kept us apart from our fellows, preventing us from enjoying and
learning from them. But arrogance had also served us well, propping up our ego in
the face of critically low self-esteem. What advantage would be gained if our
arrogance were removed, and what support would we be left with?
With arrogance gone, we would be one step closer to being restored to our proper
place among others. We would become capable of appreciating their company and
their wisdom and their challenges as their equals. Our support and guidance would
come, if we chose, from the care offered us by our Higher Power; “low self-esteem”
would cease to be an issue.
One by one, we examined our character defects this way, and found them all
defective, after all, that’s why they’re called defects. And were we entirely ready to
have God remove all of them? Yes.
Just for today: I will thoroughly consider all my defects of character to discover
whether I am ready to have the God of my understanding remove them.