Step #5 – I Have to Do What (Part 5)

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Well, the holidays are over and I am trying to get back to a normal routine. As promised, I am going to finish up on step number five. This will be part five, and I would like to speak about some of the rewards I felt after doing the fifth step. As I’m sure you will recall, in this examination of the steps, I am trying to relate what it was like for me as I did each step.

As a reminder, step five is: I admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being, the exact nature of my wrongs.

As I approached doing step number five (with a priest), I was in possession of lots of baggage that I discovered as I did the fourth step. However, I did not feel as though I had to be forgiven for any of these shortcomings and character defects. The reason for this was that I was truly, for the first time, trying to do this program in the way it was designed, as a God-given safety line for us all. In the fifth step I honestly said the holy yes to my Spirit and to God. As a result, I realized I no longer needed forgiveness as I was truly a spiritual gift from God. But, that awareness did not remove the shortcomings and character defects of my human self. With all knowing perfection, God gave us steps four through twelve in order for us to improve our humanity.

Two of the things that I believe are immensely helpful in starting to clear away the “wreckage of my past”, are introspection and confession. The fourth step was the introspection I needed in order to identify those things of my humanity that had prevented me from being close to my Spirit and God. They prevented me from turning my will and my life over to God, and hence, giving the will of God.

The confession part came in the form of the fifth step. It wasn’t really what we think of as a typical confession. I had asked the priest that we not do that, and he and I would just have a conversation. Again, I did not feel as though I needed forgiveness, but the human me needed to get these things out and “on the table”, so to speak. It worked quite well.

After finishing my fifth step I took the advice presented in the “big book”, and went to a quiet place to reflect on what had just happened. I actually did feel a sense of calmness and relief, probably more so than any I could remember in my life. Even though the spiritual me felt God’s love, and knew but I was now, spiritually, God’s child, I was still left with my humanity. It was my humanity that needed to understand those defects of character and shortcomings in myself that needed to be removed, (some slowly, and some quickly), before I could be truly committed to doing God’s work.

After the fifth step, I sat in a pew in the church, and somehow knew, as I listen to my Spirit, that I would find the determination, through God, to become a better human being. I knew that I wanted to tell people about my experience in about this wonderful 12 step program. I see the fifth step as a sort of springboard to help me find my way.