Becomming Entirely Ready

Step 6: Became entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

I notice a distinct difference between becomming entirely ready, and just wishing I were ready. Usually, I just wish I were ready, I think about being ready, I mentally try to be ready, I pray about it (when I start to get desperate) - yet I am still not ready. I think - for God's sake - can I please be done with this now? Nope - not ready. Sometimes I even think I am ready, only to find out that I'm not actually entirely ready. That's the difference, I have to be more than ready - I have to be entirely ready. The fact is, until I achieve the level of entirety, nothing happens. I just spin in circles doing the same stupid behaviors and kicking myself - feeling powerless to stop the behavior - thinking, this is painful, why am I still doing it?

An amazing thing happens when you become entirely ready though. It's like magic. I don't become ready over time. It isn't a slow unfolding of becomming ready, Tuesday I am more ready than Monday, and so on, eventually getting to entirely. It doesn't work that way - for me at least. I'm either not ready, or suddenly entirely ready - with no varying degrees of readiness. For two weeks I have been praying about something in particular, a specific character defect and behavior - please God help me WANT to be free of X situation (among other things) (and truthfully, part of me doesn't even want to be free of it - but the fact is, I need to be). Today, while walking down the street, in the beautiful sunshine, talking to God in my head, please God help me do something different, help me handle X situation differently, help me let go of my expectations about the way my life is supposed to be - poof, like magic, it was gone. Well, not my expectations unfortunately, those are still painfully in tact, but the behavior and my handling of it - my feelings about it, everything - lifted, much like people describe the compulsion to drink suddenly lifting. Relief. And when this happens, you feel like a new person, like anything is possible. If God can do that, if God can make me not act that way and make me not need that and make me not want that, then God can do anything.

That is what happens when you finally achieve entirety. It is like the moment in which you finally ahieve acceptance - in that split second, everything changes. I never understood it until it finally happened the first time. I just struggled and struggled and couldn't figure out why nothing was working, why I got no relief - only to eventually realize that the key word in the step is entirely. Half ready doesn't get rid of half of the character defect. Just like half measures avail us nothing - because half measures get us drunk.

The more evidence I have, the easier it gets, yet it always surprises me and there is always a quality of magic about it.