Clean Hands, Pure Heart
Overcoming Addiction to Pornography through the Redeeming Power of Jesus Christ
Chapter 11: Step Seven- Part 1
By Philip A. Harrison
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. (A.A. and Heart t’ Heart traditional versions)
Humbly cried unto the Lord Jesus Christ in ourhearts for a remission of sins that through His mercy and His grace we might experience a mighty change of heart, lose all disposition to do evil, and thus be encircled about in the arms of safety because of His great and last sacrifice. (Alma 36:18; Alma 38:8; Moroni 10:32; Mosiah 5:2; Alma 34:15-16) (Heart t’ Heart scriptural version)
If I am going to have a pure heart as well as clean hands, I must petition the Lord to create such a heart in me. He is the only one who has the power to make such a dramatic change in my disposition or nature. Only He can replace my selfishness with generosity, my doubt with faith, my stubbornness with willingness. Nevertheless, He waits for me to become convinced of my need for Him and for me to ask Him to change my heart. He will begin to work this miracle in my life just as soon as I am ready and willing to exercise faith in Him and invite Him to do so.
Sanctification – the Goal of Recovery
In order to fully comprehend the blessing Step Seven can be to us, we need to review the wording of the scriptural version of Step Six. It reads, “Became humble enough to yield our hearts and our lives to Christ for His sanctification and purification .” In other words, what we became willing to do in Step Six – yield our hearts and lives to the Lord in order for Him to sanctify and purify us – we will actually carry out in taking Step Seven.
A scriptural example of yielding one’s heart to the Lord is found in Helaman’s day, when many of the Nephites were beginning yet another descent into pride and wickedness. Still, those who remained faithful received a most amazing spiritual blessing:
Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God. (Helaman 3:35, emphasis added)
If you are like me, you have probably wondered, “Just what is sanctification?” The Latin root of sanctification is sanctus, which means “holy.” Sanctification, then, is “the process of being made holy.” Elder Bruce R. McConkie adds further light to that definition:
To be sanctified is to become clean, pure, and spotless; to be free from the blood and sins of the world; to become a new creature of the Holy Ghost, one whose body has been renewed by the rebirth of the Spirit. (Mormon Doctrine, 675; Italics original)
Sanctification always sounded wonderful to me, but so far from my grasp! How I longed to be free of the filth I had invited into my mind and allowed to pollute my eternal spirit. I truly wanted to be pure, spotless, and holy, but hell only mocked my righteous desires. Satan had me captive and wasn’t about to let me go. He knew full well that my willpower alone would never be enough, that only the Savior’s power could free me. I am humbled to realize how much I was like the children of Israel, lost in the wilderness:
He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed; and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished. (1 Nephi 17:41)
As I look back on the years I spent in voluntary slavery, I am amazed that I missed understanding how easy the cure was, and puzzled at how many years I spent “perishing.” “The labor [I] had to perform was to look” – to look to the Savior. I suppose I thought by going to church and fulfilling my church assignments, I was looking to the Savior. In reality, though, my personal attention to Him hadn’t amounted to more than an occasional, almost casual glance. More recently I have learned that to “look” to Him means to do so with an eye single to His glory – in other words, to stand amazed, adoring, worshiping Him, recognizing Him as one with the Father in everything.
As mentioned earlier, Helaman’s people experienced true sanctification, “because of their yielding their hearts unto God” (Helaman 3:35). “Yielding” is such a perfect word for how we must respond to the Lord. The Lord never forces us. He only entices or invites us through the “still” and “small” promptings of the Holy Ghost. We, in turn, choose to either resist those promptings, or yield to them. The outcome from hour to hour, and day to day, depends entirely on our choice. So many times over the years the Lord invited me, offering the very help I needed, but I resisted His help and His love.
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19, emphasis added)
During all those years of addiction, I was anything but submissive, meek, or humble. Nor was I willing to submit to “all things which the Lord [saw] fit to inflict upon [me]” – at least, not without comforting myself by using my addiction. While I made an outward pretense of obeying, I kept my heart “far from [Him]” (2 Nephi 27:25). It took wading through the process of Step Six to help me realize I was still holding on to my willful, stubborn attitudes.
Eventually, I began to realize that if I was ever going to triumph over my character defects, I had to surrender them at a much deeper level than I ever had before. That realization led me to Step Seven. I was so tired of the negative attitudes and tendencies that continually kept me from any lasting peace with God and with myself. I was moved to cry, “Lord, I don’t want any more of these characteristics and I don’t want my stubborn, self-sufficient pride either!! Please take all of me – just as I am – and make me over in Thine image!”
Even at this point, the adversary was waiting to tempt me with another lie. “You’re just falling into the trap of perfectionism, praying to become like Christ. Who do you think you are, anyway?” As I prayed to the Father, seeking the counsel of the Lord, I was blessed to see that Step Seven is the furthest thing from perfectionism. He showed me that perfectionism is an obsession with being perfect right now and by one’s own achievement. To take Step Seven, on the other hand, is to turn the process of perfecting myself over to the Lord and to exercise faith in Him and in His timing.
Surrendering vs. Asking for Help
Surrendering my heart to the Lord in Step Six required even more humility of me than did surrendering my addiction in Step Three. I felt a great deal of resistance to an act of such total surrender. It seemed like “chickening out,” or abdicating my responsibility to do what I should do on my own. Looking back now, I see that this was pride in its most pious and subtle form.
Eventually, I realized taking Step Seven meant I had to surrender everything to Jesus Christ, even ownership of my victory over self. There is a big difference in asking, “Lord, please give me the strength to.” and saying “Lord, I don’t have the strength. Will you please.”
If I only ask for His help, I am holding on to some of the credit if I succeed. On the other hand, when I surrender the problem to His might, I also give up all glory for the victory, and this was the depth of humility I desperately needed. This was the “nothingness” King Benjamin declared we must embrace (Mosiah 4: 5-7).
I was finally required to admit my total nothingness, or powerlessness without God. In other words, my efforts to overcome my weaknesses are nothing compared to the Lord’s part in my salvation. The ultimate fulfillment of the command to “work out [my] own salvation” (Mormon 9:27) meant I must surrender all my weaknesses – my whole soul – unto Him. I do that by asking Him to “relieve me of the bondage of self” or, in other words, to take my character weaknesses away, according to His will and timing.
One brother, in discussing his efforts to obtain this heart-deep character change, wrote:
I think God has given us the right-as His begotten sons and daughters-to ask Him to work upon us and upon our hearts to perform that “mighty change” so needed for our salvation. I have worked on changing my heart but was not successful until I asked God to do it for me. I had to be willing to accept His hand in my life. I could not even do 1% of what I needed-I was completely at His mercy. All I was capable of was a weak plea for Him to work miracles within me.
True Conversion
Sometimes we use words rather casually, not thinking of their true meanings. The word “conversion” or “convert,” in connection with joining the Church, is one of those instances, I’m afraid. It is our common habit to speak of a person becoming converted to the Church when they have simply become convinced it is true. We forget that to convert something actually means to change it from one state or condition to another. Quoting President Marion G. Romney, Elder Richard G. Scott explained:
Sometimes the word converted is used to describe when a sincere individual decides to be baptized. However, when properly used, conversion means far more than that, for the new convert as well as the long-term member. With characteristic doctrinal clarity and precision, President Marion G. Romney explained conversion:
“Converted means to turn from one belief or course of action to another. Conversion is a spiritual and moral change. Converted implies not merely mental acceptance of Jesus and his teachings but also a motivating faith in him and his gospel. A faith which works a transformation, an actual change in one’s understanding of life’s meaning and in his allegiance to God in interest, in thought, and in conduct. In one who is really wholly converted, desire for things contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ has actually died. And substituted therefore is a love of God, with a fixed and controlling determination to keep his commandments.
“Membership in the Church and conversion are not necessarily synonymous. Being converted and having a testimony are not necessarily the same thing either. A testimony comes when the Holy Ghost gives the earnest seeker a witness of the truth. A moving testimony vitalizes faith. That is, it induces repentance and obedience to the commandments. Conversion is the fruit or the reward for repentance and obedience.” (Conference Report, Guatemala Area Conference, 1977, 8-9)
Stated simply, true conversion is the fruit of faith, repentance, and consistent obedience. Faith comes by hearing the word of God [see Romans 10:17] and responding to it. You will receive from the Holy Ghost a confirming witness of things you accept on faith by willingly doing them [see Ether 12:6]. You will be led to repent of errors resulting from wrong things done or right things not done. As a consequence, your capacity to consistently obey will be strengthened. This cycle of faith, repentance, and consistent obedience will lead you to greater conversion with its attendant blessings. True conversion will strengthen your capacity to do what you know you should do, when you should do it, regardless of the circumstances. (Ensign, May 2002, 24-25; italics original)
Isn’t that what we are looking for in recovery, to have our “capacity to consistently obey strengthened?” That is the kind of change true recovery or true conversion signifies. We find that when our hearts have been consecrated to the Lord, good works automatically follow. These important changes are not something we can do of ourselves, however. The change is a miracle we allow God to work in us, according to His mercy and grace. This is the “mighty” change. We must never forget that it is granted and maintained from day to day, only by our surrendering our lives to Him. As B. H. Roberts so masterfully taught:
Through water baptism is obtained a remission of past sins; but even after the sins of the past are forgiven, the one so pardoned will doubtless feel the force of sinful habits bearing heavily upon him. He who has been guilty of habitual untruthfulness, will at times find himself inclined, perhaps, to yield to that habit. He who has stolen may be sorely tempted, when opportunity arises, to steal again. While he who has indulged in licentious practices may again find himself disposed to give way to the seductive influence of the siren. So with drunkenness, malice, envy, covetousness, hatred, anger, and in short all the evil dispositions that flesh is heir to. There is an absolute necessity for some additional sanctifying grace that will strengthen poor human nature, not only to enable it to resist temptation, but also to root out from the heart concupiscence-the blind tendency or inclination to evil. The heart must be purified, every passion, every prosperity made submissive to the will, and the will of man brought into subjection to the will of God. Man’s natural powers are unequal to this task; so, I believe, all will testify who have made the experiment. Mankind stand in some need of a strength superior to any they possess of themselves, to accomplish this work of rendering pure our fallen nature. (B. H. Roberts, The Gospel and Man’s Relationship to Deity, 179, emphasis added.)
The second half of this chapter will be posted next week.
Clean Hands, Pure Heart by Philip A. Harrison, and its companion LDS 12 Step book, He Did Deliver Me from Bondage by Colleen C. Harrison, are available at most LDS bookstores and can be ordered online at www.ldscloseouts.com or www.rosehavenpublishing.com
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