Step Prayers

The prayers associated with Steps 3, 7, and 11 from the Big Book and the Twelve & Twelve.

  1. Third Step Prayer Step 3 — Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

    God, I offer myself to Thee — to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.

    Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.

    Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.

    May I do Thy will always!

    Big Book, p. 63
  2. Seventh Step Prayer Step 7 — Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

    My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.

    I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.

    Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding.

    Amen.

    Big Book, p. 76
  3. Eleventh Step Prayer Step 11 — Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

    Lord, make me a channel of thy peace —
    that where there is hatred, I may bring love —
    that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness —
    that where there is discord, I may bring harmony —
    that where there is error, I may bring truth —
    that where there is doubt, I may bring faith —
    that where there is despair, I may bring hope —
    that where there are shadows, I may bring light —
    that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

    Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted — to understand, than to be understood — to love, than to be loved.

    For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

    Amen.

    Saint Francis Prayer — Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 99