2022-Nov-4 ~ "This Week's Special—Complete Overhaul"

Shaping sound ideals is a simple, two-step process which doesn't involve actually writing down "new ideals".

1) Examine past conduct honestly—no matter what it was—make a list on paper:

    a. Write the names of persons we hurt by our conduct.[1]

    b. Write the hurt or harm they experienced as the result of our misconduct.[2]

    c. Write the precise conduct that caused the hurt:

            "Where was I at fault?[3]

    d. Write the answer to this important question:

            "What should I have done instead?"[4]

    e. Finally, we "fire-test" this conduct by writing "Yes" or "No" after each incident answering this question:

            "Was it selfish or not?" [5]

Our ability to answer the question "What should I have done?" will reveal our existing ideals.

Our honest answer here assures us we knew right from wrong when we unfortunately chose to do the wrong thing. 

And this helps us understand our real problem, which is that we can't live up to our ideals by "wishing or trying" on our own power.[6]

            "...we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to."[7]

Having gained a rough idea of our existing ideals, we proceed next...

2) ...to ask God to help us to begin to rely on 'His Power, His Love, and His Way of Life".[8]

        a. "We ask God to mold our ideals…."[9]

        b. And, we ask God "...to help us live up to them."[10]

In other words, we keep making a conscious choice to put our will and lives—our future conduct—into God's hands.[11]

        “God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt."[12]

The reason we write down our conduct but not our ideals is that God is going to overhaul our ideals. We asked Him to "mold" them. That means God will sharpen our ideals, make them clearer, more definite, more useful, and more readily available to our hearts and minds.

Such an excellent overhaul is not free, however, and there is only One Shop in town that does the work:

        "Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. "[13]

        "I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all."[14]

What do you think? Please drop us a reply with your thoughts.

Email:  groupbigbookstudy@gmail.comweb: www.groupbigbookstudy.com         Unpublished work © 2017, 2022 by Bobby J

[1] (Ch5~69.1)[3], [2] (Ch5~69.1)[4], [3] (Ch5~69.1)[5a], [4] (Ch5~69.1)[5b], [5] (Ch5~69.2)[2],

[6] (Ch5~62.2)[8], [7] (Ch5~62.2)[7], [8] (Ch5~63.2)[4], [9] (Ch5~69.2)[3a], [10] (Ch5~69.2)[3b],

[11] (Ch7~100.1)[3], [12] (Ch5~63.2)[2], [13] (Ch1~14.1)[1], [14] (Ch1~14.1)[3]