What is the origin of the Third Step prayer and the Seventh Step prayer found in the Big Book?
[Third Step prayer: “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.” page 63] [Seventh Step prayer: “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.” page 76] A. As far as we know, Bill wrote the Third and Seventh Step prayers himself. From the first typed manuscript, which Bill completed in 1938, these prayers contained the same wording they do in the book today. We don’t know of the prayers’ prior presence in any religious movement, though it is likely that their central message – if not their exact wording
