(The following is a personal post from one of our members.)
I spent years unable and unwilling to take Step Three. I believe now that was because I hadn't fully taken Step Two. (It also was because I kept trying to make the Steps into what I wanted them to be and to work them without surrendering to a sponsor, but that's another topic.)
The crucial change happened for me when I "came to believe"... "that God could and would if He were sought." (AABB p. 59 & 60) Up until that point, the God that I had believed in "could" restore me to sanity, but He would not until I had done enough of the right things myself to earn His favor and deserved His help. That didn't work; I couldn't do it.
In actuality, my Step One experience was not yet complete either. I still believed that I could overcome lust in my own power, and therefore I had never admitted that I was truly powerless over lust. But when the powerlessness of Step One was finally fully accepted and fully embraced, I not only was given the grace to live with that pain, but I was given the grace to believe that there was no other hope for me than to fully trust and fall into the hands of a loving God who not only could, but surely would restore me to sanity. And that meant that He alone had to be the Power that was willing to keep me sober, even if I could not do it myself or ever earn it.
My understanding of God had to change before I could and would turn my will and life over to His care.
