Joseph Smith taught that faith is a principle of action. 2  Steps Eight and Nine are most definitely principles of action and thus principles of faith—but not faith in ourselves or in others.  It is faith in Christ and His power to carry us forward in the process of recovery that will empower us to take these two steps, just as He has empowered us to take the first seven. 

It is my prayer that in the brief introduction to Steps Eight and Nine covered in this article, you will feel the truthfulness of the “amends process” these steps represent.  In keeping with my intent to ground each of the steps in the Book of Mormon, I will be including some personal reflections the Lord has led me to “capture” on each of these steps.  I hope that reading these thoughts will prove helpful in your prayerful consideration of these principles of recovery—or in other words, these principles of repentance and redemption.  They truly are principles and practices that demonstrate that we have actually arrived at a willingness to allow the words of Moroni 7:3 to describe our lives: 

Here are the scriptural versions of these two steps, framed in and founded on Book of Mormon references:

Step 8:   Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make restitution to all of them (even those we had harmed in what we might have considered righteous anger), desiring instead to be peacemakers and to do all that we could to come unto God by being first reconciled to others. (3 Nephi 12:9; 3 Nephi 12:24; 3 Nephi 12:44-45.)

Step 9:  Made restitution directly to those we had harmed, confessing our own wrongdoing in each instance except when to do so would further injure them or others. (Mosiah 27:35; 3 Nephi 12:25; Mosiah 26:30.)

Step Eight: First Creating Our Amends Spiritually

It is being willing to stop using the fact that we were victimized or harmed by others as an excuse to hold resentment, bitterness, or regret that has continued to harm to ourselves and those around us today.  Making amends, or even becoming willing to make amends, is a process of freeing everyone, ourselves and others, from the bondage of blame and shame.

If I Resist Steps Eight and Nine, Who Am I Really Refusing to Make Peace With?

Mosiah 2:38 -- Therefore if that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord, and doth fill his breast with guilt, and pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.

This verse talks about people who die “an enemy to God.”  That’s pretty tough language.  It’s true that I have some grudges and I have a list of people I wouldn’t speak to if my life depended on it, but that doesn’t make me an “enemy to God.”  Or does it?  I’m immediately reminded of what the Lord Himself said in D&C 42:38.  “For inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these, ye do it unto me.”

According to this verse, no matter how much I justify and rationalize my negative feelings towards another while in this life, death will cause me to wake up, as if from a dream, and realize it was the Lord I was really resenting and rejecting.  As I see it, I have a choice:  I can either stop “shrinking” away from making amends to others, or I will end up wanting to shrink away from my Heavenly Father when I meet Him again.  No pride is worth that.

Taking Step Eight Reflects My Faith in Christ, Not in Myself or Others

Alma 24:18 --  And this they did, it being in their view a testimony to God, and also to men, that they never would use weapons again . . . and this they did, vouching and covenanting with God . . .

Contained in this verse is the spirit I must have in order to take Step Eight.  It is a spirit of complete surrender of my “weapons,” or in other words, my reasons and excuses for being defensive and/or aggressive toward others.  According to this verse, my willingness to let go of my grudges and resentments is not about my covenant (or commitment) toward them, but toward God.  In taking Step Eight, I can go ahead and make a list of people I’ve offended, even though I may still harbor negative feelings toward them. I don’t have to try to change these feelings myself.  I can trust that my feelings will change as I continue to come to Christ and be “perfected in Him.”  At least that’s what Moroni 10:32 states as it puts my coming to the Savior ahead of my being able to “deny [myself] of all ungodliness.”  I must keep my eye single to His glory and remember that His power to make whole and to heal is greater than any adversarial power to divide and destroy us.

And finally, in regards to Step Eight, specifically, I would like to share these thoughts based in
3 Nephi 12:9:  “And blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

By spiritual “birthright,” every human being is a child of God.  However, here we are being invited to voluntarily allow the Savior to change our hearts and minds and make each of us a child of God, not just in spiritual genetics, but in our very character.  To become a peacemaker is to desire the same character traits as our Savior, Jesus Christ, embodies.  He is the ultimate example of a peacemaker who is willing to go to any lengths to reconcile us all to our Father in Heaven and to one another.  He is the ultimate amends maker.  As we are willing to “always remember him that we might have his spirit to be with us,” 6 and not to just act “Christ-like,” we will find our hearts being changed to feel His mercy and compassion for others as well as for ourselves.  In His Spirit, our desire to make our Step Eight list will change.  We will be eager to make it as thorough as possible.  We will feel our willingness border on eagerness to go on to Step Nine.

Moving on to Step Nine—Taking Action

Here’s where repentance really gets down to it. Here’s where our newly developed relationships with our Savior and our faith in His Atoning Spirit bears the fruit that demonstrates the completed repentance process.  We can only demonstrate the sincerity of our repentance by taking action.

Alma 7:15 --Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments . . .

These words definitely give the feeling of taking action on our repentance—not just working it out silently, privately.  “Come and go forth,” the words plead.  “Show unto your God . . .”  And just as entering into baptism is an action that symbolizes our desire to begin a new life, taking Step Nine symbolizes our willingness to create a new future by facing those we have harmed and seeking reconciliation.  No matter how they react, we must “go forth” and admit our own contribution to the pain of the past.  Being embarrassed, even being rebuffed or rejected must not stop us. 

Only the Lord Knows How “Direct” Our Amends Need to Be

No one is going to check up on us as to whether we’ve been really rigorous in our honesty about who we put on our list in Step Eight and what lengths we went to in order to find them to make our amends.  We must be sincerely prayerful about this process.  We must be totally honest with the Lord, seeking His Power to carry out every single amends we can think of in the way that is most appropriate.  We must seek His guidance as to just how direct to be.  We must never hedge on how direct we feel Him impressing us to be.  “Direct” means to go straight to the person, wherever possible, if no further injury will be inflicted on the other person or their loved ones by our contact.

Sometimes, the person to whom we need to make amends is beyond our reach.  Where it is impractical or impossible because of the potential harm done or because the person is already dead, or we honestly have no way of knowing where they are, we must rely on the promise of Mosiah 4: 24-25.  In this verse of scripture we learn that God honors our willingness as if it were action if there is some valid reason we can’t take the action we’d like to take.

Sometimes the only amends we can make to the people we have harmed in our past is to admit our shortcoming to the Lord and live the rest of our lives seeking His Spirit to remove from our heart any desire to ever behave that way again toward any other person. 

Another approach to situations where we cannot go directly to a person to make amends is to find someone similar to them in age and circumstances—a proxy so to speak—and perform some act of kindness toward them.  And finally, an approach that works in all situations, as mentioned earlier, is the act of writing a letter of amends to anyone that we cannot contact for any reason—and then reading that letter to someone else who we feel comfortable sharing our amends process with and who understands our efforts to complete the repentance process for our own healing.

There are also times when to go to someone to make an amends would only set us up to be victimized even more.  We must avoid these circumstances at all costs.  If there is someone in your life that you even suspect has victimized you, who has taken advantage of you in some traumatic way in the past, don’t go to them without serious consultation with a professional counselor or very experienced 12 Step sponsor.

Sometimes, we feel justified to skip making an amends for what we did before we knew any better.  The truth is, we need to acknowledge and amend even those wrongs we did in ignorance.  It could be compared to backing over another person’s leg with our car.  Even though we didn’t mean to inflict an injury, upon realizing we did, we must still do what we can to help them to recover.  In the case of Step Nine we are also offering the other person the opportunity to finally complete the act of forgiveness, to bring our differences to a state of closure.

Whatever lengths we have to go to, we must not back away from being as thorough in this step as in Step Eight.  In other words, don’t short-change the amends process.  We must be like Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah, who went about “zealously striving to repair all the injuries which they had done” (Mosiah 27:25)   In this same “zealous” spirit, we must honestly inventory any excuse or reason we make to ourselves for skipping an amends. 

There is firm spiritual principle and precedent behind this call to total humility, and there is a deep personal reason for it as well:  With every amends successfully completed, the weight of years of negative energy will be lifted from your spirit.  You will finally be able to put down the accumulated burdens of mortality and will be able to live the rest of your life knowing that you have done all that you can do to repent. 

You can trust that the miraculous grace of Christ will fill your heart and mind and bring you a peace that is greater than any you’ve ever known. Thus, every amends becomes an act of love for you as well as for God and for the other person. These amends will represent some of the most courageous, faithful actions you will ever take and you can expect a great deal of spiritual healing and maturity to result. 
In Conclusion:  Finding the Right Object for My Faith

But behold, I Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance (1 Nephi 1:20).

“To make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.” Do those words pull at your heart the way they do mine? They recall to my mind, by contrast, all the years I had no “power of deliverance” and often suffered the pains of a damned soul, caught in bondage to my addictions and compulsions.
Can any of us who have experienced the abyss of addiction begin to count the number of times we tried to exercise enough faith to get free? I can remember feeling so frustrated and discouraged, I wanted to cease to exist. In recovery, I see there was one essential element missing in all those failed attempts to have faith sufficient to free myself. What was missing was the correct target or object of my faith. All that time, I was desperately trying to find someone or something in this world to have faith in. I was constantly running from pillar to post, trying to find the one true program, the one best author or guru. There was always another book, another name, way, or means that just might bring me the salvation I sought.
In those days, even when I finally humbled myself enough to ask God for help, I was trying to exercise faith in myself more than in Him. The emphasis was still too much on the “I,” the “me” and the “myself,” instead of on Him.  It was only in doing a “serious study” of the Book of Mormon, reading it for the sake of saving my life from my own addiction—not just to complete an assignment, an invitation, or a “challenge” to read it—that recovery became Christ-centered and soul-deep for me.  And thus I end this article, adding my testimony word for word to that of President Ezra Taft Benson.  It was in this testimony from him that my LDS 12 Step recovery journey began: