Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
“Let
us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord” (Lamentations 3:40 ).
Principle 4: Openly examine and confess my faults to
myself, to God, and to someone I trust. “Happy
are the pure in hear” (Matthew 5:8).
Tonight we begin talking about
the spiritual inventory. Before we can
do so, we must first understand & embrace steps 1-3.
step 1 is
understanding that I cannot deal with my hurt or habit on my own.
step 2 is
understanding that God cares about me and He has the power and desire to help
me deal with them.
step 3 is choosing to commit all of my life and will
to Christ’s care and control.
We must understand
these first 3 steps and choose to commit ourselves to God before we continue
any further with our recovery from hurts and habits. We simply can’t move on without them and
expect to have lasting success. Why?
Because if we don’t know by now that we are unable to deal the with hurts and
habits on our own, that God can and will help us because He does have the
power, and unless we make the decision to turn our lives over to Him; we are
still trying to recover using our own wisdom and strength, which just leads to
more of the same old stuff. The Bible
says, “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise
in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness
with God (1 Corinthians 3:18 -19). Our best wisdom is foolishness to God. Using our wisdom is what got us into the
habits and harmful responses to hurts in the first place.
Here is something I
have learned about the inventory: not only is it an essential part of recovery,
it helps us understand if we have truly decided to give our lives and wills
over to God’s care and control in step 3 or not. This step will test that decision.
Think about your
life thus far, with one word, describe you life battling your hurts and habits? What one word do you wish described your
recovery? Inventory is a critical part
of the path between beaten and victorious…you must come through the spiritual
inventory.
The key to being
successful with the inventory is asking for God to lead you through it. Doing it on your own will get you frustrated,
off-track, at best. I recommend that you
spend several days in prayer and reading the Bible before and during the entire
process (I recommend you do that all the time, for just for inventory). Some passages you may want to read include 1
Corinthians, James, and the Gospel of John.
You can’t ignore God and expect to know how He is leading you. You can’t expect to work through the
inventory finding truth it you cut yourself off from the source of Truth. I also encourage you to have a sponsor,
someone who has been through all 12 steps of CR before to help you stay
motivated and focused.
The inventory is hard to do because it makes you deal with
situations you may be hiding, avoiding, ignoring, or denying. You will deal with the hurts others have
thrust upon you, and the hurts you have caused yourself and others. Be on guard, your emotions can lead you
stray, either to beating yourself up or shifting your blame onto others. Neither of this is helpful or productive in
lasting recovery. You need to deal with
truth; truth about yourself, about situations, and about others. Only the God of Truth can keep you from
getting off track.
The Spiritual Inventory
sheets
The sheets are made up of five columns across; I will
discuss what you should do with each one below.
I have been asked if it is better to work across the five columns, one
issue at a time, or work down the columns.
Across helps you stay more focused, but as you work across, more things
will come up for you to add going down the columns. I trust you will understand as we talk about
each column.
Column 1: The Person
List the persons, objects, or events that you resent or
fear. List the first one and then move
onto column two. Go back to column one
for each additional person, object, or event so that you list all the persons
and things that you resent or fear. You
need to write it down, don’t just think it over. The fact is that as you work through step 4,
resentments fade as the Light of Christ come on them.
Column 2: The Cause
List
the specific actions of the person, object, or event that hurt you. List how this action caused you to resent or
fear. As you work through “the cause” it
can be very painful, you need the Holy Spirit, a sponsor, and maybe even an
accountability team to help you. God
said, “ Fear not, for I am with you; be
not dismayed, for I am your God. I will
strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I hold you up by My righteous right hand
(Isaiah 41:10). The fact is that
most resentment, bitterness, anger, fighting, and slander come from the
suppressed pain of hurts and habits. Also, most low esteem, withdrawal, shame,
mistrust, fear, and self-dislike come from the suppressed pain of hurts and
habits.
Column 3: The Effect
List how the hurtful actions impacted your life, both in
the past and present. This is not a time
to beat someone else up; you just want to deal with truth. No doubt we’ve all been hurt by the words or
actions of other people. Sometimes, like
in the case of abuse, we did nothing to cause the hurt but we sure did receive it. The point here is to work through “the
effect” being honest and objective; keep asking the Lord to help you with
that. The fact is that hurts and habits what
we ignore or hide can, and often do, harm us in ways we don’t realize; we need
to honestly examine things and make sure we aren’t creating excuses.
Column 4: The
Damage
List how your basic instincts were injured by the specific
actions of each person, object or event, including your security, social, and
sexual instincts. God said at the beginning
of Ezekiel 34:16, “I will seek what was lost and bring back what was
driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick.”
Column 5: My Part
List your part in the hurt or habit. Again, honesty and truth are essential, seek
the counsel of the Holy Spirit first, and also your sponsor to ensure you are
not erroneously shifting blame. The
Spirit used David to write Psalm 139:23, which says, “Examine me, O God and
know my mind; test me, and discover if there is any evil in me and guide me in
the everlasting way.” Of course, Lamentation
Conclusion: five tools to help you prepare for inventory
In order to help make sure you are cooperating with the Holy Spirit during the inventory, here are five things you can do before you start and once you begin.
1. Memorize Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us
reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall
be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
2. Read and keep reading the “Balancing the
Scale” verses (see below).
3. Keep inventory balanced listing both the good
and the bad – very important! List on
the back of the page the good things God has done, has led you to do, or is
leading you to do.
4. Continue to develop your support team.
5. Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17 ).
Step 10: We
continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted
it.
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that
you don’t fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12)
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