Do you enjoy participating in a scavenger hunt? I do. In this race of time game to locate hidden clues and their answers, strategic planning and speed are the best techniques to come out as the winner. What does a scavenger hunt have to do with Step 4 in the recovery process for an individual? That’s the focus of this week’s column as I continue describing Celebrate Recovery’s 12 step program.

In Step 4 it says: “We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”. Before I go any further to expand on this statement let’s unpack some key words. The definition of search is: try to find something by looking or seeking. To be fearless means: to be brave. A moral person is: concerned with judgment of right and wrong, conforming to the standards of right and wrong. An inventory is: a detailed, itemized list of one’s possessions. In the use of Step 4, it’s our past hurts, habits and habits that make up  “possessions”.

Psalm 51 is one of my favorites I use when sitting quietly to confess my wrongdoings to God. I especially meditate on verses 10-19 which say:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence,and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

The entire psalm is credited to King David after the prophet Nathan came to him and confronted him regarding his sinful relationship with Bathseba. If you aren’t familiar with the story, David had an affair with her, a married woman and they created a child together. Acknowledging his sin, David repented and his personal thoughts are recorded for us in the 19 verses of this psalm. 

I think most of us would honestly admit that we do not enjoy it when even a trusted friend approaches us to point out a character flaw or sinful habit that has us trapped in rather than facing it, admitting the stronghold that behavior may have over us, and making sincere effort to remove from our attributes. By the time recovery participants reach Step 4 they find themselves at  a crossroads…continue the hard journey and make the turn to keep pursuing health or choosing to end the quest altogether. The first option stems from being brave while the latter is rooted in fear. 

A verse that accompanies Step 4 is from Lamentations chapter 3, verse 40 which says: “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord”. A closer look at the entire chapter reveals that whoever wrote this had personal experience being at the hand of God’s wrath. Subsequent verses describe what he endured and when we reach verse 39 a hint is given as to “why” we should examine our ways and test them and “why” we should return to the Lord. He asks this simple yet profound question: Why should the living complain when punished for their sins? 

Sin separates us from God but the good news is that when we confess our sins God is faithful to forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (my paraphrase of 1 John 1:9

By completing Step 4 we are not looking to heap guilt and shame on ourselves as a result of openly admitting our wrongdoings. On the contrary, this step is one of considerable power to help in confronting our deepest wounds and hurts that have molded our personalities and behaviors.  Left in the dark, they choke us. Brought into the light of Christ, they are exposed and no longer entangle us.

I have two very dear aunts, both deceased now, that learned such a lesson when they were little girls. Their chore was to plant cucumber seeds for my grandma and the work was going quite nicely until they tired, wanting to play instead of work, so they cut their task short by throwing the last of their seeds into one last pile at the end of the row. They thought their plan was effective until one morning when grandma asked them to go for a walk.  They made their way down the garden row, giggling, holding hands, enjoying time with their mother until she brought them to a halt at the end of the row. “Would you just look at that girls? All these vines are twisted, not growing very well, quite the tangled mess. That’s how sin is. It starts out small and before you know it, if not taken care of properly, it grows bigger and bigger and isn’t of any use to anyone”.

Lesson heard, lesson learned. There were no harsh words, no scolding. Merely a loving mother who needed to teach her young daughters that taking short cuts with necessary work can lead to an unhealthy outcome. What they thought had been done in secret had been exposed and brought into the “light” to teach right and wrong.

Just as my grandmother was able to come alongside my two aunts and help them learn a lesson in order to break a habit from forming, Step 4 isn’t done alone either. By this time in the recovery process an individual has identified a trusted person to help make their inventory list, listening to them share about it without offering judgment or counsel. It’s a powerful step that produces a healthier person at this stage of the process and exemplifies the power of God’s love no matter the depth or magnitude of sin.

If God can forgive King David for all of his choices and still remain being described as a man after God’s own heart, I’m confident to declare that the same kind of love is available to you as well.