“A Christ-centered approach to recovery and coordinating small group meetings”
Step Ten
“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
Having completed the first nine steps we have entered into a new and higher realm of freedom and we have come to experience happiness – perhaps better than we have ever known it. These next three steps are called maintenance steps designed to hold onto what we have and steadily improve on that foundation.
This step ten calls us to take an ongoing personal inventory. Now that we have that huge pile of garbage out of our lives, we want to keep it out. A daily inventory is the best way to keep short accounts and insure we don’t accumulate a little excess baggage here and there and get weighted down with a big pile again.
If we are not vigilant, those little things can add up to a lot and steal our peace, joy and new? found freedom. It doesn’t take any effort at all to slip back to our old way of doing things. Negative thinking and attitudes toward others can creep back in without our even knowing about it. We need to make a special effort to be on the lookout and guard this serenity the Lord has given us by His grace.
It is suggested that we take this inventory on a daily basis. A good time to do this is when we say our prayers in the evening before going to sleep. A good way to end the day is to give God thanks for all that He has provided. We surrender in the morning and thank Him in the evening.
This daily inventory can be a daily “garbage detector.”
After our praising and thanking the Lord for His blessings in general, it is a good time to review the specific things that made up our day. Did we contribute to something going wrong? Did we get angry? Did we fail to unconditionally love the people the Lord put before us? Were we impatient or self righteous? Did something happen to cause us to lose our peace or joy?
Did we fail to do what the Lord was leading us to do? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, we can ask for God’s forgiveness and take whatever steps are necessary to correct the situation. If what we need to do is to forgive another for harming us in some way, then we simply do it and put it behind us.
When taking our daily inventory, if we come across an instance where we harmed another, we make it right at our earliest opportunity and as the Lord leads. The advantage of doing this inventory often is obvious. It means that we don’t have to carry the negative feelings around for a long time and experience the prolonged discomfort that goes with it.
The Lord will reveal those things in our life that were our of order. The Holy Spirit will convict us during this reflective time, if we were too busy to hear during the press of the day’s activities.
“I will hear what the Lord will speak. For he will speak peace to his people and His saints; But let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land.” (Psalm 85:8?9)
Another important part of our inventory is our conscious contact with the Lord. Did we practice His presence? Did we walk humbly with Him by faith, believing that He was providentially working out the circumstances of our lives? Did we believe that he was giving us the wisdom, strength and love to accomplish what He puts before us this day?