Coming Out Of Hiding

Bible reading: Genesis 3:6 – 13

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. (Steps  4 and 5)

“Happy are the pure in heart.”

Many of us have spent our lives in a state of hiding, ashamed of who we are inside. We may hide by living double lives, using our drug of choice to make us feel like someone else, or by self righteously setting ourselves above others. Step 4 involves uncovering the things we’ve been hiding, even from ourselves.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, “Suddenly they became aware of their nakedness, and were embarrassed. So the sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves around the hips… The Lord God called to Adam, ‘Why are you hiding?’ And Adam replied, ‘I heard you coming and didn’t want you to see me naked. So I hid’” (Genesis 3:7 – 10). Human beings have been covering up and hiding ever since!

Jesus consistently confronted the religious leaders for their hypocrisy. The word hypocrite describes a person who pretends to have virtues or qualities that he really doesn’t have. Onetime Jesus said to them, “Hypocrites! You are so careful to polish the outside of the, but the inside is filed with extortion and greed… First cleanse the inside of the cup and then the whole cup will be clean” (Matthew 23:25 – 26).

When the real person inside comes out of hiding, we’ll have to deal with some dirt! Making this inventory is a good way to “cleanse the inside”; and some of that cleansing may involve bathing our lives with tears. It is only by uncovering the hidden parts of ourselves that we’ll be able to change the outer person, including our addictive/compulsive behaviors.

Confessing our hidden parts brings healing and restoration. “You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there! Jeremiah 6:14-16Living Bible (TLB)

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As We Understand Him

My friend suggested what then seems a novel idea… “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.

I remember the times I looked up into the sky and reflected on who started it all, and how when I came to Celebrate Recovery, an understanding of some description of the spiritual dimension became a necessary adjunct to a stable sobriety. After reading a variety of versions, including the scientific, of the great explosion, I went for simplicity and made the God of my understanding the great power that made the explosion possible. With the vastness of the universe under his command, he would, no doubt, be able to guide my thinking and actions if I was prepared to accept his guidance. But I could not expect help if I turn my back on that help and when my own way. I became willing to believe and I have had 6 years of stable and satisfying sobriety.

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Constructive Sorrows

Bible reading: 2 Corinthians 7:8 – 11

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. (Steps  4 and 5)

“Happy are the pure in heart.”

We all have to deal with sorrow. We may try to stuff it down and ignore it. We may try to drown it or avoid feeling it by intellectualizing. But sorrow doesn’t go away. We need to accept the sorrow that will be a part of the inventory process.

Not all sorrow is bad for us. The apostle Paul had written a letter to the church in Corinth. It made them very sad because Paul was confronting them about something that they were doing wrong. At first, he was sorry that he had hurt them. But later he said, “Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain turned you to God. It was a good kind of sorrow you felt, the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have… For God sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek eternal life. We should never regret His sending it… Just see how much good this grief from the Lord did for you! You no longer shrug your shoulders, but became earnest and sincere, and very anxious to get rid of the sin.” (2 Corinthians 7:8 – 11)

Jeremiah said, “Although God gives… Grief, yet he will show compassion too, according to the greatness of his loving kindness. For he does not enjoy afflicting men and causing sorrow.” (Lamentations 3:32 – 33)

This grief was good, for it came from honest self-evaluation, not morbid self-condemnation. We can learn to accept their sorrow as a positive part of our recovery, not just as punishment.

Honest self-examination can lead us to a sorrow that inspires our growth.

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The God Idea

When we saw others solve the problems by simple reliance upon a Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.

Like a blind man gradually being restored to sight, I slowly groped my way to the Third Step. Having realized that only a Power greater than myself could rescue me from the hopeless abyss I was in, I knew that this was a Power that I had to grasp, and that it would be my anchor in the midst of the sea of woes. Even though my faith at the time was miniscule, it was big enough to make me see that it was time for me to discard my reliance on my prideful ego and replace it with a steady strength that could only come from a Power far greater than myself.

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Family Influence

Bible reading: Nehemiah 9:34 – 38

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. (Steps  4 and 5)

“Happy are the pure in heart.”

Our family of origin has had an influence on who we are today. Some of us want to pretend that our families were, or are, nearly perfect. Others of us may tend to avoid responsibility for our actions by blaming our families. Whatever the case, when we think about our own lives, we also need to deal with our families and the effects they have had on who we are today.

We’re told that the returned Jewish exiles “took turns confessing their own sins and those of their ancestors” (Nehemiah 9:3). They blame their ancestors for the captivity in the difficult situation they were  . They said, “they [our ancestors] refused to turn from their wickedness. So, now we are slaves here in the land of plenty that you gave to our ancestors!… And we serve them [conquering kings] at their pleasure and are in great misery” (Nehemiah 9:35 – 37).

It’s all right to admit the truth about what brought us into bondage. This might very well involve the wrongs committed by our parents and family. It’s all right to express our anger and regret over what’s been done to us. We have a right to hold others accountable and grieve over the negative effects they had on our lives. That is part of the real picture. It’s not all right to use this as an excuse for our wrong choices or for staying in bondage. They may be partly responsible for bringing us to this place. We’re responsible for moving on to a better place for ourselves and our children.

Past generations help create our present circumstances; our confessions can free us for a better future.

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The Keystone

He is the father, we are his children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.

A keystone is the wedge shaped piece at the highest part of an arch that locks the other pieces in place. The “other pieces” are steps one, two, and four through 12. In one sense this sounds like step three is the most important step, that the other 11 depend on the third for support. In reality however, step three is just one of the 12. It is the keystone, but without 11 other stones to build the base and arms, keystone or not, there will be no arch. Through daily working of all 12 steps, I find that triumphant arch waiting for me to pass through to another day of freedom.

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A World Of The Spirit

We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime.

The word “entered” and the phrase “entered into the world of the Spirit” are very significant they imply action, the beginning, getting into, a prerequisite to maintaining my spiritual growth, the “Spirit” being the immaterial part of me. Barriers to my spiritual growth our self-centeredness and the materialistic focus on worldly things. Spirituality means devotion to spiritual instead of worldly things, it means obedience to God’s will for me. I understand spiritual things to be: unconditional love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control and humility. Anytime I allow selfishness, dishonesty, resentments and fear to be a part of me, I block Spiritual things. As I maintain my sobriety, growing spiritually becomes a lifelong process. My goal is spiritual growth, accepting that I’ll never have spiritual perfection.

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Confession

Bible reading: Nehemiah 9:1 – 3

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. (Steps  4 and 5)

“Happy are the pure in heart.”

The heart of our moral inventory will probably deal with our destructive habits, defects of character, the wrongs we’ve done, the consequences that we now live with, and the hurt we’ve caused others. It’s like sifting through all the garbage. This part is painful, but a necessary part of throwing away those rotten habits and behaviors that are spoiling the rest of our lives.

The returned Jewish exiles are described as “confessing their own sins” (Nehemiah 9:3); this phrase speaks volumes. The word confessing means “to bemoan something by wringing of the hands” and also “to throw away”. The word sins means “offenses and their occasions”; it can also refer to habitual sinfulness and the consequences of such behavior.

This can serve as a model for us to follow. We can list the occasions of our offenses, our destructive habits, and the consequences were brought into our lives and the lives of others. Let’s also look at what was done within the process of “confessing their own sins”. They owned each part; they bemoaned each part; and then they threw it all away. Their inventory was a time of cleaning out the garbage. After this they were better able to make a new start.

In dealing with the garbage in our lives we can “own” it by taking personal responsibility for our choices and actions. We can "bemoan” it by allowing ourselves to grieve. We can “throw it away” by leaving it behind and turning towards the future.

Our time of confession should be a time of celebration.

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God's Standard

Bible Reading:  James 1:21-25

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. (Steps  4 and 5)

“Happy are the pure in heart.”

When making an inventory, some kind of list is usually used to help take stock of what’s on hand. If we lived our lives with dysfunctional influences, our idea of what “normal” probably won’t be a very good measuring stick for evaluating our lives. We’ll need another standard to help us take account of where we are.

The Jewish exiles who returned to Jerusalem had grown up in captivity. They started their inventory by finding a new standard. “The laws of God were read aloud to them for two or three hours, and for several more hours they took turns confessing their own sins" (Nehemiah 9:3).

The apostle Paul ridiculed the idea that we could measure our lives by the people around us. He said this of the Corinthian believers: “Their trouble is that they are only comparing themselves with each other, and measuring themselves against their own little ideas. What stupidity!… Our goal is to measure up to God’s plan for us" (2 Corinthians 10:12 – 13).

James wrote, “Humbly be glad for the wonderful message we have received, for it is able to save our souls… But if anyone keeps looking steadily into God’s law for free men, he will not only remember it, but he will do what it says, and God will greatly bless him in everything he does" (James 1:21 – 25).

In doing our moral inventory, we will get better results if we use God’s Word as a measuring stick. This should give the perspective we need as we seek to sort out our lives.

Our recovery involves coming to terms with ourselves as we really are.

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A Days Plan

On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead.  We consider our plans for the day.  Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.

Every day I ask God to kindle within me the fire of His love, so that love, burning bright and clear, will illuminate my thinking and permit me to better do His will.  Throughout the day, as I allow outside circumstances to dampen my spirits, I ask God to sear my consciousness with the awareness that I can start my day over any time I choose; a hundred times if necessary.

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