“Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” Lamentations 3:40

CR Principle 4: Openly examine and confess my faults to myself, to God, and to someone I trust. Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory or ourselves. Step 5: We admitted to God, ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Step 4 written for survivors of Sexual/Physical/Emotional Abuse: Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, realizing all wrongs can be forgiven. Renounce the lie that the abuse was our fault. Step 5 written for survivors of Sexual/Physical/Emotional Abuse: Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of the wrongs in our lives. This will include those acts perpetrated against us as well as those wrongs we perpetrated against others. “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” Lamentations 3:40 CR at Crossroads is currently focused on Steps 4 and 5, the coming clean steps. I don’t know about you but there was a time that I had a lot of secrets and I wasn’t about to share them with anyone; pride, fear, resentment and shame ruled the day and I couldn’t run away fast enough.   If your best solution is to escape (there are a lot of ways to escape besides abusing alcohol and drugs), run away, deny, minimize and blame; well the outcome isn’t too hard to predict. The crash is coming; it’s just a matter of when you hit your bottom. It wasn’t until I did my first Celebrate Recovery inventory that I learned some valuable insights that were different from my secular 12 step inventories. A CR Step 4 inventory is comprehensive. We spend about 2 months in our 12 step groups examining and writing out our inventories; examining our relationships, priorities, attitudes, integrity, mind, body, family, and church. Once our inventories are completed we prepare to confess them in Step 5. Why confess? It’s about being healed. James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” The verse doesn’t say “so you may be saved”, you already are; this is about letting go of the power that secrets have over you and the invitation it gives to the enemy. It’s about freedom and forgiveness. The second difference about CR inventories is that they are balanced. Even though we may come into recovery feeling like we have done everything wrong you will find some good things in your inventory as well.  We list new and positive relationships we are developing, the breaking through of denial as God’s truth is revealed, new attitudes, a new life. God doesn’t make junk, we are His Masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, then try something new. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Check out Celebrate Recovery on Friday nights and experience healing from your hurts, habits, and hang-up’s. “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.” Romans 3:23-24 God loves you; Jesus died for you; His Spirit lives in you! Say “yes” to Jesus and live Love! Dana Cramer // Celebrate Recovery at Crossroads Church