For the past 12 years, I have had the awesome privilege of serving as the ministry director of Trading Ford Baptist Church’s Celebrate Recovery Ministry.  Though most people think Celebrate Recovery (CR) is about addiction, it is really about any kind of hurt, habit, or hang-up—grief, divorce, codependency, sexual abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism, food addiction, sexual addiction, drug addiction, social media addiction, etc.

One of the foundational principles of CR is to take a daily moral inventory. We even have a form that we use to check up on ourselves. As a part of my new effort to set aside time each evening for vespers, I have added my daily moral inventory to my evening routine. What an eye-opening experience! It is very sobering to reflect on my attitudes and behaviors during the day and realize that I have been impatient, self-righteous, intolerant, just downright unchristian in my ways.

Taking a daily moral inventory is not fun—but it is rewarding. One of the goals of working a 12-step program is to deal with the past, take out the emotional and spiritual garbage, and then live for the most part in the last three steps. It’s sort of like cleaning house—if you clean it up well and then keep it clean, it is very pleasant to live there. Let it get a wreck again, though, and you need to start over. That’s the way with 12-step work. Take a daily moral inventory and then deal with your trash every day. That way, no unforgiveness or bitterness has a chance to build up again because of unsaid “I’m sorry’s” or “I forgive you” or “I love you.”

In case you are unfamiliar with the 12 steps and their biblical comparisons, you may want to check out https://www.celebraterecovery.com/resources/cr-tools/12steps.  I have included below the last three steps:

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 Cor. 10:12)
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God praying only for knowledge of His will for us and power to carry it out. “Let the message of Christ dwell in your richly.”( Col. 3:16)
12. Having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs. “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.” (Gal. 6:1)

Being honest with ourselves and others is not easy. That’s the reason many of us end up in trouble—we live in denial failing to face the truth about ourselves. Taking inventory daily is one way of ensuring that we are living a true Christian lifestyle and not being a hypocrite.

One evening recently, I did my inventory and realized that I needed to make amends to someone at church. I had told her the truth—but not gently. I had become self-righteous and condescending—a hypocrite.

On another day I took my inventory and reflected on my day. I remembered that I had taken my two granddaughters with me on a shopping trip. What could have been a fun day turned out to be less than that because I became impatient, perfectionistic, and complaining—not much fun to be around. I knew immediately that I needed to make amends to them as well.

Finally, on another day, I had a dispute with one of my sons, and he hurt my feelings with his angry words. I needed to forgive him but I also needed to deal with the source of our conflict which I did the following day.

What about you? Taken a moral inventory lately? If you’d like to, just google “forms for taking a daily moral inventory” or check out Pinterest. There are many out there.

Interested in attending a Celebrate Recovery meeting? Check out the website below for a list of locations by city and state: https://www.celebraterecovery.com/crgroups

It’s a wonderful ministry that can change your life through the transforming power of Jesus Christ!