Practicing a Daily Inventory

 

Step Ten says, "We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."

This is what is sometimes called a maintenance Step. We practice it regularly in order to continue to maintain our sobriety and grow spiritually.

We often practice this Step toward the end of each day. We carefully review the day and see where we may have made mistakes, been operating in our character defects, or offended in some way.

In many Christian traditions there is a similar practice. We examine our hearts regularly to see if there were times when we felt guilty, spiritually dry, desolate and disconnected from God. And we also revisit those times when we felt gratitude, joy, peace and flourishing, and give thanks.

The purpose of these exercises is to move away from those things that bring us spiritual dryness and press into those activities that lead to spiritual flourishing. We walk away from sin and into righteousness. We step out of the dark and into the light.

It is much like household cleaning. If we take a few minutes each day to tidy up, do dishes, take out the trash, wipe counters and so on, things tend to stay clean for the most part, and weekly chores are not so time consuming. But if we let those little things go each day, soon the dishes and trash pile up, the table and counters get grimy and it becomes more and more challenging to get things clean. At some point it becomes easier for us to just let things stay dirty, it just becomes too much trouble to clean, and we can end up living in a mess.

Letting things in our hearts become dirty is that much easier to do, since many of us never think about it anyway. If we have let uncleanness build up in our hearts, it can take significant time and effort to get things clean once more. This is why once we make a full confession and repentance, we want to continue with the daily inventory, tidying up our hearts and minds every day.

As believers in Jesus Christ we have the Holy Spirit to help us in this process.  If we are listening to his still, small voice we will find that he will let us know when we are straying away from the path of righteousness and will lead us into those opportunities where we can most effectively serve the Lord.  He will bring conviction when we have sinned and will help us to grow and bring forth spiritual fruit.

A verse that I pray nearly every day is, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23-24) Then I pause, breathe and listen for any leading from the Holy Spirit. He often brings to minds situations and events where I have sinned or fallen short in some way.

When I become aware of any sin, I renounce, reject and repent of any desire for that sin, along with any other sins that I know are more problematic for me. I have a list of character defects: pride, selfishness, apathy and so on that are challenges for me and try to think through if I have had any issues with those recently.

My goal is to stay in communion with God throughout the day. If there are any thoughts, actions or situations that disturb that communion, I want to take stock of that, confess it, forsake it and restore that relationship as soon as possible.

Journaling has been a valuable tool for doing daily inventories. I reflect on the previous day and recall the good and the bad. Writing helps me to think and to focus. It can help me to process through any times of trouble and plan to deal with situations in the future. Especially when I was acting out on a regular basis, I could think through each event, examine the steps and events leading up to it, and plan for how to deal with the triggers and emotional challenges in a healthy way in the future.

We should be keeping short accounts with God. If we have sinned, it should never take more than 24 hours for us to come clean, confess and repent it. Our connection with God is our only hope for sobriety and a healthy, flourishing life. We should be paying attention to anything that would potentially bring distance and coldness to that relationship.

Being rigorously honest with ourselves and with God is essential for this daily inventory to be successful.  We cannot skip or gloss over issues and think that we will have a successful recovery or relationship with God.  God already knows all of our faults and failures, there is no sense in hiding them. If we want our hearts to be healed, we must open them up to God, humble ourselves and be vulnerable. Allow him to search every hidden part of our inner self, and confess and forsake every unclean thing he may find.

The longer we are in recovery and the longer we walk with God, the easier these sorts of daily reviews will be.  For most of my life I was confessing some sort of sinful lust nearly every day. After many years of working and abstaining from porn, there are many more days of peace and clarity than otherwise. I am grateful for the work of the grace of God in that. In order to have a heart filled with peace, we must have a heart clean from sin and every unclean thing a daily inventory will help us get there.

A daily inventory is a regular, periodic touchstone, alongside this, or overlapping with it is this idea of mindfulness, we will dig into that next time.

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