Text: James 1:23-25
The battle is already underway. The flowers are just beginning to bloom, but already they are under attack. Hordes of grass armies and weed invaders have begun the reconnoitering action. A few more warm days and the invaders will put up a full scale assault. Weeds will entangle the chrysanthemums. Grass with choke the peonies. The monkey grass will completely cover the flower bed. I am the only line of defense.
I am not a really farmer, but I am the son of a farmer and the grandson of a farmer. My grandfather grew cotton on his small farm to make a living. After that he grew peas and beans and sold them in town out of the back of his pick-up truck. My father worked in the paper mill, but never failed to have a serious garden. He still insists on a large garden each year, even though he is almost 83 now.
Somehow, I did not inherit their love of growing plants. The truth is my wife does 98% of the work in the flower bed. But I do know enough about farming and gardening to know that they require constant vigilance. I probably don't garden today because I spent many a summer day as a youth with a hoe in my hand.
One thing I know is that the weeds and grass put the row crops under constant attack. Battle imagery really does describe the process of growing the plants I want and killing the plants I don't want.
I saw a movie last spring whose title seemed to have nothing to do with the plot of the movie - "The Constant Gardener." The title fits my idea of any garden. It takes constant work to keep the whole thing from returning to its natural state of weeds and grass.
The same thing is true in our lives. We have to be a constant gardener to grow the positive behaviors that lead to a happy life and keep out the old habits and addictions that will destroy us.
We have been studying the Twelve Steps to Recovery. So let me review the steps we have covered so far.
1) We admitted we were powerless over the effects of our separation from God and that our lives had become unmanageable.
2) We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3) We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
4) We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5) We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6) We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7) We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8) We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9) We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
And now I turn to Step Ten which says, "Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it."
Steps One through Nine seem to be the heart of the recovery program. But Step Ten moves us to making the Twelve Steps a way of life. It is not enough to run through the steps once. We have to be constant gardeners to keep the old habits from coming back and taking over our lives.
Relapse is a common word in recovery circles. There is evidence that approximately 90 percent of alcoholics are likely to experience at least one relapse over the 4-year period following treatment. Everybody knows somebody who made an attempt to shake off their addictions, but later succumbed to the old temptations and were soon right back where they were. In chemical dependency, relapse is the act of taking that first drink or drug after being deliberately clean and sober for a time. My friends at WestCare say that we should not be surprised when relapse occurs.
We seek progress not perfection. Perfection does not come overnight, if ever. The best we can hope for is progress, and we should celebrate when progress occurs. If we mistakenly aim too soon at perfection, we will quickly be defeated.
Progress is enough. So how do we learn to make progress. People who have relapsed can usually point back to certain things that they thought and did long before they actually drank or used that eventually caused the relapse.
People in recovery learn to identify the warning signs that may lead to a lapse in their abstinence and take positive steps to stay clean and sober. The quicker they learn to spot these signs and signals, the sooner they can take positive action for their own well-being and recovery.
Staying clean and sober is an ongoing process. Abstinence and dealing positively with life go hand in hand. Recovery members build a personal inventory of recovery tools that help them meet these goals by staying involved in the process of recovery. People in recovery make sure to use some of their recovery tools each and every day. Their personal recovery tool kit serves as the best protection against a relapse.
By identifying things that put us at risk for relapse and using the various recovery tools on an ongoing basis, we try to prevent a relapse before it happens. By becoming familiar with our triggers and warning signs, utilizing the various recovery tools, and having a practical plan of action, we greatly minimize the tendency to lapse back into our addictions.
Step Ten leads us to take a constant inventory so that we can see the signs that could lead to relapse. This inventory can be a spot-check inventory, a daily inventory or a long-term inventory. Several times a day we may do a spot-check to see how we are handling ourselves. Once a day, we are to stop everything and reflect on the status of our recovery. And occasionally we need to take a small retreat to spend time evaluating our progress.
First, we need to do a spot-check inventory several times a day. 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 says, "So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it."
Perhaps many of us have memorized that verse about no testing beyond our strength. What a wonderful verse of encouragement to us all. God will provide a way out so that we can pass the tests and resist the temptations. But I want to focus on the first part of that quote - "If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall."
So much of life is a matter of balance, and balance must be under constant surveillance. Imagine walking on a brick wall, teetering back and forth with your arms outstretched. Even a moment's inattention and we will fall from our precarious perch. Such balance requires our unwavering attention.
In the same way, we have to check the balance of our lives frequently throughout the day. This spot-check may reveal that we are feeling overconfident. We may think we are standing without the need of support. That is the time to double-check our balance to make sure we do not fall into addiction again.
Secondly, we need to take a daily inventory. The writer of the book of James suggests the symbolism of looking in a mirror to take personal inventory. He points out that sometimes we look at ourselves but take no corrective action. James 1:23-25 says, "For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like."
Every day we have to take a good look in the mirror. Men look in the mirror every morning to shave. The older I get the more frequently I cut my nose when shaving. A loose triple-edged razor is a dangerous instrument in the unsteady hands of old age. Of course, some of us don't have to look in the mirror to comb our hair!
Women seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in front of a mirror, but then they have more work to do there! They have to "do" their hair. They have to carefully apply their make-up, and who knows what else?
Imagine looking carefully in the mirror, as James suggests, seeing that our hair is askew or that we still need to shave, and then promptly walking away forgetting what we look like! No, the daily look in the mirror gives us the occasion to make corrections, to improve our looks, and to improve our lives.
One recovering man told me that he had trouble making himself take this daily inventory, spending time talking to God in prayer about his recovery. He finally decided that a ritual before going to sleep would help. Each night when he took off his shoes, he put the shoes far up under the bed. That way, when he wanted to retrieve his shoes in the morning, he had to get on his knees and reach under the bed for them. And while he was there on his knees, he would remind himself to pray and take his daily inventory.
A daily inventory may reveal that we have been ignoring relapse warning signs and triggers. We may find ourselves feeling overwhelmed, confused or stressed out. We may find a constant boredom or lack of structure in our lives which could trigger our addiction. We may find ourselves hanging around old drinking haunts and drug-using friends. Someone has said, "If you don't want to slip, stay out of slippery places!" That's good advice.
Finally, we need to take a long-term inventory. Romans 12:3 says, "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."
Once again the Bible contains great advice - "not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment…" Sober judgment about ourselves comes from a serious time of reflection on the direction of our lives. This may involve a retreat away from everybody and everything. It may be a couple of days spent alone with God in prayer in deep evaluation of our lives.
In such a long-term inventory, we may find that we are isolating ourselves, not attending meetings, and not reaching out to others for support. We may find that we are setting unrealistic goals for ourselves, tending to perfectionism. We may find ourselves still dwelling on resentments and past hurts, angers and unresolved conflicts.
Taking inventory is a time for a change, for a course correction. Step Ten says, "When we were wrong, we promptly admitted it."
Recovery is like a long sailboat journey. In a long journey by ship, even a few degrees off the compass course can result in arriving far wide of the mark. Can you imagine looking at the charts and discovering that you are off course, and then doing nothing about it? Constant course corrections are the only way to arrive at the desired harbor.
On a sailboat the sailor has to constantly tend the tiller or wheel because every wave can cause a course change. I compare this to the spot check inventory. Then occasionally the sailor looks at the compass heading to make sure the boat hasn't drifted off course. I compare this to the daily inventory. And periodically the sailor will go below and look at the charts, plotting the course taken, the ground made good, and determining the course to steer to achieve the desired harbor. This I compare to the long-term inventory.
The same is true in our lives. We must constantly be tending the wheel. Every day we need to check our compass. And occasionally, we must take the long look. We must tweak our lives, change our course in order to arrive at our goal of recovery.
Back to terms of our gardening analogy, working the Twelve Steps must become as routine as hoeing the garden. We have to regularly rid ourselves of the weeds, or they will take over again. Growing a fine crop of positive character traits requires that we be constant gardeners.