The James Recovery Journey

Faith-Empowered Bible Verses That Can Help Support Recovery and Life Transformation

STEP 4 – Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

---

James 4:8-10  – Draw Near to God by Searching Myself to Tears?

---

⁸ Come close to God and He will come close to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you ^[a]double-minded. ⁹ Be miserable, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

James 4:8-10 New American Standard Bible

---

After three Steps of growth in our relationship with our creator, the time to grow the relationship has come.  That is the basic idea in the Fourth Step.  The passage in James 4:8 starts by saying, “Come close to God, and He will come close to you.” Then it expands on James’ expression of what that means next.  The ideas are connected and are a part of the same thought.

Drawing nearer to God is synonymous with the idea of a spiritual cleansing yourself. The calling of all of us “sinners” and “double-minded” is strong language but is also a clue about two critical areas we are to focus on cleansing.

One area of our lives is the things that are just wrong. To have “wrong,” some standard must declare what is right and wrong. If we use our own standards of right and wrong, we fall back into relying on ourselves and our own judgment, which is when our reliance on God has officially ended.

When we rely on what we are comfortable with and our individual moral standards, our reliance on God has officially ended.

If we are going to turn our life and our will over to God, then the standards of right and wrong must also be turned over to God.  God determines what is right and what is wrong, period. If not, you are still working on Step Three in the Twelve Step process.

What about outside of the Twelve Step methodology? In a strictly faith journey-based mindset, it is not “Step Three” you are on. It is simply a somehow lesser relationship with God. The fact that James is describing how to “come close to God” implies the assumption of some level of distance that can be lessened by whatever he says next. Even without the Twelve Step recovery journey, this is fundamental to a faith journey.

The standard of cleansing must be cleansing of what God thinks should have been or should be different. If not, you have not turned your life and will over to God. That is not to say that you do not have some level of commitment or faith at all, but the implications of turning your will and life over to God is that whatever He wants and however He wants it done by you is turned over too. That is how it is done.

In Twelve Step terms, I defer back to the document that is the source document for all things Twelve Step. The Alcoholics Anonymous book. The start of the Step Four is a prayer:

Offering myself – Starting the Fourth Step in Prayer

In Twelve Step terms, I defer back to the document that is the source document for all things Twelve Step. The Alcoholics Anonymous book. The start of the Step Four is a prayer:

“God, I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!”

Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 63

As you review this prayer, it is wholly focused on the point of the process up to the end. Steps One through Three were focused entirely on the faith in God that requires a release of reliance on yourself. That complete faith opens the flow of power from God that he always wanted to give you, but your self-reliant faith in yourself as your lord and savior was an obstacle. You have accomplished that faith in theory, but it is only a theory until it is tested. If you have that complete faith and trust in God and have released your self-focus, then this action of complete confidence in His directions as guidelines for life will be an obvious extension of that new mindset.

If not, you still have some trusting in God and releasing of faith in your own power to do. It is as simple as that.

That is why this prayer is here. Not only is this Step an extension of that faith, but it is a test of what that means and is a process that will strengthen it as you push through. Another significant aspect of this Step is the beginning of a cleansing of many results of a life centered on self-focus that directly opposes God. Those are more reasons why the flow of God is, from our perspective, blocked. Because as it says in James 4:6, “…God is opposed to the Proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Fighting With God is a Terrible Plan for Recovery!

I assure you that if He is in a position of being opposed to you, the flow of positive power He is sending your way is, at best, limited. Bluntly put, “Fighting with God, even if unintentionally, is not the most efficient recovery plan!”

This prayer to start the Fourth Step is just a launch point for this step. If you plug in a lamp, it has the power, but you will have to turn it on, and in some instances, it needs a light bulb put in before you turn it on.

Thinking Hard About Complete Surrender

After you pray, you have a task to ensure you are at that level of commitment before going on.

Then the Twelve Step folks went on to say:

We thought well before taking this step, making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to Him.

Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 63

If not, that is fine; you have more Steps One through Three work that has to be done to get there. Are you willing to do that searching of yourself that will be so hard you will “weep” and “mourn,” and your laughter will be turned to tears?

Are You Fully Willing Be Miserable, Weep and Mourn, and Turn Your Laughter to Tears to get Recovery?

---

---