Step Four | Wayfarer

One person pretends to be rich, yet has nothing;
another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.
Proverbs 13:7 (NIV)

Looks can be deceiving.

It’s one of those basic truths that I find myself conveniently forgetting time and time and time again. That perfect image being broadcast for everyone to see on Facebook and Instagram hides the inner shambles of life. The billionaire turns out to be bankrupt. A child buries his poor, elderly parents and is shocked to find out from the estate attorney that they’ve had millions all along.

The amazing little town where we live in Iowa was founded by Dutch settlers. We celebrate the Dutch heritage to the point that visitors from the Netherlands regularly comment that we are “more Dutch than the Dutch.” If you do business in our town your building (even the fast food places and national retail chains) has to have what we call a “Dutch front” with decorative flourishes that fit in with the town’s Hollander motif. In some of the old buildings downtown, the cute Dutch front you see from the street might easily hide a ramshackle, interior mess desperately in need of updating and renovation. It’s not unlike a set on a stage that looks amazing from the audience but actually hides bare lumber on a hollow, dark backstage.

Over the years, the concept of “Dutch front” has taken on a deeper metaphorical meaning for me. Religion regularly puts forth a false exterior of purity, piety, and self-righteousness for the world to see, while the interior life hides all sorts of dark desires, appetites, thoughts, and deeds. It is the same thing Jesus addressed with the religious leaders and teachers (part of a religious faction called the Pharisees):

“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.

“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.
Matthew 23:25-28 (MSG)

In the quiet this morning, I’m finding it hard to look at the spec of dust in the Pharisee’s eye and ignore the log in my own. The truth is that I can be just as guilty of wanting to be seen by others in the best light while keeping my flaws, faults, failures, and foibles conspicuously hidden.

As I walk the spiritual path of the season of Lent, one of the key practices to which I’m called is honest introspection. For non-believers or the non-religious, it’s basically the same thing as Step Four of the Twelve Steps: made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

And so, I find myself desiring this morning to be authentic in how I present myself to the world. I don’t want to hide behind a facade of piety (projecting false spiritual wealth to the world while I’m actually struggling because my spiritual reserve account is overdrawn), nor do I want to hide behind a facade of false humility (projecting to the world that I’m spiritually destitute while having a spiritual inheritance as a child of the Creator). To be honest, I’m not always sure where that balance is, but I know it starts with me being authentic in how I present myself whether it be in my work, my neighborhood, my relationships, my social media posts, these blog posts, or among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers.

The prayer that is welling up in my spirit this morning is actually a show tune. Here’s the YouTube for you. (Shout out to our friend Brystal for inspiring us with this. Your message that morning still resonates!)

Todays featured photo courtesy of ucffool via Flickr.

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.
2 Corinthians 13:5a (NIV)

I have basically gone to the same family doctor since I was twelve years old and he pulled a big chunk of a splintered, wooden skateboard out of my left thigh. He’s treated my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, and me for almost 40 years. He’s what I call an “old world doc.” He’s a great diagnostician, he takes the time to listen, and he’s a straight shooter to the point of being uncomfortably blunt.

As I grew up, Doc taught me a lot about self-examination relative to my own health. He taught me that a man’s periodic self-examination for testicular cancer was every bit as important as women doing a self-examination for breast cancer. As I developed a number of moles on my body he took the time to teach me what to be wary of with the regard to skin cancer and encouraged me to pay attention to moles and spots as they appeared over the years. Based on my family history, he would grill me on warning signs for different things that run in the family. He told me of symptoms I didn’t have to worry about and the things I should definitely be worried about if I noticed them.

We all know that self-examination is important to our physical health. We want to catch small problems before they become big ones. In today’s chapter Paul reminds the followers of Jesus in Corinth that spiritual self-examination is critical, as well. I believe it has eternal consequences. Step Four of the Twelve Steps is that we “made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

Along life’s journey I’ve attended a host of Twelve Step groups and meetings, and I noticed that it is quite common to stall out after Step Three. Self examination was a foreign spiritual (or moral) concept to me at first. It was scary, awkward, and uncomfortable. Searching myself fearlessly and making a thorough moral inventory felt like a lot of work and I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit to or deal with what I might find.

A self-examination of my skin might reveal a fast growing, oddly shaped growth than could indicate a more serious issue with cancer. Testing it, I might not like the blunt news from Doc, but addressing it quickly and early might stave off a premature death. In the same way, I found that a searching and fearless self-examination of the soul leads me to honest conversation, wise counsel, and to addressing relational and behavioral issues that just might stave off both spiritual and relational death.

This morning I did a search for “Step Four Questions” in my favorite browser and I quickly found a host of different lists of questions for adolescents, adults, and Twelve Step groups of different varieties. There is no one magic list. It’s relatively easy for me to pull one up and dive right in.

This morning I’m remembering starting down the path of Step Four for the first time. It was scary, awkward, and uncomfortable when I embarked on the process of writing my answers to the host of questions that had been given to me. What I discovered what that those questions led me to healthy, life-giving places. I’ve never regretted learning the process of self-examination.