Step 10 – Growing in Faith and Recovery

Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Philippians 3:12

I ran a distance race last fall, for which I had trained for months. After, I rewarded myself by eating whatever I wanted and by not running . . . for a long time. I just ran a marathon! I used the accomplishment to justify my gluttony for the next month. Ten pounds later, I accepted that unless obesity was my new goal, I couldn’t just sit around for the rest of my life celebrating that one time I ran the marathon.

With physical fitness, I either work at maintaining/improving, or I naturally gain weight and lose ability. I cannot do nothing and expect to avoid the decay that comes naturally. This is a near-perfect analogy for spiritual growth. I may have decided once to follow God, but if I just sit back and do nothing now, I will not naturally live the life of faith and recovery.

Doing nothing just effortlessly leads me back to following my way, which leads inevitably back to addictive, destructive behavior. If I want a different life, I must daily pursue it. Step ten insists that to do this, I must daily examine myself, being brutally honest about my successes and failures. Where did I go wrong yesterday? Did I indulge in my anger, pride, or selfishness? What did I do right? What must I work on today?

We know we won’t be perfect in this life, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep working at growth. The apostle Paul said this in today’s passage. I’m not perfect, but I want to be better, so I continually work at becoming more like Christ. Similarly, AA says that we expect spiritual progress, not perfection. Stagnation and complacency lead inevitably back to the old life. If we want to keep growing – and we absolutely need to keep growing – we must admit our mistakes and commit to continual transformation.

Step ten isn’t just for the addict. This is the Christian life. Jesus taught that to be his disciple, we must daily abandon our way for his. This is spiritual growth. This is recovery from the old life.