Step 4 Prayer: Before, During and After Your Inventory
A Step 4 prayer asks God to help you see yourself honestly while you write your inventory, and to give you courage to look at your own part. The book doesn’t print a single fourth-step prayer. Instead it builds prayer into the work itself, especially for resentments. The prayers below are our own, written for different moments in the process.
Before you start writing
Lord, I’m about to look at things I’ve avoided for years.
Look through my heart with me and show me what is true.
Keep me from hiding the hard parts, and keep me from beating myself up over them.
Help me write honestly, one entry at a time.
I’m not doing this to punish myself. I’m doing it to get free.
Stay with me while I write.
Amen.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
For a resentment that won’t let go
The book suggests a specific way to pray about the people you resent (p. 67, 4th edition): ask God to help you see them as spiritually sick, and to give you the same patience you’d give a sick friend. Here is a version of that in prayer form.
God, I’m angry at (name). What they did hurt me.
But this anger is hurting me more now than they are.
Help me see that they may be sick in their spirit, the way I’ve been sick in mine.
Give me patience with them that I wouldn’t think to give on my own.
Show me my part in this, if I had one.
And bless them. I don’t feel like saying that, but I’m saying it.
Amen.
Pray this for the same person every day for two weeks. Many people are surprised by what changes.
When fear comes up
Fear is the second big list in Step 4. Many fears turn out to rest on the idea that everything depends on you.
Father, I’m afraid of (name the fear).
I’ve been carrying this as if it’s mine alone to handle.
Show me where I’ve trusted myself instead of you.
Give me courage for what’s in front of me today. Amen.
When you’ve finished
Thank you, Lord. It’s on paper now.
Some of it was hard to see. Thank you for not leaving me alone with it.
Now give me the courage to say it out loud to another person.
Show me who that should be, and help me set the date.
Amen.
A word about shame
If you hit a page that leaves you feeling worthless, stop and pray before you go on. The inventory is meant to clear out what’s spoiled, not to convince you that you are spoiled. The verse the app pairs with Step 4, Lamentations 3:40, sits inside a chapter about God’s mercy, not his anger.
Today
- Pray the first prayer, then write three names on your resentment list. Only column one.
- Pick the hardest name and start praying the resentment prayer for that person tonight.
- Read pp. 64–67 in your own copy if you haven’t yet.
The Step 4 page explains how the inventory works, and the Step 4 questions help you through it.
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