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April 2 – Rooted, Not Needy · The Daily Ripples Podcast

0:02
Pastor Mike: Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
0:05
Pastor Mike: Today is April the 2nd.
0:08
Pastor Mike: I believe it's still a Thursday today, and it is also in the Christian tradition Maundy Thursday.
0:15
Pastor Mike: So if anyone is going to a communion service this evening, I wish you the best and may your spirit be filled as we look to head into Good Friday tomorrow.
0:26
Pastor Mike: But in terms of the Daily Ripples podcast, what we're actually here for, I'll say that this is where faith and recovery meet, right there in the middle.
0:35
Pastor Mike: We take a stone of truth from some daily materials written in the recovery community and then ripple that out into practical and spiritual ripples because all these little actions that we take, God forms strength of character and renewal in us over time.
0:52
Pastor Mike: So with that, I've got with me now, as always, my faithful co-host, Corey.
0:58
Pastor Mike: And Corey, let's just jump right in and have you read this one today, and then we'll get started.
1:02
Pastor Mike: How about that?
1:03
Corey: That works.
1:05
Corey: The Stone.
1:06
Corey: Oh, the topic is rooted, not needy.
1:09
Corey: The Stone.
1:10
Corey: When I demand too much from others, approval, reassurance, constant affirmation, I place weight on them they were never meant to carry.
1:19
Corey: Character grows when I stop seeking validation as oxygen.
1:24
Corey: Ripple 1. Practical.
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Corey: Today I will speak honestly instead of strategically.
1:29
Corey: I will not twist myself to win approval or avoid disapproval.
1:33
Corey: I will act with integrity even if it costs applause.
1:38
Corey: My responsibility is faithfulness, not popularity.
1:42
Corey: Ripple 2. Spiritual.
1:44
Corey: When I anchor my identity in Christ instead of in others' opinion,
1:48
Corey: He forms stability in me.
1:50
Corey: The hunger for constant affirmation begins to loosen.
1:53
Corey: Over time, character replaces performance,
1:56
Corey: and I learn to live secure in the love that does not fluctuate.
2:02
Corey: What do you think about that, Pastor Mike?
2:04
Pastor Mike: Well, the first thing that comes to mind for me is that part about being stable,
2:13
Pastor Mike: the stability that it talks about, you know, that when I anchor my identity in Christ,
2:17
Pastor Mike: you know, instead of others' opinions, he forms stability in me. You know, for me, that's one of
2:22
Pastor Mike: those things I would say is definitely a work in progress. Now, that's what I would say about myself,
2:29
Pastor Mike: right, that it's definitely a work in progress, that I still have to not twist myself to win
2:34
Pastor Mike: approval and avoid disapproval, as the practical Ripple said. But I find myself at times, and maybe
2:41
Pastor Mike: it's because of my addictive mentality, you know, because I can get, we can get addicted to the
2:47
Pastor Mike: of others too, you know, especially if it's positive feedback. But I can go down that loop
2:54
Pastor Mike: of even though I'll be the model or the picture of humility and speaking to others and, you know,
3:02
Pastor Mike: acting as though, oh, I don't need the approval or I don't need the accolades or the praise.
3:09
Pastor Mike: If I get too much of those things, you know, for me, that's a little dangerous because I can start
3:13
Pastor Mike: to believe, you know, believe my own hype, you know, as it were. And that's the first place my
3:19
Pastor Mike: mind goes is that, yeah, I have to be rooted. But the irony is that other people always describe me
3:24
Pastor Mike: as being stable. But there are times when I just, I don't feel as stable, if that makes sense at all.
3:30
Corey: Makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, I'm always, you know, I think the big book talks about
3:36
Corey: this. It says,
3:40
Corey: something about
3:40
Corey: criticizing others, but always
3:42
Corey: hard on myself.
3:45
Corey: Anyways, we'll get
3:46
Corey: back to that. But when I
3:48
Corey: read, and this was important to me,
3:50
Corey: character grows when I stop seeking
3:52
Corey: validation as oxygen.
3:54
Corey: Right. And
3:56
Corey: I got this long prayer
3:58
Corey: tattooed on my back, and that's the
4:00
Corey: St. Francis prayer.
4:02
Corey: I'm not going to take up everybody's time
4:04
Corey: just reading the whole thing, but
4:05
Corey: But there's some pieces that—
4:07
Pastor Mike: Well, I want to challenge you on that, though, because I think sometimes we mention these prayers,
4:11
Pastor Mike: and even people that have been in recovery a long time, they've heard reference to the St. Francis prayer so many times,
4:18
Pastor Mike: but it might have been a long time or not, if ever, that they actually associate what is the St. Francis prayer.
4:24
Pastor Mike: So I think it might be a good idea to go ahead and lay it out on us, Corey.
4:28
Corey: All right, I'll read it.
4:29
Corey: It's on page 99 in the 12 Steps and 12 Tradition of the Alcoholics Anonymous book.
4:35
Corey: But it says,
5:04
Corey: Or grant that I may seek rather than to comfort, than to be comforted.
5:08
Corey: To understand, than to be understood.
5:11
Corey: To love, than to be loved.
5:13
Corey: For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
5:17
Corey: It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
5:19
Corey: And it is by dying that one awaits to eternal life.
5:23
Corey: Amen.
5:25
Corey: Now, when I was reading this, character grows when I stop seeking validation as oxygen.
5:33
Corey: And I've gone into some tough conversations at different points in my life when I was really thinking about this.
5:42
Corey: I was told, especially this really tough conversation I went into with a very close person to me.
5:50
Corey: I said, man, what do I do before this?
5:52
Corey: And I got a text message back from our friend Bill.
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Corey: And he said these words.
5:57
Corey: He said, well, maybe say a prayer like, Lord, grant that I may rather to comfort than to be comforted.
6:02
Corey: Right.
6:03
Corey: And, you know, to understand and to be understood.
6:07
Corey: And so, because, man, you know, we've talked about this before, and I don't think anybody in the world is closer to God.
6:15
Corey: But it's my perspective.
6:16
Corey: And when I say these prayers, it brings me back into perspective of what and who I'm trying to be and where I'm trying to go.
6:25
Corey: So when I bring these thoughts into my head and I'm like, hey, maybe I don't need to be understood.
6:30
Corey: Maybe I want to understand them.
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Corey: Maybe I don't want validation.
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Corey: Maybe I need to validate them.
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Corey: So help me show love and then to be loved.
6:39
Corey: And when I start getting on that mindset, I start loving a lot more instead of just wanting
6:45
Corey: validation within myself.
6:47
Pastor Mike: I think that's exactly right.
6:50
Pastor Mike: And who it makes me think of, you know, as we're talking around these issues and around
6:55
Pastor Mike: this, you know, daily ripple for today, especially, is I go all the way back and I think of the
7:01
Pastor Mike: Apostle Paul in Scripture, right?
7:04
Pastor Mike: Because he talked a lot about emptying himself so that, you know, Christ could work through
7:09
Pastor Mike: him.
7:09
Pastor Mike: And he wrote a lot, you know, to the churches, you know, the earliest churches, you know,
7:15
Pastor Mike: after, you know, Christ's death and resurrection and ascension, he wrote to the earliest churches
7:20
Pastor Mike: a lot.
7:20
Pastor Mike: And he talked about, you know, himself getting out of the way so that people could only see Jesus in him.
7:26
Pastor Mike: And he talked about, you know, I think Paul might have been, you know, one of us back then.
7:31
Pastor Mike: You know, he may not have been addicted to anything.
7:33
Pastor Mike: But in terms of that, that that stinking thinking, you know, prior to his Damascus Road experience, you know, he probably had a lot of ego and pride, I would say, at the very least.
7:42
Pastor Mike: And I think that shines through Scripture, you know, like like like a ray, as it were.
7:47
Pastor Mike: But he talks specifically in the first chapter of his letter to the Galatians, the 10th verse,
7:53
Pastor Mike: you know, he wrote, you know, am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God?
7:58
Pastor Mike: Or am I trying to please people?
8:00
Pastor Mike: If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
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Pastor Mike: So in other words, for him, and I think the wisdom is there for all of us, is that I'm
8:09
Pastor Mike: serving one of two.
8:10
Pastor Mike: I'm either serving myself or I'm serving others.
8:13
Pastor Mike: And Scripture tells me time and time again, when I'm serving others, I'm actually serving my higher power as well.
8:18
Pastor Mike: Or in other words, I am following the design for living that God has for each of us.
8:24
Pastor Mike: Because our design for living, or God's plan, you might say, for us, is to be operating out of that place of love.
8:32
Pastor Mike: And all of the things you were just talking about, about serving others, all comes back to operating out of a place of love.
8:38
Pastor Mike: And even that full St. Francis prayer that you read, which is a beautiful prayer, but it's about all of those things that we do that we're praying that we can basically be a better, as a pastor friend of mine always likes to say, be a better protege of Jesus is kind of the word that he uses, or somebody who tries to model our lives after the life of the one who came and quite frankly showed us how it's supposed to be done.
9:07
Corey: We talk a lot about service, and I talk tremendously about service because it's so important to me and my wife.
9:14
Corey: And for people that are listening that might not know the big book of Alcox Anonymous enough a lot,
9:21
Corey: but everything is in order in the book.
9:24
Corey: And it's, you know, pages go, you read left to right, page numbers go one to a hundred.
9:32
Corey: But the steps are also in order in the book.
9:35
Corey: For a reason, absolutely.
9:37
Corey: for a reason. And I think it's a very interesting thing. So on 77, we're talking about the ninth step
9:45
Corey: on page 77. And one of the sentences on there, and this is a very important sentence to me,
9:53
Corey: it says, our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum of service to God and the people
10:01
Corey: about us. So to fit my, I think about that a lot, to fit myself. What does that mean? So that means
10:10
Corey: as I'm going and making these things right, that I've messed up in my life, I'm kind of molding this
10:16
Corey: new human, right? This new person, because that's something that's not a God's or a Corey's will
10:23
Corey: kind of thing to go make things right. No, I'm just going to push them back and push them back
10:27
Corey: and push them down and push them down.
10:30
Corey: But I'm fitting myself to be of maximum service
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Corey: to God and the people about me.
10:34
Corey: And I think going through this work,
10:36
Corey: for me at least, in 12 steps,
10:39
Corey: it fits me more and more and more and more
10:42
Corey: to be more maximum service,
10:44
Corey: to be more effective,
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Corey: to be more understanding today in my life.
10:49
Corey: And even with people that aren't in the deal
10:51
Corey: or just in day-to-day and work,
10:55
Corey: I'm more effective today.
10:57
Corey: And, you know, going and making some of these things right, going and saying, sorry, honey, I didn't mean to say, to be an, or to be, to be some type of way to you.
11:09
Corey: We can probably bleep that.
11:11
Corey: I didn't mean to say that word.
11:13
Pastor Mike: It's in the Bible.
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Pastor Mike: You didn't, you didn't, you didn't say anything and it's funny.
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Pastor Mike: So I'm going to leave it in because you caught yourself and I appreciate that.
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Pastor Mike: So good job, Corey.
11:19
Pastor Mike: Good job.
11:20
Corey: But when I do that constantly, that shows an act of humility, right?
11:26
Corey: And it brings me back down to level.
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Corey: And when I'm at level, I got this guy that works with me.
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Corey: And it's so funny because watching him, he's so prideful.
11:35
Corey: And he acts like he never makes mistakes.
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Corey: But after he makes a mistake, he's the nicest person in the world.
11:43
Corey: And it's so cool because I love it because he's back to this.
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Corey: He comes back down to a normal level.
11:50
Corey: And I think it's just really cool being awake to see all this today.
11:53
Corey: And I'm extremely grateful for that.
11:56
Pastor Mike: Yeah, I was in a recovery meeting very recently.
12:01
Pastor Mike: It was today, the day that we're actually recording this, because if people don't know,
12:05
Pastor Mike: no, we do not sit up at 2 or 3 a.m. to record a 15-minute episode every day to publish at
12:11
Pastor Mike: 4.
12:12
Pastor Mike: We kind of get together once a week.
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Pastor Mike: But I was in a meeting today, and a guy brought up, because we were talking about kind of that
12:20
Pastor Mike: self-awareness and kind of that know-thyself kind of concept that runs throughout both the
12:26
Pastor Mike: and the big book literature. And one of the gentlemen in the room pointed out that he didn't
12:33
Pastor Mike: have the capacity to see these things, what you were just speaking of, the things that you recognize
12:38
Pastor Mike: in yourself and others, that he didn't have the capacity to see these things until he completed that
12:44
Pastor Mike: fourth and fifth step. And for those who are not in recovery, the fourth and fifth step are the
12:48
Pastor Mike: famous steps that you hear about, you know, probably in media a lot, where you do that searching of
12:53
Pastor Mike: fearless moral inventory, and then the fifth step is where you sit down with somebody else
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Pastor Mike: and tell them about it.
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Pastor Mike: Technically, you admit to God, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature
13:03
Pastor Mike: of your wrongs, but that's the fifth step.
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Pastor Mike: But those two together are where we truly do come to know ourselves.
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Pastor Mike: And once we know ourselves better, we also know and we recognize those same traits in
13:18
Pastor Mike: others better. And that, as the big book says, and even as Scripture affirms, if we see another
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Pastor Mike: person, the big book calls it, we see the newcomer as a fellow sick man, or the people who we have
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Pastor Mike: resentments against, if we see them as a sick man or a sick woman. And, you know, Scripture has this
13:38
Pastor Mike: concept of, you know, all have fallen short of the glory of God, you know, all have sinned. So,
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Pastor Mike: It really, we're encouraged in both pieces of literature and in our faith and our recovery to truly have that humility to, you know, act from a place of a level playing ground.
13:55
Pastor Mike: We've talked about that in one of these episodes recently of not being above or below anybody else.
14:00
Pastor Mike: And in terms of, I mean, this whole thing comes down to what the Bible tells us, even in the Old Testament or the Hebrew text.
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Pastor Mike: Have you heard of the famous verse Micah 6.8, Corey?
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Pastor Mike: Are you familiar with that one?
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Corey: I'm not.
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Pastor Mike: Well, that is the one you probably will be after I tell you because it's short because it says,
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Pastor Mike: and I'm going to read out of the New International Version because that way you won't tell me that
14:25
Pastor Mike: my version of the Bible is different than yours again.
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Pastor Mike: But no shade thrown today, sir.
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Pastor Mike: But the NIV version of it says, "He has shown you, O Mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with your God.'
14:43
Pastor Mike: I mean, if you want to know what God's will is or what God's plan is for your life,
14:48
Pastor Mike: it's right there in that verse.
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Pastor Mike: I mean, that is a great summary of it.
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Pastor Mike: Act with justice in your heart, love, mercy, and walk in humility before God.
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Pastor Mike: I mean, that's the whole deal.
15:00
Corey: Yeah.
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Corey: Well, I'll tell you this, and I'll end it up with a prayer after this.
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Corey: But since, and this is going just to everybody, since these daily reflections go off a month thing, and we are on the fourth month.
15:13
Corey: Right.
15:13
Corey: We are on the fourth step.
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Corey: So we are going to be talking a lot about people wronging, mad fears, and things like that.
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Corey: So it'll be fun this month.
15:23
Pastor Mike: Absolutely.
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Pastor Mike: Lock in.
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Corey: So our prayer is, Father, free me from the need to be approved.
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Corey: Root my identity in you and shape my character through truth, courage, and steady grace.
15:36
Corey: Amen.
15:37
Pastor Mike: Amen.
15:38
Pastor Mike: And as a quick reminder to anybody listening, be sure to like, share, comment, follow all
15:43
Pastor Mike: the things.
15:43
Pastor Mike: The ways to reach out to us are in the show notes, and we'll see you all tomorrow.