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May 9 - Walking Through Fear · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:02
  Well, welcome back, everybody, to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:06
  I am Pastor Mike, and I'm glad to have my co-host back with me today, or rather, I should
• 0:11
  say I'm glad to be back with my co-host today, Corey, who is sitting here.
• 0:16
  And I don't believe, you know, I did enjoy the guest run with Stella, but I don't think
• 0:22
  she's going to be on here with us tonight.
• 0:24
  It doesn't sound like so.
• 0:25
  It doesn't sound like so.
• 0:27
  But just as a reminder for everybody, if you're just now finding us, this is the Daily Ripples
• 0:33
  podcast.
• 0:33
  And what we do here is we take a stone of truth at the intersection of faith and 12-step recovery
• 0:38
  work, and then we cast it into the waters of our life, and it ripples out into practical
• 0:43
  and spiritual application.
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  And we close each one of these daily devotionals with a prayer.
• 0:47
  But we're going to jump right in for today's Daily Ripple.
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  It is May the 9th, and it's titled Walking Through Fear.
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  The stone.
• 0:56
  Fear often tightens its grip when I try to avoid it.
• 1:00
  Growth begins when I become willing to face what I have been resisting.
• 1:04
  Ripple one is practical.
• 1:07
  Today, I will identify one fear I have been avoiding.
• 1:11
  I will not wait for it to disappear.
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  I will take a small step forward and ask for help if needed.
• 1:16
  Courage grows through action and not avoidance.
• 1:20
  Ripple two is spiritual.
• 1:22
  As I bring my fears before the Father, the Holy Spirit gives strength to move forward.
• 1:26
  Following Christ, who stepped toward suffering rather than away from it,
• 1:31
  I learned that fear loses power when it is faced with trust.
• 1:35
  Often, as I step forward, I become aware of others who need strength too.
• 1:40
  And as we said earlier, we'll save the prayer for the end of the episode today.
• 1:46
  But, Corey, I'll admit right out the gate on this one.
• 1:51
  Even though, you know, these daily devotionals, you know, I write them, I put them together.
• 1:55
  You know, when I write them, I may be at one place in my life.
• 1:58
  And when I read them again, you know, for us to talk about them on this podcast, I'm
• 2:01
  at a different place in my life.
• 2:02
  And they just hit different every time that even I read them and go back and revisit it.
• 2:07
  And, but that, it almost stopped me while I was reading it even just now that today I'll
• 2:14
  identify one fear that I've been avoiding.
• 2:16
  Because I've got a pretty big, you know, fear in my life right now.
• 2:20
  And I've just been avoiding it a little bit, you know, just hoping that things just stay
• 2:26
  smooth and on an even keel and without getting into, you know, too much detail, but it's around
• 2:31
  just some relationships between the various members in my family, you know, and specifically,
• 2:38
  you know, around with my wife and, you know, my daughters.
• 2:42
  And so that's between, you know, a stepmother and stepdaughters kind of thing.
• 2:47
  And it's not that it's necessarily in, you know, a bad or a conflict place, but it's in a place where there's still some healing that needs to be done.
• 2:57
  And I know through my own work in recovery, through my own work in therapy, honestly, that I have a part to play in kind of setting the stage for some of that conflict to be resolved.
• 3:09
  But I'm just, I get stuck in the fear of it, you know.
• 3:12
  So this is an encouragement for me, you know, not to wait for that to disappear, that to take a small step forward, you know, to ask for help if needed.
• 3:21
  And that courage growing through action, because, you know, I tend to take that avoiding.
• 3:29
  My default is, you know, if the if the waters aren't too shaky, then let's just coast this out.
• 3:34
  You know, let's just let's not paddle too hard.
• 3:37
  Let's not make too many waves or too many ripples.
• 3:39
  Let's just kind of let it ride and kind of see where it goes.
• 3:42
  But, you know, I mean, if you're in a canoe on the water, and especially if it's a lake,
• 3:46
  if you're not paddling, shaking the water up, you're not going anywhere.
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  You're just sitting dead in the water.
• 3:51
  And that's where I kind of find my place sometimes in life today.
• 3:54
  But that's my initial thought on this.
• 3:57
  But, Corey, where does it take you, you know, when you first read through this or what direction?
• 4:02
  I mean, you know, everything you put in here, you know, is true.
• 4:06
  You know, fear, you know, it drives my life, at least.
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  and it has for a very long time.
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  And, you know, one thing I know that I do,
• 4:18
  like, you know, when I'm going through something,
• 4:21
  and, you know, it used to be the third step prayer.
• 4:24
  But, you know, we didn't really say prayer before this,
• 4:26
  so I'm going to go ahead and say the seventh step prayer.
• 4:31
  Because, like, when I'm going through it, you know,
• 4:33
  I say this, I think about the words,
• 4:35
  but it says it on page 76 of the big book.
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  It says, My Creator, I'm now willing that you should have all of me,
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  good and bad.
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  I pray that you remove every single
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  character, every single defect
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  of character which stands in the way of my usefulness
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  to you and my fellows.
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  Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding.
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  And that
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  grant. Amen.
• 4:55
  Yeah, amen. There's an amen at the end of that one
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  and there's none at the end of the third step.
• 4:59
  But anyways,
• 5:02
  the bidding
• 5:03
  part is really important.
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  Because I look at the book as a
• 5:07
  in numerical order,
• 5:09
  and I read left to right as well.
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  and uh when i think about the bidding i would imagine the bidding is everything after the
• 5:16
  seventh step and so that would you know and you know good thing there's a pretty strenuous step
• 5:23
  on after that steps ain't done right right and um you know i still have amends to make and i have a
• 5:30
  lot of affairs or surroundings of a meds yeah and um yeah and give us a quick summary of what those
• 5:37
  steps are after seven that you're talking about.
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  Just kind of walk through them real quick for anybody
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  who's not as familiar with the steps.
• 5:43
  Right. Yeah, I'm sorry. Steps
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  eight is we made a list
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  of the people that we have harmed.
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  And made a
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  list of all the persons we had harmed
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  and became willing to make amends to them all.
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  There were
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  not as made direct amends to such people
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  wherever possible, except when to do so
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  Would injure them or others.
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  And we're kind of
• 6:05
  We're kind of dancing around the seventh step and things like that.
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  You know, man, I'll tell you, when I think about some of these amends
• 6:14
  and I think about facing them myself, that's where the God thing comes in, right?
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  Because I know by myself, by my own means, there's no way I possibly could do any of that.
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  And some of these things that I've been avoiding, to be honest, man,
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  I don't know some things I've avoided in my life.
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  You know, I do better at it today.
• 6:38
  I mean, I do have, you know, I got a Higher Power with me.
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  He walks with me through this stuff.
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  But I find that, you know, I hold this to the truth.
• 6:53
  You know, when I go speak at places, you know, my sponsor tells me to get down,
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  you know, told me earlier, get down on your knees in the bathroom,
• 7:00
  put your head in the dirty toilet and pray, and then go speak.
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  Because anything, you know, anytime I've ever said anything afterwards about the talk,
• 7:08
  he said, well, did you get on your knees?
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  So I kind of, you know, I believe that.
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  So I kind of take that with me in my life today.
• 7:16
  You know, when I'm going through it, and we've kind of talked about some things,
• 7:20
  you know, a little bit, you know.
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  Sure.
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  I don't care.
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  I get on my knees and I pray.
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  Because me by myself, I run.
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  I cause havoc, you know, because I get scared, you know.
• 7:34
  And I'll make this short, but it tells me on page 68 of the big book,
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  and this is important words right here.
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  It says, we think fear ought to be classed with stealing.
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  Because how much time and how many things could I have really done in my life
• 7:54
  if I've not been fearful?
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  If I, you know, if I would just go on through with some things, oh, you know, we wouldn't be talking, but like, you know, fear has stopped me from so many different things in my life.
• 8:06
  And, you know, so, but, you know, when we, for me, you know, and I'm not trying to argue with this.
• 8:14
  So when it says, I will take a small step forward and ask for help if needed, I'll tell you where that help is needed for me and it's through God.
• 8:24
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:26
  You know, because, you know, here's the thing, right?
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  Like, you know, nobody's going to go with me through some of these things I go through.
• 8:34
  You know, it sucks that this is such a, like, everybody's in their own movie kind of world.
• 8:40
  But, like, you know, nobody's.
• 8:42
  Yeah.
• 8:44
  And so, you know, I don't have my, I don't have my, I don't have the bottle anymore to walk with me through.
• 8:51
  So, you know, I think the program I'm in, in the Alcoholics Anonymous, it gave me this structure to live by.
• 9:03
  But what it also did was show me that I couldn't just live on the structure alone.
• 9:08
  I had to have God's help.
• 9:09
  I had to have something bigger than even AA, you know.
• 9:14
  But that was one of my first thoughts of it.
• 9:16
  Well, and that plays right into, man, it's kind of funny the way that you just worded that,
• 9:23
  that the help that you need is help that needs to come from God. And one of the grounding verses
• 9:27
  that I was looking into, you know, whenever I was getting ready for this podcast episode,
• 9:33
  because I love the Psalms, the Psalms and the Proverbs, you know, in the Old Testament,
• 9:37
  those are probably some of my favorite writings in all the Bible, because there's just so much
• 9:40
  wisdom in there and so much of it that applies to not only our life of faith, but our life in
• 9:45
  recovery. And I saw you kind of grinning. So I'm curious if that means that you pulled up the same
• 9:49
  Psalm that I did, but I'm in, I'm in Psalm 94 and especially in verse 19. And cause what it says,
• 9:58
  and I'm going to read from the new King James version, but it says in the multitude of my
• 10:03
  anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul and your comforts meaning God's comforts,
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  you know, the comfort of God basically strengthens me, bolsters me whenever I'm in the midst of those
• 10:15
  anxieties, because, you know, the fears, because we're talking about walking through fear, you know,
• 10:19
  is kind of the daily ripple for today. And those fears can manifest in, to me, one of two ways. And
• 10:26
  one of those is fear of things physical, and the other is fear of things that are more emotional or
• 10:32
  spiritual, right? And, you know, if I'm facing a fear of something physical, my reaction, my wisdom,
• 10:39
  you know, calls me to act in one way. But when I'm dealing with fears that are more emotional or
• 10:43
  spiritual, then those are the ones even more so that I've got to hand over and rely upon God to
• 10:50
  kind of provide me either the wisdom, the guidance, and the direction, or, you know, what have you to
• 10:55
  get through that situation. Because even that situation that I started out talking about,
• 10:59
  there are things that I could do, but I'm afraid of rocking that boat, you know. I'm still kind of
• 11:04
  stuck in that fear of, well, if I do this, if I do X, then, you know, Y might happen, and I might,
• 11:09
  end up back in the same place where I started. But what I found is that the more that I avoid
• 11:20
  facing my fears, the stronger they get. But when I start to take some action about those,
• 11:28
  it calms down. And I have never had a situation where God has been driving me toward taking a
• 11:34
  certain action, and I have taken that action, and it ended up bad. I've never had that experience.
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  Every time that I have given in and followed God's will and plan and purpose for my life,
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  the end result was the manifestation of what I think it was the Apostle Paul talked about,
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  that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord, you know, for those who
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  are called according to His purpose. And I believe that's in Romans. But, you know, so I kind of go
• 12:02
  down that path of, you know, I have to ask myself, you know, and this kind of gets into step 10 a
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  little bit, you know, the 10, 11, and 12 cycle, you know, we were kind of leading up to that you
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  kind of teed up, you know, step 10, which is that I continue to take personal inventory when I'm wrong,
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  properly admit it. I have to continue to inventory my fears too and admit when I've
• 12:23
  been wrong about a fear about what I can or can't do about it.
• 12:27
  You know, fear is such a, it is so present in the Bible and, you know, all the Alcoholics
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  Anonymous literature.
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  You know, the Bible, you know, the verse I was thinking about, and you know, this is
• 12:40
  a funny thing.
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  So, you know, I got this tattoo on my arm, and it's this big skull with like a steps leading
• 12:49
  up into it, and then there's a valley in the mouth, and there's a white end at the end of
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  the thing.
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  Anyways, and me and my spouse, me and Bill were talking the other day.
• 13:01
  Well, this is probably a month or two ago.
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  And I got it from the verse, you know, Psalms 23.4, right?
• 13:09
  Yeah.
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  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
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  Exactly.
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  I know what it says.
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  But anyways, me and Bill were working out.
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  He said, well, you know what Psalms 23.4 is, right?
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  And I said, no, Bill, I don't.
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  I don't know what that is.
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  And so it was funny because the next day something came up,
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  and then I realized what Psalms 23.4 was.
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  And I was like, I don't even know the verse and the book name of what's on my arm.
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  And anyways, but I thought that was funny.
• 13:46
  That is funny.
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  And I thought Bill knew.
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  I thought he was playing something on me, and I called him, and I said,
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  hey, man, did you think that was funny?
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  And he was like, what?
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  He had no idea.
• 13:57
  He had no idea.
• 13:58
  He didn't know that your tattoo was related to that?
• 14:00
  He wasn't putting two and two together at the time.
• 14:03
  Oh, I see.
• 14:04
  Yeah, that makes sense.
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  You know, so with the – anyways, I thought this was interesting,
• 14:08
  because it says, the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
• 14:14
  Well, the third step prayer aligns and it says something I will,
• 14:20
  and I was explaining this to our friend that I was telling you about last night.
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  And take away my difficulties.
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  Fear no evil.
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  Take away my difficulties.
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  Because then it goes on to say out in the third step prayer
• 14:35
  that I may bear witness to those I can help, right?
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  So those I can help.
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  And my whole life, nothing really moves a lot when it's just a personal thing that I need to do.
• 14:49
  But for some reason, when I got sober and found out that helping others has saved my life,
• 14:57
  and when I do that, it puts me in this other place of the world, like in my mind,
• 15:03
  when I'm doing it for the demonstration.
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  So on page 67 of the big book, it says something to that effect as well.
• 15:10
  And I know we're just hopping around, but I think all this is kind of connecting.
• 15:14
  It says, oh, it's going to come back.
• 15:15
  It is.
• 15:16
  Yeah.
• 15:16
  It says, we ask him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be.
• 15:22
  So what would he have me be?
• 15:24
  He would be, have me be love.
• 15:26
  And sometimes that's just going in to do something.
• 15:28
  It's going and taking care of business.
• 15:30
  But if I'm doing that alone, I don't have the power to do that.
• 15:34
  And, you know, if it's something small, man, like, you know, going and saying something, something small, but sometimes, man, I don't care what it is.
• 15:40
  And we've talked about this guy because I sponsored this guy.
• 15:47
  But I had a resentment at this guy for a year.
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  And I said one thing out of line to him.
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  And I had this fear of making amends to him.
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  It was the best thing in the world that happened.
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  Now I'm a sponsor.
• 15:58
  Now I'm able to help him.
• 16:00
  But it's such a crazy deal that those little things have such a hold on us.
• 16:07
  But then the book tells me 9 out of 10 the unexpected happens because guess what?
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  I think what happens is I'm trying to think what that person's going to say, that person's going to do,
• 16:17
  because then it's going to circle around and affect that.
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  In reality, I have no clue because I'm not any of those people, and I'm not God.
• 16:24
  That's right.
• 16:25
  That's right.
• 16:26
  And it's an example of one of the parables in the Bible.
• 16:32
  And it's funny because your sponsor, Bill, when he's been on the podcast in the past, he talks about this parable a lot.
• 16:38
  You know, the parable of the sower, you know, the sowing the seeds, you know, along the path.
• 16:42
  And our responsibility in that parable is to be the sower.
• 16:46
  We are, when we're sharing, you know, good news of recovery or good news of our faith, we're sowing those seeds.
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  And, but the ground is up to the individual that receives it.
• 16:59
  And the harvest ultimately is up to God.
• 17:02
  So we have to remember our role just because we're out there sowing the seeds and being of service to other people.
• 17:07
  doesn't mean that we're responsible for the outcome.
• 17:10
  And this is where it all kind of comes back together.
• 17:13
  And I'm glad that you mentioned about going in a lot of directions,
• 17:16
  but it all comes back together at the end of that spiritual ripple.
• 17:20
  It says, often as I step forward, I become aware of others who need strength too.
• 17:26
  Well, that's exactly what you were just talking about.
• 17:28
  You know, as you walk and work through your fears,
• 17:31
  God gives you the opportunity to use that experience
• 17:34
  and that strength that you've built to give hope to another person.
• 17:38
  So with that, you know, I think this is a great place for us to end with our prayer for the day.
• 17:42
  Our prayer says, Father, give me willingness to face what I fear.
• 17:46
  Through Your Spirit, lead me forward with courage and help me walk in the strength and compassion of Your Son.
• 17:53
  Amen.
• 17:54
  Amen.
• 17:57
  And I believe that's in Romans.
• 17:59
  You guys can check me later.
• 18:01
  If I research it after the fact and find out that I was wrong, then I'll just cut this portion of the episode.
• 18:06
  But anyway, you can do that when you're the editor.
• 18:14
  I saw your hand up.
• 18:15
  You had something to chime in?
• 18:17
  Well, you know, I was just, when my brain goes, my fingers move too.
• 18:31
  Yeah.