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August 5 – Learning to Listen · The Daily Ripples Podcast

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Welcome back everybody to the
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Daily Ripples podcast. Today is Wednesday, August 5th.
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I'm Pastor Mike. We've got Corey with us, and our devotional
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today is titled Learning to Listen.
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The Stone: Wisdom grows when I stop insisting on
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my own way and become willing to learn from others.
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Ripple 1: Practical. Today, I will listen before I react.
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When I face a problem, I will seek wise counsel instead of relying
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only on my first instinct. Patience and honest conversation
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often reveal what hurried thinking cannot.
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Ripple 2: Spiritual. The Father often speaks
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through the people He places in my life. Jesus showed the humility to listen,
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learn, and follow the Father's will. The Holy Spirit helps
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me bear— The Holy Spirit helps me hear truth, recognize my
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blind spots, and respond with wisdom instead of impulse.
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And as always, we'll save the prayer for the end of the episode. But one
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of the things that— I guess I'll just talk about this a little bit.
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I'm often told as a pastor,
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as a friend, as someone in recovery meetings or what have you,
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people tell me often that I'm
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a good listener, right? And I say
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that to say and to admit that I am inherently not,
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okay? Like that is, and what I mean by that is I've had to
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learn to do those things. Like I've had to acquire those skills.
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I've had to practice it. And the
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desire to practice that, even the desire to be
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able to listen to others comes through a couple of different avenues, right? So one
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of those was my not listening for so long got me
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in a world of trouble. So, right. So I had the pain of not
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listening to others and seeing all the consequences of that.
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And then as I progressed through a career, because we
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don't have to say how many, but I'm quite a few years older than you
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are, Corey. You don't have to bug your eyes out over there
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for y'all listening. He's sitting there bugging his eyes at me, which I do not
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appreciate. But anyway, But as I've
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grown in a career and into leadership positions, I could
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not have been a good leader in business or nonprofit or government when I was
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doing that work. And I certainly couldn't be a good pastor if I had
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not learned how to listen to others and not just listen to others,
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but listen not to respond, but listen to understand
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and listen to be able to empathize
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with somebody because empathy is not one of my natural gifts either.
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You know, like I can be pretty hard on other people and not have a
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lot of sympathy or empathy for folks, but those skills I've had to acquire.
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And I say I've had to acquire, and it really has been God working on
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me. And they've grown a lot through working through the program and the steps.
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And, you know, I could say I could go into a whole separate thing about,
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you know, listening before I react. But this is the point in where I
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can hear, you know, Christy listening, saying, would you just shut up and let Corey
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talk for a minute. So what do you got for us? Well, I said this
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before, but, you know, my, uh, my first sponsor, Doug,
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he used to tell me— and, you know, this was at a time,
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Michael, where I was dating this girl,
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and, um, man,
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wild times, you know what I mean? Like, you know, there was a time— I
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mean, I remember I asked her to get out of the house,
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and, uh, she had a 5— she has kids. Did you really ask,
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or did you tell her? Told her. Okay. I asked first,
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then I told. Yeah. And man, I had to move out
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of my own house after I asked her to leave. So I left. Then she—
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then I came back to my house 2 months later,
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had some stuff, some cool graffiti carved into my flat-screen TVs,
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had walls all messed up, glass everywhere from pictures.
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It was a good mess. Oh,
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and you know, it was funny. You know, we were at— we had this event
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in the recovery thing, and, um, there was a raffle
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at this event, and there were TVs in the raffle.
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And this person, she, she was in one of the fellowships, and she
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wasn't at this event that 200-something people were at. Yeah.
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And the raffle was going on, and they You know, they pulled
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a number and pulled her name. She won a free TV that very next
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week. It wasn't even there. I remember I looked at my old sponsor
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and I said, hey man, do you think I'm gonna get that TV? You think
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she's gonna make amends? He said no. But what
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I'm getting at is like,
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man, like I'll tell you, 6 months later it was Christmas time and my
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mom and I were Sitting there with my son having Christmas.
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It was raining outside and the doorbell rings at 10 o'clock.
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It was her. Wow. And, you know, so like, I remember my
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sponsor telling me during this time a bunch of times, he said, Corey,
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you need to start learning from— you don't have enough time in the world
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to learn from— to make all the mistakes in the world. You need to start
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learning from other people's mistakes and learn from your own mistakes.
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And I'll, you know, Michael, well, I'll tell you like what I wish I would've
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told you what happened. I told her to, you know, leave and, you know,
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have a good life. What I really told her, I said, hey, I put,
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looked out the door and she said, can I come in? And I looked back
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in my house and I looked at her and I said, go park down the
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street. My mom's leaving in 30 minutes anyway. Yeah. So another,
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another cycle down the thing. And this is cycle 2, right?
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Yeah. And so, Now, when I listen to
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others though, it come into this place of— and I,
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I hear so many times, you know, people talking about like not listening
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to others because they're, uh, what's a good word for that? Because they're
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rebellious— not rebellious, uh, they're,
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you know, they don't like, uh, they don't like— don't
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like being told what to do. Don't like being told what to do. Yeah,
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stubborn. Stubborn, whatever. I don't think that's it at all. I don't
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think that's it. I think that's a very poor way of making an excuse for
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me making bad behaviors. It's just an excuse. Yeah. Because I
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want to run the whole show. Yeah. I want all the control. Yeah. I don't
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know. I don't know that though. In the moment, I have no idea that
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I think that I can arrange all this stuff because when I'm running,
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right? When I'm running, self will run, right? When I'm running, I can't see any
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of it. I can't hear you either because I'm running. I can't hear anything
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anybody's saying. It goes straight through me because I think I got it,
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because I have a lack of perspective and the ability to think straight.
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What do you think? Well, and I also think when it comes
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to listening to other people is that I have to actively
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decide in any conversation to try, because I'm
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not always successful, but to try to set my expectations aside.
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Because as you get to know people, you have expectations about other people,
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and those expectations are built through experience and how they've interacted
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with you in the past, or they have a trait that reminds you of somebody
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that you've had interactions with in the past. And so it's so easy
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for me to categorize people when I meet with them, and you
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could start making a point, and I assume that I already know what your point
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is. And so before you even finish speaking, I'm already thinking in my head about
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ways to either argue back or to to either
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prove you right or wrong, whatever my motivation may be, depending on what I think
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of the other person, versus if I set my expectations aside,
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I can sit back and just take in what you're saying to me.
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And I've also learned, and this is the part that I really like about the—
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and it says in the practical, I will listen before I react. I always
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say that my reaction doesn't have to be my response.
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You know, I say that a lot, you know, in the recovery rooms. I've said
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it, I'm sure, even from the pulpit for people listening that are part of one
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of my churches. And, but I can't
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always control my reaction to something being said,
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but I can choose to keep my mouth shut and actually think about it and
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process things, you know. And I have to realize that,
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and this, this is a hard one too, man, that spiritual ripple,
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the first line of it says, the Father often speaks to the people he places
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in my life. God even speaks through
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the people in my life that I don't like, right? And that's
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when I know that it's God talking to me. If somebody that I
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just don't like for whatever reason is saying something
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that hits me as a truth bomb, I know that's not them,
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that they are being a channel of God. And we've talked about this many times
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on this podcast about how we see God in other people at times.
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And many times I see God in the person that I least expect to
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see God in. Right. But it's just what I needed to hear for
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that day. You know, where it says the, when I face a problem,
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I'll seek wise counsel instead of relying on my own first instinct. That's in
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our practical today. That's almost directly
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from Proverbs 12:15 that says the way of a fool is
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right in his own eyes, but the wise listen to counsel.
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Well, I don't know that I've necessarily arrived
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at that state where I am wise, but I certainly don't want to be a
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fool. So that means I got to listen to other people's counsel, even sometimes if
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it's a person that I'm sitting across from that's a lot younger than I am.
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Right. Same baldness. So same that we
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both are bald. That's true. Never. So I was thinking
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about— I was thinking about what you had just said. Oh, yeah.
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But it was on a different way. The Father often speaks through the people he
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places in my life. Yeah. You know, I can look at that and I
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can, you know, agree with that. And then I come and take that apart and
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I think, well, you know, it's not just people. And I've
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come to, you know, I think, you know,
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we don't— we talk a lot about that in the rooms we associate
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in, um, people, you know. I'll go to this
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place and I heard this good thing. And I think, you know,
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I was talking to a buddy of mine that went out of town for a
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couple weeks and I told him, I said, hey, you know, we didn't talk about
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anything about that stuff. He was just talking about the nature and all this stuff.
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Yeah. I said, you know, I said, man, that was so cool talking to you
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about that because like, so glad that you didn't share up on all these different
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places you went, these recovery rooms, because, you know,
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I'm not doing this for
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that. I go to those places because I love those places. I'm able to
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give back and help people there. But I
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think when I read this, I think about
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thoughts, right? My thoughts. Because if everything's
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God, that's even my thoughts. And when a thought comes to me, that's just not
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me coming up with that thought. Because we like to say, people say, well,
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my very best thinking got me in here. Well, it did.
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And I'm sitting here today, and I'm able to sit here amongst
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other men today because my thoughts is God too.
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God works through me and works through you as well here.
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And I sometimes, you know, on page 87, it's just to
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jump in, your best thinking today is not anywhere near the same as
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your best thinking when you were drinking. Absolutely. You're absolutely right.
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Yeah. But it says on 87, it says, nevertheless, we found that our thinking will,
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as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration.
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We come to rely upon it. And I would rather— exactly what I meant.
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Yeah. Your thought life grows too. Absolutely.
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I'm able to rely upon it. And I'm not— and like, you know,
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I think there's this thing maybe sticking through.
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And what did I think it would— I'll tell you what I think it is.
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And we can cut this out if it seems a little derogatory towards a certain
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thing. Now I'm nervous, but go ahead. But it's treatment centers.
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Treatment centers are for one thing. That's okay. They're for profit. We can be derogatory
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about them. So they're for one thing. They're for the removal of a substance
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in my eyes. Anything other than that, I'm getting a free vacation. Yeah.
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Um, and these things, these little sayings that
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these paid counselors and all these things have come up with,
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like for instance, um, 90 meetings in 90 days,
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that didn't come from the rooms. That came from treatment centers. Yeah. And I know
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it's a good thing, right? I'm not saying I'm not drowning it, but you know,
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all these different things, and then you come in here And
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they're like, hey, this is what I think this is about. It's like taking a
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person up from the gym, like a girl that's been working out with her
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boyfriend for 2 or 3 years and they break up and she's in
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the gym now. And now you see her working out and you're like, hey man,
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you're doing everything wrong. And it's not like she's doing it wrong.
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She just doesn't know what she's doing because really her boyfriend didn't show her the
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way. Her boyfriend didn't know what he was doing. He just thought he looked cool
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doing it. Yeah, that would be me if I went to the gym, by the
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way. I don't know what I'm doing there either. But anyway, but you know,
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so what I— and me and my sponsor, we talk a lot about this because
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it's hard. It's this thing that's in the middle of, you know,
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we talk about defects and this and this and all these human
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things that God's supposed to take care of.
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And that's not something I'm going to be able to do. Like, just like the
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alcohol, you know, and doctor's opinion kind of touches on that. I know
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we're talking a little over, but that's okay. The doctor's opinion
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talks about complete abstinence,
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right? Well, how do we— if I can't, you know,
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that's a weird thing because if I can't do this, all right,
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so if I was to talk about abstinence, well, how can I practice
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abstinence if I'm powerless? Yeah. Yeah. So,
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and that's it. And that's the thing. But gain the power, gain access to the
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power. Right. But, you know, that's a doctor's opinion. Yeah. And so,
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you know, my sponsor and we would still factor it. Hey,
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I got to apologize for that because I listened to that and I was like,
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man, what was I talking about?
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I was really trying to drive home a point in there. But to
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go to say, so it says we practice complete abstinence.
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Well, how do I practice that if I'm powerless? It's supposed to be God.
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And so we've been going back and forth on that thought. Well, and you
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just reminded me as you were sharing that complete abstinence part.
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I remember during my first year of sobriety,
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I was talking to my sponsor because I called
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him up one day because I was nervous, right? And I called
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him up. I had already been, because when I came into
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the rooms of recovery, I was already separated from my first wife.
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And so I was going through the process of divorce, which means typical
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bachelor dad with the little apartment,
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living on my own half the week kind of thing when I didn't have the
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kids, right? And I got sick. I got a really bad cold.
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And I went to, you know, the Walgreens
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or whatever, and I got the, you know, cough syrup medicine. And I
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got it home and I looked at the label and it said it had alcohol.
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Oh, you got upset. And I was going,
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well, I freaked out, you know, and I called my sponsor about
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it, you know, because I didn't know whether I should take this cough medicine
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or not, you know, because it had alcohol in it and I was trying to
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work this program of abstinence, you know. Now, what I
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came to again is what we've been talking about all week, which was the motivation.
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Was I using this cough syrup to get to the alcohol or was I using
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the cough syrup to treat a cold? And ultimately what
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I did, because at the point that I had the knowledge and I was
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so young in recovery, I didn't know exactly what my motivation was.
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I couldn't trust my motivation. So I went back to Walgreens and got a different
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type of cough syrup that didn't didn't have alcohol in it, but that was
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just the right answer for me. Right. But yeah, I know it's interesting
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though when you brought up about the complete abstinence part.
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But the last thing I'll say about learning to listen is that
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my thought life also grows when not just the other
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people that I listen to, but what music am I listening to? You know,
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what television or media am I listening to? What social media
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algorithm crap is feeding me, you know, that I'm listening to? All those
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things over time get into
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my thoughts. But if I want to
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keep my thoughts on a higher plane, then I've got to at least at times
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intentionally be listening to things on a higher plane as well. And that's why
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we're glad everybody's listening to this podcast. Exactly. Excellent.
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And our prayer for the day, Father God, give me a teachable
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heart today. Through your Holy Spirit, help me listen deeply and respond
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wisely. Shape my life through the example of Jesus,
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and lead me in the path you have for me. Amen.