Latest / The Daily Ripples Podcast / July 12 – Off Center Stage

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July 12 – Off Center Stage · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Hey guys, today is July 12th.
• 0:07
  Well, we got Pastor Mike and it's not just me.
• 0:09
  It's not just Pastor Mike.
• 0:11
  We got co-hosts, we got hosts, we got back and forth.
• 0:14
  But today is July 12th, all center stage.
• 0:18
  The stone.
• 0:19
  Life works better when I stop trying to be the center of everything.
• 0:24
  Ripple one practical.
• 0:25
  Today I will notice when I'm trying to control outcomes or draw attention to myself.
• 0:29
  I will step back when needed and allow other space.
• 0:33
  I will approach problems with a willingness to learn instead of needing to be right.
• 0:39
  Ripple to spiritual.
• 0:41
  The Father invites me to live in dependence, not control.
• 0:45
  Jesus lived without needing to take center stage, trusting the Father fully.
• 0:50
  The Holy Spirit reminds me that I am not the source of everything, and that is good news.
• 0:55
  As I release pride and self-focus, I gain strength to face challenges with face and clarity.
• 1:02
  You know, it says the stone up here.
• 1:03
  It says life works better when I stop trying to be the center of everything.
• 1:08
  You know, man, I was thinking about it like, you know, before I ever took a dream,
• 1:11
  before any of that stuff happened, I had to constantly go, go, go, go, go.
• 1:17
  And I think it was at the time because I didn't want to sit still
• 1:24
  because then I'd have to deal with me.
• 1:26
  Yeah.
• 1:26
  Yeah.
• 1:27
  And like, so if I kept on going and going and going
• 1:29
  and I got attention, you know, for doing funny stuff,
• 1:32
  you know, it still was about me,
• 1:35
  but I wasn't about me in my head.
• 1:37
  And that, you know, it gave me that sense of like unity,
• 1:40
  you know what I mean?
• 1:41
  Unity.
• 1:42
  And then, so when I read that, when I read that,
• 1:45
  I was thinking, you know, the center of everything.
• 1:47
  And, you know, today the center of my life is God.
• 1:53
  And, you know, it talks about that on page 63.
• 1:56
  And it says, we had a new employer.
• 1:58
  And I think it's interesting.
• 1:59
  Have you ever, I don't know if you've ever thought about the book in this way.
• 2:04
  But when you get a new job, you have like the history, you have the purpose, you have the, like, you know, the company's meaning.
• 2:13
  Yeah, the mission, values, all that stuff, right?
• 2:16
  Yeah.
• 2:16
  And I think about how this book is and how this book is lined out because, you know, the first 51 pages talks all about alcoholism or what we're about.
• 2:26
  And if you qualify to be a part of this.
• 2:28
  And from a program perspective, I mean, the only requirement for membership is.
• 2:33
  Is it a desire to.
• 2:34
  Yeah, exactly.
• 2:35
  But, you know, when I come into this position, it says we had a new employee.
• 2:40
  So I have this new employer coming into my life, and it says, being all powerful, he provided what we needed.
• 2:49
  Not what we wanted, what we needed.
• 2:51
  If we kept close to him and performed his work well.
• 2:55
  And we were kind of talking a little bit about this before, and I know we're in the month of July, and so we're going to be talking about defects and all this stuff.
• 3:02
  Sure.
• 3:04
  And it also talks in our book, it says something about, you know, alcoholics are, is it extremist or, I don't know.
• 3:12
  Extreme examples of self-will run riot is what I'm thinking of.
• 3:16
  It says something about we are, anyways, we do things.
• 3:21
  I just want to get a little credit for taking your word and at least quoting something out of the big book there, Corey.
• 3:26
  So, okay, thank you.
• 3:28
  That makes me feel better.
• 3:29
  But it talks about like we're enthusiasts.
• 3:32
  That's what it says.
• 3:32
  Yeah, okay.
• 3:33
  And I can agree with that, right?
• 3:35
  but I can agree with like because I can get so caught up in these character defects and I have
• 3:39
  in my life and I spent a lot of time focused on me and talking about and enthusiastic about
• 3:46
  changing my character defects to be a better person and I can get bogged down in that as well and
• 3:53
  so I was because I'm still I'm the center of everything right and I think about what's his work
• 4:00
  Well, we talk about this all the time, man.
• 4:03
  I would imagine the work is for me to be of service.
• 4:05
  Where do I need to be of service?
• 4:07
  Well, I'll tell you, June 11th, the one I did my homework on, and June 12th, it was all about relationships.
• 4:14
  Oh, okay.
• 4:15
  And so, but I was thinking, I thought about that, and I was thinking, well, where do I need, can I first be of service?
• 4:21
  Well, I need to be of service in my home first.
• 4:24
  Where used to, I wasn't at service in my home at all.
• 4:28
  I was of service to my affairs and my affairs are the most important piece of my life.
• 4:33
  Being out, doing the things I used to do, running the streets and all those things.
• 4:38
  But now I got to go practice it in my home first and not even, I'm not worried about my
• 4:42
  affairs as much.
• 4:43
  That was a, that's a big flip.
• 4:45
  And you kind of pointed it out on the podcast like the yesterdays, you're like doing this
• 4:51
  stuff because I want to.
• 4:53
  And that's kind of like a place that like coming in, I'm kind of coming into that because
• 4:57
  I want to be a service to my family.
• 4:59
  I don't want to be the center of everything.
• 5:01
  I would rather my
• 5:03
  significant other, man,
• 5:05
  you ran in the last one, but
• 5:07
  I'm going to kind of go for a little rant here.
• 5:09
  You know, I
• 5:11
  last year when
• 5:13
  my significant other was going to
• 5:15
  and me were going to pick up a coin.
• 5:19
  You know, I didn't want to get a coin because I was
• 5:21
  about to go to prison.
• 5:23
  And so I let her get
• 5:25
  the coins. Or you were afraid you were about to go
• 5:27
  prison yes i was afraid i was because you did not actually go i did go okay but you know i because
• 5:33
  i think i mean i think about that because i wanted it i didn't want to be the center of everything
• 5:38
  you know because i have been yeah i needed her to be the center of everything and i needed her to i
• 5:43
  mean i i said that she needed i don't know what she needed everything i thought she's ever needed
• 5:48
  it's not what happened you know and i painted that but oh this is not the men trying to understand
• 5:52
  the women podcast. But at the end of the day, you know, being the center of everything, I'm so
• 5:57
  grateful I'm not. And, you know, I think kind of talking about humility, I think God kind of
• 6:02
  gives me these God punches sometimes when my ego does get a little offset. What were you thinking?
• 6:09
  Well, I'm thinking with this one, especially the off center stage, and there's a line
• 6:14
  in the spiritual ripple that really, you know, hit punches at home for me.
• 6:21
  I think of one, and I heard this in the program and I love the phrase.
• 6:25
  I say it a lot.
• 6:26
  I don't know the way I say it is the way that I originally heard it, but it's kind of become
• 6:30
  one of my personal little catchphrases.
• 6:32
  And I've even used it, you know, from the pulpit a time or two.
• 6:35
  And that phrase is simply, God is God and I am not.
• 6:39
  And that's just a reminder of who actually should be, you know, at center stage.
• 6:43
  And, you know, in the spiritual ripple, you know, it even says that, because for me, the
• 6:48
  model of how I live in faith and how I live my life is I try to let that model be Jesus. And it
• 6:53
  says in the Spiritual Ripple, you know, I had written that Jesus lived without needing to take
• 6:57
  center stage, trusting the Father fully. Well, and that was obviously when Jesus was in his human
• 7:03
  form, you know, his human body and the limitations of that, because, you know, he absolutely could have
• 7:08
  stepped up and take a center stage, but he didn't. You know, whenever he came into his kingdom, it
• 7:14
  wasn't, you know, riding a war horse, pulling a chariot, you know, conquering ruler coming
• 7:19
  into Jerusalem.
• 7:20
  It was riding on the back of a colt, a foal of a donkey.
• 7:24
  You know, it was coming in quietly, you know, and I, you know, I was thinking too, as I was
• 7:30
  reading that about how, you know, God clearly knew what he was doing in terms of, you know,
• 7:36
  when Jesus came into the world, because could you imagine Jesus with a Facebook account?
• 7:41
  You know, I mean, it's just, it just doesn't track, you know, with today's world.
• 7:46
  And I think about the gratitude that I have for that because, you know, you think about
• 7:50
  the world that we live in today and everybody wants to be on center stage for something, you
• 7:54
  know, and I mentioned social media, you know, chasing likes and followers and views and all
• 8:00
  that kind of stuff.
• 8:00
  And I've fallen victim of that to that, you know, fallen prey to that, you might say in
• 8:05
  the past, but just more so out of fun than necessarily trying to get famous or anything.
• 8:11
  But, you know, I was thinking about, you know, that and how the world we live in today, everybody is so divided.
• 8:20
  You know, you have access to so much information.
• 8:22
  You can learn so much about all these different cultures and people around the world.
• 8:27
  And then we use those to judge and separate ourselves from each other and to form, you know, individualism.
• 8:33
  And that's why I'm glad that nobody alive today knows exactly what Jesus looked like.
• 8:39
  You know, there's artwork, there's portraits, but that would just become one more thing for people to argue and fight about, you know, in the world today would be, you know, the differences.
• 8:50
  And so, yeah, Jesus could have come originally in, you know, I guess it wouldn't be 2026 if that had been the case, but he could have come, you know, in today's day and age with all the technology and everything and, you know, been quote unquote famous by today's standards.
• 9:06
  But that's not what God chose to do.
• 9:08
  He chose to send him to be born, you know, humble and lowly in a manger and to live in an agrarian society,
• 9:15
  to have to travel by foot, you know, around all these places to spread the gospel and the good news.
• 9:20
  And even the others who were important at the time, you know, like John the Baptist, you know,
• 9:27
  in the book of the gospel of John, chapter three, verses 30, John the Baptist says, you know,
• 9:32
  talking about Jesus, that he must become greater, I must become less.
• 9:37
  So even somebody who was a prophet, you know, preparing the way for Jesus said, I got to step back off center stage.
• 9:44
  It's really, it's all about Christ and not about me.
• 9:47
  And that's the example for me.
• 9:50
  You were talking and I was going to shut it down, but I decided not to.
• 9:56
  I mean, I appreciate that because that was my moment to be on center stage, Corey.
• 10:00
  Right, I know.
• 10:02
  And yeah, but like, you know, when I think about the center stage, like what else that looks like to me?
• 10:06
  And I'm not going to try to go too much on an AA rant, but I'm going to a little bit.
• 10:15
  It says on page 130 in the 12 and 12, it says,
• 10:20
  Realization dawns that he is but a small part of a great whole,
• 10:25
  that no personal sacrifice is too great for the preservation of the fellowship.
• 10:30
  And, man, like I think, you know, we were talking about dividing and all this stuff.
• 10:36
  And I was thinking about what AA looks like to me today.
• 10:41
  And the recovery rooms and different anonymouses.
• 10:44
  And, you know, to me, what it looks like is the fellowship.
• 10:48
  We're so worried about our meeting.
• 10:50
  This meeting over here that's got 25 people.
• 10:53
  This meeting over here, I'm a part of this group because we do this.
• 10:56
  And anyways, man, we're so dividing anyways.
• 11:00
  and so
• 11:02
  man what's really cool
• 11:03
  I don't know if we talked about this
• 11:06
  that event that I'm speaking at
• 11:08
  Saturday
• 11:10
  you know that group
• 11:12
  is like a group that
• 11:13
  event is hosted by this group
• 11:15
  that's not really touching
• 11:18
  any part
• 11:19
  it's not like you know from this group
• 11:21
  over here or you know connected to this
• 11:23
  meeting over here it's an entity
• 11:25
  within itself and
• 11:28
  you know man we
• 11:30
  I see people get so lost in their meeting. And man, there's a fellowship among us of Alcoholics Anonymous in every city, in every state. And man, I just see this, you know, these dividing things that are happening right now. And, you know, if you divide too much and too much and too much, man, like, we got to come together as a fellowship as a whole.
• 11:53
  You know, to me, when I saw that, when I first came in to the rooms, man, it was so cool because, you know, all these people were coming together.
• 12:02
  And it wasn't just 20 or 10 or 15 people hanging out, going to this person's house.
• 12:07
  It was 100.
• 12:08
  It was 150, 200 people getting together.
• 12:10
  And I know COVID kind of shut some of that down.
• 12:13
  But it's important because, you know, what those events and all these things do, gives people stuff to do.
• 12:18
  And, you know, that's what I needed when I first got sober.
• 12:21
  I needed something to do.
• 12:22
  And, you know, this let's go hang out with these 10 people here.
• 12:25
  And anyways, I just see the dividing everywhere.
• 12:30
  And to me, it's important that we come together as one.
• 12:34
  Absolutely.
• 12:35
  Instead of because we're trying to show people a different way of living, a way of living that's not just stupid, boring and glum.
• 12:42
  You know, I think the book says, you know, so like I had it's funny because some of the language of the of the big book, you know, is a bit dated, you know.
• 12:51
  and everybody always laughs at the reference to, you know, everyday whoopie parties, you know,
• 12:56
  which is just people having a party at their house.
• 12:58
  And, but man, that first year that I was in recovery, I went to a lot of house parties,
• 13:04
  you know, of people in recovery, no drinking, you know, plenty of smoke of cigarettes,
• 13:08
  but, you know, we don't have to get into that.
• 13:09
  But, you know, there was no drinking and everybody was having a blast, you know,
• 13:12
  and it was exactly what you were talking about.
• 13:14
  Everybody gathered together, really kind of forming a cohesive community, you know, around recovery.
• 13:20
  And even taking that back to the church, the earliest days of the church, 2,000 years ago, they were meeting in people's homes.
• 13:29
  There wasn't a paid pastor that had to put on a robe and stand up behind a pulpit and deliver a message.
• 13:37
  They would meet in homes and talk about it.
• 13:39
  Those early church meetings, I would imagine, were much more similar to what AA meetings look like today.
• 13:45
  Well, and the church, man, because the church gives me two parts.
• 13:50
  see you know of the triangle right yeah and i think about this a lot because i've always got like
• 13:55
  because i get very led you know like when i'm when i'm in something i'm in it you know what i mean
• 14:00
  and you know i've always that maybe that's kind of why i've kept a distance of church
• 14:04
  yeah just for the degree of man because you know church gives you service right gives you a place
• 14:10
  where you can be of service and it gives you a place where you can be like you know learn about
• 14:14
  god and all that but it also gives you fellowship right is the only thing that church doesn't get
• 14:20
  this is one thing that i do have against some of these other affiliations trying to save the world
• 14:26
  from bank robbing and alcohol and all these different things this is just my opinion right
• 14:31
  because i have an illness of a sort when i take a drink i want more and that isn't a bank robber
• 14:38
  doesn't have that yeah um so that's just my only back that's the one thing i have pressing
• 14:44
  against that because if me and you did drugs right now,
• 14:48
  me and you did some kind of drug, we would get the same high.
• 14:53
  But if me and you were a group of 10 other people,
• 14:57
  only 10% of that group is going to get the same effect from alcohol.
• 15:02
  It's interesting because of the,
• 15:04
  just the nature of the physical allergy and the disease, you know,
• 15:07
  that talks about, but the one thing that I'll point out,
• 15:09
  because I think it's very important,
• 15:11
  you mentioned all those aspects of things that you get from church.
• 15:14
  The one that you left out, which is extremely important, is worship.
• 15:18
  Worship.
• 15:19
  And worship flows from love and gratitude.
• 15:21
  It flows from gratitude toward God, toward our higher power of what he's done for us.
• 15:26
  So even if you don't get any of those other things out of it, church and the community of church and the service attending is an avenue to worship God.
• 15:35
  And yes, you can worship God, you know, on a trail in the woods, but our faith is meant to be a faith of community as well.
• 15:42
  Is that what you said?
• 15:43
  Well, I mean, worship, yes, because worship is just adoration and praise to God, right?
• 15:49
  It's lifting up our adoration and our praise to God.
• 15:52
  But it's meant to be done in a community as well.
• 15:55
  You could do it individually, but it's meant to be done in community.
• 15:58
  You might say the church at its best is also a we program and not a me program.
• 16:04
  Eventually, I'm going to sing next time I'm at church, but we're going to sing about that.
• 16:08
  Well, how about we just pray?
• 16:09
  How about that?
• 16:11
  prayer. Father, help me step off center stage today. Through your Holy Spirit, teach me to depend
• 16:16
  on you instead of myself. Shape my life through the examples of Jesus and guide me to walk with
• 16:22
  humility, strength, and trust. Amen. Amen. I think people are going to get tired of hearing me talk
• 16:29
  today because, you know, this is now, if people are listening to this right when it comes out,
• 16:35
  It's now about 4.17 a.m., right?
• 16:38
  And then at 9 a.m. today, because it's a Sunday, July the 12th,
• 16:42
  I'll be preaching at Braden, and then it's my first Sunday today at 11 a.m.
• 16:47
  to preach at Wesleyan Hills United Methodist Church here in Memphis.
• 16:50
  And so it's starting a new adventure today, and man,
• 16:55
  I'm going to be tired by the end of that after you and I got up to 4 a.m. this morning.
• 16:58
  Ha ha.
• 17:25
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