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October 29 – Living with Integrity · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome back, everybody, to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:07
  I'm Pastor Mike, and I've got Corey here with me today.
• 0:10
  But before we get started with today's daily devotional in our discussion of it, I want to give a shout out briefly to an entire state in that state would be California, Corey, I was telling you recently that about half of our audience the past couple of months has been coming from California, so I don't know how we got seeded all the way out there because while we don't actively say exactly where we are, you and I.
• 0:36
  We're not in California.
• 0:37
  We're pretty far away from it.
• 0:38
  And so if you're listening from California this morning on this Thursday morning.
• 0:43
  Send us an email.
• 0:44
  Wave at dailyripples.com just to say hello and let us know how you found our podcast.
• 0:50
  But today is October 29th, and our daily ripples entry is titled Living with Integrity, the Stone.
• 0:57
  Honesty is the foundation on which lasting spiritual growth is built.
• 1:01
  Ripple one practical.
• 1:03
  Today, I would use honesty in my words, my actions, and my motives.
• 1:09
  Integrity is not something I practice only when it is convenient.
• 1:12
  Every truthful choice strengthens the life.
• 1:15
  God is building within me and prepares me for whatever tomorrow main brain.
• 1:18
  Ripple 2 is spiritual.
• 1:21
  As I follow Christ, who is the truth, the Holy Spirit gently uncovers anything that keeps me from living with integrity.
• 1:29
  The Father receives my honest heart and continues shaping me into someone whose life reflects his faithfulness one truthful step at a time.
• 1:39
  As I think about this one, Corey, you know, especially that line about integrity not being something that I practice only when it is convenient.
• 1:48
  Man, that one, that was tough.
• 1:52
  That was tough because back when I was drinking, then, you know, I would have said that I had integrity, but it was only when I felt like it.
• 2:03
  But the difference today is that integrity is something that I can carry.
• 2:08
  Now, I still have to learn the proper ways that integrity influences my life.
• 2:14
  And what I mean by that is that, you know, I had this experience, you know, of job loss, you know, in the secular work that I was doing about a year ago.
• 2:23
  And it was the result of something that I felt like I needed to stand firm on.
• 2:30
  I had made some decisions in that role that resulted in some negative consequences for some of the other employees and things of that nature.
• 2:39
  And in the process of, you know, trying to clean up some of that wreckage that resulted from that, you know, I was constantly trying to be, you know, guided and led by God in terms of what I should be doing.
• 2:53
  And what God revealed to me through that process is that part of me holding integrity was that I didn't need to be in that role or in that place, you know, because it was leading me into places that were negative.
• 3:04
  You know, it was leading me into places that were more self-serving.
• 3:08
  You know, at times it was playing into ego and playing into pride. And only in looking back, you know, could I see those things?
• 3:14
  But the integrity was that, you know, once I reached the place where I knew what I needed to do.
• 3:21
  I had to proceed with that, you know, regardless of the consequences to myself.
• 3:25
  You know, I had to proceed with, you know, fixing that and and accepting whatever consequences may come out of that.
• 3:32
  And the consequences at the time were painful, but in the past year, it has completely freed me up to live more into, with integrity, that purpose and that mission for my life, you know, that we talked about yesterday.
• 3:46
  It's given me the time and the ability and the mental capacity and the spiritual capacity, even, to be of service to give more than I receive.
• 3:55
  As I said yesterday was kind of my mission statement, right?
• 3:57
  And I don't know.
• 3:59
  I, I, that's where my reflections initially go today.
• 4:02
  But what do you got for, score?
• 4:03
  Well, I was thinking about like the stone.
• 4:07
  Honesty is honesty is the foundation of which lasting spiritual growth is built.
• 4:13
  And I got the 1860 definition of integrity.
• 4:17
  Wholeness, entireness, and broken state, moral soundness, or purity, uncorruptness.
• 4:25
  Yeah.
• 4:25
  So I think about like a house, right?
• 4:27
  And like the, if the foundation of the house is a bunch of cracks and, you know, bad things in it, no, it's not, it's not, not a firm foundation.
• 4:35
  Right.
• 4:35
  And on page 58 in our big book, it says, rarely have we seen a person fell, who has thoroughly followed our power.
• 4:42
  Those who do not recover, people who cannot, or will not, completely give themselves over this simple program, usually men and women who are in constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
• 4:53
  So I think about like honesty and man, like how honesty is like through this work.
• 4:59
  Because like when I'm making an amend, right?
• 5:02
  You might remember me talking about this, but like, I play with wires.
• 5:06
  And, you know, if I go to this big box of a bunch of jumbled up wires.
• 5:11
  And I don't know where they're all going and what's going on and maybe there's some cracks in the wires.
• 5:16
  Well, maybe I take all the wires out and I run them smoothly and, you know, with straight paths to each other. And so I'm kind of like making that thing more honest, more straight through because I think when I straighten up the past, I'm straightened out this jumbled up mess and it's a straight path through me and God.
• 5:33
  And it kind of goes into that and we agnostics because it says, Talks about the Bridge of Reason.
• 5:40
  And that's kind of like my, it says reason's good, but it only got us, says this on page 53.
• 5:46
  It says, um, we were grateful that reason had brought us so far, but somehow we couldn't quite step ashore.
• 5:53
  And when it's talking about stepping ashore to the place of faith, right?
• 5:58
  And perhaps we've been leaning too heavily on reason, that last mile, we did not like to lose our support.
• 6:03
  And the example they give you in the back of the agnostics.
• 6:08
  It says he stood in the president, present, and it's given this example of this dude that's going through all this stuff, having a spiritual experience.
• 6:16
  And it says, he stood in the presence of infinite power and love.
• 6:20
  He had stepped from the bridge to the shore, the shore of one faith.
• 6:23
  For this time, he lived in conscious companionship with his creator.
• 6:27
  Thus was our friend's cornerstone fixed in place.
• 6:30
  And so when I, you know, when I think about that, like, so what's fixed in place?
• 6:34
  Well, man, that he's coming into the common problem, right?
• 6:38
  He sees common problem.
• 6:40
  he, but like to, and coming to be honest with that.
• 6:43
  You know, so if I'm not honest in this, like, you know, my foundation's not going to be firm.
• 6:49
  And if I'm living in a life of not, you know, a firm foundation, I'm not standing on anything.
• 6:55
  And like, you know, for people that are, you know, I would say me, like me and you and people that we hang around, we stand on a firm foundation. And like, you know, I can get, and like, the cool thing is, is, this program and the, my design for living gives me an opportunity to make that foundation more firm through my life, you know?
• 7:17
  The honesty part is just as important, if not more, than the integrity, because if I'm not honest, about my motives, all those things that sit in the practical ripple, right?
• 7:29
  If I'm not honest about my words, my actions, and my motives, then how can I ever say that I was standing on integrity with anything, right?
• 7:37
  And even looking back to that situation that I started with, you know, yeah, I was trying to hold on to that integrity and I was feeling, I'm sure since at the time, because I was having some other issues as well while it was all going on.
• 7:50
  Uh, I'm sure I had a little bit of self-righteousness creeping in, you know, things of that nature, because again, I'm human like anybody else, right?
• 7:59
  And but what I've learned, what I learned looking back, and we've talked a lot this week about learning from the past and our experiences and things, and what I've learned looking back is that even in those times, when I felt so certain that I needed to act and behave and move in a certain way, the way and the manner that I was communicating those things at the time to the people that were in place to hold me accountable was just not the best.
• 8:26
  And so when I honestly look back at it, I can see my own faults, even in the midst of trying to do something good.
• 8:31
  And so that's where God continues to reveal and teach us, you know, through our own experiences so that I know that when situations like that crop up again, because it's not like I moved out of that and I'm no longer in a leadership position, you know, I'm still in a leadership position just in a different context.
• 8:47
  But I still have to keep that honesty of looking at myself in knowing that when I feel strongly that God is leading me in a certain direction or even leading the church in a certain direction, I have to pray, meditate, reflect enough to learn from God, how do I communicate in that in such a way that I bring people along with me instead of trying to shove them through a door?
• 9:11
  You know what I mean?
• 9:12
  And that's where one of my character defects comes in probably the most heavily is, you know, yeah, I can live with integrity, but also have to be honest about the manner that I'm living with integrity.
• 9:22
  You know, how does that manifest in my life?
• 9:24
  And if it's not manifesting in a way that I can be effective in serving, you know, others, then I need to reassess and reevaluate that.
• 9:32
  But I sponsor our guy.
• 9:34
  And it's really cool while calling, call and check on him once or twice a week.
• 9:39
  Probably not as much, probably once every other week when we talk and man, this dude's a perfect example of like kind of like, you know, he'll, he'll say some praise something and then boom, something happens immediately.
• 9:52
  And like, you know, he was in this situation where he wasn't at, uh, home.
• 9:58
  He didn't feel like he needed to be, uh, at this church anymore. And he, uh, he plays band in this church and all this stuff.
• 10:07
  And he was being, but like everything inside him was telling him, and anyways, he was sitting through a service at that church.
• 10:12
  He was like, hey, man, God, just show me a sign that, he said, right after he said that prayer, the power immediately shut off. And the short one of the goodness.
• 10:20
  Anyway, so needless to say, that dude's not at that church anymore.
• 10:23
  He needs to be the one I could call to pray for me, apparently.
• 10:27
  yeah.
• 10:27
  But, you know, but I think about what you were kind of talking about with the integrity thing and my 1st opportunity, really, with another human, when I think about the work and think about the steps is in the 5th step, right?
• 10:40
  I mean, I can get honest with a piece of paper, but I haven't got honest with another human.
• 10:44
  And for the make that, and that's kind of important when you think about the great reality deep down within, right?
• 10:50
  Because I'm not able to make that connection just within a piece of paper, I have to make it with another human.
• 10:54
  Right. Because on page 73, it says, and this is kind of the, to me, this is kind of what I'm reading this is kind of this disclaimer.
• 11:04
  Hey, if you don't do this, this is what it looks like.
• 11:08
  It says they took inventory, all right, but they hung on to some of the worst items in stock.
• 11:13
  They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear.
• 11:17
  They only thought they had humbled themselves, but they had not learned enough humility, fearlessness, and honesty, in the sense we found it necessary until they told someone, oh, and all is in little, uh, the squiggly riding, so that was more expensive for them to put all in squiggly riding, all their life story.
• 11:34
  You know, it's called italics, right?
• 11:36
  Squiggly words.
• 11:37
  Oh, yeah.
• 11:38
  Yeah, I like yours better, but I'm just saying.
• 11:40
  But, you know, because then it says on the next paragraph it says, more than most people.
• 11:45
  So it's saying me, more than most people, they alcoholic lead the double life.
• 11:51
  And, um, so when I'm able to get honest with one person and start this, uh, I would say structure of a building, um, I'm able to get honest with one person, and I'm not how, because we've talked about this before, but I can sit with a criminal, a pastor and just a normal person, and man, I can talk to all 3 of those in a certain way that probably we can relate in one sort of way or another.
• 12:16
  And I'm only talking about that particular thing with each individual.
• 12:21
  I'm not telling them all my experience because what if I tell the pastor, hey man, you know, my life looked like, you know, drugs, this, that, this.
• 12:28
  You know, me and him are not going to sit on the same place.
• 12:30
  But at that one time, I'm still living a double life.
• 12:34
  Um, and I think that's where the important thing is to tell someone all my life story and not just jib and jab at different little things to appease a person.
• 12:44
  Right. Because if I'm just if I'm living that way, it's a complicated life.
• 12:49
  And I'm trying to just please people in this, but if I'm standing on honesty and integrity.
• 12:54
  I'm now living a double life.
• 12:57
  I'm one person.
• 12:58
  One person is a lot easier to deal with than 18 different people or committees.
• 13:03
  I think because you read off page 73, right?
• 13:06
  Yeah, I think on the same page is where it tells us more than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life, very much the actor to the outer world who presents the stage character.
• 13:15
  And so that we have to learn to stop being actors, you know, and to just be ourselves.
• 13:21
  And luckily, the self that I am today is somebody that I don't mind, you know, showing and sharing with anybody that comes into my path, you know?
• 13:31
  But that's a change because back when I was actively in the midst of my alcoholism, yeah, I didn't want anybody to know that.
• 13:38
  So absolutely, I was leaving that double life.
• 13:40
  But see, it tells me how not to be the actor, right?
• 13:43
  Well, it tells me how not to be the director.
• 13:45
  Right.
• 13:46
  Because I've been trying to be the director and the actor because in this drama of life.
• 13:51
  Right.
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  is the director.
• 13:52
  Yeah, so he's the, he's the, he's the father.
• 13:55
  I'm his child.
• 13:56
  You know, and I come into that, like, he's the principal.
• 13:59
  We are his agents.
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  He is the father we have children.
• 14:01
  Most good ideas are simple, and that's the simple way.
• 14:03
  The unsimple way of me pleasing everybody into what I think they think that they want me to be.
• 14:10
  Because what I what I'm trying to perceive, what they want me to be, really, it's not even who I am.
• 14:16
  Man, that was kind of complicated.
• 14:18
  But anyway, it's not complicated and wrong.
• 14:20
  Well, as we leave today, we will leave with the prayer.
• 14:23
  Father God, help me walk in honesty and integrity today.
• 14:27
  The and is important.
• 14:29
  Through your Holy Spirit.
• 14:30
  Give me the courage to live truthfully in every part of my life.
• 14:34
  Shape me through the example of Jesus.
• 14:37
  Amen.
• 14:37
  Amen.
• 14:40
  Yesterday, Corey, you were throwing out all those big words left and right, you know, and knowing all the words and the definitions, even the paradox word that, you know, I couldn't pull from.
• 14:51
  And then today, you demonstrated the paradox with your squiggly words.
• 14:56
  Still square word.