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July 18 – Grateful and Dependent · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome back, everybody, to the Daily Ripples podcast.
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  It's just me again today, Pastor Mike, flying solo, but hopefully we've got a good episode
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  lined up.
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  Kind of like the great episode that we had yesterday with Corey doing this thing solo,
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  and I truly appreciate his willingness as my co-host here to jump in and be of service
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  on this podcast any time that it is needed.
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  But today is July the 18th, and our devotional is titled Grateful and Dependent.
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  The Stone.
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  Gratitude keeps me grounded in humility and aware of what God has already given.
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  Ripple 1.
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  Practical.
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  Today I will focus on what I have instead of what I lack.
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  I will take time to acknowledge the good in my life and let gratitude shape my attitude.
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  When I stay thankful, I am less likely to fall into frustration or entitlement.
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  Ripple 2, spiritual. The Father draws me closer through gratitude. Jesus lived with constant
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  awareness of God's provision. The Holy Spirit reminds me that everything I have is a gift,
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  not something I have earned. And as I remain thankful, my trust deepens and my dependence on
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  God becomes steady and real. Now, as always, we save our prayer for the end of the episode.
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  And we're going to start by just going through each of these ripples, the practical ripple and the spiritual ripple, kind of similar to what I did the day before yesterday in my first solo episode.
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  If you guys can believe it, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, if you've been keeping a square at home, you might say, the other day on the 16th of July was my very first time, actually, that I did one of these episodes by myself.
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  Now, hopefully you liked kind of the format or the way that I did it then, because if so, hopefully you'll enjoy today.
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  And if not, well, that's okay.
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  You can either play me at 1.5 speed or you can listen for what little bit of truth and wisdom through my higher power that you might receive today.
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  But Ripple One is practical, and it says today I'll focus on what I have instead of what I lack.
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  And, you know, on the surface, that can sound a little bit like a greeting card line, I know.
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  They count your blessings, you don't look on the bright side, you know, but this isn't asking you
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  or me or any of us to feel differently. It's asking you to focus differently. See, gratitude here isn't
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  a mood or a vibe that you're trying to catch. It's a decision about where you point your attention
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  today. And it matters where we focus and where we put our attention and our brainpower, because
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  when it comes to things that we lack, you know, lack and lack alone will always win an argument if
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  you let it run around unchecked. You know, there's always going to be something missing. I'm always
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  looking in a mirror thinking I could be skinnier, maybe I could have more hair, you know, maybe I
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  could be more buff and muscular the way that my co-host Corey is. For those who know him, you'd know
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  exactly what I'm talking about, but there's always a version of your life that has more than the one
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  that you have right now. And entitlement is just what happens when we let that comparison run the
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  show of our lives uninterrupted. When I don't have enough becomes I deserve more than this,
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  that is when entitlement comes into play. And frustration is usually just that same entitlement
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  that finally opened up his mouth and decided to complain about what's going on in my life or what
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  I lack. But there's a line near the end of the ninth step material in the big book. And Corey,
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  I know you'll be proud because I'm going to list a page number, page 85. And I think about it,
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  you know, pretty often. And it says that we're not cured of alcoholism. That's the reason why,
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  you know, 13 and a half years into this thing, I still go to meetings quite frequently.
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  Because what we actually have is a daily reprieve, we're told. And it's contingent on the maintenance
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  of our spiritual condition. And I love the word reprieve because that reminds me that it's
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  not a permanent fix. It's not something that I earned once and now I own it. It's not a ticket
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  getting punched, you know, a reprieve granted new one day at a time. And I kind of look at my life
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  of faith the same way. You know, I often say that, you know, my salvation is not a ticket
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  punched to heaven and then I don't have to do anything for the rest of my life. I say that
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  it's God's sanctifying grace working in and through me for the rest of my life because today, hopefully,
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  I am a bit better spiritually than I was yesterday, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be even better at that.
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  And that's why I like the fact that we have a daily reprieve, you know.
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  I've sat with people in hospital rooms, you know, in my own living room or in their living rooms on hard nights,
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  and the people who seem to weather the storms of life best are almost never the ones who have the fewest problems.
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  In fact, they're the ones who somehow keep finding something to be thankful for, even in the middle of whatever storm is going on in their life today.
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  And that's not a coincidence, and, you know, it's not a personality trait.
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  It's a practice.
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  And it's available to me and to you and to all of us today, whether we feel like it or not.
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  Because that's what gratitude protects if you let it do its job.
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  If today is a gift, which for me today is a gift, then it means today is not a guarantee.
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  Today is not a paycheck for good behavior, but it is actually a gift.
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  And if that's the case, then focus on what I have, focusing on what I have instead of what I lack is not just naivety.
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  It's not just optimism.
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  I believe the Apostle Paul had a good word for it, and he calls it hoping against hope.
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  It's just telling the truth about what kind of day this is.
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  And Paul, speaking of, he writes something close to this ripple.
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  You might say almost word for word.
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  First, let's pause so I can speak correctly.
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  But in 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 16 through 18, from the NRSV, he says,
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  Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances,
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  for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you.
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  And it doesn't say give thanks for all the circumstances.
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  It says give thanks in all circumstances.
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  And that's a big difference.
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  You know, you're not required to be grateful if something hard or something even bad is happening
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  in your life.
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  You're not required to be grateful if you're experiencing trauma or you've been the victim
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  of violence, but you're invited no matter what's going on in your life today to stay grateful
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  no matter what's going on, because I can always find gratitude for today in some way.
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  Find gratitude for the fact that I'm able to take time out even to sit and record this episode by
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  myself, you know. It's keeping one hand on what is the truth and what is good, even if on the other
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  hand, I'm having to deal with something really hard in life. And Paul knew what he was talking
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  about what he wrote about that. And he says so directly in Philippians 4, starting in verse 11,
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  says, I've learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little,
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  and I know what it is to have plenty. And then, of course, he ends this passage with,
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  I can do all things through him who strengthens me. People love to quote the last line by itself,
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  hanging on a wall somewhere. But it's actually not attached to a verse about winning in life.
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  It's a verse about contentment, about having learned over time and through practice how
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  to be steady, whether I have everything that I could ever want or dream of or whether I
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  have nothing.
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  For me, that comes into play.
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  I have to be grateful that I have a shoe room full of shoes on those days when I can't really
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  afford that $200 to dish out for the brand new pair that I've been eyeballing online.
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  But anyway, that's an outside issue.
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  That's my problem.
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  That's not what we're here for.
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  But the practical piece is that sometime today, before you get pulled into whatever's waiting for you to deal with today, take an honest inventory.
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  Not of what's missing, but of what you've already been given.
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  Kind of like my room full of shoes, you know, and name it specifically.
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  Not I'm blessed in the vague bumper sticker sense, but an actual gratitude.
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  You know, particular things that you have in your life right now that you didn't manufacture yourself that were gifts from God.
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  Start there and let it shape how you walk through the rest of your day.
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  And then we get to the ripple two on the spiritual side.
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  And once again, we walk through all the persons of the Trinity because gratitude and dependence
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  show up differently, you might say, through each aspect of my higher power.
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  It says the Father draws me closer through gratitude.
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  For me, that's not through guilt.
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  I spent way too much time in my life trying or thinking about God as someone who has a ledger,
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  you know, and he's got on the right-hand side, he's got the good things that I do,
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  and on the left-hand side, he's got the bad things that I do, and he's just waiting on me to mess up.
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  That's the type of higher power that I grew up with or how I thought of that father,
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  but that's not actually how my father God works today. He doesn't work through guilt. He doesn't
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  work through fear of losing what I have, but God the Father works through love, and my gratitude
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  today is for the love that the Father gives me. There's a promise late in the big books into
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  action chapter on page 84 that gets it exactly this, and it's after walking through everything
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  that the steps produce. You know, it talks about a new freedom, a new happiness, a peace that we
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  didn't have before. And it concludes with saying that we will suddenly realize that God is doing
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  for us what we could not do for ourselves. And that's not a little thing. That's the whole,
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  you might say, the whole architecture of dependence, you know, right there in one sentence. It's not
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  God doing for us what we're too lazy to do for ourselves, but what we could not do for ourselves.
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  There's a big difference in that. And gratitude is what happens in us once we actually believe that
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  difference has power and is true. And then the spiritual ripple I'd written that Jesus lived with
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  constant awareness of God's provision. And that's also worth taking a moment to talk about because
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  Jesus wasn't, I think, naive about hardship. In fact, he experienced hunger, I'm sure, and exhaustion
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  and betrayal and even worse, death on a cross. And yet he taught provision like he'd never once
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  doubted it. In Matthew 6, in part of the Sermon on the Mount, he says,
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  to look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet
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  your heavenly Father feeds them. Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
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  That's not a promise for me that I'll never want for anything, but it's a statement about whose job
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  it is to worry about it. Like I say all the time, God is God and I am not. Jesus lived with his
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  attention fixed on his Father's provision and on his Father's plan. Instead of fixing it on
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  the gap between what he had and what he might need. And that's the same redirection that this
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  devotional today is asking us to do. Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say don't plan. He
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  doesn't say don't work. He doesn't say don't plant a field or save for winter. See, the birds still
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  have to fly out and find the seed. And the point of this is not just passively sitting back and
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  letting whatever happens happens, you know, one day at a time, live and let live, as we say in the
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  rooms of anxiety, but it's putting our anxiety to the side so that we can do the work that's set
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  out before us. Provision was so settled for Jesus that worry simply wasn't given any room to operate
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  in his life, or he tried to teach that message to his disciples and to us. The Holy Spirit reminds me
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  that everything I have is a gift, not something I've earned. And there's another verse that I like
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  for this, James 1 and 17 says, every generous act of giving with every perfect gift is from above,
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  coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
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  Every generous act, every perfect gift. The Bible doesn't say most of them. It doesn't say
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  the things that I've worked the hardest for, but it says everything that I have can be traced back
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  to God providing for me. And for people who are struggling with addictions or alcoholism,
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  sometimes it's uncomfortable for people like us, honestly, because we might have spent a lot of time
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  believing that what we have and what we've built and what we've earned and that we survived our way
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  to being worthy of it in some way or that we have accomplished something. But there's truth in the
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  effort, and I'm not dismissing that because underneath the effort, though, is a gift or
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  something that we didn't generate. I can't work hard enough to earn my next breath or to earn a
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  mind that is capable of putting forth effort or to earn the years that I've been given to try again
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  after the years that I nearly gave up. The Spirit's job in part is to keep reminding me
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  and reminding all of us of what God has done for us so far so that our gratitude can take root in
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  our hearts and grow even more. And eventually, it turns into self-reliance and not relying on
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  people, places, or things, or alcohol, or substances, or whatever vices, addictions,
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  sins that we have out there. As I remain thankful, my trust deepens and my dependence on God becomes
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  steady and real. I've had to do that in my own life, y'all. I mean, I've got to be thankful every
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  day. I'm thankful for my recovery. I am thankful for the work that I've been able or been blessed
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  to be able to do with other people in the rooms of recovery. I am most certainly thankful for the
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  peaceful life that I have today with my wife, Cristi. And I know y'all hear us banter sometimes
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  on these episodes and think, is it really a peaceful life? And I can tell you it absolutely
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  is a peaceful life. And so I remain thankful for all of those things. And so how I put Ripple 1
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  two together before we pray is that ripple one, of course, is the practice. I have to name what
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  I've been given out loud and specifically. And then ripple two, you might say, is the truth
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  underneath that practice, that everything just named was never really mine to begin with. It was
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  given and is still being given. You might say one daily reprieve at a time. And gratitude isn't just
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  good manners toward God. It's the most honest thing that I can say today about my actual situation.
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  I look at where I've been, what God has saved me from, and where God continues to heal me.
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  And all I can say is, thank you, Jesus.
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  Thank you, God.
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  Let's close with our prayer.
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  Father God, thank you for what you have given me today.
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  Through your Holy Spirit, keep my heart grounded in gratitude and humility.
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  Shape my life through the example of Jesus and help me trust you for all that I need.
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  Amen.
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  Well, that's it for today, everybody.
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  Corey will be back with me soon.
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  We've got a few other solo one-off episodes over the next couple of days.
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  And so we've got some special guests who may be returning to do their own solo episode.
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  But if you want to read today's or any of these other devotionals, head on over to www.dailyripples.com.
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  If the show means anything to you or you have any feedback or you say,
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  hey, Pastor Mike, please never do a solo episode again.
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  Go ahead and give me that.
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  I can take it.
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  Just send it over to wave, wave@dailyripples.com, and we'll see you tomorrow.