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October 19 – The Beginning of Strength · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Hey guys, the Daily Ripples.
• 0:07
  You got Pastor Mike and this is Corey, and today is October 19th, and today would be Monday, October 19th.
• 0:15
  The beginning of strength, the stone.
• 0:17
  The moment I admit, I cannot save myself is the moment God begins his greatest work in me.
• 0:24
  Ripple one practical, today I will not be ashamed to omit my limitations, pretending to be strong when it keeps me from receiving the help I need.
• 0:33
  Honest surrender is not the end of hope.
• 0:36
  It is the beginning of real change, ripple too spiritual.
• 0:40
  As I lay down my pride and follow Christ, the Holy Spirit reminds me that surrender is not defeat.
• 0:45
  But the doorway to new life.
• 0:48
  The father meets me at the end of my own strength, filling empty hands with his grace and giving me hope I could not create myself.
• 0:55
  Hey, man, if you think about this, we were talking about this last night, right?
• 1:00
  We were talking about, I was saying in some sort of the way of coming to this, you know, play, you made fun of me last night.
• 1:11
  No, I did not make fun of you.
• 1:12
  I honored you.
• 1:14
  Oh, yeah, I come into this place of today, at least, and like sometimes I'll think I'm in such a spiritually fit place.
• 1:24
  I don't have to use other people to talk to other people about it in these different things.
• 1:29
  And I like how in here it says, you know, the moment I admit, I cannot save myself is the moment God begins his greatest work in me.
• 1:38
  And so God...
• 1:42
  God beginning his greatest work in me is equivalent to if every man, woman, and child, all had the fundamental idea and the great reality deep within.
• 1:54
  And so God, to me, moves through other people as well.
• 1:58
  And so if I don't open that door though, and I just stay within myself, nothing moves.
• 2:04
  And I found out, you know, that's kind of the, in the same way, you would look at page 84.
• 2:09
  It says like, you know, resolutely turn my thoughts to someone I can help.
• 2:12
  I'm inviting somebody else.
• 2:14
  talking to someone immediately.
• 2:16
  I'm inviting someone else, making amends quickly.
• 2:19
  I'm inviting someone else.
• 2:20
  Because if it's just me alone, then those stalls and those ideas, and that's where resentment, you know, being the number one offender, but it also has in the book, the greatest, uh, what is it?
• 2:31
  The greatest, uh, enemies of alcohol or like jealousy, envy, resentment, all these different things.
• 2:38
  Yeah.
• 2:39
  And the reason is, is because me as a stubborn, just human.
• 2:45
  I want to just wrap my head around it and play, play ball with it in my head. And it's just like a ping pong game, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
• 2:54
  And so, but when I invite another person and it, and God into it, I'm able to get out of that ping-pong game in my head or that ping-pong game, more of like a, what's the game that you... Pong, the old Atari game?
• 3:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:09
  But yeah, another age.
• 3:10
  That was my thought originally.
• 3:12
  What do you think?
• 3:13
  Well, I think that, um, I mean, it's absolutely true that, you know, God often speaks to me through other people.
• 3:20
  But, you know, what we were talking about the other night, you know, because we were at the, um, what's called the Bluff City conference, I think it's called.
• 3:26
  And I've never been to it.
• 3:27
  So it's really interesting to be there and experience that for the 1st time.
• 3:31
  I don't know why it took me, you know, 13.5 years to decide to go to that thing after hearing about it every year.
• 3:37
  But regardless, but it was good just to see other people around, you know, and just to have those times when we could just, you know, stand out and chat about some of this stuff.
• 3:47
  But for me, you know, what we were talking about in particular was that we don't, if we're spiritually fit, you know, we don't always have to reach out and ask another person, we can rely on our connection with God to inform us, you know, in our prayers and in our meditation.
• 4:02
  And what I've learned in terms of discerning whether the thoughts in my head are of myself or of the Holy Spirit talking through me is what are those thoughts leading me to do?
• 4:13
  You know, if my thoughts are leading me to do anything that's selfish or making excuses or playing into my character defects or pride in any kind of way, that's not from the Holy Spirit.
• 4:25
  If my thoughts are leading me to, you know, call somebody that I know is struggling to stop and pray for somebody that, you know, that comes to mind, that I haven't seen, you know, in a while, and hopefully to reach out to them and, you know, connect with them, to talk about that.
• 4:41
  I mean, in the last couple of days, there's a guy that I've known for years, you know, that, uh, we've had a couple of conversations, you know, kind of some deep conversations and those conversations have mostly been just me listening.
• 4:51
  Because it was somebody that needed to talk, you know?
• 4:54
  And I'm, I'm, and I know from being that shoe on the other foot, there have been times when I've called somebody because I was struggling and going through things to talk to them.
• 5:04
  And the other person didn't do much, talking at all.
• 5:07
  You know, they did more listening.
• 5:09
  Right. But through, somehow, through the process of vocalizing out loud, what I'm struggling with, for me, many times I realize that it does not have as much weight in my life is what I was giving it, that it's not as, you know, doom and gloom of a situation is what I've circled around.
• 5:25
  Like you said, the pong game in my head.
• 5:27
  Just, this is horrible.
• 5:28
  It's not that bad.
• 5:29
  This is the worst thing ever.
• 5:31
  You know, it's not.
• 5:32
  You've gone through more, you know, things like that that all come through my head.
• 5:35
  But, you know, it is about like the stone says, you know, that I have to admit that I can't save myself, you know, first.
• 5:43
  I have to admit, my weakness, even to myself.
• 5:46
  Sometimes admitting weakness to myself is the hardest barrier to get past because I don't want to be weak to anybody, you know?
• 5:52
  And, uh, much less to myself, even though I know internally that there's areas in my life that I could be much stronger on.
• 6:01
  Um, you know, I'm not one of these guys.
• 6:03
  It's like as soon as, you know, God says go, I go kind of thing, I'll resist, you know, I'll push back.
• 6:09
  I'll be tired, you know, or whatever the case may be, or not want to be bothered.
• 6:13
  But when I do go forward and do what God is leading me to do.
• 6:16
  I always get a blessing out of that.
• 6:18
  You know, it's never been a bad thing.
• 6:20
  But that admitting the weakness is in, says is the moment that God begins his greatest work in me.
• 6:27
  You know, I think to the Apostle Paul, you know, and about how he talked about that a lot in his writings.
• 6:34
  You know, as some of his letters were written from a prison cell and he's still worried about what other people are struggling through.
• 6:40
  But in 2nd Corinthians, especially in 12 and 9, and this is the NIV, it says, but he said to me, and this is God speaking to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
• 6:53
  Then he says, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me.
• 6:59
  And so for me, what that means is that anytime somebody comes up to me and tells me that what a wise listening ear that I am, I know that that's not of me.
• 7:10
  That's God working through me because me personally, myself, and my selfish nature, I'd rather be doing something else than listening to somebody tell me about their problems, but when I do, I get connection with that person and through them connection with my higher power.
• 7:25
  I was thinking about the same things on the lines too.
• 7:32
  You had the same verse written?
• 7:34
  Yeah, it always happens.
• 7:37
  Yeah.
• 7:38
  But, you know, it says, right, you know, just kind of pretending to be strong and only keeps me receiving, pretending to be strong only keeps me from receiving the help I need.
• 7:50
  And I think that pretends is a big thing, right?
• 7:53
  Because, like, I pretended to be self-reliant.
• 7:55
  Yeah, yeah. For a long time, you know, even when the world is crashing down around me.
• 8:01
  I think I got it.
• 8:03
  I want you to think I got it.
• 8:05
  That's just me protecting my ego.
• 8:07
  And my ego tells me that it's good.
• 8:09
  I'm good or, you know, you've been through this and this and this and like you can handle this because like, you know, you know where you're at today, right?
• 8:17
  Because you're so somebody, and I'm not.
• 8:20
  And like, I got to come into that realization, to me in my life, and on page 68, it says, we ask ourselves why we had them.
• 8:29
  It's talking about fear.
• 8:30
  Resident because self-reliance failed us.
• 8:33
  Well, I have to admit, self-reliance failed me.
• 8:36
  And that comes very strong that that's very hard for a lot of people, especially someone like me.
• 8:42
  But when I come into that position, just like, you know, that verse, right?
• 8:45
  Because God comes into wheat, where perfectly when there's wheatness.
• 8:50
  And I have to be, let that, let me stay vulnerable.
• 8:54
  Because if I don't stay vulnerable, then I become hard, hardened.
• 8:59
  And I was thinking about like that like a fist, right?
• 9:01
  Nothing comes into my fist if I keep it closed.
• 9:04
  That's true. Right?
• 9:05
  But if I open it, I can let that come in.
• 9:08
  And so when I stay a little bit vulnerable, and I think, you know, part of that is staying within God's people. And maybe that's where there's a verse and you might be able to know what I'm talking about when I say this, but it says something along the lines of, you know, help others.
• 9:26
  But especially help God's kids.
• 9:30
  I don't know, it's not those words.
• 9:33
  Do you know what I'm talking about, though?
• 9:34
  Not off the top of my head.
• 9:35
  It's like, especially people that are seeking God or something along those lines. And maybe that is because when I stay on along the lines of some people that are practicing some of this stuff.
• 9:49
  You know, God's flowing through that.
• 9:51
  And I'm better of use to people that aren't doing that as well when I'm on that line, it's almost like, you know, when I start hanging around a whole bunch of dudes that are brand new, you know, and that's where I need to be, but man, if I start doing that so often and I'm not hanging around people like you, people like my sponsor, man, like I'll start cussing more at the house.
• 10:12
  I'll start, you know, talking poorly to my significant other at times.
• 10:18
  Um, and I think it's because, you know, man, I'm not flowing through with good things as well because they're going to have good because I've been hanging around a whole bunch of criminals all the time.
• 10:28
  I might start thinking that that criminal activity looks attractive.
• 10:32
  Because nobody's telling me anything else anyways.
• 10:35
  We came into that last night.
• 10:37
  I was telling you about my experience in Ohio. And, you know, my significant other, my ex, she was not a person in this program.
• 10:48
  And I, uh,
• 10:51
  I, um, I became into myself where I felt like I was just like a normal person.
• 10:58
  And my book tells me the book of Alcox Anonymous tells me the idea, I got to smash the...
• 11:04
  And I don't, and so I don't have to smash it because I'm not like everybody else, like, you know, I'm better.
• 11:09
  It's not that.
• 11:10
  I'm I'm an alcoholic and I don't get to live.
• 11:14
  I don't get...
• 11:15
  It's again, back to that soon, it's recognizer your weakness.
• 11:18
  And the weakness in your life, the same as it is in mine is the weakness that comes from our alcoholism.
• 11:24
  Yeah, it says, uh, as we, Galatians 610.
• 11:30
  It says, as we have, therefore, the opportunity to let us do good onto all men, especially onto them who are the household of faith.
• 11:37
  Yeah, and that's exactly what you were talking about.
• 11:39
  Huh.
• 11:40
  And, um, so, but when I, because, like, I've come into, like, I don't know if you've ever come into some, uh, the Bible that I kind of, like, had some, uh, prejudice against.
• 11:52
  And I've had prejudice against that for a while because it also says love thy neighbor.
• 11:59
  Right, right.
• 12:00
  And so, and the reason I've had prejudice against that is because it says, loved our neighbor, then it says that, especially, and I think about it, I was like, well, man, I'm supposed to be of used to all people.
• 12:10
  And so, but to me, if I'm of helpful to all people and people like you and people that I can get some inspiration and flow through, because if I just go around people that are probably not, like it's almost like the gym, right?
• 12:29
  If I go into the gym and I'm the strongest dude in the room.
• 12:32
  Man, I'm going to act like the strongest dude in the room too, for a while.
• 12:37
  And then I'm going to turn in not the strongest dude of the room because that's just how that works.
• 12:43
  I go around strong people.
• 12:45
  I'm going to continue to try to be strong.
• 12:48
  Right.
• 12:48
  But people that lead you to do more and to push harder.
• 12:52
  all those things.
• 12:53
  It was interesting.
• 12:53
  You took it to page 68, and that was one that I was looking at because it relates so well to, um, especially the practical ripple, you know, that says today I will not be ashamed to admit my limitations.
• 13:06
  And it also talks about, you know, that we have to, uh, you know, rely on, you know, God, and on page 68 just further down from what you read.
• 13:17
  It says we never apologize to anyone for depending on our creator.
• 13:22
  You know, says we can laugh at those who think spirituality, the way of weakness, because paradoxically is the way of strength.
• 13:28
  And so the book is talking about this whole, you know, devotional that we have today.
• 13:33
  You know, it comes very directly from that page and in that chapter that's talking about that.
• 13:39
  Because the work of working through the steps, you know, especially as you're completing the 4th and 5th steps, which is kind of where those pages and sections are in the book, it takes a lot to relying upon God because relying upon me and myself,
• 13:53
  I dont think I'd ever done the work.
• 13:54
  You know, I would have just given up long time ago.
• 13:57
  You want me to end the saddle of the prayer?
• 14:00
  Sounds good.
• 14:01
  Father God, thank you for meeting me when I finally admitted my need for you. Through your Holy Spirit, helped me walk each day in humble dependence on your grace.
• 14:11
  Shape me through the example of Jesus.
• 14:14
  Amen.
• 14:15
  Amen.