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June 1 – A New Way of Seeing · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
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  Today is June the 1st.
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  Our devotional for today is titled A New Way of Seeing, but I am thankful that today on
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  the podcast I have back with us Larry, my pastor friend, the second Larry that we've
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  had on the podcast.
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  And Larry, welcome back.
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  I'm glad to be back.
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  I really enjoyed being a part of the podcast the last time I ended up.
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  I've enjoyed listening to him since then, so it's been good for me.
• 0:33
  Absolutely.
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  Well, let's jump right in with our Daily Ripples devotional for today.
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  The Stone.
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  Change begins within.
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  When my outlook shifts, everything else starts to follow.
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  A renewed perspective leads to a renewed life.
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  Ripple 1, practical.
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  Today I will choose action over intention.
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  A better attitude is formed through what I do, not just what I think.
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  Small, consistent actions shape how I see others, my circumstances, and myself.
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  Ripple 2, spiritual.
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  As I follow Christ, the Holy Spirit renews my mind and reshapes my perspective.
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  The Father begins to change not just my actions, but the way I see the world.
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  Over time, a new outlook takes root, grounded in truth, humility, and purpose.
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  And as always, we'll save the prayer from the devotional for the end of the episode.
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  But Larry, as I was reading this, did anything immediately come to mind for you or stand out in your experience either as a pastor in the Methodist church or in your own recovery journey?
• 1:35
  Well, I'd say my own recovery journey.
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  As a matter of fact, the day that you reached out to me and talked to me about doing this podcast, I went to a meeting and the topic was prayer and meditation.
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  step 11 from the 12 and 12.
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  And that was already fresh in my mind.
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  And so, you know, that's kind of where I went with this.
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  And is it okay if I read step 11?
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  So step 11 in AA, big book, tells us that we saw,
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  and I always say we,
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  because I believe we is implied in every one of the steps.
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  Right, right.
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  We use it at the first step, but it's implied in every...
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  So we saw through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
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  And so when I think about the meditation for this week and the stone and this idea that change begins within, that's where I go is to prayer.
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  And for me, prayer is surrender.
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  It's where I surrender my control.
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  It's a saying that I don't know where it came from, but I use it all the time.
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  You know, if God only knew what I know, God would do things differently.
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  Right.
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  Which is just trying to make myself God.
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  And if I stay inside of my head and don't get into my heart where I believe the love of God resides in me,
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  if I stay in my head, it's going to be all about me.
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  Right.
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  You know, and that leads to difficulties in embracing change in my life and in the world
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  and in difficulties in building up resentments.
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  Well, it's funny that you mentioned that, you know, if God only saw things the way that you see things, you know, especially with this devotional for today, it is all about a new way of seeing.
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  And it talks about, you know, in the practical application thing about choosing action over intention and that a better attitude is formed through what I do, not just what I think.
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  And I always think about, and it's one of the things that I've learned, you know, through the rooms of recovery is that I have to act my way into better thinking, you know.
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  And that's one of the things, like I use love as a verb and even believe as a verb.
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  Believe is something that I do with my hands and feet.
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  Worship is something that I do with my hands and feet.
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  It's about serving other people.
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  And it's really more about whenever I'm working the steps of recovery, what I'm really trying
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  to learn how to do is to see things the way that God sees them, as opposed to wishing that
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  God was seeing things the way that I see them.
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  And, you know, so as I continue, you know, through those steps, and especially, you know, in that step 11 that you mentioned, you know, seeking through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.
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  And that is a good word for it in there, which is conscious contact, which implies intention.
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  It implies that I make time, you know, in my day to spend time in prayer.
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  And prayer for me is a conversation with God, and a conversation is the same as with you and I sitting here.
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  It's not much of a conversation if only one of us is talking.
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  And it's not much of a conversation if one of us is talking and the other is not listening.
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  So if I never close my mouth and listen to what the Holy Spirit has to say to me and to my life and where I'm at and what I'm going through,
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  then I'm not going to grow and I'm not going to be able to change my perspective and kind of what I see.
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  And then, you know, the practical says that small, consistent actions shape how I see others, my circumstances, and myself.
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  And that's one of the things that I like about the practicality of the recovery, the 12-step programs as well.
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  Because in AA, when new people come in, one of the first things that we try to get people to do is to do some service work.
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  And it could be as simple as bagging up the trash after the meeting or making the coffee or refilling the coffee for other members.
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  And it's just those small, simple, practical, consistent actions that over time, because at the time when I was doing that,
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  When I first came in and people were telling me to do those things, I thought, well, yeah, because nobody's really making money off of this.
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  We're all kind of taking care of each other.
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  But the magic of it is that, you know, as I did those things over and over again, it really forms more love and compassion in me for others and allows me to get out of myself and see the needs of somebody else.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And, you know, that 11th step in 12 and 12 on page 104 really goes into this.
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  But that 11th step is a two-part step.
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  It's prayer and meditation.
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  And you were talking about a conversation of speaking and listening.
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  And that's how I divide it in my head.
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  The prayer part is me telling God what I want, what I need, what I'm afraid of.
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  And the meditation part is when I close my mouth and shut down my brain and try to receive
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  what I can receive from God.
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  And that's always, for me, that's where my perspective rarely changes when I'm just expressing my opinion.
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  Right.
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  It changes when I listen, whether it's certainly listening to God, but also listening to the person sitting next to me.
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  You know, whether they agree, especially if they disagree with me, listening and understanding.
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  And I think that's just natural part of human nature, because I don't know about you, but I know when I was growing up,
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  There was lots of things that you talked about listening and learning from other people.
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  One of the first persons that I had to listen and learn from was my own parents, you know.
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  And like growing up as a child, especially as an adolescent, you know, your parents tell you certain things or do certain things as parents.
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  And, of course, with me, I thought, well, when I have kids, you know, I'm never going to do those things.
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  And then what happens?
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  And that's why you're laughing, because I grow up, I have kids, and I find myself repeating
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  and doing the same things that my parents did to me, because now in my older age, I see
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  the wisdom of what they were doing, you know?
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  And so it is about changing perspectives.
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  And by having to do certain actions, like parenting children, I see and I grow in my
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  perspective and understanding of exactly what kind of headache and hell my parents had to
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  go through raising me.
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  But anyway, so that was interesting that you kind of got my brain going along those lines.
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  But I also think about, you know, Romans 12 and 2, you know, it says,
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  do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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  And I love that verse, but, you know, for years, I would hear that verse being read or preached on,
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  but I never could get a sense of, well, how exactly does that happen?
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  It's saying, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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  In the past, I would always read that as something that I was supposed to be doing, that I was
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  supposed to be taking some kind of action.
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  But the transformation and the renewal of my mind, I have found over time, is work that
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  God does in me.
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  It's not anything that I do.
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  And what I do is I try to stay away, as it says, do not conform to the pattern of the
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  world, try to stay away from the ways of the world that lead to death, in other words, the
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  selfishness, the self-destructive habits, you know, that I had, especially in my active drinking.
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  But all I can really control are my actions each and every day, which brings me right back
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  to that practical thing, you know, sowing the seeds by being of love and being of service to
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  somebody else. But what is, when you think of being renewed or renewing your mind,
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  how do you think that happens in your life, Larry? Well, so, I mean, I struggled with that passage
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  in the past before because forever I equated in scripture when it would say your mind with my
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  brain and my thinking, right? So be renewed in your thinking. So I've got to change the way I
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  think. Just like you talked about it earlier, we can't think ourselves into a new way of acting.
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  We have to act ourselves into a new way of thinking. And so I equate, when I read mind,
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  I connect my head and my heart, right?
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  And it's my being, I guess.
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  And that's what God is for me.
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  And as I said in one of the earlier podcasts I was a part of,
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  that happens to the power of the Holy Spirit that gets invited into our hearts
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  and does a sort of spiritual heart surgery
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  and removes those things that we need to let go of if we're willing to surrender them
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  and replaces that with love and understanding.
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  If you could apply this concept to your congregation sitting in the church,
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  that's not connected to recovery, they have not struggled maybe with alcoholism
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  or drug addictions or things of that nature,
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  this thought of changing thinking or transforming their mind,
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  how would you say that applies to your congregations that you serve or have served in the past?
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  I think that happens more often than not in relationship.
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  Oftentimes in the church, we say, well, we need a food pantry because there's hungry people in our community,
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  and both those things are true.
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  So what we do is we create a food pantry and we create guidelines for people to come by.
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  And when people come to the church, we open the door, open the window, and we give them a bag of groceries.
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  And we close the door or close the window.
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  And then we wonder why they keep coming back every month.
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  But we never have a conversation.
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  We never investigate what's going on in their world.
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  And from the context of what we're talking about today, we never consider life from their perspective.
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  And that's an important word, perspective, is if we think about it, if I'm standing on top of a mountain,
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  I say things much differently than somebody that's standing at the bottom of the mountain.
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  First of all, I can see farther, you know, a little bit longer.
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  And so I think it's through relationship that we learn empathy, we learn to practice empathy,
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  and we learn to at least try and see the world from another person's point of view and perspective.
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  And I think that comes in the church.
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  It absolutely comes in relationships.
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  Well, amen.
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  I like that.
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  I like that.
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  I was thinking as well whenever I was reading this one about how my life or my perspectives about certain things have shifted or changed since I myself have gone through recovery.
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  And one of the simple things is, and I'm certain that like so many people out there, I had definitely more of a judgmental attitude about people who were, especially because I was an alcoholic and drank.
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  I didn't think there was anything wrong with drinking, of course, but people who use hard drugs,
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  you know, I definitely judged them in the past. And now by coming into this program and doing this
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  work, you know, with alcoholics, some of whom had worse situations than I did when I came in and some
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  of whom didn't. And some of whom, you know, also had issues with drug addiction when they came in.
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  And that's something that I didn't. But by being of service to them and just showing up and working
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  with them, sharing with them my experience and what have you and listening to their stories,
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  exactly what you just mentioned with the food pantry example, I've grown in compassion, you know,
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  for everyone, really, because I've come to a deeper and better understanding of how broken we all are
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  in different ways, big and small. But how about for you, what's been your biggest perspective shift
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  since recovering from your alcoholism? Well, my biggest perspective shift is it's not all about
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  me. You know, I had the same thing. I'm very, very judgmental when I'm drinking and using,
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  and all of that comes, and everything that happens was not my fault. It was somebody else did this to
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  me. You know, my boss fired me. It wasn't that I was showing up to work drunk. It wasn't that I was,
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  you know, stealing or running, it was that this jerk fired me. And the biggest shift for me is
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  learning to ask myself, you know, especially if it comes to someone that I'm having that judgmental
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  attitude towards, but what is it about that person that I don't like about myself? Because usually
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  in something I see in them that's a character trait of mine that I don't like. But that's a
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  shift in perspective, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, Larry, the more you and I talk, the more I
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  realize how similar we are in that, because that's true for me as well. When something annoys me about
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  another person, it's usually one of my character defects, you might say, that's amplified in them
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  that I'm seeing. It's almost like holding up a mirror and not liking what I see. But with that,
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  That's a good place for us to stop for this episode today.
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  Larry, thank you for being on the podcast again.
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  Joy, man.
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  And we're going to close with our prayer for today.
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  Father, renew my mind and reshape my outlook.
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  Through Your Spirit, guide my actions and form in me a life that reflects the heart and example of Your Son.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.