Latest / The Daily Ripples Podcast / June 3 – Learning to Let Go

Transcript

June 3 – Learning to Let Go · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:07
  Today is June the 3rd.
• 0:09
  Our devotional for today, both here on the podcast and on our website, dailyripples.com,
• 0:15
  is titled Learning to Let Go.
• 0:17
  But I'm also glad that I've got for the third day in a row, our good friend and fellow pastor
• 0:23
  Larry here with us.
• 0:24
  And we've mentioned him repeatedly yesterday, and we managed to pull a rabbit out of the
• 0:29
  today. And we have with us the aforementioned Aaron Dennis. So Aaron, welcome. He is also
• 0:36
  United Methodist pastor. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
• 0:40
  Absolutely. And Larry, we're always glad to have you with us. And before we get started on here,
• 0:48
  any initial words of wisdom for us, Larry? You are the elder statesman in the room here.
• 0:52
  You know, watch the movie Frozen and learn to sing that song. Let it go.
• 0:59
  I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. Well, on that note, let's jump right in with our
• 1:07
  daily ripple for June the 3rd, learning to let go. The stone. Control can feel safe,
• 1:13
  but it often limits growth. Freedom begins when I release my grip and trust something greater than
• 1:19
  myself. Ripple one, practical. Today, I will notice where I am forcing outcomes or clinging
• 1:25
  too tightly. I'll practice letting go, even in small ways. Willingness is not about having all
• 1:32
  the answers. It is about being open to a better way. Ripple 2 is spiritual. As I trust the Father
• 1:38
  and follow the example of Christ, the Holy Spirit teaches me how to yield rather than strive. Like a
• 1:44
  bird carried by unseen currents, I begin to move with guidance instead of resistance. Over time,
• 1:51
  Trust replaces control, and peace replaces strain.
• 1:55
  And as always, we'll save our prayer for the end.
• 1:58
  But man, sometimes when I'm reading these, you know, because I've written these at this
• 2:03
  point probably, you know, several months ago, you know, and haven't really picked them up
• 2:07
  until I pick them up to, and I schedule them out, you know, on dailyripples.com, you know,
• 2:11
  which is where the daily devotionals are posted.
• 2:13
  But when I'm reading them again, every time when we're sitting down to record one of these
• 2:18
  podcast episodes, something new hits me out of it. And it's kind of like when I'm reading the
• 2:22
  same verses in the Bible or when I'm reading the same passages, you know, in the big book of
• 2:27
  Alcoholics Anonymous. But the part about like a bird carried by unseen currents, you know,
• 2:33
  I begin to move with guidance instead of resistance. That's kind of like what we were
• 2:37
  talking about just yesterday, Larry, you know, about, or the day before, I can't remember which
• 2:43
  it was, but about how looking back in on the past in my life and seeing where God was there
• 2:48
  with me kind of as that current underneath the wings, you know, flying along through life
• 2:53
  as it were.
• 2:54
  And that builds that trust that really makes it much easier for me to say yes today when
• 3:02
  the Holy Spirit tells me or urges me to do something, or at least that's been my experience.
• 3:07
  But when you're hearing this one, Aaron, is our new guest on here today, where does your mind initially go with today's Daily Ripples entry?
• 3:19
  I think about my sense of calling as a pastor.
• 3:24
  Yeah.
• 3:24
  And I think about how sometimes, you know, I've struggled with letting go and letting what I know to be true about myself that I had this calling that God has brought me here thus far.
• 3:39
  And I've come through this test and that test to get here and I'm going to keep going.
• 3:43
  I'm on the right track.
• 3:44
  Instead of allowing that momentum and that trust to carry me, I could sometimes look at my mistakes, look at the things that disprove my sense of calling or my sense of worth, look at negative feedback I've gotten from people and blow it out of proportion.
• 4:00
  And it can cause the striving, you know, and I create this image in my mind of what a pastor is supposed to be.
• 4:10
  It's a distorted image.
• 4:12
  It's one coming from insecurity.
• 4:14
  You know, one coming from me blowing my mistakes in my bad qualities out of proportion, turning myself into a monster and then my ideal self into this unattainable God-like character.
• 4:30
  Yeah.
• 4:30
  And then I start striving after that thing instead of realizing that God knows what he's doing.
• 4:36
  He knew what he was doing when he called me.
• 4:39
  And also, you know, I'm not familiar with the 12 steps, but I do go to celebrate recovery and for hurts, habits and hang ups.
• 4:50
  And one of my patterns is when I'm doing that, when I'm when I've gotten caught up into that striving, I start to I try to find ways to escape my reality.
• 5:03
  try to find ways to distract myself from responsibilities, not in a way like I'm
• 5:08
  blown off work, but you know, like I'll try to take my mind off and sometimes get carried away
• 5:13
  with that. And I feel like when it comes to freedom, to my mind, that doing things that
• 5:20
  takes my mind off of stuff feels like freedom, feels like I'm free from everything. But honestly,
• 5:26
  whenever I let go of my need to feel comfortable, freedom becomes the ability to move and go forward.
• 5:39
  Because I'm not resisting, I'm not forcing anything, I'm trusting.
• 5:45
  Right. So it goes from being trapped in this cycle of, you know, negative self-talk and trying to find a way out to searching for, to moving with, going with the flow.
• 6:07
  I'll put it that way. So freedom, I think it has two meanings and one's healthy and one's not healthy.
• 6:14
  Right. So when you actually yield to something to die, your higher power, you're actually more free than when you resist and you try to find your own sense of freedom.
• 6:29
  Well, it's kind of like the difference between are you free from something or are you free to something?
• 6:33
  If you're free from something, then you're just kind of, to use recovery language, kind of resting on your laurels and you don't really have a responsibility to do anything or a desire to do anything.
• 6:42
  But if you're free to do something, then that's a different story because then you're free to follow God's will.
• 6:47
  But I was thinking about this also, about not letting go and how for people that are in recovery, either alcoholics or addicts, like has been the experience of Larry and I, that can be even more dangerous, not letting go because it turns into a resentment that we sit with.
• 7:07
  And Larry, what's your experience with that, Ben?
• 7:10
  Well, I'm kind of going through that right now in my life without saying too much about it.
• 7:18
  I've been in a very difficult situation for about a year.
• 7:23
  And a lot of things have happened in that year that have been very unpleasant, that caused me harm.
• 7:31
  And in most of those circumstances, even though I said it in an earlier podcast, you know, it's usually about me, not about the other people.
• 7:39
  These were intentional harms that people set out to do.
• 7:45
  And that's changing.
• 7:48
  Circumstances in life are allowing me to leave that situation, and it's a work-related situation,
• 7:55
  and go on to a new situation.
• 7:58
  But my problem is that I want to stay in that angry place, right?
• 8:05
  And now that I'm moving away from that, I want to say, well, you did this to me and you did that to me and live in the trauma and the drama of that year instead of embracing this incredible gift that I've been given.
• 8:23
  to move in a new direction, to work with a community that is going to be more willing to hear some of the things that I have to say and to move out of that toxicity.
• 8:39
  But I kind of want to stay there.
• 8:42
  And that happens to me sometimes.
• 8:45
  We get comfortable.
• 8:47
  Yeah.
• 8:47
  You know?
• 8:48
  Yeah.
• 8:48
  And sometimes for me, my fear of change is more uncomfortable than the discomfort that I'm experiencing.
• 9:01
  And so what I have to let go of is that fear.
• 9:04
  But in the situation I'm talking about, I just need to let go.
• 9:06
  Those things are gone.
• 9:08
  If they chase me, that's one thing.
• 9:11
  But if I drag them along with me, that's another.
• 9:16
  I think, too, about in the practical ripple of this one today, it says that I'm going to try to notice where I'm forcing outcomes or clinging too tightly and practice letting go even in small ways.
• 9:29
  And when I think about that line, I think about my marriage with my wife, Cristi, who's been on the podcast a few times with us.
• 9:37
  But especially early on when we first got married, because we got married in our 40s, basically.
• 9:43
  So we've been married this year.
• 9:44
  We'll be coming up on nine years in December.
• 9:49
  It's hard to believe.
• 9:50
  But especially early on, you know, and it's funny because she'll tell the story of when
• 9:55
  we first started dating.
• 9:56
  We knew each other for a couple of years through church, you know, before we started dating even.
• 10:00
  And she thought that I was a pushover, a real laid-back kind of guy because that's the way
• 10:06
  that I operate in the world.
• 10:07
  And then, you know, we get married and start building a life together.
• 10:10
  she finds out at home that's not exactly the way that I'm built. You know, I'm a little more
• 10:14
  controlling in a lot of ways and just quirky in terms of wanting things my way, you know,
• 10:20
  and that kind of thing and thinking that I had to have everything my way to have peace at home.
• 10:25
  And what I've learned over these years of compromise and meeting in the middle and
• 10:30
  sometimes her, you know, reminding me very loudly that I don't control her, you know, in that marriage
• 10:41
  I've learned the peace, the serenity, the freedom of just letting each of us be ourselves
• 10:49
  and follow God's plan and purpose for our lives while meeting together in compassion and love in
• 10:55
  the home. And that's allowed me, even in my home life, even in my marriage, to learn how to give up
• 11:02
  some of that controlling aspect that I may have led with in the past.
• 11:09
  It's like squeezing, for me, it's like squeezing a water balloon, you know.
• 11:13
  You squeeze it here, and the water just moves up there.
• 11:17
  It doesn't really go anywhere.
• 11:18
  Right.
• 11:18
  The tighter I squeeze it, it doesn't change.
• 11:20
  It doesn't change the nature of the balloon.
• 11:22
  It just changes where it is in my hands.
• 11:25
  Well, eventually, if you squeeze it too tightly, the balloon is going to burst.
• 11:28
  Well, then you've got a mess all over there.
• 11:29
  Yeah.
• 11:30
  Yeah.
• 11:31
  Aaron, have you experienced more of this in your ministry setting,
• 11:35
  maybe with your congregation or in your life in terms of trying to control rather than let go?
• 11:40
  Absolutely.
• 11:43
  When I first, in my first full-time appointment, the district superintendent sat me down in front of the SPRC and asked,
• 11:50
  what is your style of leadership?
• 11:54
  And I hadn't thought about that, to be honest, until she asked me that.
• 11:57
  But I sat there for a moment and thought about what I thought my gifts were.
• 12:02
  And I said, you know, I think my style of leadership is more a collaborative style.
• 12:09
  You know, that's and that's the way I went with that.
• 12:11
  And I think I didn't know it when I said it.
• 12:17
  But that's me being more idealistic.
• 12:20
  It's something that I want to be collaborative.
• 12:23
  It's that perfect ideal.
• 12:24
  It's that perfect ideal of yourself.
• 12:26
  You're talking about it.
• 12:27
  It's the perfect ideal.
• 12:28
  It's like, what do I think?
• 12:29
  A good passion would be collaborative.
• 12:31
  But honestly, I do sometimes have trouble understanding, you know, where my line is, how far I can push it and where others is.
• 12:42
  And not taking things personal when people are just exercising their power, you know, getting clear understandings of what is proper and what is someone, you know, trying to bully me or trying to persuade me to their point of view or something like that.
• 12:58
  I've had trouble seeing those lines because, honestly, I'm more of a, you know, I'm the pastor.
• 13:08
  You know, like, I'm the pastor, and these are things, yes, we all share the responsibility behind this church, but it all ends up falling on me at some point.
• 13:18
  It's not that I want to control everything.
• 13:20
  It's just that sometimes I take things personally where I should have delegated or sometimes I sometimes I confuse, confuse somebody's tactics, you know, as being a personal front or something like that.
• 13:35
  And I think that that I should be more collaborative, that I should be more, you know, let's sit around and talk and come to an understanding of each other.
• 13:43
  And once we discover, you know, did you work this way and I worked that way?
• 13:49
  How about we, you know, figure out a way to meet the middle like you and your wife have.
• 13:53
  So, yeah.
• 13:55
  How far along the scale have you grown since then?
• 13:58
  I mean, would you answer it the same way today or would you have a different answer if someone today asked you about what your leadership style was like?
• 14:05
  I think I've grown because, I mean, you can learn all you want in seminary, but you don't know until you get in there, right?
• 14:13
  And I think those things have sort of caught me off guard. So the way I've grown is I automatically think of what the other person's perspectives might be. I realize that they might not be clergy, they're lay people, but this is their home, like this is their church.
• 14:29
  and I think about how much they care.
• 14:32
  Sometimes I think I had a bias before
• 14:34
  that clergy people, pastors maybe cared more
• 14:37
  about the function of the church,
• 14:40
  but realizing that people,
• 14:42
  even though they have full-time jobs
• 14:43
  and that church is seemingly a small part of life,
• 14:47
  they care a whole freaking life.
• 14:48
  Absolutely.
• 14:49
  And getting to that story more
• 14:51
  is something I picked up on,
• 14:52
  like having that at the heart of understanding
• 14:56
  so that when I bring any ideas forward,
• 14:58
  I know exactly what hearts in the church and how to speak the language better.
• 15:02
  You know, I think that's something I picked up on from basically from just my first three years of ministry so far.
• 15:11
  Well, Larry, switching over to you, how would you describe your leadership style as a pastor?
• 15:16
  Yeah.
• 15:18
  Well, I've read a lot of leadership books, right?
• 15:20
  Yeah, yeah.
• 15:22
  But I like to think of myself as an adaptive leader.
• 15:26
  There's a great book called Canoeing the Mountains. And the writer takes the story of Lewis and Clark, who set out on a water voyage from the east coast of the United States, thinking in just a few weeks they would land on the west coast of the United States.
• 15:47
  And then they find themselves in the Rocky Mountains where their canoes and their boats don't mean anything.
• 15:53
  And so how do we where do we go from here?
• 15:57
  You know, and I think from a leader's perspective, that comes from building trust all along the way.
• 16:04
  when things are known and understood, then people can trust you to accompany them or guide them or
• 16:12
  lead them into uncharted territory, which, you know, almost always is uncharted territory for me,
• 16:20
  as much for me as it is for them. And listening to the people that are going to do the yeoman's
• 16:27
  work, like Aaron was talking about, the people that are going to have to take everything out of
• 16:32
  canoe and pack it up a mountain, you know, having respect for them for being willing to do that,
• 16:37
  instead of just my idea of saying, there's the mountain, we need to climb them, right?
• 16:41
  Yeah, it's funny hearing both of you talk about that, because my answer to that question about
• 16:47
  leadership style is different today than it would have been, you know, 15 years ago, or before I
• 16:51
  recovered from alcoholism, for sure, because back then, mine would have been, you know, all authoritarian,
• 16:57
  you know, my way or the highway, I knew best, you know, my ego, you know, on cloud 10 and what
• 17:02
  you. And if anyone from Braden Mason Church is listening today, hopefully they don't contradict
• 17:08
  me, but I think that I have grown into more of a adaptive or collaborative style. I'll call mine
• 17:14
  a discerning leadership style because I kind of will try to discern not only what the best outcome
• 17:21
  for the church is, but what is the outcome that people who care, care about? What is the outcome
• 17:29
  that they're looking for. And sometimes that person who cares about the outcome is me. And if,
• 17:34
  you know, other people, you know, on the council or in the church, you know, don't agree or understand
• 17:39
  yet, then it's on me to be able to communicate that in a way so that they're kind of being guided
• 17:44
  in the same direction, you know, as it were. But otherwise, there's times when I can tell from
• 17:49
  discerning from, you know, members of the congregation that they care a lot about whatever
• 17:55
  of the particular item of business is, and they want to see it go a certain way. And I'll kind of,
• 18:01
  you know, let them lead and convince the team, you know, kind of thing. And so in that way,
• 18:06
  I think it is adaptive or collaborative, but it's interesting to think about. But in no way
• 18:11
  am I nearly as controlling as I would have been before, you know, for me, before I worked through
• 18:17
  the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and before, you know, God has continued to work, you know,
• 18:22
  in my life as I've taken those actions, you know, God has transformed my mind, you know,
• 18:27
  kind of to call back to what we were talking about just the other day.
• 18:30
  So either of you have any final thoughts for today's episode?
• 18:33
  I am very thankful to both of you for being with us today.
• 18:37
  Yeah, I'll share just from my first appointment as a part-time supply pastor,
• 18:48
  I tell my wife all the time,
• 18:50
  I wish I could find all the people in those first two little churches I served
• 18:54
  so I could apologize to them.
• 18:56
  Because here I was, you know, I've been in seminary for a year.
• 18:58
  I have all the wisdom and the knowledge, and I've been called by how to do this.
• 19:02
  But I showed up my first Sunday, and I wore a clergy collar,
• 19:05
  you know, a collar like you see priest in on TV.
• 19:07
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:09
  And my wife said, well, why are you wearing a collar?
• 19:12
  I said, well, it's important for them to know that they have a pastor,
• 19:15
  and who the pastor is.
• 19:17
  But what I realized after a few weeks of living in that moment, I needed that.
• 19:23
  That was a crutch for me.
• 19:24
  I was trying to convince myself of who I was, right?
• 19:29
  And so, yeah, those are things.
• 19:33
  And when we squeeze that and hold tight to that control, it just creates tension.
• 19:39
  It creates tension in our bodies and our spirit, and it certainly creates tension in relationships.
• 19:48
  Any final thoughts for us, Aaron?
• 19:51
  Let it go.
• 19:55
  Amen.
• 19:56
  Amen.
• 19:56
  And with that, Larry, thank you for being with us this week.
• 20:00
  And Aaron, thank you for being with us on our episode today.
• 20:04
  We really appreciate both of you.
• 20:06
  And Aaron, if you would do us the honor of closing us out with our prayer for today.
• 20:10
  Let's pray.
• 20:12
  Father, teach me to let go and trust You.
• 20:16
  Through Your Spirit, guide me in Your will and give me the courage to follow you where You lead, through Your Son.
• 20:22
  Amen.
• 20:23
  Amen.