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July 3 - Learning by Living · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:06
  I am Pastor Mike, and I know that if you've been listening along faithfully, then you will
• 0:12
  know that yesterday was a solo episode by my wife, Cristi, and that came after a few
• 0:19
  solo days of Corey digging into the big book heavily on some of these Daily Ripples.
• 0:25
  And so we're back today with more of a normal format with a couple of people, and you've got
• 0:30
  back. I know, don't everybody get excited at once, but I also have with me Cristi. She's still here
• 0:37
  with us today, and for as many days as I can twist her arm and get her to stick along with us. But
• 0:43
  we're going to dig right in with our devotional reading for today. It is July the 3rd. For many
• 0:49
  of you, this may be a holiday from work, because it's Friday. Absolutely. I know it's a holiday for
• 0:56
  you, which is probably the only reason why I have you on here today, right? Pretty much.
• 1:00
  Yeah, sounds about right. But our daily devotional today, our daily Ripple's entry is called Learning
• 1:05
  by Living, the stone. Understanding grows through experience. Truth becomes real when I live it,
• 1:12
  not just think about it. Ripple one is practical. Today, I will act on what I believe to be right.
• 1:19
  I will not wait for perfect clarity before moving forward. Growth comes through doing,
• 1:24
  learning, and adjusting along the way. And Ripple 2 is spiritual. As I seek the Father,
• 1:30
  the Holy Spirit teaches me through daily experience. Following Christ is not about
• 1:35
  constant certainty, but steady trust. Over time, I begin to recognize God's guidance more clearly
• 1:43
  because I have learned to walk in it. And as always, we'll save our prayer for the end of the
• 1:49
  episode. You know, I didn't listen, Cristi, to the end of the episode yesterday. Did you say
• 1:54
  the prayer for the end? Did you do that part right? Of course I did. I've learned from the best.
• 1:59
  Oh, yeah, that's true, because Corey had just done it for five days in a row ahead of that. So,
• 2:03
  you're right. You learned it from the best from Corey, and we're missing him today, but we're
• 2:09
  going to carry on as best we can. But I'm curious as to what did you first think of whenever you
• 2:16
  were reading this all of about five minutes ago? Well, the first line, understanding grows through
• 2:24
  experience. And if you listen yesterday, I referenced a song. Music is one of my love
• 2:32
  languages. So there's usually a song for everything. And there is a song that says experience is a good
• 2:38
  teacher. And it definitely, definitely is. But the other thing about experience is, if you don't learn
• 2:45
  from it the first time, you're probably destined to repeat it. Hence why you're my third husband.
• 2:52
  Oh, okay. Well, you mean the final boss?
• 2:57
  Exactly. Because the first two, I made some mistakes. And it was not, you know what,
• 3:04
  it was not only on their side, but it was mistakes that I had made as well. And so I had to do some
• 3:12
  self-evaluation. Yesterday, we talked about honesty. I had to be honest with myself as well.
• 3:20
  And so I didn't learn initially from those things, but over time, because it said that
• 3:31
  growth comes through doing, learning, and adjusting along the way.
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  So over time and making adjustments along the way has gotten me to where I am.
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  So then I was in a better position of growth for myself, but to also be a better companion
• 3:48
  to you.
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  So experience taught me that.
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  I looked at experience.
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  I evaluated experience.
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  I learned from those experiences and those mistakes so that I can apply it to the future,
• 4:02
  future relationships, future circumstances and situations, so that it could better prepare
• 4:08
  me to be a better helpmate to you.
• 4:12
  What I hear you saying is that through those two previous marriages is the title of this
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  one is learning by living.
• 4:19
  You've had to learn by living with me is what I'm hearing.
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  So you've learned a lot from me.
• 4:25
  That's what we're telling the people, right?
• 4:27
  Well, yeah.
• 4:29
  Why are you stumbling so much?
• 4:31
  I don't understand the hesitancy.
• 4:35
  That's all I heard from what you just shared.
• 4:39
  Make sure you go and re-listen to yesterday's about honesty so you can be honest with yourself.
• 4:45
  Oh, okay.
• 4:46
  Well, when it comes to our life of faith, for sure, I know that we have to, for me at least, I have definitely learned the more that I've been faithful in living according to what God would want me to do.
• 5:02
  Yes.
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  And I know that you talked about previous marriages.
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  I know that with my first marriage, my first marriage, I only had one.
• 5:09
  Yeah.
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  If we're keeping a score at home, remember, you got a higher score than I do.
• 5:13
  Yep.
• 5:13
  I'm just saying, but we're not going to even talk about this.
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  I'm also older than you, so I had four years.
• 5:19
  A little bit.
• 5:20
  I started it for you.
• 5:21
  This is a faith and recovery podcast, so we're not going to get into body counts.
• 5:24
  But anyway, where was I?
• 5:28
  I was trying to get into scripture, and you got me going sideways as you're laughing over there.
• 5:32
  I know, I know.
• 5:34
  But I was thinking about how whenever I'm faithful in doing what God wants me to do,
• 5:40
  which is not adding to that body count.
• 5:43
  But as I continue on this life of faith, then I don't always feel like doing what God wants me to do.
• 5:52
  There are times when I just want to be lazy.
• 5:55
  There are times when I want somebody to do for me, not for me to have to do for them, and all that kind of good stuff.
• 6:03
  But there is some truth to the fact that when I am faithful, that I experience a more, as
• 6:11
  Jesus called it, a more abundant life.
• 6:14
  Now, I don't get into the whole, you know, prosperity gospel side of things, as you know,
• 6:18
  where it's like I'm rewarded for doing the right thing.
• 6:21
  But to me, it's all about actions and consequences.
• 6:24
  And that's something that I learned in the recovery program, too, is that if I'm taking
• 6:28
  the right actions, I don't have to worry about what the consequences are going to be.
• 6:32
  If I'm taking the right actions, the consequences are going to be something either neutral or good.
• 6:38
  If I'm taking the bad actions, you know, my consequences are almost always going to be bad.
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  Now, that doesn't mean that tragedies can't happen.
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  You know, it doesn't mean that something unforeseen, that I can't be a victim of some kind of violence or, you know, abuse by somebody else, things of that nature.
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  But outside of that, the consequences of my own actions are generally good and favorable and help grow love of God and love of neighbor in me when I'm doing what Jesus wants me to do.
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  And it took me back to, you know, the book of James in the New Testament, you know, chapter 1, verse 22 says,
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  Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says.
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  And I like that middle part of that that says, and so deceive yourselves.
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  because if I'm just reading something, I can interpret and make that mean anything that I
• 7:27
  want it to mean. But when I go out and try to live according to whatever my interpretation is,
• 7:32
  that's when the truth of that's going to come out. And it's either going to be
• 7:35
  affirmed that what I thought was right or what it's trying to tell me to do was true,
• 7:40
  or it's going to get pointed out really quickly. This ain't working, buddy. But anyway,
• 7:45
  that's where I went in terms of like the faith life with this.
• 7:48
  And you need to be, you know, there's discernment in saying that it's not working because where is that voice coming from?
• 7:55
  Right.
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  Because you might hear that voice, but that might not be the voice of the Lord telling you that.
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  That might be the voice of man.
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  But you also talked about abundant life and abundant life not being tied to prosperity.
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  But abundant life means a peaceful life.
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  Right, right.
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  You don't have the...
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  And a full life.
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  Yes.
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  You don't have the ebbs and flows.
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  You don't have all the uncertainty.
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  You don't have the looking over your shoulder.
• 8:19
  You're living a peaceful life.
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  And even if things happen, tragedies strike, that peace that surpasses all understanding,
• 8:30
  I have personally experienced it where I know I should be upset right now.
• 8:37
  But why am I not?
• 8:38
  Because you've learned by living with me.
• 8:40
  Man, because living with you, oh, that's not this podcast, my bad.
• 8:47
  Well, but yeah, you just have that peace that, yeah, you can face anything. You can face anything, but experience will give you that too. If you, someone that has always been a survivor through tragedy or whatever, also with experiences, you'll get to a point and you'll say to yourself, oh, well, I've been here before. I can handle this. Or I've been through worse and I can handle this.
• 9:14
  This is nothing because I've been through worse. So learning by living, that is huge. You know,
• 9:24
  having those experiences is part of life and that is huge. People that don't have an abundance of
• 9:31
  experiences or where your parents, if you're always trying to shield your children from experiences,
• 9:40
  Yeah, I caution you on that because they do need to experience those ups and downs because it makes them better for it.
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  Because you're not always going to be there to save them.
• 9:53
  They're going to have to handle it at some point.
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  So why not go ahead and allow them to handle it?
• 10:00
  You had to.
• 10:02
  So let them as well.
• 10:04
  That's just a little side note there.
• 10:06
  I feel like that was very pointed.
• 10:07
  I'm still trying to learn that, you know, with my own kids for sure.
• 10:11
  So if y'all felt like that was a little pointed and directed, don't worry.
• 10:14
  If you're listening, it wasn't pointed at y'all.
• 10:16
  It was pointed at me.
• 10:17
  So we'll just go ahead and admit it.
• 10:18
  It was pointed in the atmosphere.
• 10:20
  Oh, okay.
• 10:20
  That's what we're doing now.
• 10:22
  Okay.
• 10:22
  Well, let me get my list of grievances and make them sound like they're related to the, huh?
• 10:27
  We'll have to change the podcast name.
• 10:29
  Oh, my goodness.
• 10:30
  Yeah.
• 10:30
  I like that.
• 10:31
  Throw stones.
• 10:34
  Learning to live maybe should have been the title today, and I might need to learn from that, learn how to live out of this episode.
• 10:43
  But anyway, the other thing that I got to thinking about, and it's kind of funny, but immediately the first line of the stone, when I was reading it again this time,
• 10:54
  You know, truth becomes real when I live it, not just think about it.
• 10:58
  And I remember that if I am off the beam, all right, let me back up a little bit.
• 11:06
  You remember last October, right?
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  Middle of the month.
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  It's very unfortunate, but yes.
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  Yeah, very unfortunate.
• 11:12
  So middle of the month, I had a little, we'll just call it a little episode, a little detachment
• 11:19
  period.
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  And I wasn't sure what was real, what was not real, you know, all of those things.
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  But what kept me grounded in reality more than anything during that time was you, you know, because you were something physical in front of me that everything else was just going on in my head.
• 11:37
  And so none of that, because all those thoughts in my head at the time were not things that I could have lived out.
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  So they weren't real.
• 11:44
  You know, it was just fears.
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  You might say false evidence appearing real.
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  But it was an actual reality.
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  The actual reality was the person who loved me and was standing there with me through that time.
• 11:58
  I mean, it was a period of about three days, you know, where I didn't even sleep, you know.
• 12:02
  So as you can imagine, I was pretty detached by that point because we as human beings are not meant to go that long.
• 12:07
  You got that.
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  About sleep, at least a little bit of it.
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  And so I'm just glad that if you're learning by living with me, then I'm certainly learning by living with you as well.
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  And I thank God for that.
• 12:20
  Yep. It's a team effort.
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  It most definitely is.
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  And we will close out the day with our prayer for the day before she makes more pointed comments toward me.
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  But anyway, our prayer for the day.
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  Father, teach me through the life I live today.
• 12:35
  Through your Spirit, guide my steps and help me trust your direction as I follow your Son.
• 12:40
  Amen.
• 12:41
  Amen.
• 12:41
  Amen.