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June 25 - Walking It Out · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:02
  Welcome back, everybody, to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:07
  I am Pastor Mike, and for the third day in a row here, I've got Jason with me.
• 0:11
  Jason, welcome back.
• 0:12
  Welcome, Pastor Mike.
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  Thanks, man, for having me.
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  And our Daily Ripples devotional for today, June the 25th, is titled Walking It Out, The
• 0:21
  Stone.
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  Forgiveness is not passive.
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  It is received and lived.
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  Grace is given freely, but it calls for a response.
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  Ripple 1 is practical. Today I will take responsibility for my actions. I will not
• 0:34
  avoid what needs to be faced or changed. Growth requires participation. I must act on what I know
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  is right. And Ripple 2 is spiritual. The Father offers forgiveness through Christ, but the Holy
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  Spirit also calls me to walk in that new life. As I respond with honesty and willingness,
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  grace becomes active within me. Over time, I learned that transformation is a partnership,
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  not a one-sided exchange. And as always, I'll save the prayer for the end. Now,
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  Jason, I don't know what, you know, faith that you share, have, or what denomination you would
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  espouse, but in the Methodist church, one of the things that we often say and that I teach and preach
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  about is that, you know, our life of faith is walking hand in hand with God. You know, that we
• 1:24
  We take certain actions, we walk faithfully, and we say with God as our helper, but we
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  talk about being in partnership with the Holy Spirit walking within us.
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  And that's kind of where that line about transformation as a partnership and not a one-sided exchange
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  kind of comes into play.
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  Because we all like to talk about the verse in the Bible that says that we're saved by
• 1:46
  grace through faith alone, lest any man should boast.
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  But right after that, you know, it talks about that we're created, you know, by God through our faith to do good works.
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  And so it's almost like the work that we do is not to earn any type of, you know, grace or forgiveness or salvation, but it's a response of gratitude for what we've been given, you know, what we've been healed and redeemed and rescued from.
• 2:13
  And that applies, you know, directly to our work in the recovery program because, you know, I don't come in and work with, you know, newcomers and other men in the program out of obligation or because I think, well, if I don't do this, then I'm going to have, you know, a negative consequence immediately tomorrow.
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  I do it out of gratitude.
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  You know, I do it because that's what God wants me to do, you know, you know, responding faithfully and doing my part, you know, as it were.
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  But sometimes, you know, it takes me a while after I receive, you know, grace and forgiveness for something to figure out exactly what I'm supposed to do with it, you know, where I'm supposed to be walking that out.
• 2:53
  But anyway, that's my initial thoughts on this one for today.
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  But what initial thoughts do you have about any part of this, you know, Daily Ripples devotional for today, Jason?
• 3:03
  Well, early on in my attempt this time when I actually did get a sponsor.
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  Are you saying that makes a difference?
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  Big difference.
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  Oh, man.
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  Okay, okay.
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  All right.
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  Put that one in the rick.
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  I was saying, like I was saying in a previous episode that, you know, my first time around,
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  the first two times around, I did not get one and ended up back in the same exact spot.
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  So what's the comment?
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  What's the difference?
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  Right, right.
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  But early on, me and my sponsor talked about this is he said, okay, if you, you know, say
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  if you do a good just out of the kindness of your heart or following what God wants you to do
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  and you do an act of kindness for somebody, he said the second you tell somebody else about it,
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  it doesn't count anymore because you're bragging about it and making it about you. It's the things
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  we do when no one's watching and it's the things we do when we're not looking for any type of praise
• 3:59
  from anybody else.
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  To me, that is actually walking and living
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  in the way that God wants us to.
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  You see this stuff online all the time
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  of these guys walking around
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  and recording themselves,
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  giving food to the homeless
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  and things of that picture.
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  I don't like those
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  because why are you recording it?
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  Yeah.
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  You know what I mean?
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  That's not,
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  it might not be their intention,
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  but I feel like if you're doing something
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  to show, hey, look how good I am. It's completely against the point of what you should be doing.
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  But that is kind of what I took from that one is I just, when I do, if I do a kindness for
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  somebody, even if it's something as simple as holding a door for somebody, it's just because
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  that is, that's what, you know, that's the way I want to do. That's being universally courteous.
• 4:54
  And that is me trying to live in the faith of God and the teachings of Jesus.
• 5:01
  Well, and I think that's one of the things, one of the biggest problems that I have with, I would say, modern day evangelicalism is that need to, hey, look what I'm doing.
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  Look how holy I am now.
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  They'll never say that.
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  What they'll say is they're trying to be an example for somebody or they're trying to be a witness for somebody and things of that nature.
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  But in that aspect of that, you know, I can agree with in terms of like our work in the recovery program is that we use our experiences and what gave us strength.
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  And sometimes that involves disclosing or sharing, you know, with another person in recovery specifics about what we've done to be of service to others.
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  And I don't think that that falls under the category of like what you were saying with, you know, your sponsor of it, not counting.
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  I think it is what is our motivation for sharing what we've done.
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  It is truly because Jason and I are sitting down together and we're talking and we're talking about our life and recovery and the things that we've done.
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  And I disclose something that I've done for another person as an example to encourage you.
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  And we're not recording yet.
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  And it's not going on a podcast and it's not going out on Facebook.
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  but it's just two people talking about ideas of how to get deeper into this life of recovery of faith.
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  I think there's nothing wrong with that, and that doesn't cancel anything out.
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  That's the proper use of kind of our witness or our testimonial.
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  It's when it becomes more about look at me than look at God, that's where it becomes a problem in my mind.
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  And so I'm glad that you brought that out because that's definitely one of those things that I think deserves some further discussion and reflection in our churches as well as our rooms of AA, NA, OA, whatever kind of AA there is out there.
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  I also think about, it talks about the Holy Spirit calling me to walk in this new life.
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  And we were just talking a few days ago, one of the daily reflections, one of the daily ripples the other day was talking about freedom.
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  And, you know, I brought up about both in the meeting that day as well as, you know, in the episode that day, talk about, you know, that freedom, not just being a freedom from something.
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  You know, in my case, it was freedom from my alcoholism, freedom from my egoism, you know, whatever other isms I had.
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  But it's more about what am I free to do, you know, today.
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  And today I'm free to be of service to others. I'm free to be able to show that I love God through my love of other people. And that's where the Holy Spirit is calling me to walk in that new life.
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  Because back before, when I was stuck, you know, with my active alcoholism, I'll say, because we're not cured.
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  We have a daily reprieve, you know, contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition, I believe the big book tells us.
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  And for me, I have a daily reprieve based also upon my connection with God, you know, my maintenance of that relationship, you know, with God, you know, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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  And so I'm glad that the Holy Spirit has called me to walk into that new life.
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  Now, I don't like it every day.
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  I'll be honest with you.
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  If I'm sitting at home being lazy and somebody calls me up and needs something,
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  there are times that I can admit that I look at the phone and go,
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  do I really got to answer this one this time?
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  But when I do, I never regret it.
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  Right.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, I'm going to throw another AA nugget,
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  And this is from our friend Memphis.
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  He said, you know, Dave, it's what you were saying about your isms or whatnot.
• 8:43
  Yeah.
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  It's called alcoholism, not alcoholism.
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  There you go.
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  So we are, you know, it is our alcoholism because we live it every day.
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  But what I get as far as freedom, Michael, is, yes, it's the freedom from addiction, the freedom from alcohol.
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  You know, the obsession has been lifted.
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  Um, but the freedom that that I see or that I feel is the freedom to try to become the best version of myself.
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  Um, the best version of how God wants me to be.
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  Uh, I don't have that anchor around me of alcoholism or alcohol and being drunk all the time, you know, keeping me down to where nothing can change.
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  You can't even think about changing anything because of that weight. When you have to start drinking, when your eyes open up, give it an hour or so and you're not doing anything productive anymore because you're three sheets of the wind.
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  being sober and staying sober have opened up so many possibilities and so, so many more things
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  that I can be even in a later stage of my life, you know, creeping up on 50 and I've been a,
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  you know, a heavy drinker for all of my adult life. So this is a new adult life for me and
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  my sobriety and my, my, my new found faith, um, because AA has definitely given me, you know,
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  my relationship with my higher power back.
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  But it's given me, like I said,
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  the freedom to become who I've always wanted to become,
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  but wasn't able to because of alcohol.
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  I think it's ironic, and I'm glad that you brought out
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  that your recovery is renewing and strengthening your faith,
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  because one of the criticisms sometimes
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  from people in the Christian community
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  about AA or recovery programs
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  is that they're too generic.
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  They don't talk about Jesus.
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  They don't talk about God or what have you.
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  But the irony is that what I've experienced in the rooms is a stronger faith many times in rooms of recovery than what I see in church pews.
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  I could not agree with you more, man.
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  And so I wish that the principles of recovery, people in the church would get a little bit more.
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  So, yeah, I'm just glad you brought it.
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  Because unfortunately, I feel like the people in the church, if they would come to an AA meeting, the way AAs go to church, they would see the similarities.
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  I see because I actually am now going back to church.
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  I attend church every Sunday, whereas for the last probably 20, 30 years, or at least 20 years, not only did I not attend church, but I was adamantly against organized religion.
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  for a couple of different reasons.
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  Me and my wife got pregnant.
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  She got pregnant out of wedlock.
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  So her very, very strict Southern Baptist church
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  would not let us get married in her church
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  that she was a member of her entire life.
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  And after that, I just, I thumbed,
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  I'd put my nose up to anything organized.
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  But it's by coming in here and joining AA
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  and finding my relationship with my higher power as I understood him opened up a lot of pathways
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  for me. And one of them was going back to church. And my approach now, my old approach was I would
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  go with my wife, one of me, and I would sit there and just shake my head, whatever, whatever,
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  whatever. And now I actually listen and I see the parallels between a life of faith and life of
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  sobriety. And cause I don't feel like you can have the sobriety without the faith. And it's,
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  it's, it got me back to my relationship, not only with God, my understanding, but with Jesus Christ.
• 12:51
  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned that cause I could tell when you came
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  in this time, cause I was here, you know, I don't know if I was here your first meeting back or,
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  early on, but I could tell you had something that a lot of newcomers didn't, and that was
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  you seem to be here really trying to get this thing this time, you know, and that makes a
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  huge difference.
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  And so I'm definitely glad that you did, and that growth that I've seen over the past few
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  months, and clearly, you know, hanging out with the winners, you know, Corey and Bill,
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  that's got to help too, but I just really appreciate being able to see, and it's just a blessing
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  to witness that well i thank you i appreciate it it uh that you just saying that means a lot
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  uh you know because it's not easy you know there are absolutely days where you're like i don't want
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  to go i don't want to get up and drive you go to a group uh but but you end up you next thing you
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  know your car is heading toward group and you're glad that you can't that's right every single time
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  well and it's like our our recovery you know program as well as our life of faith you could
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  say the same thing about both is that they're simple, the things that we should be doing,
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  but that doesn't mean it's easy. With that, we're going to close out, Jason, with our prayer for
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  today. And it says, Father, thank you for your forgiveness. Through your Spirit, help me respond
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  with honesty and action and guide me to walk fully in the new life given through your Son. Amen.
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  Amen.
• 14:22
  Yeah, so we have to edit this part, y'all.
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  I just had my thought, dude.
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  It happens.
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  You were listening to the dulcet sounds of Jason thinking.
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  Crickets, crickets, crickets.
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  Oh, man.
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  I was just freaking thinking about it, dude.
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  It's the...
• 15:09
  Thank you.