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October 11 – Choosing Self-Restraint · The Daily Ripples Podcast

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  Welcome back, everybody, to the Daily Ripples podcast. Today is Sunday,
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  October the 11th, and our Daily Ripple today is titled, Choosing Self-Restraint, The Stone.
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  Strength is revealed not by how quickly I react, but how wisely I choose my response.
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  Ripple 1, Practical. Today, I will pause before speaking or acting when frustration rises.
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  I cannot always control what happens around me, but I can choose how I respond.
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  Self-restraint creates room for better decisions and healthier relationships.
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  Ripple 2. Spiritual. As I follow Christ's example of gentleness and self-control,
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  the Holy Spirit gives me the strength to respond instead of react.
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  The Father is shaping a new character within me, one choice at a time,
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  teaching me that real progress is often seen in the reactions I no longer have.
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  So, Corey, this is funny because this one kind of tacks on exactly to a lot
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  of what we were talking about yesterday. Right.
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  Reactions versus responses.
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  And yes, before I got sober, like in my professional life, you know,
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  because I was before I was a pastor, before I was sober, all those things.
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  I was an accountant, you know, CPA for years. And I worked in what's called
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  external accounting, which is where I'd have to go to clients' offices to audit
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  their books and records.
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  Well, when you are dealing in any type of client service, the rules are the same.
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  You learn pretty quickly that your reaction to people cannot be your response
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  if you want to keep a job and if you want to keep a client.
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  But that is very compartmentalized or it was very compartmentalized to my clients and external work.
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  The people that actually worked with me that were co-workers and what have you.
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  Yeah, they were getting reactions from me all the time. you know,
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  not necessarily responses, because there I was just free to say and do what I wanted. And.
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  But that, you know, if I'm constantly where, no matter what context it's in,
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  where my reactions are, my responses all the time, well, all that's going to do
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  for me is make people not want to be around me very much, number one,
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  especially before I was working a spiritual program and before I was ever trying
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  to allow God to work any kind of change in me.
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  Because back then, you know, I wasn't trying to have anything to do with a higher power.
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  But since getting sober, since working this program, you know, I am seeing,
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  that it just has naturally happened for me to where even the negative reactions
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  that I had to things back in the day are less and less and less.
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  It's kind of like what you were saying.
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  You were saying yesterday that you've been praying for God to kind of allow
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  you to see God's kids and people before, you know, in real time,
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  basically, so that you're not having to,
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  go back later and realize, oh, I judged that person or I reacted negatively
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  or whatever the case may have been.
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  But I always think, too, about, you know, as I did get closer to God,
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  as I started studying Scripture, I mean, there's a whole lot of wisdom literature
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  in the Bible that talks about this, you know, including in Proverbs 29, verse 11.
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  Says, And so, like, today—,
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  In my professional life, in my career, my vocation, one of the things that people
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  tell me a lot today is how calm and patient I am with everyone.
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  And every time somebody tells me that, Corey, I want to laugh because I know
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  that within my own self and my own brain, I'm not calm or patient at all half the time.
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  But I would say that it's a combination of I've practiced withholding my reactions
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  until I could give a response.
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  And then the second part of that is that God has replaced a lot of those negative
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  reactions in me with a more gracious outlook toward other people
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  that allows me to be calm and patient, even in the midst of calamity.
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  But that's something that, obviously, I didn't experience until I started working
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  and practicing the 10th step, you know, day after day.
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  Well you know the in the book it talks a little bit about like what a spiritual experience is,
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  says it says on page 25 it says the great fact is just this and nothing less,
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  that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized
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  our whole attitude towards life toward our fellows and towards god's universe
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  right exactly what i was just saying yeah so like,
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  you know and these things come up I'm like you know,
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  today like you know where I think about that is on awakening where I start my day.
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  Man, and I, I press on that a lot because I, uh, I ran around in this,
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  ran around sober or dry or whatever for a long time, about, I don't know,
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  seven years of doing this.
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  And I mean, I practiced it to some degree, but I felt like a chicken with its head cut off out there.
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  Yeah. And I, and like, you know, I, man, like I would not pause.
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  I would not do this. I would not practice any of that.
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  And uh so i've been thinking about like you know page 84 says continue to watch,
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  so it says continue to watch and watch is a bit like a word that's not really
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  like hey i'm fighting it's watch like so if you think about like a stakeout
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  if we were like some like detectives sitting in a car,
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  and you know doing detective stuff anyways but we're like say which neither of us have ever been.
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  Right. I mean, obviously it actually is, but, you know, so. We know from TV.
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  Right. You know, and, um, but if I'm watching something, you know,
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  if something happens, man, I'm just watching it still.
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  I'm taking pictures. I'm watching. I'm being vigilant. Man, when something big
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  pops off though, obviously there's a reaction, right?
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  Something drastic in the world happens at that time, hey, stakeout's blown, we got to act.
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  But, you know, and I kind of think about that, continue to watch for selfishness,
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  dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
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  So when these crop up, I'm not jumping around and I'm not jumping out of the
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  car, you know, being all loud about it. I'm watching it come through.
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  And then I do the designated things like ask God to remove it at once, right?
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  Talk to somebody, man. I've been really trying harder.
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  When I was talking to a friend of mine and I told him the reason I was calling,
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  I said, Hey man, I'm trying to do better about practicing this right here, talking to somebody.
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  Because I think, you know, because I'm, I have some disciplines in my life and
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  I'm a little bit spiritual that, Hey man, I don't need to talk to people about this stuff.
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  I got it. Yeah. You know? And I come into that, I don't know if you've ever
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  come into that place, but I, oh yeah.
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  And then, you know, then it says I make amends quickly if I've harmed anyone.
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  And I'm good about the other, it resolutely turned my thoughts to someone else
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  I can help. I'm really good about the three.
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  I'm not always perfect with the first one. Like I'm not always,
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  you know, hitting it right.
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  Usually I have a cuss word to say first and then I ask God to remove it,
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  you know, but I'm not having that. I haven't been good and I'm trying to practice
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  it more as talking to somebody.
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  Yeah. But where the flip is and where the infinity thing is.
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  Is you go over to page 87, and it says we pause, right?
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  So what am I doing when I'm pausing?
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  I'm going back over to 84 and doing the suggested things to do,
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  like the six things, and that's how I practice this in a day-to-day way,
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  and I think it's the simplest way to do it.
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  Yeah. And I think, I mean, this one is titled Choosing Self-Restraint,
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  but I mean, what we're talking about overall is discipline, you know,
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  because I was thinking too about how I've heard time and time again in,
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  you know, recovery rooms or just,
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  in people who don't even work a program, you know,
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  it's almost like somebody will say something negative, hateful,
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  rude, that's a reaction.
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  And if somebody is offended, they'll kind of step back. And I'm talking about,
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  you know, normal folks, you know, like outside the recovery rooms.
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  If somebody gets offended by it, they'll step back and go, well,
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  I can't help it. That's just what I think.
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  Well, no, that's not true. That's just saying you have no self-restraint.
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  It's just saying that you don't know how to hold your tongue.
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  You know, that's just, that's immaturity and weakness. But we can see that because
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  we have, as the steps say, having had a spiritual awakening.
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  You talked a little bit about spiritual awakening a bit ago as the result of these steps, right?
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  So, like, we can see where the, well, I can't help it, that was what I thought
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  is a BS response, you know, before the steps.
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  Anyway, so that is, it's just a sign of immaturity, both, you know,
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  emotionally and spiritually or what have you.
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  But I have not gotten to the place to where I can have self-restraint on my own at,
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  all.
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  Right. God. People in the church decide all the time, you know,
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  when you become a member of a church, you're deciding to turn your life over
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  to God. You know, that's usually part of the whole baptism or membership liturgy
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  of just about every church and denomination that there is.
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  And so when that happens, then, you know, for me, I've received the gift of
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  the Holy Spirit that guides me and abides with me and is with me,
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  you know, during those times.
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  Times. And Galatians 5, 22 and 23 tells me that the fruit of the Spirit,
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  so not the fruit of Pastor Mike, but the fruit of the Spirit is love,
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  joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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  And so that's the New International Version that I read from,
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  but that is telling me what God works in me.
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  And the way that I see that manifest in my life is if I am faithful in doing
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  God's will. And for me, God's will is continuing to study the Bible,
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  continuing to do what He's called me to do, and continue to work my program of recovery.
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  Well, you were talking about like normal people a second ago.
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  And there's a few of those that listen to this too.
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  Well, you know, I was thinking about that. And like, I think about my mother a lot.
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  And I probably said this story, but you know, it's kind of like when we were
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  in the hospital and we'd been in the hospital all day with baby.
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  And my mom came up to the hospital after like, it was like nine o'clock,
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  10 o'clock at night. We'd been there all day.
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  And like all she wanted to talk about was the doctors i can't believe these doctors well,
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  my mom can let has lived this very successful life being the way she is yeah
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  right and so like when you're talking about other people like you know and kind
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  of like in spiritual ignorance or you know maybe in that maybe that's a better term
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  because you know maybe they just don't know and you know not knowing is not a crime either,
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  so like you know when it talks about like but for me and someone like you on
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  page 66 it says if we were to live,
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  we had to be free of anger the grouch and the brainstorm were not for us they
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  may be the dubious luxuries of normal milk right but for the alcohol these things
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  are poison and so I come into that like you know because,
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  you know I talk a little I talk a lot about this you know thinking I have this you know extra,
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  cool thing to do and but I do think it is cool when it On page 111,
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  it says, and like, you know, it's in a different context, but it is very interesting
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  on page 111, the first sentence on that page, the first word says,
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  the first principle of success is that you should never be angry.
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  And, you know, so like when I, but I, I come into that and it's,
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  it's just an interesting thing to me because like, man, like, cause when I get angry,
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  man, like I'm, and you know, Bill talks about a very, and you know,
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  I, I agree with his analogy or metaphor, whatever you want to call it.
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  I found it very begrudging.
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  Like you didn't want to give him. Cause I've tried to make it my own.
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  Like he's talking about an asteroid, but he talks about a train.
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  Yeah. And man, like, you know, when that train leaves, the train leaves and
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  I don't, until the train stops, I don't get off that train. Yeah. Right.
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  But do I allow myself to stay seated on that train or do I get up and act a fool? Yeah.
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  And man, a lot of times I'll get up and act a fool. Yeah. But the principle
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  and the discipline is staying in your seat.
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  And man, I felt that like, you know, I was in court, right? I remember,
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  man, like it was yesterday, I was sitting there in court.
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  And I just want to just, yeah. And like, because, you know, you don't,
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  I just want to leave this planet.
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  You know what I mean? Yeah. But you stay in your seat like a good boy.
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  Right. You process out. Yeah. That's the self-restraint. Yeah.
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  And so, but that's what we do.
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  And like, that's how, if we ride that, when the train stops,
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  because the train eventually stops, we can get off and go our way.
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  But then the train's going to start again.
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  And the funny thing, too, is that that train is going to go the same distance.
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  It's going to arrive at the same place at the same time, no matter how you act on the train.
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  The difference is whether or not you enjoy your experience. Right.
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  You know, because I know for me, when I'm acting the full man,
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  I certainly don't enjoy it.
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  The other thing that I'll add to that just in closing is that I could say that
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  today, I guess by your definition, has been successful because I haven't been really angry today.
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  Right. So don't mess it up for me, Corey. Anyway, after all.
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  Our prayer for the day. Father God, help me respond with wisdom instead of impulse today.
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  Through your Holy Spirit, grow within me the self-control that reflects your character.
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  Shape me through the example of Jesus. Amen. Amen.