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May 18 - Free to Become · The Daily Ripples Podcast

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  Hey guys, this is The Daily Ripple. It's me, Corey, and I'm with Pastor Mike, and today
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  is May 18th, Free to Become. The stone, freedom is not just release from what binds us. It
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  is the ability to become who we were meant to be. Ripple One: practical. Today I will
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  live with intention. I will not drift back into old patterns or settle for a lesser version of
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  myself. I will take one step toward growth, trusting that small actions shape a better life.
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  Ripple Two: spiritual. As I walk in the freedom Christ offers, the Holy Spirit forms a new life
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  within me. The Father is not only setting me free from the past, He is leading me into something
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  greater. Over time, I discover that true freedom is the grace to live fully as the person God
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  created me to be. You know, when I read this, Michael, I, you know, because I'll start when I'm,
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  you know, when I do my homework, I start from the top and kind of read each piece and kind of
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  break it down. That's how that's the way my mind, I don't take it over, right? I kind of break it
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  down into how I, that's, and so. Well, and it, and it, and it's clear that's the way you study
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  the big book too, because that's how you're able to pull, you know, the lines and the quotes is
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  because you, you study it. You can tell a line at a time and truly try to understand everything that
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  it's saying. And that's very admirable. Right. But then I read the whole thing
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  and that's where it hits me more. You know what I mean? And I come back and said a completely
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  different view.
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  You know, we were kind of
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  talking about this the other week.
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  You know, I discovered that true
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  freedom is the grace to live fully
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  as the person God created me to be.
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  And I'm so grateful
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  for you and you and
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  you know, the program.
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  I mean, Alcoholics
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  Anonymous and you know, the people
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  around my life because you know, it's
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  cool because I found
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  what I'm supposed to be.
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  And that's, you know, and finding it, you know, I found it through the literature of AA, but, you know, I think some people don't even have to do that.
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  I don't think, I think that's a really cool thing.
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  You know, I admire that, you know, people finding the course of giving without, you know, going to the bottoms of hell and, you know, coming back up.
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  Right.
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  That's just their, that's just their course.
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  And that's, that was their purpose from the start.
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  Right.
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  they went on that road and they didn't have to, you know, do this, do this, but that's
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  not the way it happened for me.
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  And, you know, but I think it's a cool deal when finding your purpose.
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  Cause you know, I find my purpose and I, you know, I know what it is.
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  And, um, I was listening to a guy the other day and he was taught, he does this big book
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  study and, you know, man, I listen to big book studies, you know, I'm pretty boring when it
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  comes to like my day to day while I'm at work, I got a headphone in sometimes listen to it
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  big book study or someone breaking down this or that.
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  Very boring.
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  But he was talking about, and this is kind of what I do, is I use the text to prove the
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  text, right?
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  And you'll see me go from this page to this page, because especially when I'm talking with
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  another man one-on-one, in the doctor's opinion, it says my message must come with depth and
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  weight.
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  And I feel like the book comes with depth and weight when I do use the book to prove the book.
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  Right?
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  And the book proves the book many, many times.
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  And don't think I'm going to let you go on this self-love thing either.
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  That was true.
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  Man, that's been a week or so ago at this point, Corey.
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  That's old news.
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  Yeah.
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  But anyways, on page 77 in the big book, it says our real purpose.
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  And there's a primary purpose in Alcoholics Anonymous too.
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  It's to carry this message, right, to the person who's still suffering.
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  But it says our real purpose.
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  So you got a primary and a real in this program if you're in it.
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  Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God
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  and the people about us.
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  So when I think about my purpose today, and I align it with that,
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  and I take all my feelings, because the feelings are subjective
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  nature, but when I take that out and just live my life based on that, I become one.
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  And I wanted to, when I was rudely, when you were talking to me and I was just on my phone
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  over here, I was meaning to look something up about the angels.
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  Because I think I read, I was listening to something and they were talking about angels
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  and demons know their purpose.
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  But we don't, most humans don't know their purpose, but when they come to one with that
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  purpose. They find true happiness or whatever the words are. Someone else could probably explain it.
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  That's a pastor. Well, I think that inherently within us, kind of like the big book says somewhere,
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  you could probably tell me the page number, but it says that deep down within every person
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  is a fundamental conception of God or of a higher power. Page 55.
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  Page 55. See, I knew you would have it and be able to just pull it right out.
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  And so what I think about and why I bring that up is that I think that deep down within us,
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  we all know what our purpose is and that our purpose is to love God and to love others.
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  However, from a very young age, we're taught and affirmed how to rebel against that,
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  because you got a parent that gets in front of you and says,
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  oh, you're a poor baby. What do you need? What do you need?
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  And we grow up, you know, as a child with a very self-centered viewpoint on life.
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  The world revolves around us.
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  You know, our parents cater to us.
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  If you were raised in a decent, loving home, that is, which I know that not everybody listening
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  would have or have experienced that.
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  But it's very self-centered as we're growing up.
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  And hopefully as we grow and mature, we grow out of that to where we're able to focus on
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  other people in our lives.
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  The problem is, for those of us who are alcoholics or addicts, when we pour those substances on top of our maturity and into our bodies at a young age, we never mature, you know, and so we stay locked in that immature place of self-centeredness and self-seeking and what have you.
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  And so going through recovery and studying with faith, we learn how to grow out of that.
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  And we learn to recover that, what we call in the faith community, the image of God, or
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  we are growing into being the person that God had in mind for us to be from the moment that
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  we were created.
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  And that is a lifetime endeavor, and we'll never reach it in this life because we're still
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  going to be beset by, you know, faults and failings and sin, you know, using a biblical
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  term for it.
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  But I also wanted to circle back to your concept of using the book to prove the book, because
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  I liked that.
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  I liked how you brought that up.
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  Because what that tells me is that you don't, to use a seminary term or a theological term,
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  you don't proof text the big book.
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  Do you know what proof texting is?
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  Have you heard of that phrase?
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  So proof texting is usually applied in a faith perspective about taking a verse out of the
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  Bible, reading the verse, saying it, and ignoring everything around it, right? And so one example
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  that I always go to of that is any given verse, like, judge not, lest ye be judged. I'm sure you've
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  heard that verse before. And so people say that, and they use that as the verse to tell us not to
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  be judging. But at the same time, we're meant to use our brains. You know, the Bible affirms that
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  we're meant to use our brains, that we're meant to discern, you know, who is a true prophet or
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  teacher from a false teacher. Well, you can't do that without our human judgment. And so that
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  judge not lest ye be judged is more speaking to the concept of condemnation. You know, you judge
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  what someone's doing and then you condemn the whole person because of what they're doing.
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  That's the type of judgment or sentencing, if you will, that you could think of for that.
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  But even back to, you know, from a biblical perspective, the way not to proof text is exactly what you talked about.
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  You know, use the book to inform you about what the book means.
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  And the same thing, it can apply to the Bible the same way that it applies to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  And a great example of that, and I'm glad that you brought it up, is, you know, and I've talked about this before a little bit,
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  the prophet Isaiah, you know, in the Old Testament.
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  And in Isaiah chapter 61, starting in the first verse, Isaiah says,
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  The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.
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  He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
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  and the opening of the prison to those who are bound,
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  to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God.
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  Now, does that sound familiar to you, Corey?
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  A little bit.
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  And as it should, because in the Gospel of Luke, when in the very first time that Jesus
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  entered into the temple to preach, he opened the scroll and read that from the prophet Isaiah.
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  And so you see these same words repeated in the Gospel of Luke when Jesus opened the scroll
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  and began reading this message.
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  Now, what happened to him?
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  He read the message and they got his point and they ran him out of town to a cliff and
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  and tried to throw him off the cliff, but he was able to escape at the last minute because, you know,
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  he's God and we're not. So that, but that just shows to prove that it's all connected. And when
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  he got up and was talking about this, and then he closed the scroll and said, today that has been
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  fulfilled in your presence. That's what Jesus said. But without, you know, studying those things
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  back and forth, we would lose some of the context and some of the flavor. And it's kind of like this
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  this concept of freedom obviously comes up a lot, you know, in the rooms of recovery. And we have a
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  lot of gratitude for how the 12 steps have granted us freedom. But it's kind of like,
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  what does that freedom look like? And that's really what this is getting to on today's Daily
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  Ripple. Is the freedom just glad that we're not in jail anymore? Or is the freedom that we're able
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  now because we're free, because we've been set free to be of service and to help other people.
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  And that, what I have found in my life is that when I am helping other people and being of service
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  to other people, it is much more liberating than just being able to sit back, kick my feet up,
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  or watch TV anytime I want. You know what I mean? I mean, that's a very selfish and self-centered
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  thing, but we are free to become who God wanted us to be to begin with. And that's what we're,
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  I mean, I don't know about you, but that's part of what I'm on here trying to grow and do is we even go about this process of talking about this stuff.
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  Well, you know, I think that's the thing that, well, you know, we're talking about free, and I was thinking about page 26 of the big book.
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  And it kind of tells me this thing, and that kind of aligns to what your sponsor talks a little bit about, but this man still lives, and he is a free man.
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  He does not need a bodyguard, nor is he confined.
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  He can go anywhere on earth other free man may go.
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  Without disaster provided, he remained willing to maintain a certain simple attitude.
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  But so I think about what that simple attitude is, Michael, and I know we're jumping around,
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  but I like this on page 106 of the 12 and 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  It says, when a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it
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  is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resource alone.
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  He has been granted a gift, which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being.
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  He is set on a path which tells him he is really going somewhere that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered.
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  And, you know, it goes on with some really cool stuff.
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  I think the 12 and 12 is more of promises of, you know, because it's Bill's experience through the 12 steps, right?
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  And it's kind of just promises.
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  And, you know, you can go through the big book, and there's tons of things that kind of talk about a spiritual awakening or a spiritual experience and what that looks like.
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  And I think it's different from everybody and everyone.
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  But I will tell you that you're, a couple weeks ago, you hit it on the head, right?
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  And it comes into the definition of humility, right?
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  and who I am, where I'm going and all that.
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  And I think that's important because when I am free,
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  because what am I free of?
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  I mean, I don't think I'm free of fears,
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  but I'm a lot less guided by my fears,
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  and I have a lot more courage walking with God
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  to do things that I would not normally do.
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  Like right here, right?
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  I don't know about you, Michael,
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  But this would take for me to be not drinking when I was drinking.
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  This would take alcohol for me to be able to sit.
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  Do you know what I'm talking about?
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  Just dealing with the fear of the anxiety and overcoming that of kind of putting yourself
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  out there and sharing your thoughts to the world.
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  Of course.
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  Yeah.
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  Right.
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  So like, you know, and how far do you want to take freedom?
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  Am I free to go help other people that I have no idea to do?
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  Am I free to talk to people in a manner, anyone, anywhere, and feel okay about it?
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  Today I am.
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  And that's not for me doing.
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  That's a completely God thing.
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  And the more and more I take out me out of this, I'll tell you, that's the freer I get.
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  The more and more I think about every morning and every day of what am I not bringing God into?
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  What am I leaving God out of?
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  And I start directing my energy to that stuff.
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  Because I think even God brings that stuff to me, right?
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  You know, so God lets me know what I'm not doing.
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  And like working at his strength and aid, you know, that to me gives me direction of how to be more freer.
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  Absolutely.
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  I think that's a great place for us to stop on our episode for today if you want to close us out with our prayer for the day.
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  Father, thank You for the freedom You have given me.
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  Through Your Spirit, guide me to grow into the person You created me to be
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  following the example of Your Son.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.