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July 11 - Wanting Humility · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, welcome back everybody to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:06
  And I know it's kind of hard to believe after the past, gosh, it's probably been two weeks
• 0:13
  since the two of us have been back together.
• 0:15
  But you've got your normal host with you again today.
• 0:18
  I'm Pastor Mike and I've got Corey over here.
• 0:22
  And between the two of us, we're going to get this thing done today.
• 0:26
  And we're going to start with our daily Ripple devotional for the day for July 11th.
• 0:31
  It's called Wanting Humility, the Stone.
• 0:35
  Everything changes when humility becomes something I want, not something I resist.
• 0:40
  Ripple 1 is practical.
• 0:42
  Today, I will be honest with myself without defensiveness.
• 0:46
  I will not treat growth as a burden.
• 0:48
  I will lean into truth even when it is uncomfortable, trusting that honesty leads somewhere better.
• 0:55
  Ripple 2 is spiritual.
• 0:56
  The Father does not force humility on me. He invites me into it.
• 1:01
  Jesus shows that humility is not weakness, but strength under control.
• 1:05
  And the Holy Spirit reshapes my heart so that I begin to desire what once felt difficult.
• 1:11
  As that shift happens, joy, freedom, and peace begin to take root in my life.
• 1:17
  And as always, we will save the prayer for the end of the episode.
• 1:22
  But, you know, obviously this month, you know, in this next run that we're about to sit here and record, Corey, is we're going to be talking about humility a lot.
• 1:32
  Right.
• 1:33
  You know, and I know that you spend a lot of time doing homework and preparing ahead of time.
• 1:40
  So today, did you want to lead off the discussion based on all your – why are you laughing, Corey?
• 1:47
  What's funny?
• 1:48
  Okay, so now we've got to fill in, everybody.
• 1:50
  So we sat down to start this session today.
• 1:53
  And, Corey, why don't you tell them what happened?
• 1:54
  You know, I did my homework.
• 1:57
  I did extensive homework.
• 1:58
  I got three books.
• 1:59
  I have one, two, three, four books over here.
• 2:02
  Yeah, because you walked in the house today with about four books in your hand.
• 2:06
  And, man, you look like you're bringing your whole library in.
• 2:09
  And I did it on the wrong month.
• 2:11
  So we're here now.
• 2:13
  Well, I'll tell you, one of the places that I went to on this, just to kind of get us started and give you some time to kind of catch your breath and catch up on today's.
• 2:26
  And man, what an exercise in humility, right?
• 2:29
  Because as soon as you start to think that, you've got it all together and it's like, well, I've got the wrong month.
• 2:33
  But anyway, I was going with this one to Psalm 51, which is one of my favorite psalms.
• 2:43
  And are you familiar with Psalm 51?
• 2:45
  Do you know that one?
• 2:46
  I know.
• 2:47
  Psalm 56.
• 2:48
  Marie.
• 2:49
  56.
• 2:49
  Okay.
• 2:50
  Well, Psalm 51 is a pretty famous psalm.
• 2:53
  It's the Psalm of David.
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  And, you know, it starts with,
• 2:56
  Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness,
• 2:59
  you know, according to the multitude of your tender mercies,
• 3:03
  blot out my transgressions.
• 3:05
  It is the verse, and maybe it's why it's famous to me.
• 3:08
  It's the verse that I have tattooed in a circle around a cross on my back.
• 3:11
  My back piece has Psalm 51 on there.
• 3:14
  But I wasn't going to the beginning of that.
• 3:15
  I was actually going today to verse 6 of Psalm 51.
• 3:20
  And it says,
• 3:20
  Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts.
• 3:24
  And in the hidden part, you will make me to know wisdom.
• 3:28
  So, in other words, God's looking for truthfulness, you know,
• 3:33
  and not just looking for truthfulness in us,
• 3:35
  but it says in this Psalm that, you know,
• 3:38
  He desires truth in our inward parts, and in the hidden part, it says, you, meaning God,
• 3:43
  will make me to know wisdom.
• 3:46
  So for me, you know, this wanting of humility is the comfort of it, I guess, is in knowing
• 3:53
  that, you know, I'm not doing this work by myself, you know what I mean?
• 3:57
  Like, it's, we call it, you know, in our Methodist tradition, we call it sanctifying grace, you
• 4:02
  know, that whenever I'm being faithful and walking, you know, according to the life that
• 4:06
  Jesus would have me to live, then God is working in me, the Holy Spirit is working in me, and
• 4:13
  actually the sanctifying grace is what is forming me more and more into, you know, the person
• 4:19
  that God wanted me to be when I was created.
• 4:21
  You might say, not only am I recovering from my alcoholism, but I am recovering that, what
• 4:28
  we call the imago dei, the image of God, you know, recovering that within me is my life
• 4:34
  as an example. We're trying to shine that light. But for me to be able to do that, man,
• 4:39
  I've got to set ego aside, you know. And it says right in the stone, you know, everything changes
• 4:45
  when humility becomes something I want, not something I resist. And for a lot of years,
• 4:51
  I wanted nothing to do with humility. I didn't understand the difference between humility and
• 4:55
  humiliation. You know, who wants to live under humiliation? But what I know today is that that's
• 5:00
  not what humility is at all. Humility is just being right-sized. It's not having too big of a
• 5:05
  head or not feeling too bad about myself and recognizing that it's all God's, you know, and
• 5:11
  it's all, I'm just one of God's children, one of God's kids, I think, as you like to say, and just
• 5:17
  like everybody else. But that's my first thought on this one. Yeah, when I was first thinking about
• 5:23
  this and talking about humility, I guess like we need to get the definition of humility out.
• 5:27
  It's certainly a literature.
• 5:29
  On page 58 of the 12 and 12, it says,
• 5:32
  Humility, a word often misunderstood to those who have made progress in AA.
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  It amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are,
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  followed by a sincere attempt to become who we could be.
• 5:48
  And I think about that, and I think about who and what I really am.
• 5:52
  Well, do I know who and what I really am, right?
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  Because, you know, sometimes in my life I've ran who I really am.
• 5:59
  Well, really am, that is insane.
• 6:01
  I don't think that's proper English.
• 6:05
  I don't know, though.
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  I didn't make it too far in school.
• 6:09
  But, you know, I think that's interesting because on page 64 of the big book, it says,
• 6:14
  first we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure.
• 6:19
  And, you know, when I look back about some of the causes of my failure, it's things I've been doing my whole life.
• 6:26
  And usually things that I'm afraid to face or rectify or, you know, just go through with.
• 6:32
  Because, man, I have a lot of fears, right?
• 6:35
  And so I think, you know, the first thing is I need to know what I'm running from.
• 6:41
  And it's usually me.
• 6:42
  It's always been me.
• 6:44
  It's always been me I'm running from.
• 6:47
  But, you know, when I know who and what I really am and I can see the flaws in my makeup and I can see really it hasn't been all these other people in my life because I wanted to point the finger at the other people.
• 6:57
  But now I know who I am and I'm willing to go rectify those things from my past and make those things right to be more useful to God.
• 7:05
  Because on page 124 in the 12 and 12, it says true ambition is not what we thought it was.
• 7:13
  true ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God. And
• 7:20
  when I think about that, and I think about my position today on humility, I think I,
• 7:29
  I might have said this in one of the other ones, I think I only get glimpses of it. And I think
• 7:32
  when I get glimpses of it, just like you said, is when I become right-sized. And usually God makes
• 7:37
  me right-sized. I can be coming along just like I came in here today. That was the best example.
• 7:43
  example, I was ready for class. And that's okay, but I was pumped up because I had some different
• 7:51
  stuff I wanted to talk about through there. And we start from right here, because I'm like,
• 7:58
  oh yeah, I got these thoughts on this and this and this. And that's cool though. That's how I'm
• 8:03
  right where God wants me to be. And I just think that's kind of what I was thinking when I first
• 8:08
  read this. Well, one of the things that is hard in the practical ripple, it's hard for me, and I
• 8:16
  think it's probably hard for a lot of it, a lot of us, is that, you know, since today I will be honest
• 8:21
  with myself without defensiveness. And so being honest with myself is one thing, right? But sometimes
• 8:29
  it even goes beyond that for me, is that taking the feedback from other people without defensiveness,
• 8:36
  That's the real test of it for me, because my default state, if somebody starts to critique or criticize me for something, is to, you know, go into that defensive mode, right?
• 8:47
  Like, I could come in here and have, you know, five days worth of, you know, devotionals, you know, prepared for and realize I'm on the wrong day.
• 8:56
  And somehow, I'd get defensive and turn it around to be somebody else's fault, you know, besides my own.
• 9:01
  Even though nobody did it, you know, except for, you know, the person who came in that way.
• 9:06
  But I can certainly get defensive about that.
• 9:09
  And even that defensiveness sometimes is just excuses, right?
• 9:13
  Man, I think about the defensiveness and it's like, even in arguments with my wife, you know,
• 9:18
  Christy, and she'll bring up something about my character, maybe about my parenting or lack thereof
• 9:24
  or what have you.
• 9:25
  And I want to get defensive.
• 9:26
  And I want to, the first thing I always want to say is, yeah, but you don't understand.
• 9:30
  Right.
• 9:31
  No, but you don't understand. Or if you only knew, you know, if you could only understand why I did this, that and the other, you know, it's all, you know, BS, which that just stands for before salvation, by the way. So it's okay to have on the on the on the podcast. But anyway, that's my new favorite acronym pseudo curse word. And hopefully, you know, if Sister Judy from Braden is listening today, she'll forgive me for it. But anyway, you know, I just I get I get defensive, you know, and
• 10:01
  The next line, not treating growth as a burden, meant early on.
• 10:07
  Well, not early on, because when I first came into the program of recovery, I was all gung-ho about it because I was desperate.
• 10:16
  So those first couple of years, man, I was doing whatever people told me to do.
• 10:20
  Nine months in, I had a guy, and Kirk, if you're listening, I'm glad that he's still stuck with it this whole time too.
• 10:26
  But I had hooked up with this guy named Kirk.
• 10:30
  And here's a funny story about Kirk.
• 10:34
  And I'm getting to a point with this.
• 10:36
  But I was at a Tuesday night meeting at the mustard seed group here in Memphis.
• 10:41
  And this was, you know, almost 13 years ago.
• 10:45
  So it was in November of 2013.
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  I was about eight or nine months, you know, sober.
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  And it was a mustard seed group.
• 10:55
  And at that time, I had a schedule where I was going on Sunday nights, I'd usually go to a meeting at Hope Presbyterian.
• 11:02
  I don't remember the name of it, but it was a meeting at Hope.
• 11:05
  And then I don't remember what I did Monday night, but Tuesday night, I went to Mustersede.
• 11:09
  Wednesday night, I'd go to Personal Adventure.
• 11:10
  Well, at Mustersede, we're there, and there was a guy there who, in his share, said that he was new to the deal.
• 11:17
  And so I hopped up.
• 11:20
  He wasn't a newcomer.
• 11:21
  It wasn't his first meeting.
• 11:22
  But so I hopped up and I grabbed a little newcomer packets, you know, and sent it around the room just to make sure he had extra phone numbers.
• 11:29
  Even though I went to a newcomer meeting, I wanted him to feel a part of, because that's what people did for me less than nine months earlier.
• 11:35
  And I said, I said, it's good to meet you, you know, after the meeting.
• 11:38
  And I gave him the packet and he said, yeah, I met you Sunday night at the Hope meeting.
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  I totally didn't remember it.
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  This guy named Kirk.
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  And then the next night, you know, I told him about the personal adventure meeting the next
• 11:54
  night that I was going to.
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  And so he showed up to that one.
• 11:57
  And then Thursday, he actually texted me and said, hey, what meeting are we going to tonight?
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  And by that point, you know, I was past my 90 and 90.
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  So I wasn't doing like a meeting every day necessarily.
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  But when he asked me, what meeting are we going to?
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  Of course, I found a meeting and said, let's go here.
• 12:17
  we did that probably for two or three weeks, you know, and he never knew until much later that
• 12:22
  that was not my routine at that time, you know, of going to that many meetings, you know, night
• 12:27
  after night, I was doing it to make sure he felt part of, and so that's that early gung-ho period,
• 12:32
  you know, right, and then fast forward to, I was about three years in, and I was at a point where
• 12:42
  there was stuff going on in my life and it was all the woe is me kind of stuff,
• 12:46
  you know, what was going on, which is, you know,
• 12:48
  a part of ego and self-centeredness and self-focus and whatnot.
• 12:51
  And I remember there's a, and I was just talking about this the other day on the pod,
• 12:56
  you know, when I was talking with my wife is, you know,
• 12:59
  I called up a guy named Richard, you know,
• 13:01
  who has 30 years more sobriety than I do.
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  And we were going at that time to, to the Germantown noon meeting,
• 13:08
  you know, fairly, or he was going there fairly regular.
• 13:11
  And so I called him up and I was complaining about all this stuff that was going on in my life.
• 13:15
  And he told me, he said, well, it sounds like you need to come to this noon meeting with me and take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.
• 13:21
  You know, so in other words, stop complaining and get some more programming you.
• 13:25
  So that was kind of a, and I had to practice at that time because I had a lot of respect for him.
• 13:30
  I had no defenses, you know, but at that time, three years in growth for me was felt like a burden.
• 13:39
  But the way that I got through that, at times when growth feels like a burden, it says it right after that, I'll lean into truth even when it's uncomfortable.
• 13:46
  Right.
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  He gave me some truth.
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  He said, shut up and listen in meetings.
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  And that's what I needed to do at that time.
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  And I did.
• 13:53
  And it carried me through that period of kind of a not so gung-ho about the program, you might say.
• 14:02
  That's all I got for today, buddy.
• 14:04
  Well, there you go.
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  Well, we're right.
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  I mean, you know, we got a good time going.
• 14:08
  Well, since you kind of short shrifted us today on your share, we'll let you close out with a prayer today.
• 14:14
  Right, sir.
• 14:15
  Goodness gracious, buddy.
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  Prayer.
• 14:18
  Almighty Father, give me a desire for humility.
• 14:22
  Through your Holy Spirit, help me embrace truth about myself without fear.
• 14:27
  Shape my heart through the example of Jesus and lead me into joy and freedom that come from walking honestly with you.
• 14:34
  Amen.
• 14:35
  Amen.
• 14:35
  I did.
• 14:37
  Oh.