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April 21 - Cultivating Faith · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:06
  Today is Tuesday, April the 21st.
• 0:10
  Our Daily Ripple for today is titled Cultivating Faith.
• 0:13
  And I'm going to have Corey, who is actually back here with me today.
• 0:16
  He's going to read it for us here in a minute.
• 0:18
  But first off, just as a reminder, the Daily Ripple is a daily devotional.
• 0:23
  It's found on dailyripples.com.
• 0:25
  You can sign up or subscribe to get it delivered right to your email every day.
• 0:28
  And you can sign up and follow and share this podcast from any podcatcher that you listen to it on.
• 0:34
  But I'm just glad, Corey, to be back with you because it's been probably about a week or more since you and I were back here doing the normal thing of this Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:44
  And so I'm just glad to have us back here.
• 0:46
  And if you would, just launch us right into April 21st, Daily Ripple, and we'll go from there.
• 0:52
  The stone.
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  Faith rarely arrives fully formed.
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  Like a garden, it grows through attention, patience, and repeated practice.
• 1:02
  What I nurture quietly shapes who I become.
• 1:05
  Ripple 1 practical.
• 1:07
  Today I will practice small acts of faith.
• 1:09
  I will serve where there is need, extend patience where there is tension,
• 1:13
  and look for beauty where fear tries to narrow my vision.
• 1:17
  Faith grows when it is exercised by inordinary moments.
• 1:22
  Ripple 2 spiritual.
• 1:24
  As I walk in the way of Christ, the Holy Spirit slowly cultivates trust within me.
• 1:30
  Fear loosens its hold, and the Father's presence becomes clear.
• 1:36
  Over time, faith becomes less an idea and more a living confidence that God's my steps.
• 1:45
  And I, yeah, I'm glad to be back here too, man.
• 1:48
  It's cool because what we do sometimes is we'll do a week or something together,
• 1:52
  that we'll have these other people kind of come in and then we come back to one.
• 1:56
  And I think it's a cool deal because we also give, you know,
• 2:00
  other people the chance and the ability to service as well.
• 2:03
  Right, right.
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  And it gives us different perspectives too.
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  And I think that's important is that it's not, because you, I mean,
• 2:10
  like with anything, you and I, if we were just sitting here talking about these things,
• 2:14
  you know, every week, day after day, at some point it might get a little old and dry,
• 2:18
  you know, so it's good to mix in some other voices with it.
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  That's for sure.
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  where it says this and says,
• 2:27
  what I nurture quietly shapes who I become.
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  And I've been doing something for a little while
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  and I kind of spoke on it the other day,
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  but I keep an index card in my pocket.
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  And I did it for one month, continue to watch,
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  had the definition of continue,
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  had the definition of watch.
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  Then I had for another month, selfish,
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  I have the definition of selfish.
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  This month, I'm on dishonest.
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  Because on page 84, it says it right here.
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  It says, continue to watch for selfish, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
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  And when these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.
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  But, you know, I need to know what all these things are, too.
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  And I need to know what watch means.
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  And watch, you know, I can kind of relate it to being at a stoplight, right?
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  I see other people passing through.
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  When it's green, I go.
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  Then when it's red, I stop.
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  And I do this over and over in a car every day.
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  But in my life, for some reasons, I don't do that.
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  I don't watch.
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  I get in this place of fighting.
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  And for some reason, the next paragraph after that, the first thing it says is, and we have
• 3:40
  ceased fighting anything or anyone.
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  So I'm not in a fighting position, right?
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  And it tells me I don't need to practice that.
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  I need to practice being in a watch position.
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  in more of a meditative state.
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  And, you know, I was listening.
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  And just to jump in, I mean, I think being in a watchful or meditative state is how you can cease fighting anything or anyone.
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  You know, because if you're not watching for, if you're not watching yourself and you're not watching those around you,
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  how are you going to identify where you might need to step away, you know, whenever a fight presents itself?
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  Well, we have bad service here.
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  I was looking at the definition of meditate, but it's not what you think.
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  Because I'm going to butcher this a little bit, but meditate is more being of observant, not observant.
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  It's a, I can like ponder on things, right?
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  So like I always went back to like the Buddhist meditation.
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  I like that too, because when it says a little bit further down, it says when we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.
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  Well, in Christianity, right, where do we turn?
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  We turn to Christ, Lord, Jesus Christ.
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  We turn to that, right?
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  Well, in Buddhism, they turn to the breath.
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  Well, in AA, it says, I resolutely turn to someone I can help.
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  So, you know, it's this three thing thing, you know.
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  Right.
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  And for me, the cool thing about this program was it told me where to turn.
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  Because, like, you know, I'm repeating some things that I said in the previous podcast.
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  That's going to happen.
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  Yeah.
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  So, but, you know, when I was sitting in church, I sat in church for years.
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  And they talk about, and you kind of was talking to somebody about this.
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  They talk about turning to Christ, turning to Jesus.
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  In the church we go into, that's what we're on right now, turn to Jesus.
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  But that doesn't give me direction for someone like me.
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  But when I turn in my thoughts to someone I can help, when I'm in the middle of chaos,
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  man, I've sat in the middle of my court case.
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  I might have told you this before, but I have 13 felonies in one room and two felonies in
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  another.
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  And so when me and my lawyer, when I'd go to court, I'd sit in the middle of the courtrooms because they called me in over here.
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  Then they called me in over here, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
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  I was so scared in that moment, but the only thing I could do was sit there.
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  Because I know that me focusing on my problems never helps.
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  Because I just continue this.
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  It's a roller coaster ride.
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  So what I would do, I would just text friends of mine and check on them and see how they were doing in that moment.
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  I wouldn't tell them about my problems because my problems are subjective, right?
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  And, you know, we were just talking about some problems you were going through.
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  That's a huge problem for you in your life.
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  Not a huge one, but it's a problem.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think when I just do the subjective nature of this, for some reason, I go through a lot clearer than I would be if I'm going, if I call you and I'm like, hey, man, you're never going to believe what's going on in my life.
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  I can't believe this.
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  Then I get off the phone with you and I go dwell in it, meditate on some more of it.
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  And it's just this cycle over and over and over again.
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  Well, I think that this, you know, today's is either episode like 50 or 51 or something like that, you know, without double checking.
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  But, you know, prior to 50 days ago, you know, before we started doing this, we didn't actually know each other that well.
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  You know, we had seen each other in a couple of meetings or what have you.
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  In fact, I'd probably interacted with, you know, your fiancé and baby, you know, more
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  than I had you at that point.
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  But then once we met, it became clear that two things became clear to me right away.
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  And one was that you were well-studied in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the
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  other was that you did not dwell in your own mess.
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  Like, I've never really heard you talk about what you're going through negative today.
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  you always speak about those things in the past tense, because you always have more of a service-oriented outlook on today.
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  And honestly, I mean, whether you realize it or not, what I think where that comes from is you putting in the work in the program,
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  and then that's the grace that God builds in you, the grace to not get bogged down by what you're going through today.
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  Because it's not like you wake up every day without a problem in the world.
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  I'm sure you have problems like all of us do, but you're not one to sit around, you know, talk about it,
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  and, you know, and dwell on it. The part in the Daily Ripple today about, you know, it starts out
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  saying that faith doesn't arrive fully formed, and then it says the first practical step is I'll
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  practice small acts of faith. And you kind of hit on this a little bit, talking about sitting in church
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  and, you know, hearing all this stuff and wondering, well, how do I do that? How do I do that?
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  I had the same thing growing up, you know. I grew up in a missionary Baptist church, you know, and I
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  was there at least three times a week, you know, Sunday morning and night and Wednesday, and that's
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  wasn't a vacation Bible school, if there wasn't a youth rally, if there wasn't a revival, you know,
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  anything like that, the number went up from there. But I would always hear all these things about
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  faith. And most of what I was taking in, you know, as a child was to have a fear of God, which
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  I did not know at that point that Old Testament language, when they're talking about fear of God,
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  is talking about awe and reverence. I just thought, oh, you've got to be afraid of this guy,
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  You know, and he had the big stick, right?
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  You know, the hellfire, you know, to burn or what have you.
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  And so, you know, growing up, you know, hearing that kind of thing, you know, they would talk
• 9:11
  about, you know, all these things that we should aspire to, but never really talk about how you
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  get there.
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  And that really has informed my work in ministry because like when I'm preaching, my preaching
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  style has turned into a what, why, and how method.
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  So first thing I do is tell what the scripture is saying.
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  then I talk about why that matters, why it's important. And then the most important thing for
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  me anyway is, well, how do I live that out? You know, if I want to be faithful to this,
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  what do I do about it? And so that really informs it. But in terms of those, you know, acts of faith,
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  it's funny because we don't have to have some huge faith like yourself or anyone listening,
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  like you don't have to be, you know, a pastor that's had a seminary degree or anything like that
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  to be able to figure out how these things happen because Jesus' disciples didn't have any of that.
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  And I know, Corey, just from our conversations recently, that you're currently going through
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  and reading and studying in the book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke. And interestingly enough,
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  I like Luke. That's probably my favorite of the four Gospels that are in the Bible.
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  And it's because it was written by primarily an outsider. Most people think it was a Greek scholar
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  who was writing the Gospel of Luke, as well as the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, if anyone
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  doesn't know, is the book of Acts.
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  It's the continuation.
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  It's like Luke part two, and it was written by the same author.
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  And it's split up in the canon of the Bible, but it was written by the same folks.
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  And so I think about, you know, this is the Greek scholar, author, Luke, who's attributed
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  with writing both of those books.
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  And in Luke, the 17th chapter, which I don't know if you've gotten that far into it yet or
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  not, Corey, but in the beginning, you know, Jesus is teaching them and it says, he says to his
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  disciples, you know, things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through
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  whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around
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  their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves. If your brother or
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  sister sins against you, rebuke them. And if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you
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  seven times in a day and seven times they come back to you saying, I repent, you must forgive them.
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  And then the apostles said to the Lord, well, increase our faith.
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  And he replied, and this is the important part, because the apostles who were not, I mean,
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  these were fishermen, these were tax collectors, these were just workers, right?
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  These were not educated religious scholars.
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  And, you know, they were telling Jesus, well, increase our faith.
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  And he said to them, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry
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  tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it will obey you.
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  So, and his point is, it does not take a lot of faith.
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  It does not take the faith of a saint.
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  It does not take the faith of a martyr to move mountains or to move trees, you know,
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  or to be effective, you know, in your life of faith.
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  All that it takes is a starting point because you have a starting point of faith and God does
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  the rest of the work.
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  And so for me, I'm glad about that because when I think about, you know, like this Daily
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  the ripple today about how to cultivate faith. I just have to make sure that I am, to use the
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  other parable, that I am, and I think your sponsor Bill talked about this several times when he's been
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  on here, make sure that I am cultivating my soil. You know, I got to make sure my soil is aerated
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  so that I am the good soil so that when I receive the seed, the Word of God, it can grow and flower
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  and provide a harvest of 30 and 50, 100 fold, you know, as that parable says. I don't want to be the
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  rocky path anymore. I spent way too many years being that. Definitely don't want to be the bad
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  soil, but that's where my mind kind of went thinking about all of that. Yeah, you might be
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  wondering what I'm writing over here. I've decided never to question that, Corey.
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  But you know, because I have Matthew 17, 20 open, and Faith of a Mustard Seed,
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  right? You have mountains. I thought that was just so cool, you know, both of them. Anyways,
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  I also had my book open to page 15.
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  Page 15 in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is pretty much,
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  because it starts out and it says,
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  faith without worship was dead.
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  And we've talked about that multiple times.
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  You wrote that because it's in the book of James.
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  And it goes on to say, so it says,
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  faith without worship was dead, he said,
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  and how appalling true for the alcoholic.
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  For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life, through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.
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  If he did not work, he would surely drink again.
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  And if he drank, he would surely die.
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  Then faith would be dead indeed.
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  With us, it is just like that.
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  I'm not going to read the whole thing, because I'm doing what I'm doing tonight.
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  And I'm going to a treatment center to talk.
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  And we're going to a treatment center that I actually spent some time when I was 15 and 17 years old in.
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  And so it says a little bit down in the next paragraph, many times I've gone to my old hospital in despair.
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  On talking to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet.
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  It is a design for living that works in rough going.
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  You know, I hate that, you know, I don't argue with the big book much.
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  But it says it is a design for living that works in rough going.
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  What about good going too?
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  What about when my life is going good?
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  What if I just do this program no matter what?
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  I go help no matter what.
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  If it's a bad day, if it's a good day, if it's a boring day, because that's how I drink, right?
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  I drink in days that didn't matter what it was, good, bad, sad, or okay and happy.
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  And I kind of come into our conflict with something that they do in treatment centers.
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  They say something of the effect of, what is that saying they say?
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  If you're mad, if you're, halt.
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  Right.
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  Hungry.
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  What is it?
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  called hungry, angry, lonely, tired.
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  That's what it is.
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  And so I drank when I was not hungry,
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  when I was full, when I was happy,
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  when I had people around me,
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  and when I was wide awake.
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  I didn't matter what it was.
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  So I come into conflict with that
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  because just in rough going,
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  what do I do?
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  What about if I just do this?
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  Because I've gotten the pleasure,
• 15:23
  just like you said.
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  And it was actually my sponsor.
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  He lost his job.
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  and he had started in between jobs, he started Ubering.
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  And he told me one day, he said, you know, and I agreed,
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  because when I came back in these rooms,
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  I didn't tell people I had this thing around my leg.
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  I didn't tell people all the things I was going through.
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  I just kept going to meetings,
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  and I listened to the guy that I was going through it with,
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  and I did what I was supposed to do during that time,
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  because I know if I start talking about my,
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  because, you know, on page 86, it says,
• 15:57
  got to take away the self-pity. So my self-pity can really drive my life. But when I do these
• 16:03
  things that go on a rough going, like going to a treatment center, doing this, talking to a guy
• 16:09
  before the meeting, talking to a guy after the meeting, and that's my basis of living. For some
• 16:14
  reason, these problems that come up in my life, they're not big problems anymore. They're situations.
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  And a situation's a lot easier to go through than a problem. And so when I look at my life and do
• 16:25
  this thing, you know, man, I get to reap the benefits. But if I don't, I get to reap those
• 16:31
  benefits as well. And they're not as great as fully. And we've kind of touched on this and I'm,
• 16:36
  I know we're probably over a little bit of time, but it don't matter. Um, when I do something to
• 16:43
  its fullest ability, right, I get to reap that benefit even with alcohol, right? I did alcohol
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  to the biggest, the most ability that you can ever do it.
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  You know, I didn't play around with it.
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  I drank it and handles, you know what I mean?
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  I would drink a handle a day or more.
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  And I'm not proud of that,
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  but I did it to get the most out of alcohol I could get.
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  So when I come to this program,
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  I do this program to get the most I can get
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  because, man, if I don't, I know what happens.
• 17:14
  And it happened to me.
• 17:16
  And when I drank after being sober for some time,
• 17:19
  It was easier than coming to an AA or any kind of recovery meeting.
• 17:23
  It was very simple.
• 17:24
  I just told the person I was with, I said, hey, I don't tell anybody, but when I'm out of town, I'll have a couple of drinks.
• 17:32
  And man, like, you know, and the worst and best thing that could have ever happened happened when I took that drink.
• 17:37
  It worked.
• 17:39
  What do you mean by it worked?
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  I got to get pretty much the promises of what these recovery rooms talk about.
• 17:47
  I get that, right?
• 17:48
  I get released from care, boredom, all those things.
• 17:51
  You know, it worked.
• 17:52
  You know, dancing.
• 17:53
  But I guess if it works so well, why aren't you still doing it?
• 17:57
  Well, it doesn't.
• 17:58
  I mean, it works for a time.
• 17:59
  Exactly.
• 18:00
  It's a temporary, it's a very temporary fix, a very temporary hit.
• 18:04
  But then the more that we do it, it's like, you know, you talk about arguing with the book.
• 18:08
  I mean, the book talks a lot about, I think in particular, there's that one phrase, and
• 18:11
  I think you may have talked about it some in there about that wouldn't trade my, you know,
• 18:16
  best day sober or my worst day sober for my best day drinking or something like that.
• 18:21
  And I think you and I would both agree there were some fun times, you know, with drinking,
• 18:25
  but they didn't last.
• 18:27
  And over time, what happened is that similar to what you're talking about, when I would start
• 18:32
  drinking, like the book says, I had no control over when or how I would stop or how much I
• 18:39
  would drink.
• 18:40
  I didn't really have a control over whether it was going to be a good night or a bad night.
• 18:43
  You know, I gave up my control.
• 18:46
  Alcohol became a higher power for me.
• 18:49
  And today, I don't want alcohol to be that higher power.
• 18:52
  You know, I want that.
• 18:53
  And that's where that faith comes in.
• 18:55
  And just kind of, you know, bring it back as we try to wrap up here.
• 18:58
  You know, it says that, you know, as I walk in the way of Christ, in other words, following Jesus's example, the Holy Spirit slowly cultivates trust within me.
• 19:07
  And I think that's important because that trust that God is going to take care of things is a primary reason why I'm not back to the bottle today every time a little problem in life comes up.
• 19:19
  So, I don't know.
• 19:21
  I'm sure we'll talk about this more in the days and weeks ahead.
• 19:24
  But for now, Corey, why don't you take us out with the prayer for today?
• 19:27
  Yeah, I'm going to say this one thing, you know, but hasn't God already taken care of us all the way here?
• 19:32
  Absolutely.
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  But the prayer, Father, grow faith within me.
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  Through your Spirit, help me practice trust each day and follow the path your Son has shown.
• 19:43
  Amen.
• 19:43
  Amen.
• 19:46
  It's funny, you were talking about not wanting to go long, and I was thinking about how the
• 19:50
  other day, you know, for Saturday, you sent me that 25-minute solo episode, but, you know,
• 19:55
  I digress.