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September 13 – Mending What Is Broken · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:00
  So I don't know if you guys remember this or not, but in one of our past episodes, Corey, our regular co-host, he talks about this, about that time when he knocked over a bunch of mailboxes and then how he ended up working for one of them.
• 0:16
  And that's his story to tell.
• 0:17
  But think about it, though, and really take it home to where to where you live.
• 0:22
  So think about that mailbox sitting in front of somebody's house.
• 0:25
  Is your neighbor's mailbox, but say you're the one that knocked it over in a drunken spree, or just because you didn't like the guy.
• 0:33
  Now, you could walk next door to that neighbor.
• 0:36
  You could tell them that you're sorry a 100 times or a 1000 times or 50000000 times, but "I'm sorry" still leaves the mailbox laying on the ground.
• 0:46
  The words did not lift either the post.
• 0:49
  They didn't attach it.
• 0:50
  They didn't fix the mailbox.
• 0:52
  And so that gap between saying that you're sorry and actually mending something or amends is where we live today.
• 1:06
  Welcome back, everybody, to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 1:11
  I am Pastor Mike.
• 1:12
  And it's Sunday morning.
• 1:13
  That means that we're flying solo.
• 1:15
  If you're new here, the Daily Ripples is a daily walkthrough, recovery and faith, one stone of truth at a time as it ripples out into practical application and spiritual growth.
• 1:24
  And today is Sunday, September 13th, and our devotional is titled Mending What Is Broken, the Stone.
• 1:32
  Real amends are more than words.
• 1:34
  They are a changed life that no longer repeats the same harm.
• 1:38
  Ripple One: practical.
• 1:40
  Today, I will look for opportunities to repair what I can and change what I must.
• 1:44
  The sincere apology matters, but so does living differently tomorrow than I did yesterday.
• 1:49
  Lasting amends are seen as much as they are heard.
• 1:53
  Ripple Two: is spiritual.
• 1:55
  As I follow Christ's example of repentance and restoration, the Holy Spirit reshapes my character from the inside out.
• 2:01
  The Father is not only repairing my past, but teaching me a new way to live that brings healing instead of hurt.
• 2:08
  And of course, as always, we save our prayer for the end of the episode.
• 2:14
  So there are 2 kinds of amends that you'll hear about in, you know, recovery type groups and 2 different ways to make an amends and and a lot of times those are side by side.
• 2:27
  So you've got the direct amend.
• 2:29
  I knocked over that mailbox.
• 2:31
  So I go and I stand it back up.
• 2:34
  I fix it.
• 2:35
  I repair the actual thing that I broke.
• 2:38
  I make a mend, you might say, to that mailbox.
• 2:42
  That's direct.
• 2:42
  Then the other one talked about in the rooms a lot is I don't I don't want to use the word living amends, but that's what you'll hear in meetings a lot.
• 2:50
  I prefer the words indirect amends.
• 2:53
  And those indirect amends, say that, well, my actions harm someone, so I'm going to change my behavior and cause no more of that harm.
• 3:01
  I mend my ways.
• 3:03
  So the question is, which one is the right one?
• 3:07
  Well, a lot of people in in rooms of recovery will tell you that if you cannot make a direct amend that it's completely acceptable to make what they call a living amend or an indirect amend.
• 3:21
  Well, I was reading through, and it's funny, ironically, because today, I was in a recovery meeting, and by today, I mean, of course, last Friday, because you're listening to this on Sunday, but Friday, I was in a recovery meeting, and the topic was the daily reflection for the day.
• 3:40
  And it was about the amends process.
• 3:43
  And so everybody's going around the room and talking about the different ways that they either have or have not made their amends for the people that they've hurt.
• 3:51
  And also, ironically, as last week.
• 3:54
  Last Sunday, my sermons were all about reconciliation, about how, you know, we're to approach someone directly if they have offended us and try to set it right.
• 4:04
  If they won't listen, then we take other people with us and where 2 or 3 are gathered.
• 4:09
  Jesus is there with us.
• 4:10
  And so all of these things are kind of culminating and coming together in my mind.
• 4:14
  And so in that meeting on Friday when the topic of amends came up, I pulled up and thanks to Corey and some of the more direct work that we've been doing through the different, you know, WAVE book studies and just this project of recording these daily ripples, you know, every day and every week and we've been doing this for over 6 months now. I've got a lot more recent and direct knowledge of the big book and even the 12 and 12 at times.
• 4:42
  And in the big book, there are 8 pages, 8 pages devoted to the amends process.
• 4:48
  And of course, I mean the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 4:51
  You know, some of the other of the 12 steps, because making amends of step nine, some of the other of the 12 steps might only get a paragraph.
• 4:58
  But we've got 8 pages in our primary text devoted to making amends.
• 5:03
  And nowhere in those 8 pages, does it talk about indirect or living amends?
• 5:10
  Now, the indirect amends are brought up in the 12 steps in 12 traditions book, but it's not in the original text.
• 5:17
  And even in the 12 and 12, as we call it, it's presented as not an either or thing.
• 5:25
  You don't either make a direct amend or you make an indirect amend or change behavior.
• 5:31
  You do both.
• 5:32
  You mend the mailbox, and you never knock over another one.
• 5:38
  That's, it's not a, either, or it is a both and.
• 5:42
  And if you don't believe me,
• 5:44
  Step 9 talks about the tools that that takes.
• 5:48
  Good judgment, a careful sense of timing, courage, and then prudence.
• 5:52
  Look on page 83 of that 12 steps in 12 traditions, book.
• 5:59
  But I can't get off.
• 6:00
  the hook by saying, well, I cannot approach that person anymore because I don't even know where they are.
• 6:08
  Well, the big book of AA tells us, well, then you write a letter to them, if you can.
• 6:12
  So in other words, the big book takes every excuse for not making a direct amends and dismantles it.
• 6:18
  Again, if you don't believe me, read those 8 pages.
• 6:21
  And I'm not saying that I've always done this perfectly as well because for years and years, I relied on this concept of a living amends because my sponsor had told me it was acceptable and I read in the book and made every excuse that I could.
• 6:37
  I took the half measures on that.
• 6:38
  You know, I fell in love with that whole living amends thing.
• 6:42
  But for me, living amends became more like a hiding place because it helped me skip the hard, humiliating, humbling work of sitting directly across from a person, particularly one person in particular.
• 6:54
  Well, God has a funny sense of timing because about a year ago, long before Daily Ripples was ever even thought of, I had a revelation, you know, in my time with God, that living amends that I was relying on for all of these, you know, almost 13 years at that point had been BS. In other words, before spirituality.
• 7:16
  That's what I'm going to go with today anyway.
• 7:18
  You know, changing my life.
• 7:21
  And how I lived, my life was good and it was needed.
• 7:23
  But when I used it to dodge, a direct amends, it stopped being growth and it became avoidance, acting like it was growth.
• 7:30
  So the direct amends matters because the person that I harm never saw my private progress, that's the nature of it.
• 7:37
  In other words, the mailbox was still knocked over in that person's yard, but the direct amends put the repair where they could see it.
• 7:45
  And the changed life matters too, because if I made a direct amend, made some type of an apology, but I was still behaving in the same way, it's no longer an amend, it's a performance.
• 7:56
  It's trying to make someone think better about me.
• 8:00
  And that's not what this is all about.
• 8:04
  So the Practical talks about how we actually go about this work, how to how to live it out.
• 8:11
  That's in our practical ripple for today.
• 8:13
  Again, the practical ripple. So today I will look for opportunities to repair what I can and change what I must.
• 8:19
  A sincere apology matters, but so does living differently tomorrow than I did yesterday.
• 8:24
  Lasting amends are seen as much as they're heard.
• 8:27
  So the question today for anybody listening to this.
• 8:30
  whether you are in recovery, and you're working on step nine, or whether you heard me preach a sermon last week about reconciliation, and you want to know more about how to do it.
• 8:40
  So here's the questions to start with, is that you name one relationship where the mailbox is still laying over sideways in their yard and start working on it.
• 8:50
  Run it through the step 9 questions.
• 8:52
  Is this the right time to fix it?
• 8:54
  Do I have the courage and the right motivation to do it honestly?
• 8:58
  Am I being prudent about it so that the repair heals someone rather than causes new harm to them or to someone else?
• 9:06
  But where you can safely do it, you'll make that direct amend.
• 9:10
  You go, you own your part, you don't give excuses, you don't throw out the, yeah, and I'm glad that you heard me out, but I also want to point out that you weren't innocent.
• 9:21
  You did this, that, and the other.
• 9:22
  That is not what this is about.
• 9:23
  We're not going to do that.
• 9:25
  And then back it up with that living in men.
• 9:28
  Change that behavior so that you're not having to go back and stand back up that mailbox time and time again.
• 9:36
  You know, fix it, make it right, and then live differently from this point going forward.
• 9:44
  Leave the results beyond that with God.
• 9:47
  Because our job is to repair the damage and to change our behavior.
• 9:53
  The response belongs to them.
• 9:55
  You know, there's promises in the big book as well that say that having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps.
• 10:03
  And that's how we get the spirituality enough to have the courage with God as our helper, to directly confront someone, to attempt to reconcile with them, to make amends.
• 10:13
  These related concepts that we have that we're working through in this.
• 10:18
  You know, Matthew, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, 23 and 24 says that if you're unreconciled with someone that, and you approach the altar, that you're supposed to leave your gift at the altar, 1st go and be reconciled and then come and offer your gift.
• 10:32
  So Christ himself put the repair ahead of the worship of God.
• 10:36
  Then in Luke 19 and verse 8, Zacchaeus, when he realized what he had done to other people, he said, I will pay back 4 times the amount.
• 10:45
  So he's naming a specific costly and direct depair, not a vague promise to do better and to live better from this point forward.
• 10:52
  Then again, in Matthew chapter 3, verse 8, tells us to produce fruit in keeping with repentance, you know, change life that we have is the fruit.
• 11:01
  And the fruit is the evidence, that the repentance was real, and the repentance that it takes to make a direct amends to a person.
• 11:10
  So as we come back today, you know, and it might be a little bit of a shorter episode today, but we bring it back to that mailbox.
• 11:17
  You know, the apology is the words that we have to humble ourselves enough to make and to try to admit where we've failed and trying to set it right, but the mending or they're actually standing up that mailbox, putting the post back in the ground, nailing a new mailbox onto that post, that's the work.
• 11:39
  And then our new way of living is what keeps that mailbox standing after it's been repaired.
• 11:43
  Or at least it keeps us from being the one who storms through on a drunken bender and knocks it down again along with about a dozen others, right?
• 11:51
  So for the person listening to this on a Sunday morning, that's what grace looks like when we roll up our sleeves and do the hard work of partnering with God.
• 12:01
  so that our interpersonal relationships may be repaired.
• 12:06
  Anyway, we could talk about this a lot more, but I'm going to get off of here and I'm going to get back to the work that we have ahead of us today of doing the next right indicated thing in front of me, which for me, is getting off this thing and going about the work of preaching a message to some others.
• 12:23
  We'll close as we always do, though, with our prayer for today.
• 12:27
  Father God, help me repair what I can and change what needs changing within me through your Holy Spirit.
• 12:33
  Make my life reflect genuine repentance.
• 12:36
  Shape me through the example of Jesus.
• 12:38
  Amen.
• 12:40
  And as always, your job now is to go and do all the good you can for all the people you can, in all the places you can, in all the ways you can, by all the means you can, and do it all for as long as you ever can, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, may you all go in peace.
• 12:58
  Amen.