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May 27 - Moving Forward Without Shame · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:06
  As a reminder, we like to give this reminder every few days in terms of what we are doing here.
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  The Daily Ripple is a daily devotional that I, Pastor Mike, write and post to dailyripples.com.
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  And then Corey, my co-host and I, we get on here and we talk about it.
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  And we talk about it from a faith and a recovery standpoint.
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  And that's why we are here.
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  If you ever have any feedback, be sure to send us an email to wave at dailyripples.com.
• 0:32
  But today is May the 27th, and our Daily Ripple is titled,
• 0:36
  Moving Forward Without Shame, The Stone.
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  Guilt can either guide me or trap me.
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  When it leads me to change, it serves a purpose.
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  When it lingers without action, it becomes a burden I was never meant to carry.
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  Ripple 1 is practical.
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  Today, I will not dwell on past failures without purpose.
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  I will focus on what I can do differently. Progress comes through action, not self-condemnation.
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  I will choose effort over regret. Ripple 2 is spiritual. Through Christ, I'm invited into
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  transformation, not endless shame. The Father calls me forward, not backward. As the Holy Spirit works
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  within me, I grow step by step. I am not defined by what I was, but shaped by what God is doing in
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  me today. And as always, we will save our prayer for the end. And Corey, you know, I'm reading
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  through this one. The first, you know, Bible verse that I think of is, you know, in the New Testament,
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  the book of Romans, you know, chapter eight, and the very first verse says, therefore, there is now
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  no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And I think about that, that condemnation aspect,
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  because when I was a kid growing up in church,
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  you know, I grew up in a missionary Baptist church.
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  And now I know, because I know my parents
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  and I know their nature and how they are.
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  So I know that as a kid,
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  this was not the only thing being preached and being taught.
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  But what I grew up learning was about a God
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  who was a punishing God, who if I did too much wrong,
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  if I didn't get saved in the right way,
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  if I went and baptized in the right way,
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  if I didn't do everything right,
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  He just couldn't wait to send me straight to hell.
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  And that's from a child's perspective of the faith.
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  And sadly, there are way too many people that are still out there, because we hear it in the
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  rooms of recovery all the time, people who grew up with that same kind of, I'll say,
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  misunderstanding of their higher power.
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  But that ignores all the verses, like the one that I just read, you know, Romans 8, 1,
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  where it's saying there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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  And even beyond that, the teachings of Jesus himself in the gospel of John.
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  Are you familiar with John 3.16, that verse?
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  Yeah, it's one of the most famous verses that just about everybody knows,
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  that God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son,
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  that whoever believed in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
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  Well, it's dangerous for me to stop there without going on to John 3.17.
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  Because John 3.17, right after it, he says,
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  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
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  And so Jesus came completely on a mission of salvation and to save me, not to condemn me.
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  You know, I like that verse so much that it's kind of my, you might say, my foundation stone, you know, verse of faith.
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  I even have a summary of it tattooed on my arm that just says not to condemn, but to save.
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  You know, from John 3, 17, that's one of the tattoos I have.
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  And unlike you, Corey, I got the tattoo knowing what it meant.
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  But see if anyone remembers that call back to a few episodes a few weeks ago.
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  But anyway, that's where my mind goes.
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  But I have that on my arm.
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  I go to that verse a lot.
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  Because of the way that I grew up, I have to remind myself of that time and time again.
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  Because, man, it is hard for us to let go of the lessons that we learned as children,
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  even if they were misunderstood lessons.
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  But anyway, that's the first thought that I come to on today.
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  How about you, Corey?
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  My first thought is, well, right beside this, judgment creates distance.
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  And when I was going through this, I guess it was yesterday, I put it in capital three,
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  it's only three letters, ego.
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  And see, my ego has done some crazy things in my life.
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  And, you know, even before I ever took my first drink, right?
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  My ego, because I was the only child, I was adopted.
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  My parents were only children, so I had no aunts or uncles.
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  You know, just these different things, you know.
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  So I would, you know, I would find the kids that had two sets of parents.
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  You know, I was like, man, that's cool.
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  You know, I wish I had that.
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  And, you know, I'd find the kids that had, you know, two brothers, two sisters, one brother, one sister.
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  You know, man, I separated everything.
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  You know, I separated, you know, not having, you know,
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  not having the parents that I was, you know, made from, right?
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  I separated all of that.
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  You know, everything I found in my life,
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  I found to separate me from you.
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  And, you know, I think it's interesting
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  because when I first took that drink at 13,
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  Nothing separated me from you.
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  I was one.
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  I was one with this earth, and it was the coolest feeling in my whole life, you know, up until, you know, anyways.
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  But, you know, so that's what connected me.
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  You know, man, I had a spiritual experience.
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  You know, there was no more fears, you know.
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  There was no more me thinking, oh, I got a webbed toe, you know, because I do have a webbed toe.
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  You know, my mother drank every day I was in her.
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  And, you know, so I had some webbed toes, and I still got one.
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  They didn't do surgery on one of them, so I kind of swam to the right just there.
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  But, you know, the thing is, man, like, you know, my ego always separates me, and it always does.
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  And, you know, through this work, through the work of the 12 Steps and continuing that work,
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  man, not too long ago, and I think I talked to you about it, you know, my grandfather,
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  Well, my mom's stepdad, so my mom's dad passed away, then my grandmother remarried.
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  He was a preacher.
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  He was a Baptist preacher up in Humboldt, Tennessee.
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  And man, you know, he would throw around some racist slurs.
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  Yeah, I remember you talking about that, yeah.
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  And, you know, I was going to do for the book study when we were going through the fourth step in our book study, I was going to inventory that and, you know, just so I had an example because I was doing – anyways, so I went to go do some writing on that.
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  It was really interesting, and I've never had this happen to me on an inventory that I just stopped doing in the middle of it.
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  Because I wrote his name, I wrote his first and last name, and I wrote, you know, what he did.
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  And, you know, I only came up with he was human.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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  It was this thing that, you know, because I've been, you know, kind of, I've pushed people kind of in different ways.
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  I've used that example of this thing that pushed me away from God.
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  But my ego also pushes me away from God because I think I'm different.
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  I think I can do this.
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  So ego to me, judgment creates distance, and it creates distance in a lot of ways.
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  But going to the whole flip really quickly so we don't have to go through 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
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  For some reason, when I go face those people and do those things and face the people that I had distance to, for some reason, it makes me one with everyone else.
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  In page 75 of the big book, and I know I'm going for a second, but in page 75, it says we can look at the world with perfect peace and ease.
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  Then it also goes on to say a little bit further, it says walking hand in hand with God.
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  You know, so then it says I'm beginning to have a spiritual experience.
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  And so that spiritual experience that I'm able to lift the world at perfect peace and ease,
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  I got that same spiritual experience at 13 years old to bring it all back.
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  And I begin to feel one with the world and God because those things start in the,
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  you know, we're kind of closing in on the fifth or the world,
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  the fifth month and the fifth step.
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  And so that spiritual experience starts there,
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  become the perfect peace and ease one with my creator.
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  You know, it's the same thing that alcohol did without the destruction.
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  It's interesting.
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  What do you think?
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  Well, I mean, for sure, whenever I first started drinking, for me, it wasn't at 13. For me, it was getting out of the restrictive religious household and having a little freedom on my own. I got to college, and first thing I did was learn how to party with the other college kids.
• 9:37
  And you're right. I mean, initially, it made me feel like a part of a group, you know, made me feel like I was a part of something, you know, I was, I was able to socialize, get over my, you know, awkwardness, my insecurities. And, but it didn't stay there, you know, where it led me to was that, you know, path of destruction.
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  And so, and I can get lost in, you know, like anybody, the shame or guilt, you know, over
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  the things that I've done in the past or what have you, but sitting with my guilt or sitting
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  with my shame does not do me any good.
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  You know, if I just replay all of my failings over and over in my head all day, you know,
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  and I've got a long list of them like we all do, because we're all human, like you said,
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  I can get weighed down by that.
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  But the real question is, what am I doing with it?
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  Am I sitting with it or am I moving forward and doing something about it so that that shame doesn't have to rule me anymore?
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  And I still go through periods where I forget that lesson that I've learned through recovery that, for example, family drama will crop up and I'll start to feel depressed about it or feel as though there's nothing I could do to change it or stop it or anything like that.
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  instead of just praying about it and turning it over to God and asking for the wisdom to guide us
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  in direction of what is the next step that I need to take. Because it's still easy for me to remember
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  the man that I was or the boy child that I was, if you will, you know, 13 years ago, instead of
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  remembering, affirming, and acting like, you know, the man that God has shaped me into today.
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  You know, if I allow too much of that guilt and shame to come up, I can be right back into that place of those feelings that led me to drink to begin with, you know, that guilt, that shame, that remorse that becomes overpowering.
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  And you're right, I can use alcohol as a way to cope, if you will, with those feelings.
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  But I know that it's only going to make it worse, you know, in the aftermath of that.
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  I know that that's a great way to blow up my entire life today.
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  And God has affirmed and taught me over and over again that the rewards, the abundant life, the joy that I experience today comes about by following God's will for my life.
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  And God's will for my life as an alcoholic starts with me not drinking.
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  On page 20 of the big book, it says,
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  If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all,
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  it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color,
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  are the children of a living creator,
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  with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms
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  as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.
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  In here, and I think I've brought this up to you,
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  but I'm bringing it up to an audience kind of now.
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  it says up here if what we have learned and felt and seen so there's an and felt and seen right and
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  then that right below it it says our race comma creed comma or color so to me you know if it why
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  is the double and right and i saw i did some ai on this it agreed with me until until i told it where
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  the literature was coming from. So, learned, felt, and seen. So, the God, the Father, the Son,
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  and the Holy Spirit, right? And that made sense to me. Because why would it do the double and?
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  Well, to me, it kind of relates to, you said, regardless of creed.
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  Because it goes, you know, then it goes on to say that whatever our race, creed, or color.
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  Yeah.
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  So race, creed, or color.
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  Creed is what we've learned.
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  Race and color can be interchangeable with what we've felt and seen.
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  Because someone of a different cultural background is going to see and feel different things than we do.
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  You know, everybody has unique experiences.
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  Because then it's all part of God's beautiful rainbow of creation, if you will.
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  But I've related more to the differences between people, what we've learned and felt and seen,
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  that God can use all of those things.
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  So in other words, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what we look like,
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  or what we've seen in the world around us or in our families, we can still recover.
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  So the way I look at it is learned.
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  Like if I was to take through this, you know, learned, you know, because it says on another page, it says, you know, for the alcohol, but the ex-problem drinker, you know, who has all these facts about himself, right, can generally lend the confidence of another alcoholic within, you know, a couple hours.
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  So, you know, kind of learned through that felt spiritual experience and seen through others.
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  But that's just, you know, it was kind of something that I was, but, you know, the whole real thing of this are we are all children of a loving creator.
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  Every one of us, right?
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  And so if I'm a children of a loving creator, just along with you in the side of judgment, my judgment is always an ego-driven thing.
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  And when I come one with that, one with the world, you know, because I wasn't, you know, that's such a cool thing.
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  And we could go into very big depth of that, but we will, I think we've already done enough justice.
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  Okay.
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  Well, let's go ahead and close out with our prayer for today.
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  Father, free me from useless guilt.
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  Through your Spirit, help me move forward with purpose and grow into the life you are shaping through your Son.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
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  I don't know who's supposed to be reading the prayer.
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  Anyway.
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  Father, help me treat others with fairness and compassion.
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  I think you're on the wrong prayer.
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  Oh, am I?
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  Yeah, you skipped ahead of day.
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  27th.
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  We'll edit it out.
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  We could both lose the thread at times.
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  Man.
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  Hold on.
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  I thought we were on the 28th, Michael.
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  No, we just did the 27th.
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  We still have to do the 28th.
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  Choosing inclusion.
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  We were talking about moving forward without shame, which was the 27th.
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  We were talking about guilt and shame.
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  Oh, I thought we were talking about judgment.
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  Well, I mean, judgment of others, judgment of ourselves.
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  It's all very interrelated.
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  So I didn't hear you say anything that I thought, what the heck is he talking about?
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  So yeah, it still worked.
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  Oh, okay.
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  Because that's why I was over at the race, creed, and color.
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  You know, all one living creator.
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  Like all of this stuff was booming to me in the thing.
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  And then it turns out, because when I saw the two different, I was on a completely different day.
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  I'm sorry.
• 16:59
  No, that's fine.
• 17:00
  It seemed to work fine.