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September 26 – Restoring What Was Broken · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Good morning, everyone.
• 0:05
  September 26th.
• 0:07
  And this is the Daily Ripple.
• 0:10
  I'm Bill, and I'm sitting in for Pastor Mike and Corey this week.
• 0:15
  So you guys will be stuck with me for the next 7 days.
• 0:18
  I hope I don't put you to sleep.
• 0:20
  We're going to start this morning talking about the stone.
• 0:24
  Faithful Change lived consistently over time, can restore relationships that once seemed beyond repair.
• 0:30
  Ripple one practical.
• 0:32
  Today I will remember that trust is earned through steady actions, not quick promises.
• 0:37
  The people I have hurt may need time to believe that I have changed.
• 0:42
  My responsibility is to keep living, honestly, patience and love, as principles in my life.
• 0:52
  Ripple 2, as I follow Christ's example of faithful love, the Holy Spirit produces lasting change that others can see over time.
• 1:01
  The father delights in restoring what sin and brokenness have damaged, often in ways I never thought possible.
• 1:08
  So, a little bit to talk about that.
• 1:11
  So, you know, I think these podcasts are meant to kind of cross over between a 12 step recovery program and a faith-based, uh, you know, look at these principles.
• 1:25
  And for me, I'm a huge fan of, uh, of, you know, the idea contained in these 2 is restoration, you know, for myself, for my family, for the people around me and in the literature that I study, um, from a recovery perspective, and some of those, it's, it has a passage that says even the newest of newcomers finds undream rewards when he reaches out to help his
• 1:56
  fellow that is lower down than he is.
• 1:59
  And you know, for me, when I think about restoration, I think about the 2nd step.
• 2:04
  And I think about it from the perspective of, came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
• 2:11
  And when I do, when I look at the words insanity or sanity, essentially, so the backside of that is insanity, I find it very important to have a working definition, which I find, um, I find in in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, uh, which gives me a really good uh, definition for this particular word.
• 2:33
  And when I put when I apply that word in the 2nd step, um, it helps that 2nd step mean a lot more to me.
• 2:41
  And it says, whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity.
• 2:47
  Now, he's talking about here, um, the guy, Jim, who had gone out to the country to sell a car to somebody and decided to take whiskey and glass of milk.
• 2:57
  How could such a lack of proportion of the ability to think straight be called anything else?
• 3:02
  But, you know, for me, when I think about that, I look at that from a practical application standpoint, and is that the, that's, you know, the place that I was insane that got me to a place where I was willing to do something different, but having been willing to do something different for quite a long time, now am I still strangely insane, where normal people would absolutely do things differently?
• 3:27
  And my answer to that question is yes.
• 3:29
  And I still struggle with an appalling lack of proportion, in some cases, of the ability to think straight.
• 3:38
  And a story that comes to mind, we were, um, out, uh, doing some service, uh, and was talking to a gentleman, we were, we're building up the, uh, we're, we had a breakfast thing going and, uh, I was out cleaning the breakfast bar and some other guys were in another room talking to, talking to guys having a meeting and this guy came up and he started talking.
• 4:00
  He says, is there's something to eat?
• 4:02
  And I said, absolutely.
• 4:03
  And this guy looked like, you know, like he had just gotten out of jail.
• 4:06
  I mean, he still, he had, you know, 2 different slide shoes on, sweatpants that didn't fit, a shirt that was way too big.
• 4:14
  Uh, and he just, he looked like a mess, like he had just gotten there, which he, which he had after talking to him.
• 4:21
  But, you know, He asked me prior to getting any of the food.
• 4:26
  He asked me, he said,
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  Are there any nuts in there?
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  And I looked at him, and in my head, you know, my arrogance, I thought, man, look at you.
• 4:36
  you should, you know, this, look at this great food we have here.
• 4:38
  How incredible is this food and you're asking if it has nuts in it.
• 4:42
  And then the next thought was, wow.
• 4:46
  Man, he's got crazy where his allergy to nuts or nut products happens to be.
• 4:53
  He's completely restored and he's never probably been insane in that area because he's always looked at that and said, hey, I don't eat nuts.
• 5:02
  And if I do, something bad happens to me.
• 5:05
  So I just make a good decision and I don't eat them.
• 5:08
  Right?
• 5:08
  So, as we're restored, that we become capable of doing things that we would not have normally done, which we would have been strangely insane around, right?
• 5:21
  Which would have been, do I take a drink?
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  Do I take, uh, do I, am I not kind to my wife?
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  Am I unkind to the people I work with?
• 5:30
  Am I, you know, driving down traffic like a maniac, which are all possible for me at any point in time?
• 5:36
  Length of time doesn't equal quality of time in a lot of cases.
• 5:41
  It's, it's, uh, it's not a, uh, length of time isn't always a, uh, dependable metric by which you should measure yourself.
• 5:49
  But I can be strangely insane in a lot of places.
• 5:53
  And God has restored me to sanity.
• 5:56
  So when I think about that 2nd step concept, it's it came to believe, and, you know, what does that mean?
• 6:02
  Well, it means through tested, release for me, through testing, trying and testing, and trying and testing, and trying and testing, and trying and testing, that through that process, I have found a way of life, which has restored my ability to think straight, a power greater than myself, right?
• 6:21
  Because on my own, I'm left absolutely unable to think correctly.
• 6:28
  I need to have directed thought, which is, which is what I do every single morning. When I get up, I ask for my thoughts to be directed.
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  It's the 1st thing I do.
• 6:36
  And, you know, some of the other interesting things that come, um, from that is later on in what we might look at is the tense step. In the big book.
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  It literally says, uh, for by this time, sanity will have return, and that's an intent step, right?
• 6:58
  So as I have gone through this process, working through it, with somebody else says, work through it, as I go through this process, that my thinking, well, return to be sane thinking and not proportionally disproportionate to the problem in front of me, that I can now simply say thy will be done.
• 7:23
  And, you know, I really believe I'm a firm believer that my my creator has absolutely entered into my life and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous, life and heart and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.
• 7:38
  doing for me things that I couldn't have done for myself.
• 7:41
  And I like to, whenever, think about restoration, and I think about that 2nd step, and I think about how to, how would I see, you know, and Pastor Mike in his writing mentions Christ.
• 7:53
  And, you know, we certainly, uh, uh, The Old Testament is the, is the uh, preamble to the New Testament.
• 8:02
  So the promise of Christ coming to us.
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  But I like to look at that from the from the 23rd psalm.
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  And it says, the Lord is my shepherd.
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  I shall not be in want.
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  What is, I shall not be and want me.
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  I've talked about this, I believe, on this podcast.
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  It's been a minute, but I shall not be in what means I shouldn't lack anything.
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  I should have everything that I need to do what's in front of me.
• 8:26
  every time.
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  And that means to have a same thought or sane reaction to that thing, which may be in front of me that is, I find objective or objectionable.
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  He makes me lie down in green pastures.
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  He leadeth me beside quiet waters.
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  And when my thoughts are directed.
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  And when I'm asking for direction from my creator, that's where I find myself.
• 8:50
  That doesn't mean that sometimes that, uh, I don't get to a dry spot or sometimes there's some rapids in there, but because of the banks of the river, it keeps me flowing in a in a correct direction, because without the banks, then I'm just in a lake and I'm just sitting there by myself.
• 9:08
  23 1st 3 says he restores my soul.
• 9:10
  And I believe that's happened for me today.
• 9:13
  I believe that my soul has absolutely been restored through the 12 steps of recovery through my creator's willingness and patience with me to find him on my time.
• 9:26
  And see, I don't believe that I could have done it any other way.
• 9:30
  And the fact of the matter is, is that because I have done these things in order without stopping and then done these things with other people in order, without stopping.
• 9:43
  I have essentially come to believe that this power, that I, that I call Christ in my life, has absolutely restored me to sanity, and my, my life has been restored.
• 9:57
  And the doctor's opinion, it says something to the effect of, you know, his life can be recreated if his ideas are grounded in a power greater than himself.
• 10:07
  And what that tells me is that as long as my ideas are grounded in a power greater than myself, my life will be recreated.
• 10:15
  And I think that's what the 23rd Psalm says there.
• 10:18
  He restores me my soul.
• 10:20
  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.
• 10:23
  Well, what does that mean to be?
• 10:25
  Well, to me, that means that he points me in the right direction so that I can be a good example of a restored man, a free man that can go anywhere without disaster.
• 10:35
  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, right?
• 10:39
  So even if I have these common problems and and, uh, shortcomings in life and, and I'm up against it, I can still react sanely and normally because I will fear no evil.
• 10:52
  Because he is with me.
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  He is my rod and my staff.
• 10:57
  He is the thing that keeps the keeps the wolves away.
• 11:00
  but also keeps me close pulled close to him.
• 11:04
  And my cup, it says here, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
• 11:10
  Well, for this particular episode, the presence of our enemies is the inability to think straight, the need to be restored to right thinking, the 2nd step.
• 11:21
  So that my enemies would be anything that I have the inability to think straight about, and that, that I'm being promised in this 23rd psalm, that, that he will provide me that, that he actually puts, sits me down in front of my enemies.
• 11:38
  And he says, he has everything he needs, take your best shot.
• 11:42
  Because my cup overflows.
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  He anoints me with oil in my cup overflows.
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  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
• 11:53
  And absolutely believe that.
• 11:54
  And but the problem with that in practical terms for people is that they can't see, absolutely can't see that sometimes, goodness and love, don't, you know, look like I get everything that I want.
• 12:10
  They don't look like everything worked out the way I thought it should.
• 12:15
  Sometimes goodness and love looks like things just didn't quite work out the way I wanted wanted them to.
• 12:25
  But he never left me.
• 12:26
  He was always there next to me, walking side by side.
• 12:31
  I, when I, when I think about what he was looking, how he was looking at me when, as I was getting to where I am today, I, I imagine a pretty big sigh and a, man, well, I guess we got to go find this package that doesn't quite look like he wants it to look this time, but he'll learn and he'll go and he'll grow as long as he continues down this path.
• 12:56
  And are really grateful to be able to spend time with everyone of you this morning.
• 13:00
  And I'm going to close this with a prayer.
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  Father God, thank you for being a God of restoration through your Holy Spirit.
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  Help me live faithfully each day so that others may see your work in me.
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  Shape me through the example of Jesus.
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  Amen.
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  the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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  Amen.
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  Have a good day.
• 13:20
  Bye for now.