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May 13 - Choosing the Hard Right Path · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Hey guys, this is Pastor Mike, and I'm Corey, he's Pastor Mike, and I'm Corey, whichever
• 0:09
  one.
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  It is May 13th, choosing the hard right path.
• 0:15
  Yikes.
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  The stone, avoidance promises relief, but it often prolongs the struggle.
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  What feels like the harder path at first is often the one that leads to real freedom.
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  Ripple One: Practical.
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  Today I will face what I've been avoiding.
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  I will not delay the honest work that needs to be done.
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  Taking action may feel uncomfortable, but it prevents deeper pain later.
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  Goodness gracious...
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  Ripple Two: Spiritual.
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  As I follow Christ who never chose the easy path, but the faithful one, the Holy Spirit strengthens my resolve.
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  The Father meets me in obedience, not avoidance.
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  Over time, what once felt difficult becomes the very path that leads to peace and freedom.
• 1:08
  I'm not going to lie to you, buddy, and I'm going to do very well, but I'm going to let
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  you start this because I have a completely different view from what I read this earlier.
• 1:18
  So what is your thoughts on this?
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  I was looking up, you know, kind of my, you know, grounding verse or scriptural framework,
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  you know, on this one kind of going into it. But it's talking all about, you know, avoiding,
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  you know, facing the truth, avoiding taking the hard right path, you know, but as it says in the
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  stone, it just prolongs the struggle. And what feels like the harder path at first is the one
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  that leads to true freedom. And that's very much in line with, I was looking up in the book of
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  Proverbs in the Old Testament, Proverbs 15, verse 19. And it says, and this is New King James Version,
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  it says, the way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns, but the way of the upright is a highway.
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  So, and it's kind of flipping on its head what we tend to think, you know, because I could try to
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  avoid something that I think is going to be too hard to do. But in actuality, by making that right
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  choice, I'm entering into that, as that proverb said, the way of the upright, which is a highway,
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  which is the easy path. It's the one, as the stone says, that leads to real freedom. And to get there,
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  to get to that path of freedom, this is telling me and telling all of us that I have to face,
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  you know, honestly, what I've been avoiding all this time. You know, I can't delay honest work
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  that needs to be done. And we were talking about this, I was talking about it related to some of the,
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  you know, relationship issues and family issues that I've had, you know, in recent years,
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  that it's much easier for me to put my head in the sand, you know, and avoid looking at
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  the things in my life around me that are falling apart. But I try today, and I've grown into this,
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  by working through the 12 steps of recovery, by reading and studying and praying and doing all
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  these spiritual disciplines, you know, that I've learned both through recovery and through the
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  church, I have learned that, you know, I do have a stronger resolve today to face the things that I
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  didn't necessarily want to face in the past. And what helps give me that stronger resolve, too,
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  that is knowing and believing, both from the teachings of faith and what I've experienced
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  in my own life, when I do the right thing, I get relief.
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  When I have never had to apologize to someone for doing the right thing, you know, I have
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  never had to clean up wreckage of my past by, you know, following the rules and by acting
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  out of a place of love of God and love of others. If I'm living my life in a way that shows, you
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  know, that I love God and that I love others around me, and again, that I love others as I love myself,
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  that if I'm living that way, I don't have to stop and make apologies every, you know, every other
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  minute or every other day, you know, because I'm living kind of on the up and up. If I slip back
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  into old patterns of avoidance, you know, where, oh, that's too hard. I don't want to talk to
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  Corey about that because he might be offended, you know, even though I know it's really something
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  that he might need to hear. I don't want to say it because he might not want to hear it from me.
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  You know, if I am aware and don't follow, you know, whatever the Holy Spirit is leading me to do,
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  then I stay stuck exactly in the place where I'm at today and I'm not growing, I'm not changing.
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  And, you know, you do this every once in a while, kind of give a preview to the prayer at the end.
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  And one of the way that the prayer of this Daily Ripple starts out, if those, some who
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  are listening to this have already read it today, you know, from the website, dailyripples.com,
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  but, you know, the prayer, you know, starts out by saying, you know, give me the courage
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  to choose what is right over what is easy.
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  And that's really what it's all about.
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  You know, that's exactly what I've been thinking about.
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  And the only way that I can choose what's right instead of what is easy today, and the
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  The only way I've been able to do it with any frequency in my life is to listen when the Holy Spirit speaks to me and then do what the Holy Spirit is telling me to do.
• 5:35
  Yeah, that's pretty—you could tell when I was reading this, man, because, you know, all these things have been like, go face this, go do this.
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  I'm like, shut up.
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  Exactly.
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  Shut up, dog.
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  Because sometimes we don't want to.
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  That's the point.
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  I mean, that's honesty right there.
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  You know, sometimes we don't want to face this stuff, but the reward is great.
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  Oh, I know.
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  And like, that's why I like, you know, I'm a big connection guy, right?
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  Because like, you know, I'll hear something and I'll be like, you know, there's God talking to you, whatever.
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  Because, you know, but I can see that today and I'm awake enough to see it.
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  Yeah.
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  That's a beautiful thing to me.
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  But when I was first thinking about this, I was thinking about, so we've been talking about how some people want to make the program a self-help program.
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  And so in the only place, and this is really important because we are on the fifth month, and I think it is the promise of why I came into Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  I don't know why you came in, but I'll tell you why I came in.
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  Because I couldn't stop drinking, and I quit messing up everything in the world.
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  Because it was kind of hand in hand, because if I just could keep on drinking,
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  and there was no bad consequences, I might have went on to the better end.
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  But it's one of the promises of the fifth step.
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  It goes on to say the feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly.
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  Wow.
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  That's why I kind of came into AA, right?
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  And so, but where, it's a really good way the literature outlines it in the 12 and 12, but on the 12 and 12 on page 64, and this is in step six, right?
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  This is in the step six, talking about step six.
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  So we just got out of five if we, you know, we're counting one, two, three, four, five, six.
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  It says on page 64, having been granted a perfect release from alcoholism.
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  Man, that's a promise too, right?
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  I would imagine that's a promise because I'm in step six and it's saying that.
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  Why then should we be able to achieve by the same means a perfect release from every other difficulty or defect?
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  This is a riddle of our existence, the full answer to which may be only in the mind of God.
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  Nevertheless, a part of the answer to it is apparent to us.
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  Then it's going to say a little bit later, you know, we can work towards perfection.
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  We'll never get there, but we can work towards it.
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  Right.
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  So when I hear work towards it, man, I took that and ran with it.
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  I took it and ran with it, and I said, man, I'm going to work at being a good guy.
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  I'm going to be a good partner.
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  and, you know, God's done all this stuff.
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  You know, yeah, he's taken this desire not to drink away
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  and now I'm going to start working on things
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  because I got things to do and I got to be a good guy now.
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  And I don't know if you've ever tried working on things.
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  Just a time or two, yeah.
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  And telling yourself, man, you know, I'm not going to do that again.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  And then the next day you find yourself doing it, right?
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  Right back at it.
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  Yeah.
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  That's a crazy thing.
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  So the first part of this, it says,
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  Having been granted a perfect release from alcoholism,
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  why then should we be able to achieve by the same means
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  a perfect release from every other difficulty or defect?
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  By the same means is not me working in it.
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  It's by God doing it.
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  It's by God doing that and giving me the opportunity to do that.
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  Because, you know, and this is where the book separates.
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  The book separates the doctor's opinion.
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  And, man, I never knew this until my friend, one of my friends was talking in the book study.
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  Do you know what an opinion is?
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  Well, I mean, obviously we all have opinions.
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  Well, but the actual.
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  It is a belief about a fact.
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  Right.
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  So it's a doctor's belief about a fact.
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  And that's pretty heavy coming from a doctor.
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  So I think the doctor's opinion is really important for that nature
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  because it says I have a disease, an illness of a sort.
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  And only a spiritual experience will conquer.
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  And so if it didn't say that in the doctor's opinion,
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  I might just think that I'm a screw-up,
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  That I might be maladjusted to life, full flight from reality.
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  Because that's what I felt my whole life.
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  But then God, for some reason, when I went through this work, I don't have a thought of the day about drinking.
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  That's been the biggest thing in the world.
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  But then I think about these other things, these other things, these other problems, like running from hiding from this, hiding from this.
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  And I know we've been kind of dancing around this whole time, but that's why I think I got to bring God into all of us.
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  Right.
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  There's not one thing I can't not bring God into.
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  Well, and that's the thing.
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  I mean, God is already there.
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  God is already with us.
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  God is already present in our lives.
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  We sometimes live as though He is not.
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  You know, we sometimes live as though He's not already there with us.
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  We try to live in avoidance.
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  We try to think that we can run and hide, you know, from God and things of that nature.
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  But God is already there and is present in all aspects of our life.
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  And, you know, you started out talking about how, you know, we can't allow our recovery to just become another, you know, kind of self-help program, you know.
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  And at the end of the day, one of the things that we learn, you know, in the recovery program, one of the things that's said in there often anyway, is that we try to practice these principles in all of our affairs.
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  And that aspect of practicing these principles in all of our affairs, sometimes that leads us outside of the rooms of recovery.
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  Sometimes that leads us to a therapist.
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  Sometimes practicing these principles in all of our affairs leads us to form better discipleship practices, you know, in our faith.
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  To study, to pray, to be of service to others more.
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  You know, and that's why, like, even in my life today and part of my program of growth and recovery, as it were, it is not just the 12-step program that I'm a part of for alcoholism, but it's also going to see my therapist.
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  It's also maintaining my spiritual disciplines.
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  It's also, and this is something just recently that I've formally done, is engaging a spiritual director, which, you know, for any who may think, well, what the heck is that?
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  Well, kind of think of it as a pastor for a pastor, you know, and it's the same concept
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  of, you know, in recovery, we always say, you know, get a sponsor that has a sponsor.
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  Well, I think every pastor needs to have a pastor or in other words, someone that they
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  can, you know, bring their spiritual needs to for guidance and wisdom and direction as
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  well.
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  Are you going to be a pastor's pastor?
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  Well, I was saying I've recently gotten a spiritual director, which is equivalent to,
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  you know, engaging, pseudo, you know, kind of pastor for myself. Now, I've always had my original
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  pastor that I know I can reach out to and talk to, you know, anytime that I need. But this is something
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  more intentional and more specific. And for me, where I am in my life of faith and recovery,
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  it's about, it's a way that I can practice these principles in all my affairs. And none of those
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  going to a therapist or seeing a spiritual director or even coming to, you know, recovery
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  meetings multiple times a week, that's not always something that I want to do. Taking it all the way
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  back to the beginning, a lot of times it's something that I want to avoid. But the longer
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  that I avoid working on these lingering problems within myself, because I'm still human,
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  as it says, it prolongs my struggle. It keeps me tied down in that place of anxiety, depression,
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  unhappiness, whatever you want to call it, a lack of peace. And for me, I always use the serenity
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  prayer to try to maintain my level of peace, but sometimes I can't even find the things in my life
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  that are causing the fears and the anxiety, and I need to talk through these issues with somebody
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  else so that I can identify them. Because if I can't even identify them to begin with, then I
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  can't put them in the right bucket of either something that I have to accept for now or
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  something that I have to have the courage to change.
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  You know, maybe this program or like this whole helping others thing, you know, works
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  a little too much, right?
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  You know, because I, you know, we talked before we got all this thing, you know, I got some
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  things going on in my life, right?
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  After, right after we started and there was a little prayer, I haven't even thought about
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  it.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Yeah.
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  And I was thinking about, well, maybe that just works too well because it's completely erased in my head now.
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  But that's a specific problem that needs some action on.
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  That's what the recovery rooms gave me.
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  It was a purpose to help other people.
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  And man I almost gave you the page number of this Bible.
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  Yeah.
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  Good luck anyone listening finding that in your Bible.
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  Yes.
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  In Matthew 7, verse 13, it says,
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  Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the road is easy.
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  That leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.
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  For the gate is narrow, and the road is hard, that leads to life.
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  And there are few who find it.
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  That's right.
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  And, you know, I'm so grateful, you know, for this program and the people like you that come into my life, right?
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  Because, you know, I find, you know, yeah, we probably went down a hard run.
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  You know, that's weird.
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  That's a weird look, too, because, like, to think that I went on a hard run.
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  On page 53 of the big book, it says, when we became alcoholics crushed by self-imposed crisis.
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  By self-imposed crisis.
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  We could not postpone or evade.
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  And I had, man, I was born on third base, dog.
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  You know what I mean?
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  I was born in a good house, good family.
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  And man, I threw a lot away.
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  I threw a lot away.
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  And so I had a lot of self-imposed crisis.
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  And so when I were, because we were talking about something,
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  and it's funny, I got this book from Doug when I was on his toilet one time,
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  and it was Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.
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  It's all small stuff.
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  It was crazy that that book was on the toilet.
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  Anyways, it doesn't matter that.
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  But, you know, for someone like me that sat in front of, you know,
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  been in a lot of courtrooms and a lot of places that are, you know,
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  sorted places and a lot of high tension with, you know, bad people.
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  You know, a lot of, you know, things that people shouldn't be around.
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  You know, when something small comes up in my life, it'll kind of shake it, you know?
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  Sometimes the big things don't shake it.
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  And that's crazy how the little things can get to some people like us and the big things don't.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  Well, I think one of the best promises in today's daily ripple is that, you know, last line of the spiritual ripple that over time, and time is the key there.
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  Over time, what once felt difficult becomes the very path that leads to peace and freedom.
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  Because at the time, you and I both, when we were in our running and gunning days, you know, making bad choices, we thought that was the easy path.
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  You know, it was self-serving and selfish.
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  We thought it was the easy path until we look back and see, well, where did that lead us?
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  Well, it led us to our rock bottoms, right?
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  So clearly that path wasn't working.
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  So we had to learn to take a different path.
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  And the path that we're on now at one point looked extremely difficult.
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  When I came into the program, thinking of somebody even with 30 days of sobriety was just unfathomable to me.
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  Like, I cannot even imagine it.
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  That just seems so hard to do.
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  But it has led me to peace and to freedom.
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  And when I, again, when I practice these recovery principles, when I practice these faith principles in everything in life, I don't just leave my faith on Sunday and I don't just leave my recovery when I walk out of a meeting room.
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  When I practice these in everything, I live a much more peaceful life.
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  Absolutely.
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  So why don't you go ahead, Corey, and close us out with our prayer on today.
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  Prayer.
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  Father, give me courage to choose what is right over what is easy.
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  Through Your Spirit, strengthen me to walk in the faithful way of Your Son.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
• 18:47
  We got Baby Mamas both living in Collierville.
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  Oh, that is not a connection I hoped we had.
• 18:56
  That'll be a post-credits scene right there.