Latest / The Daily Ripples Podcast / June 17 - Found Within

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June 17 - Found Within · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:07
  I'm Pastor Mike.
• 0:08
  I'm still writing solo today.
• 0:10
  Corey will be back with us soon, so don't worry.
• 0:12
  But for now, it's just the two of us.
• 0:15
  And I'm sorry, I have to do it.
• 0:17
  I have to.
• 0:18
  Forgive me, but I have to do it.
• 0:21
  [singing]
• 0:26
  [singing]
• 0:29
  Okay, that's enough of that.
• 0:30
  Today is June the 17th, and our entry is titled, Found Within the Stone.
• 0:37
  What I am searching for is not as far away as I think.
• 0:41
  Often, the deepest truth is found not outward, but within.
• 0:45
  Ripple One, practical.
• 0:47
  Today, I will take time to be still and listen.
• 0:50
  I will not fill every moment with noise or distraction.
• 0:54
  Clarity often comes when I slow down enough to notice what is happening inside me.
• 0:59
  Ooh, that's tough.
• 1:01
  Ripple 2, spiritual.
• 1:03
  Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is near.
• 1:05
  As I turn my attention toward the Father, the Holy Spirit meets me in that quiet place within.
• 1:11
  Over time, I begin to recognize God's presence not as distant, but as near, steady, and personal.
• 1:18
  And we'll save the prayer for the end as always.
• 1:23
  You know, think about how much of my life I've spent searching for something outside of myself, you know, looking for the next thing in life, right?
• 1:35
  The next job, the next achievement, the next little bit of recognition, the next drink.
• 1:42
  You know, back in the day, looking for something out there that was going to fix what was wrong, you know, in here, you know, in myself.
• 1:50
  And the thing about that kind of searching is if that's what I'm looking for, if I'm looking for, you know, something outside of myself, that kind of searching never ends.
• 2:00
  Because whatever I find out there, it doesn't reach the place that's actually empty.
• 2:05
  You know, I think about a gentleman who was an example for me, you know, in both in recovery and in my life of faith.
• 2:13
  And I've probably talked about him on here a time or two before, a guy named John Kilzer.
• 2:18
  And, you know, he worked with St. John's UMC, I believe, and some of their, you know, recovery ministries.
• 2:26
  But he ended up, you know, relapsing and taking his own life.
• 2:31
  But one of the things that he always said was that we're all born with a God-sized hold in our hearts,
• 2:37
  and we try to fill it with everything except God.
• 2:43
  And that plays into this exactly because, you know, I can get the thing that I've been looking for,
• 2:48
  And there's this little hit of relief or dopamine or adrenaline or whatever you want to call it.
• 2:53
  But then that emptiness comes right back.
• 2:55
  And off we go, you know, looking for the next best thing.
• 3:00
  And that was the story of my drinking life, honestly.
• 3:02
  You know, that was the story of a lot of my life before recovery.
• 3:05
  You know, I talked about yesterday, you know, growing up in a Baptist home didn't give me what I thought I needed.
• 3:12
  So I decided I didn't need any of it and went on looking for the next thing.
• 3:15
  and that was success and materialism and alcohol.
• 3:18
  But I was always looking for something out there that was,
• 3:21
  but it was actually an inside job that needed to be done the whole time.
• 3:26
  And Corey, if you're listening, I know you're going to be proud of what I'm about to do here.
• 3:31
  But there's this passage in the big book, page 55.
• 3:35
  That's one of our favorites in the whole book.
• 3:38
  And it says, we found the great reality deep down within us.
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  In the last analysis, it is only there that he may be found.
• 3:46
  And then it says, therefore, search diligently within yourself.
• 3:52
  It's important that it says, search diligently within yourself, I think.
• 3:58
  You know, there's a remarkable thing to find in a book about getting sober,
• 4:03
  because the whole world is telling us to look out there.
• 4:06
  And the big book, you know, written all the way back in 1939 or published in 1939, at least, is saying, no, you know, the great reality, the thing that you're actually looking for is deep down within you.
• 4:18
  It's that God-sized hole in your heart that you're trying to fill with everything else except God.
• 4:23
  But God is already there.
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  The question isn't whether God is present.
• 4:27
  The question is whether I'm quiet enough to notice or to sometimes to hear him banging at the door trying to get my attention.
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  And that lines right up with what Jesus said.
• 4:38
  In Luke 17, the Pharisees come and they ask him when the kingdom of God is going to come.
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  And Jesus says, and again, I'm paraphrasing here, and anytime I paraphrase scripture, I
• 4:46
  always call it the PMAV.
• 4:48
  You can write that down.
• 4:50
  That's the Pastor Mike abridged version.
• 4:52
  But anyway, he says the kingdom of God isn't coming with things you can observe.
• 4:57
  People aren't going to say, look, here it is or there it is, because he says the kingdom
• 5:02
  of God is in your midst.
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  And some translations say the kingdom of God is within you, in your midst, within you.
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  In other words, it's not off in the distance.
• 5:13
  It's not on the other side of some achievement.
• 5:16
  It's not after you finally get it all together, but it's near, it's here, it's already present.
• 5:22
  It's kind of like we pray at the end of almost every recovery meeting and in many church traditions
• 5:27
  at every church service.
• 5:28
  We pray the Lord's Prayer, which says, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, here, near, already, present.
• 5:39
  And the ripple, too, captures that.
• 5:41
  Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is near.
• 5:44
  As I turn my attention toward the Father, the Holy Spirit meets me in that quiet place within.
• 5:50
  Now, I'll be honest with you, and I think that Corey may say the same thing if he were here.
• 5:54
  But being still, man, being still.
• 6:03
  Or even as you're listening, just that few seconds of pause where you had to be a little still and figure out what I'm going to say next.
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  But the point is, being still is hard.
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  It's hard for people like us.
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  Because the alcoholic mind or the addict mind or the anxious mind or the troubled mind, you might say, it doesn't want to be still.
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  It wants noise.
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  It wants distraction.
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  wants to fill up every quiet moment with something because quiet can feel a little bit threatening at
• 6:31
  first. You know, you sit in the silence and all the stuff that you've been out running starts to
• 6:35
  catch up. But in the recovery program and in our life of faith, it's exactly where the work actually
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  is. And that's exactly where many times our higher power, our God, can get our attention.
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  The Ripple One says, today I'll take time to be still and to listen. I will not fill every moment
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  with noise or distraction.
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  Clarity comes when I slow down enough
• 6:58
  to notice what's happening inside me.
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  And there's a Psalm 46 and 10.
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  It's just four words really at the heart of it.
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  It says, be still and know that I am God.
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  Be still.
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  Not be busy and know.
• 7:13
  Not be productive and know.
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  Be still.
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  And there's something about the stillness itself
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  that's required for the knowing.
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  Now, I know that I said that the four words
• 7:24
  of it, but really it's just those two words. I don't know where I was getting the four words,
• 7:27
  to be honest with you, but you know, who knows? That might get edited out. It might not. But
• 7:30
  anyway, two words at the heart of that, be still and know. Maybe those are the other two words I was
• 7:36
  thinking of, be still and know. Anyway, you get it. And then there's that story about the prophet
• 7:41
  Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 19, where Elijah is waiting for God to show up. And there's a great
• 7:48
  wind. It's strong enough to tear the mountains apart, but the Lord wasn't in the wind. And then
• 7:52
  there was an earthquake, but the Lord wasn't in the earthquake. And then there was a fire,
• 7:55
  and the Lord wasn't even in the fire. And then after the fire, a still, small voice,
• 8:01
  a gentle whisper, you might say. And that's where God was. And I love that because it tells me that
• 8:09
  God isn't usually showing up in something loud and something dramatic. The presence that I'm
• 8:13
  looking for is more often found whenever I sit still and get quiet long enough to hear it. It's
• 8:22
  stillness that I keep trying to avoid. Now, one of the most famous passages in the big book of
• 8:28
  Alcoholics Anonymous, which again, we call it the big book. The actual title is Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 8:34
  But anyway, in this big book, pages 84 through 87, you've got the daily practices laid out. And I know
• 8:40
  Corey is really good about keeping his regimen of these daily practices, and I admire and respect him
• 8:44
  for that, to be honest with you. But in the morning, you know, we ask God to direct our thinking.
• 8:49
  We ask him to show us what our next step is to be.
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  And then throughout the day, we're supposed to pause when we're agitated or doubtful.
• 8:55
  And then at night, we review everything.
• 8:58
  You know, we look back over the day.
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  And all of that really is about staying connected to what's already within us.
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  It creates the conditions, you might say, the quiet, the attention, the intentional work
• 9:10
  for that still small voice to be heard.
• 9:13
  It's not that the practice has put God there because God is already there deep down within.
• 9:18
  And just like page 55 said, the practice is just show me and help me slow down enough to notice and slow down enough to hear what God might have to say to me.
• 9:31
  So for today, and again, this episode is going to be a little bit shorter probably.
• 9:36
  I don't have my counterparts here to kind of keep me going and keep me ramped up.
• 9:41
  And sometimes when I get excited about a topic, I start talking a little bit faster.
• 9:45
  And if you listen to the podcast on, you know, 1.2 or 1.5 speed, you might be like listening to
• 9:51
  chipmunks today. But anyway, today, this invitation is simple, even if it's not easy to follow. And
• 9:58
  for those in the rooms of recovery, you know that the 12 steps themselves are not complicated,
• 10:03
  but that doesn't mean that they're easy. But for today, I just want everybody to slow down,
• 10:08
  just to get quiet, find that quiet space and stop filling every gap with some kind of noise
• 10:13
  and turn your attention inward. Now, when I say turn your attention inward, I don't mean in a
• 10:18
  self-absorbed way or selfish or self-seeking way, but in a way that listens for the steady,
• 10:24
  near, and personal presence of God that has been there with you the whole time.
• 10:29
  Over time, the entry says, I begin to recognize God's presence, not as distant, but as near,
• 10:34
  steady, and personal, and that has definitely been my experience. It's been my experience ever
• 10:39
  since I first felt like I was called into a life of pastoral ministry.
• 10:44
  You know, that happened for me.
• 10:45
  It was about a year or a year and a half into my sobriety, and I was reading Scripture, and
• 10:52
  I was reading the Gospels, and reading the words of Jesus, and I was laying in my bed in
• 10:57
  the house that was about to be short-souled and foreclosed on, but I was laying there,
• 11:03
  and I was reading, and it felt like Jesus was speaking directly to me when He said,
• 11:09
  follow me. And I just had this overwhelming sense of awe and peace and honestly, the fear that often
• 11:18
  people talk about, even in scripture, about when they encounter the divine, the fear is a component
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  of that. But if I had not been quiet, if I had not found that still place to read and to study
• 11:30
  and try to connect with God, I would have heard what God had for me and I would not have been on
• 11:35
  this wonderful journey of a lifetime that has been entering into pastoral ministry.
• 11:40
  But that's been my experience, is that the more that I've quieted down, the closer that
• 11:44
  he has gotten, or maybe, maybe he was always that close, and I just finally got quiet enough
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  to recognize and see that he was there.
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  But let's close with today's prayer.
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  Father, help me slow down and seek you within.
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  Through your Spirit, make me aware of your presence and guide me into a deeper relationship
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  through your Son.
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  Amen.
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  And thank you all for being here today, and we will see you all tomorrow.
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  .