Pastor Mike opens with sitting down with a new sponsee, which takes him back to the doorway of his own recovery without any shame, since the man he was then is not the man he is now. The fourth column of Step Four dismantled most of what he could hold against anyone, because the things he never did were only things he had not done yet. First Samuel 16:7 says people look at the outward appearance while the Lord looks at the heart, and when a first impression of someone turns negative, he asks God what it reveals about his own defects before extending grace. Corey adds a morning prayer, a few weeks old, to see everyone in the present moment as God's kids, and admits it gets hard when fear and feeling inadequate show up. Page 67's tolerance, pity, and patience for a sick friend raises a question: haven't I been the sick friend? His road example is driving under the speed limit and calling speeders criminals despite a record of his own, which he traces to wanting everybody else to be worse than he is. Page 74's rule, hard on ourselves and considerate of others, explains why being hard on people makes few friends.

The spiritual Ripple brings page 67 back with its promise that God will show us a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one, and Luke 6:36 adds be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Pastor Mike has noticed that people with years of sobriety who feel like outsiders in their own groups keep reaching out to him, and he credits that to God teaching him a tolerant view. The book's "we are not like other people" applies to alcoholism, and in every other way we are no better and no worse than anyone. That leads to Tradition Ten and having no opinion on outside issues, a rule Corey needs since he never listened to anyone about how to live. It also leads to a concern that age-based groups and special events can split a fellowship whose only common ground is a common problem. Pastor Mike answers that some of it happens naturally, since he once avoided older people because they seemed slow, and from the other side of that now he extends the same gracious view to the younger ones.

The stone for today: Grace grows when I remember that every person I meet is fighting battles I cannot fully see.

Read today's full Daily Ripple at www.dailyripples.com. Reach out any time at wave@dailyripples.com.

Seeing others with grace | judgment and compassion | the sick friend | Christian recovery | 12-step faith | 1 Samuel 16:7 | Tradition Ten and outside issues | Big Book study | sobriety devotional | addiction recovery

Daily Ripples is a daily devotional reflection connecting recovery principles with the life of faith. New episodes every day at dailyripples.com.

Corey and Pastor Mike open on the Stone and the parable of the sower. Corey sees himself as a seed that sat on a gravel road for a long time before it found soil. Page 64 gives him the next step: a decision, however vital and crucial, has little permanent effect without a strenuous effort to face what blocks him, and page 66 names what that blockage costs, the sunlight of the Spirit. His example is domestic. Deciding to stop leaving a towel on the floor changes nothing until somebody picks the towel up. He moves on to paying attention to details, which his old sponsor Doug preached and his current sponsor practices, usually by catching Corey on a single word. He admits how much he likes going to battle: he throws a grenade and then hunts for an excuse, blaming a bad night's sleep or a long week when the truth is simply that he behaved poorly. Bringing that into the light means saying so plainly.

Pastor Mike takes the Ripple to Romans 12:3, thinking of yourself with sober judgment, neither perfect nor hopeless. In recovery rooms and in churches, he is drawn to people who admit they are still struggling. He asks which seeds he is letting take root, and how God sorts the wheat from the weeds in his own life so the right things get pruned. John 3 supplies the closing picture: Nicodemus comes by night, John 3:16 is spoken to him, and a few verses later Jesus says whoever lives by the truth comes into the light. Corey says his secrets lose their grip when he thinks about being useful to someone else, and page 133's advice to capitalize on trouble, along with the Third and Seventh Step prayers, backs that up: take away my difficulties and my defects so that victory over them can bear witness. The episode ends on action. A decision does not pick up the towel, and faith without works is dead.

The stone for today: Growth begins when I bring my life into God's light instead of hiding in the shadows.

Read today's full Daily Ripple at www.dailyripples.com. Reach out any time at wave@dailyripples.com.

Bringing it into the light | the parable of the sower | a decision needs action | Christian recovery | 12-step faith | honest self-assessment | Romans 12:3 | John 3:21 | Big Book study | sobriety devotional | addiction recovery

Daily Ripples is a daily devotional reflection connecting recovery principles with the life of faith. New episodes every day at dailyripples.com.

Pastor Mike opens with a note on the Stone: the Holy Spirit gently replaces confusion with confidence, and sometimes the correction arrives like a ton of bricks. The conversation settles on Doubting Thomas, a story many of us were taught as a rebuke, and what shows up when John 20 is read slowly: Jesus walks into a locked room and hands Thomas exactly what he said he needed to believe. Questions turn out to be where growth starts, since a question that nags enough sends a person to look it up, pray about it, and land somewhere. Bill's Story supplies the image of how dark it is before the dawn, and page 46 asks who could comprehend a Supreme Being anyhow. Corey takes that into his own history. He once saw God as the good and the bad with little in between, and the dirty mirror in First Corinthians describes how the view clears a little more each day. He knows what abandoning himself looks like because he did it with alcohol, so giving God the same all-in respect makes sense to him, and the book's line that half measures availed us nothing rings true with God as well.

Page 47 gives the way in: a God of your own understanding, and spiritual terms that mean whatever they honestly mean to you. Pastor Mike answers Corey's fan-and-poop analogy with Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good, then returns to page 47 for the practical Ripple about letting unanswered questions wait while the next faithful step gets taken. At the start this was all we needed, and if we wished to grow we had to begin somewhere. On day one a white chip comes with questions still unanswered, and the answers arrived over time through showing up, taking suggestions, reading the book, and hearing what God was saying through other men in the rooms, which also grew compassion and grace.

The stone for today: God is patient with my questions and faithful even when my understanding is incomplete.

Read today's full Daily Ripple at www.dailyripples.com. Reach out any time at wave@dailyripples.com.

Meeting me where I am | God is patient with my questions | Doubting Thomas | Christian recovery | 12-step faith | your own conception of God | Romans 8:28 | Big Book study | sobriety devotional | addiction recovery

Daily Ripples is a daily devotional reflection connecting recovery principles with the life of faith. New episodes every day at dailyripples.com.