July 3 - Learning by Living

Truth doesn't become real until you live it. Pastor Mike and Cristi bring warmth, laughter, and hard-won honesty to a conversation about how experience teaches what thinking alone never can. Understanding grows through experience. Truth becomes real when I live it, not just think about it. Cristi opens where she opened yesterday — with music, one of her love languages — and the truth that experience is a good teacher, but only if you learn from it. If you don't, you're destined to repeat it. She's honest about her own path: two previous marriages where the mistakes weren't only on the other side, and the self-evaluation that made her a better companion the third time around. Growth came through doing, learning, and adjusting along the way. Mike takes the faith angle to actions and consequences — something recovery taught him. Take the right actions and the consequences tend to be neutral or good; take the wrong ones and they rarely are. Not prosperity gospel, just the abundant life Jesus spoke of: a peaceful, full life, the peace that surpasses understanding even when tragedy strikes. James 1:22 anchors it — do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves; do what it says. You can make a verse mean anything when you only read it. The truth comes out when you try to live it. Cristi adds a pointed word on letting your kids experience the ups and downs rather than shielding them — you won't always be there to save them. And Mike shares, with real vulnerability, how last October during a hard detachment period, it was Cristi — physically present, real, standing there loving him — who kept him grounded when his own thoughts weren't things he could live out. Learning by living, both directions. A team effort. Following Christ is not about constant certainty, but steady trust. Christian recovery | 12-step faith | sobriety devotional | learning by living | faith and action | marriage and recovery | James 1:22 | abundant life | addiction recovery | AA and faith | sober living Daily entries at dailyripples.com — [email protected] Daily Ripples connects recovery principles with the life of faith. New episodes every day.