May 13 - Choosing the Hard Right Path

Nobody actually wants to take the hard right path. That's the whole point. This episode is about why you do it anyway — and what's on the other side. Avoidance promises relief, but it often prolongs the struggle. What feels like the harder path at first is often the one that leads to real freedom. The episode opens with Proverbs 15:19 — the way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns, but the way of the upright is a highway. It flips the whole assumption: what looks like the easy path is the one full of thorns. What looks impossible is actually the open road. The stone says the same thing. The hard right path leads to real freedom. The shortcut leads nowhere good. Mike makes it personal. Relationship issues, family issues, things in his life that have been easier to leave unaddressed. His default is to put his head in the sand. But working the steps, maintaining spiritual disciplines, going to therapy, and most recently engaging a spiritual director — a pastor for a pastor — have given him a stronger resolve. When he does the right thing, he gets relief. He's never had to apologize for doing right. He's never had to clean up wreckage from following God. The avoiding is what costs him. Corey brings in 12&12 page 64 — having been granted a perfect release from alcoholism, why then shouldn't we be able to achieve by the same means a perfect release from every other difficulty or defect? The answer, he says, is in the phrase by the same means. Not by working on it himself. By God doing it. The Doctor's Opinion separates it cleanly: this is a disease, and only a spiritual experience will conquer it. You can't self-help your way out of it. Matthew 7:13 closes it: enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction. Mike and Corey both took that road. They know exactly where it led. The path they're on now — the one that once looked impossibly hard — has led them to peace and freedom. Find every daily entry at dailyripples.com. Reach out anytime at [email protected]. Daily Ripples is a daily devotional reflection connecting recovery principles with the life of faith. New episodes every day at dailyripples.com.