What you're searching for isn't as far away as you think. After a lifetime of chasing the next thing, Pastor Mike turns the search around — because the deepest truth was never out there.

In this solo episode, Mike traces the endless outward search — the next job, the next achievement, the next bit of recognition, the next drink — and why none of it ever reached the place that was actually empty. He remembers John Kilzer, a mentor in faith and recovery, and the truth Kilzer carried: we're all born with a God-sized hole in our hearts, and we try to fill it with everything except God.

Big Book page 55 anchors it: we found the Great Reality deep down within us...therefore, search diligently within yourself. A remarkable thing to find in a book about getting sober, when the whole world is screaming look out there. Jesus said the same in Luke 17 — the kingdom of God is not coming with things you can observe; it is within you. Near. Here. Already present. Psalm 46:10: be still and know. Not be busy and know. Not be productive and know. Be still. And the prophet Elijah, who found God not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire — but in the still, small voice.

Mike closes with the night he first heard "follow me" — reading the Gospels in a house about to be foreclosed on, a year into sobriety, and the awe that set him on the road to ministry. The more he's quieted down, the closer God has gotten. Or maybe God was always that close, and he just finally got quiet enough to tell.

Often, the deepest truth is found not outward, but within.

Christian recovery | 12-step faith | sobriety devotional | stillness | meditation and prayer | God-sized hole | kingdom of God within | addiction recovery | AA and faith | sober living | daily reflection

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