Compass Podcast: Finding the spirituality in the day-to-day · United Methodist Communications

[150] Spiritual Lessons from Recovery: Ben Gosden on Faith and Transformation

·33 min·2 clips

Ben reduces the first three 12 steps to “can’t, God can, I think I’ll let God.”

Ryan Dunn frames the episode around transformation, but the heart of the episode is Ben Gosden's story of addiction, recovery, and grace. Ben is a pastor and the author of Grace Rediscovered, and he brings more than 15 years of pastoral experience to the table. The episode invites listeners to notice where their own lives have drifted away from their values. It keeps returning to the link between recovery and ordinary faith. Ben says alcohol worked for a while and then stopped working. He treats that as one sign of a deeper inward dis-ease. He also names workaholism, ego, and a need for control as part of the same problem. Ryan stays with that tension and asks how recovery works when someone still has to keep working. Ben answers by describing the need to reorder life rather than simply quit one habit. He says recovery changed the way he prays. Before recovery, prayer was mostly about asking for things and asking for help. After recovery, prayer became a practice of accepting life as it comes. It became a way to remember what cannot be controlled. It also became a way to trust grace more directly. Ben connects that shift to the logic of the 12 steps. He summarizes the first three as can't, God can, I think I'll let God. The conversation stays warm and pastoral without getting floaty. Ryan gives Ben room to translate spiritual language into ordinary life. The result is a steady reflection on humility, acceptance, and the daily work of spiritual alignment. It lands as a clear conversation about how grace shows up in recovery and in the habits that fill a normal day.

As heard by us

Recovery, prayer, and humility come together in a grounded conversation about getting realigned with grace.

Ben Gosden's story treats recovery as a return to alignment with values and grace. As a pastor and the author of Grace Rediscovered, he talks about addiction, prayer, humility, acceptance, and the small habits that recovery changes.

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Why you'd press play

If your faith feels out of sync, this conversation follows Ben Gosden through addiction, recovery, and grace.

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