Do you know what fear and faith have in common? They both have the power to shape our lives in profound ways. Today's episode takes a deep dive through personal journey stories and thought-provoking discussions with our esteemed guest, Pastor Bryan. We address the essential themes of faith, overcoming adversity, and the power of community to foster positive change. Pastor Bryan shares his own experiences into how prayer guided his family and him to Garland, Texas, and the purpose he found in the Commissioned Assembly.
As we peel back the layers of fear and faith, we dissect our personal fears - from rats and mice to more profound fears that control our lives. We also unpack the significant role faith plays in overcoming these fears. Our discussion extends to the realms of self-identity, the commitment required for greatness, and even the inspiring dedication of athletes like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. Amid all this, the underlying thread of overcoming addiction and staying true to one's purpose, even in the face of doubt, is a recurring theme.
As we reach our final chapters, our profound conversation delves into concepts of love, death, sacrifice, and the power of prayer. We discuss how true love can lead to profound sacrifices, guiding us towards heaven. Our exploration of concepts such as heaven and hell encourages listeners to focus on what truly matters. We also highlight the pivotal role community involvement plays in creating positive change. Join us on this introspective journey as we explore faith, fear, and finding one's purpose alongside Pastor Bryan.
Do you know what fear and faith have in common? They both have the power to shape our lives in profound ways. Today's episode takes a deep dive through personal journey stories and thought-provoking discussions with our esteemed guest, Pastor Bryan. We address the essential themes of faith, overcoming adversity, and the power of community to foster positive change. Pastor Bryan shares his own experiences into how prayer guided his family and him to Garland, Texas, and the purpose he found in the Commissioned Assembly.
As we peel back the layers of fear and faith, we dissect our personal fears - from rats and mice to more profound fears that control our lives. We also unpack the significant role faith plays in overcoming these fears. Our discussion extends to the realms of self-identity, the commitment required for greatness, and even the inspiring dedication of athletes like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. Amid all this, the underlying thread of overcoming addiction and staying true to one's purpose, even in the face of doubt, is a recurring theme.
As we reach our final chapters, our profound conversation delves into concepts of love, death, sacrifice, and the power of prayer. We discuss how true love can lead to profound sacrifices, guiding us towards heaven. Our exploration of concepts such as heaven and hell encourages listeners to focus on what truly matters. We also highlight the pivotal role community involvement plays in creating positive change. Join us on this introspective journey as we explore faith, fear, and finding one's purpose alongside Pastor Bryan.
Welcome to the Driftwood podcast. I'm Daniel the Wizard and it's been a minute. So today we got Pastor Brian. I call him a preacher man friend. Every time I'm talking to somebody and they're like oh, my preacher man friend's calling me Preacher, preacher man. So that's pretty how you doing today, brian man, I'm doing good man.
Speaker 2:This has been like a long time waiting man to finally get this done. I mean, it is funny because we're drinking coffee, right? Now, that's how we met over coffee, and coffee can bring a lot of good relationships together. Man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, and it's actually really funny. I actually invited your wife on this podcast before I invited you.
Speaker 2:Oh really, I'm glad you told the truth down right. Now it's normal. Sometimes Nicole get invited to some stuff before me and then, and then it's like it never happens, and then I'm the one where you ask me to kind of just fall us through like it happens, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:So your wife Nicole, she was doing an event at the coffee shop and I think she had one of your daughters with you or something like that, and she had her booth set up. And I walked over and I talked to her a little bit. I was like, yeah, because we were there promoting the podcast, and I said, hey, would you like to come on? I just never really followed up, man.
Speaker 1:And look, that's probably why a lot of people never ended up on the podcast, because I lack the follow up. Follow up. Part of it was I was worried about equipment at a certain point and then also at that time I had a podcast host and yeah, just long story, but anyways, yeah here we are finally recording, so the last this is Wait, let me say this I got to clear this out because I don't want Nicole to get mad Like, wait a minute, brian, what you talking about, brian, how that goes.
Speaker 2:Let me clear it up. Nicole gets invited to a lot of stuff, man, and she's just busy doing a lot of other things. So that's why sometimes she can't get to some of the stuff. And I want to sometimes, you can listen, I'm going to commend her. I always commend her, but I'll commend her now. She does a lot of stuff with the children, especially with the rhyme, with special needs and stuff, getting kids back and forth to school. I'm to her appointments and then she's also trying to do her business work at the same time so that's just.
Speaker 2:it's a lot and a lot of people can't always juggle that right. And she's doing her best of juggling them, but she's getting better day by day. And then when she looks at me and she's just looking like how? Are you doing all this stuff, and in my mind I don't think about it, I just do it, and then I just do it.
Speaker 1:See, I would think that about my wife, like, how are? You doing all this stuff? Like. I'm like man, because the things that I do I can manage those things, but the things that she would do I'm just like I'm glad she's doing that.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think that's why he's versa, bro, like just so-so, she would be like, yep, I'm not getting in the middle of that today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think I don't know. I think that's an interesting thing about perspective, though, because I like to tell people all the time man, I'm glad my problems are my problems. Because I see other people's problems, I'm like I ain't set up to deal with that, and so that makes me really appreciative of what it is. So tell me a little bit about yourself, man. What do you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm pastor with Commissioned Assembly here of Texas. We are churches trying to do a new plant. Here in Garland I work with State Farm. We moved to Texas. I wanted, I say maybe five years, now 2018. So we'll be coming six years in July 14th. I won't forget that day because that's the day I needed everything to get set up so we could go into our house and from there God called us to Texas. And it's just interesting because I tell people the story all the time, man, we had different places where we could go and find the house. There was one house we saw that was right by the zoo Dallas Zoo and then Columbus. Man, we know we got it. I don't know if you guys heard about it, but we got a really good zoo.
Speaker 1:That's the zoo.
Speaker 2:Like it's now two days to go through the zoo, like a full two days, like an amusement park. And I have feelings about zoos.
Speaker 2:So what, we were thinking like, all right, where we move, doing stuff for the kids, right, the environment for the kids? And there was a house over there by the zoo in Dallas, and then we saw two houses in Garland. And then I was also trying to juggle well, where am I going to move to travel for my job? And I remember I was just praying to God. I was on I-70 back in Columbus and I was going towards Zanesville and I was just praying to God. I said, god, where you want us to go? I'm like we got Garland, we got Mesquie, we got Dallas. I'm like, where are we going? And then, sure enough, I looked up. I saw this little hotel or building, say Garland Never seen it there before in a day in my life. And I'm like I got you, god. I got the answer, so guess we're going to Garland.
Speaker 2:So then we ended up moving in Garland and I'm thankful we're riding Garland. And the reason why I say that is because we have some fantastic neighbors. It reminds me of being a kid, so I didn't have to worry about my kids going outside. Something happened into them. Everybody on that street knows everybody. Everybody knows who everybody's kids are. If something goes wrong, you know who to talk to or they'll tell you. So I was real happy about that. And then my neighbors that is, across the street from me, beside me we're all kind of like family as well too. Man, they'll invite us out to stuff, we'll invite them to stuff, cook for each other or just help out. And so to move from a city like we it's a full, taking a whole family, like we're uprooting from Ohio, a whole bunch of support like master support.
Speaker 2:So now you're moving to a place where there's limited support that we have and so we're here and just to have those neighbors that made some of the difficult things that we went through a lot easier too. And then just meeting people in Garland like you, like Chastity and stuff that made it even better, because our first year it was rough man, because we were just meeting people that were just so fake and two-faced and shady. And then I'm like, well, where are you from? And then I find out they ain't from Texas, they from somewhere else You're like burn.
Speaker 2:And then we find some of the folks from Texas to try to lie to you, right, and then it's like dude, you know you could do way better at this lie than what you're trying to tell me right. I know I'm from the Midwest, but I mean we do. If you want to scam me, we do a little bit faster what you do in the road, you're taking your time right, so we just met some bad people.
Speaker 2:But then we just started meeting some really cool people here in Garland, like even Pastor Alicia with Blueprint she's real cool. We met with Pastor Chance down at Christ Memorial, chris Benion over at the County Church he's Pastor Chris. And then even another Pastor Chris he's in the Fluent Church here. So we started meeting all these really cool people. Man, I was like, oh God, thank you, man, because I was getting worried. I was like yo, I moved. We moved all the way here to get with shady folks.
Speaker 2:I'm like, look, I'm a private person, but God, we about to be super private. I don't know how I'm gonna do ministry, right, I don't know how I'm gonna live Because I got to talk to someone. I'm like I can't do this. But then I also got some family here too. One of my odds that I'm really close with that I grew up with from a childhood she's here, but we just lived 30 minutes away. My best friend is like a brother to me. He lives here. He's about 45 minutes away. And then I got my other cousin I'm real cool with. He's about another 35 minutes away now, where he moved.
Speaker 1:So you at least got a couple people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got some people here and then I got my other cousin. He lives in Tyler.
Speaker 1:That's my neck of the woods. That's Tyler, texas. I'm from around there. Yeah, he's Texas, yeah.
Speaker 2:I haven't got a chance to meet her, but she's over there. And then my other cousin, she's down in Houston with one of my great aunts. She's down in Houston. So we, and then my wife's aunt's down in Houston too. So we've been to Houston a lot just visiting them.
Speaker 1:We're doing stuff Go.
Speaker 2:Astros yeah. You know, see I don't know what you're trying to do. Like getting like we started this early, you try to get everybody in trouble man, you know the.
Speaker 3:Rangers just won, right? Yeah, I'm still going to ruin my mess though.
Speaker 2:OK, I'm just saying, man, like you know, you and Dallas, and I'm proud of the Rangers because you know what they finally got one. I know that's what I'm happy for too, finally got one. They finally got one, and I was like I'm finally, you know, in another championship city, because back home I'm a Yankees fan, right, so obviously here you go, right, no, listen, listen. The Compass Clippers was the Yankees farm team. So just imagine we looking at Jared Dieter. I'm looking at him from a minor perspective as a little bitty kid like this is so cool.
Speaker 2:This is so cool yeah, I'm a Yankee. Then they switched over to the Indians and like, well, they're not the Indians now they're the commanders, or something like that. So yeah something weird, but they still got the same colors, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, was it the? Yeah, I don't even remember. Guardians the guardians. Guardians, the Cleveland Guardians.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got them mixed up with Redskins probably.
Speaker 1:But I still think a wild. Thing.
Speaker 2:I still think a wild thing, yeah, yeah yeah, but that's what put them on the map too right.
Speaker 2:Man, it's a major league man. So now we talking about some good stuff, but yeah, so that's what I do. And then the other thing that I do is AHM funding to where we help people like with get mortgage loans or just loans from their investment properties or just personal loans. So I try to do that as well. That one have put too much focus in this year because I've really been trying to put a lot of focus in on the ministry portion and then my family. So that's just a little bit about Brian. I mean I could probably give you a hold on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, but we could. I think we understand where you come from, so I guess the question that I would have is like how did you get into ministry? I know that there's a long story You've told me the long story.
Speaker 2:Right, I'll keep it short.
Speaker 1:But just like what drew you to, how did you get to ministry?
Speaker 2:So, as a kid, with my aunt, my aunt Audrey. She passed away, she just introduced me to Christ as a kid and I just was in love with Jesus, right, and I remember, at eight years old I mean, I drew a green Jesus. Whatever color you gave me, I would draw pictures of Jesus, man, she in her old apartment.
Speaker 2:She got a green picture of Jesus to Audrey. She always used to talk to me about it and I remember I was in church one day and I could hear God talk, like we had conversations and everything he was, you know. And so I remember him saying hey, brian, you love me. I'm like yeah, lord, you know, I love you. What's up?
Speaker 1:man.
Speaker 2:He like there's all I want you to do for me.
Speaker 1:I'm like OK what.
Speaker 2:And then he showed me this vision of a pulpit, me behind it, angels, fire going up. I was like that's what you do. I was like preach, no, I say I don't even know the bottle of Jesus, no. So I ran and I ran into church. They had a rule don't run in church. But I ran that time and my grandmother saw, saw me, and she was like hey, what's wrong with you? Like you saw something. And then just Holy Spirit spoke to her, was like what a god tell you? How'd you know God? Exactly.
Speaker 2:I was like oh my god, I was like uh, so what are those people up front? Oh preacher, oh no, no, no, no. Uh, there's other people up from. What's those other people up front?
Speaker 1:Oh, a deacon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do that, I'll do that. And then, as soon as you say that Bishop now, but at the time was a pastor, pastor Bishop Ross, he came down walking and then he just came at the right time and so, oh God, I called him via deacon. I'm several like now.
Speaker 2:He really called me a preacher, but I don't want to do this and so then Told me, and then one day they brought me up as a junior deacon. I cried on front because I knew that wasn't what God called me to do, and then my mom took me out of it. So then at that point ran into the world and then flash forward, got a real bad car accident. At this part is where my turn, my back on God, because things just wasn't going how I wanted it to go in life. You know, there there is and I'll keep it short like I had choices, didn't go up in the best, we didn't live in the best neighborhood, but in the good neighbor part of the neighborhood though. So in Ohio or Columbus there's no, there's no easing into it. It's like real bad and then real good. Right, it's like a line, and so we were right through on that edge of the line, yeah, and I go right across the street. It's like real bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so I had some choices to make. I remember when my mom lost her job, and it was a choice of do I want to be like my friends and sell drugs, or Can I really try and get this football thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah and Try to do a full-body. Some stuff didn't, didn't, didn't go as planned, couldn't pass a clearing house, had a couple scholarships get taken away because of that and I mean these were D1 scholarships to me and I was just real bad, mad about it, kept getting hurt. I met plenty of professional athletes. They were looking at me working out in the gym and stuff like who team, what team you play for? I'm like I'm in college, bro, what's the other why you got that little school? You know all that stuff. So I'm in the accident I had got into man, I curse, got out and I heard God speaking to me then and I was like nah, man, forget you, man, I don't need you know, I'm gonna do this. At that moment I was gonna try and so drugs and do stuff like my friends.
Speaker 1:I'm like I was doing this to you want to do some hood rats though?
Speaker 2:Yeah and Cracks. And it happened, say my life, on my birthday. I saw a demon getting ready to take me back to hell and I'm giving you the shorts version of it and at that moment I felt breath coming out of my body as it jumped on me because there was a guy next to me. I committed suicide, so that demon jumped off of him and I just remember I knew I was about to die and but then I heard Christ voice and he was telling me don't give up, I'm your, my son.
Speaker 2:And he said you need to call on my name to get this off of you, because I used to deal with this stuff when I was a kid, yeah, and I Was like, well, you know what I said. I tried, it didn't work. And then he was like I need to say it from your mouth or from your heart? And so I was like if I say from my heart, that means I mean it. And then he said He'd be going back and forth a little bit and he's like do you want to live or you want to die? I was like, oh, this is serious.
Speaker 2:Like I was like well as you can see the choice I made right because I'm here and After that demon got off I had.
Speaker 2:When they talk about having these out-of-body experiences, I did that. I was able to see Because I was kind of Stationary on the bed, I couldn't really move and stuff like that from the car. It's not to cut me out, I didn't get a broken bone in my body, believe it or not. And I remember walking out of that room. I remember looking the hallway. I could see the nurses, I could tell you everything from detail what was in. I could mine the neighbor that they just put in here. I saw this bandages and stuff.
Speaker 2:And I saw a white light to the left of me and I was about to go there and I heard guys say, hey, man, you can't do that, you gonna be running, rest your life. And I'm like, alright, well, I guess I'm about to face it. And if I'm gonna have to die, I guess I'm gonna just face this demon. And I, you know, I was like, well, I'm gonna die fighting and let's, let's do it. You know, and I remember demon try to come back out and saw a white light and next thing, you know, I Got up and breath came back on my body. I was sweating and at that moment I gave my life to Christ, and that's where I really say that's when I really Lived for him right because you can know him right, like everybody does.
Speaker 2:well, yeah, I believe in Jesus, I know Jesus. You know what I? Mean, yet you mean Jesus, cool I know, him, but then we don't live for him. So that's, yeah, that's not that change again, right, that's not that born again moment. So I had that born again moment on my birthday. So my birthday is real special to me because that's the day I died but was born again, the little price right.
Speaker 2:So I'm from there. Just the journey was just just ministering to people. Man Just talking to people about Christ was understained to the gospel. I mean I was in, I Was kind of like the early Tim Tebow somewhat, but just like the hood of virgin abroad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you weren't crisp, cut like he was.
Speaker 2:Nah, I was just more cuz I still had some. I Still have some outspokenness about me. Some boat is like I just didn't care, like I get these mothers, I just don't care. But I'll tell you what it is.
Speaker 1:It's just try Jesus, don't try me.
Speaker 2:You know, and I play football, so that was a mindset to like, you know, playing corner, you had to have the confidence and many ways, just ministering people. Then people's like start meaning like are you a minister? You know, you're supposed to be a minister, and stuff like that. And then there was just one day, man, I was going Because what flip it was. I got in a cracks and then they were trying to. They turned it around on me. The guy hit me. I went through the yellow light. He was like 65 miles per hour, he was in the coma and everything. I don't know what happened to the guys still to this day, but they were trying to charge me vehicular assault and then, because he was in coma, they were also going to try and charge me for a vehicular homicide. And I'm like dude, he hit me, like how are we switching this up?
Speaker 2:So my junior year, sophomore, junior year of college, I was at school faced with a potential of going to jail, something I didn't do. And I remember going up to Toledo and that's where I started working on. This stuff can't close. That's how I had my opportunity to play with Child, with the Steelers, yeah, up there. And I just remember one day I was just praying and stuff, but woke up early in the morning and God told me he reminded me certain things I needed to do. And then it was always that reminder of when I was eight. And then I finally went back home to a home church and then got in the ministry and Just here we are. You know, I'm to give you, I gave you the really good quick short.
Speaker 2:No, that was good detail, I got you hit all you hit the bullet points. All right, you hit the bullet points.
Speaker 1:So just to recap you, you were introduced to God Jesus early on, you had a good connection there and then at a certain point you decided that that wasn't, that wasn't going to serve you, and you were going to do it your way. That sounds like a child trying to leave their father's home.
Speaker 1:All right, that just sounds like a normal thing that kids do.
Speaker 1:And then you were faced with some adversity. You ended up Having a vehicle accident, ended up ending up in an out-of-body experience, near death experience however you want to describe it or label it profound and then you come out of that and then you really focused on living, living for Christ. And then, ever since then, you've just been on that journey of living for Christ and Since I've met you a couple years ago, you've even improved in that aspect of just living for Christ because, um, just from my experience, just even your outreach and your ability to outreach, um, you know new area and things like that you have to learn, like the culture of the people and stuff like that. And and, uh, yeah, I've just seen you grow in that way too, man, so it's been really cool to watch and that's one of the things that kind of drew me to you is like you went out of your way and you just like, hey, man, let's talk for a second, like we were just hanging out in the coffee shop and you're like, you're interesting, let's talk.
Speaker 1:And so we stepped outside the front of the coffee shop. I think we stood there for like an hour and a half, first time we ever like really had a conversation.
Speaker 2:It is my an honest my hour and a half, because I think it was. I was supposed to be going my way to work or something like that. I was supposed to be as well.
Speaker 1:I was supposed to be on my way as work as well, and I was late that day. Yeah, um, but, um, yeah, I remember that stuff, man, because, uh, it's like my experience with with god is is vastly different. My experience with god is like I felt abused by, by like christianity. When I was younger. I felt I felt like it was used as a hammer and I think that, growing up in the south, I think that that's just kind of how people use christianity and I don't think it's on purpose. I don't think there's anything Inherently wrong. I think people are really trying to do their best.
Speaker 1:But, as a kid, the view things the way that I did, you know I lost my mom early on. You know I had a lot of grief, a lot of heartache. There was a lot of things in my life that, just like man, I remember telling my, my sister, one time this is wild Um, we were sitting, I was hurt, man, and we were sitting out, we're in the backyard, we were playing, we're doing stuff. I was like maybe like 10 years old Um, that would mean she was like nine and we were just playing and she said something and I was really upset. I was just had so much vinegar in me.
Speaker 1:I was just angry and she said something about Um being perfect and I turned around, snap back at her, said nobody's perfect, not even god and I'm like I just can't even believe that I said things like that, you know.
Speaker 1:But and then I realized that, like after that, I felt really guilty for saying things like that because I didn't know, I wasn't sure, I was just in pain and I was hurting, and and so I used those ideas right to guide myself. So we my dad, would take us to church sometimes, but the churches that we went to there was never really any ministry towards the children. It was just like keep them busy while we talk about grown-up shit, and that's kind of how it was. And then one time we had this pastor at the church so we went to I can't remember his name, uh, I wish I could, but it was. He ended up being a cup cup master, cup scout master, for Boy Scouts too, so he brought a troop to the church and so that actually got me More involved in the church. But it was really just because I wanted to do like camping.
Speaker 1:Never, never did any camps but, I was only in for like a couple of months Maybe, you know, maybe six months, because you know the money was tight and those things cost money and my dad really couldn't afford those things. But but yeah, growing up it was a really tough experience for me Having those things, because I didn't have a lot of positive to come out of that, because the only time I'd ever really been To church was to deal with pain, um and like when my mom passed away. My dad, see, I wasn't around my dad's family a whole lot before my mom passed. Well, I didn't really know who they were, be honest with you. But then after my mom passed away, all the sudden around all these new people going to church and doing all this stuff. It was just so uncomfortable and everybody's like all giving me pity and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I didn't want any of it, I just wanted to be in pain. I guess I don't really know the best way to say it, but I spent a lot of time just searching For what I don't know, but I couldn't find it. And so I Go up on through life, really never really giving much consideration to God. I just had no determination. I never said God's not real, not at this point. Anyways, I did eventually say that. But I never really believed it.
Speaker 1:I just wanted that to be true because then that would make sense for why I was in so much pain. That was how I justified it. But going all through teenage years, going through all these hard things and you know, thankfully there was people along the way that really, really really looked out for me um, some friends, parents I I'm blessing to to have had the friends that I had, because the character of those people their parents are the ones that also cared for me. So I remember one time I had a friend's parent Let me move in to their house While my friend was away at school, and so like, just again along the way, little bits and little information, little things and that, but it was never really Based around anything other than just good natured people. And then I grow up, I start working, I start getting around people a lot of, a lot of hoodlums, let's just let's just call them hoodlums, people that are just into nefarious things and stuff like that. And stuff was fun, not a lot to it was fun. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:And I had a lot of really good experiences and I had a lot of lessons learned from that and I wouldn't have traded any of that for the world because it gives me the perspective I have now. But foolish is all get out Foolish.
Speaker 2:You say it was fun, like yeah, we got in fights. That was fun to me. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:But, and you know, and I, I, really, as a teenager, I started drinking heavily though you know I just started really drinking because that was the cultural, cultural okay thing to do, um, and at least if I was drinking I could hide it around everybody else because everybody else was drinking. And so I relied on that for a very long time to ease pain. And then growing up, and then I started having kids and all this stuff and I had no guidance. Man, my dad, bless his heart, he tried, he gave his best effort to raise me, but I'm a different child than what he was probably prepared for, and so my dad did his best, but I was adamant on being against everything that that man was about and um, and so again, no guidance, going out in life, having kids, going through all of these things, just really questioning everything.
Speaker 1:And then I would have conversations with people at jobs and stuff like that, and I met a lot of agnostic people, a lot of atheists, a lot of, and I found good people in all of those titles and so I was like what the hell this doesn't like if god is real, if god isn't real, whatever, then how come I can see this person as a good person, but they're not somebody that follows god and you know?
Speaker 1:Just a lot of questions. And then I've been Just despair through my whole life. And then, slowly but surely, as I start reading things and I start understanding psychology and I start paying attention to the way the human mind works and all this stuff, and I start realizing that, damn, we're in a trap here and there's got to be a way out of this trap. And I spent years searching for peace, trying to get out of that trap, and then, you know, the last probably four or five years, god has been a Focus of conversation. Now I can't say that five years ago that I believed in god. I don't know that I did or didn't, but I'd certainly was. Considering the idea of. That might be the best way to deal with this.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so, slowly but surely, god started putting more. I think god started putting more people around me. You know, and david, like when he was on the podcast, he he had a very negative experience growing up with religion too. He grew up in uh and some sort of cult or something like that, right, so we would share our negative experiences with religion. But even while we were talking about these things, just because the people that were operating Negatively with these things, it didn't make those things not true to me. So I I could separate the things, but I couldn't understand how people could use that if it's supposed to be holy, it's supposed to be good, and use that against somebody. Just never really connected to me and I realized we're, we're faulted people. Um, but yeah, and then the last, probably like Three years or so, I actually been around.
Speaker 1:Chastity was a big deal for me because she never missed a point to say god wants you to think. You know, she never missed a point to bring it up and I appreciate her for that, because at first I scoffed at it. I scoffed at it, but I'm gonna tell you the reason why I listened to chastity, the reason why I ever really gave any Real consideration of that is because the first day that I ever went into the dang coffee shop I smelled those waffles. Bro, I Still miss those waffles but I smelled those waffles.
Speaker 2:We're gonna have to do something. I say, hey, I'm gonna have to just do like a community day, yeah, and I was just I was in a pissy mood.
Speaker 1:man, I was just in a pissy mood and they served me with the most grace that anyone had ever Served me with that kind of attitude. Hang on, I'm gonna let the dog out real fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know this guy over here like yeah, I need to.
Speaker 1:Sorry, that's quick pause, anyway. So chastity, you know they start her and Dave her husband, they, uh, they served me up and man, that moved me because they didn't have to treat me that way. They asked me how the food was, asked me all this stuff like that. They were really they saw that I was dealing with some, some stuff and then Slowly but surely just started showing back up that waffles is what brought me back bro Then waffles brought me back.
Speaker 1:And so I just kept showing up and then we developed a friendship because I, you know, going up to the coffee shop and things like that, and she, she was never ashamed of it and I admired that and for a while I was. I would push back on a lot of the things that she said, and not because I disagreed with her, but because I just wanted to challenge what she thought she knew, and sometimes the challenges were valuable because I think that expanded her perspective on that too, as well as mine, which is why I kept doing it, because I kept growing in knowledge and faith and stuff like that, and so it was really cool to have those experiences. And then, you know, meeting people like you have met a lot of people, actually most of the people that have been guests on the podcast I met at the coffee shop. So, paul, uh, uh, yeah, there's been a, there's been several people, so, anyways, but yeah, so my path to to this is it's been a long drip, and so when I was a kid, I felt misplaced, I felt out of place, and then, as through life, I felt out of place.
Speaker 1:But the last couple years I really started to find my place and I think a lot of that has to do with me Really developing. I don't even say developing, I think uncovering the relationship that was already there, because I think that you used to have to Develop it. But now my understanding isn't that you develop it, it's always there, it's just let's wash away the dirt, let's wash away the grime, let's start getting rid of some of these things to let the light that is already there shine through, and having that perspective has made it much easier to transition into being able to have a healthy relationship.
Speaker 1:I want to say healthy relationship because, I didn't have a healthy one, yeah, but a healthy relationship with uh, with god and a lot of people may call it by different names or whatever um in regards to, but in in all my view, it's just All being like the, the whole thing. It doesn't no shape, no form, it's, it's all of it, and so Uncovering that relationship has made me more connected with the people around me. It's made me more connected with the things that I do. It's made me really appreciate all of the hard shit that I had to go through, because I don't have to go through it no more, not the same way anyways and so my point to get here was just vastly different.
Speaker 1:But I've always been a talker. I've always felt the need to help, I've always felt called Um, because anytime somebody asked me, anytime anybody needed a ear or hand, I was that guy. I was the guy to listen, I was the guy to talk, I was the guy to give advice, and Somehow I gave good advice, with no experience, and I just I never really understood how, until like started going to bible study with uh, with you, you know You're doing the bible study at your house and inviting me over, which the first time I was really worried not worried, I was scared. I was scared of judgment, I was scared of I Don't know. I don't know what I was scared of, honestly, just uncertainty, and but then, in going through the lessons and things like that and understanding different things, like it's just all Built and it just continues to do so and I'm Going through hard stuff in my life, but I'm more at peace in life, which is the only thing that I ever, ever wanted was to be able to deal with all the hard shit in my life with grace, honestly, and I think that I'm getting closer to that point.
Speaker 1:Not that I do it perfectly, but, um, yeah, no, it's. It's been a it's been a wild ride to get here, but it's interesting because it did bring us together. I, you know you, moved to texas in 2018. I actually moved out of texas in 2018 and I moved back two years later Wait where'd you move to?
Speaker 1:I moved to pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:We're not weird pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:I moved to mccongee, pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Ain't that why pigs bird? No, I was on the other side of the state. I was on the other side of the state.
Speaker 1:No, I was on the other side of the state, bro, I was.
Speaker 2:I was closer to new jersey.
Speaker 3:I was closer to philly, yeah, so we were on like all in town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so and and so here we are, 30 minutes in, you know, giving a little brief on god or whatever, but the whole reason that I wanted to talk to you and bring you here is because there's a very specific topic that I think a lot of people deal with I've dealt with because I'm an addict. I've had Issues in my life with sobriety, I've had issues with just even like food, like I've been a food addict. I've been Whatever. Whatever can ease any little bit of pain. I'm trying it, you know, because I was just always felt in so much pain and I wanted relief of life. And so the point I got some point of one point trying to commit suicide and I think that that's really when things really changed for me is because I died that day. I was like I was, I gave up, I was over with, it was over with and I ended up at the hospital.
Speaker 1:Don't remember it, don't? I remember being really ashamed standing at the at the uh, the check-in at the emergency room and they asked me what I was there for. I said I need help and he said with what? And I just I didn't know what to say and I was like I wanna kill myself. And they're like, oh, like they, you know, it was a. It was a. It was Bonham, texas, it was country country hospital, right, but things changed after that.
Speaker 1:Things changed for me because then I started trying to take my mental health serious, I started really trying to get better and so. But what I've identified in all of that and the thing, the reason why I wanted to talk to you, is because I think the thing that people are scared to deal with is the fear Like what? What is the fear? Right? And so like this whole idea of fear and things that we're scared of and all that, and so that was why I wanted to talk to you. So you have, in your experience and you know, the car wreck and you know not getting the college scholarships and doing all of these things right, I got a college scholarship.
Speaker 2:It was the NFL. Okay, yeah, and then-.
Speaker 1:Well, I just remember you saying you lost some scholarships and things like that. Yeah, yeah yeah, so, but through all of those journeys, the battles of fear, man, what was that for you? So what do you think of fear? What do you think of fear through all of that, all of your experience? What is your assessment of?
Speaker 2:it. So the one thing I think fear controls a lot of the world's aspect and stuff. Right, and you said something earlier and I know we've talked about it before but where it's like, where we've done wrong and that's the body of Christ is we've tried to scare people into trying to have a relationship with God, or is that, if that's what you're going to call, that we try to scare people into coming into the faith? Right, and we use all these, you know, fire and brimstone messages and I'm like, yeah, that's cool. But the Bible also says in Romans two, four and I'll just give you the fourth part of it it says the goodness of the Lord brings man into repentance. So it's by the goodness of God that brought me to where I was at. It wasn't that I was. I mean, yeah, I was scared when I finally knew I was about to go to hell. Right, but it was His goodness that brought me to repentance. Right, and I think sometimes, because fear is controlling a lot of our lives, right, in all aspects, everybody deals with it.
Speaker 2:And then it's just how you deal with it, or how you control it. I'm gonna say, control it just how you process it, and then your way, how you process it is how you react. And I think fear is in everything. But then, at the same time, how I give the verse and then I'll tell you how I deal with it is is the Bible says that God does not give us a spirit of fear. So, and the reason why I say it's controlled, like the world's controlled, because it's a spirit, it's a spirit that's all through the world.
Speaker 2:And so if we know that God says that God does not give you the spirit of fear, but of love, power and it was sound mind, well then why would I take on something that he never meant for me to have in the first place? Why do I need to have that? And I always go back to the point of hey, when I was made, I was made in God's image. And then songs 139, I'm talking about how we were wonderfully made right. So he wonderfully made me, he made all of us beautifully right. And then, of course since we're not gonna try and go through a preaching sermon point right now, but the point of it is that that's something that we don't have to have, right, we don't have to take it. And so then the next step comes in. Well, how do you deal with it? Right, if you know it's not you, then what does that mean? Well, don't accept it, right?
Speaker 2:And so some of the things that I've done that I was scared of, and the way that I overcame them, I just faced it Like I just took it head on, because I was just like I don't want this thing to control me, because what ends up happening is that spirit ends up having control over you, right? And then this fear creates all this different hate and stuff. Like when you think about how racism came about. Somebody was scared of something because of somebody's color. Because they saw how they were doing it, they thought, well, we're gonna be extinct here. You know what I mean. Let's create this here race against these different type of people or just type of culture, and so just my thing is just face it head on, right. So it's how I did it.
Speaker 1:So like you and your dog, Finn right, you said that you had a fear of dogs right.
Speaker 2:You used to have a fear of dogs.
Speaker 1:So tell me about that.
Speaker 2:All right, so I'll give you two fears One I have a master and one I finally is like, let me just deal with it. So and I told y'all I faced it. So one of them is I'm scared of rats and mice.
Speaker 1:That's a reasonable thing to be a little bit terrified of because they're creepy.
Speaker 2:No, bro, like I will freak out, Like jump on the counter, yeah, I will run out the house. Like it's so funny, like if fellas in the truck they brought a grab and like all right guys, y'all, y'all.
Speaker 2:So but with like Finn, like I had a scared thing of dogs and growing up always kind of has some fear of dogs. But if it was my dog I was cool with it because I raised it and it was funny because I had some friends that were just we just mean. You know what I mean. We're gonna call it what it is. Kids sometimes were mean and so you didn't know if they were trained a dog and it would play with you to kind of come and attack you and really the dog was just barking because I wanted to play with you because it's puppy, right.
Speaker 2:And so I just remember I had this big phobia with dogs. I remember one time, man it was recent too that I literally almost had like a somewhat panic attack. Man, I was breathing heavy. I was like, oh my God, man, I don't know if I could do this. And then my cousin, man, you need to get yourself together. Like I'm trying, man, but I can't take it right. And then what finally said man, I can't do this, no more. Is when I saw my son real scared of dogs, he was frozen, he couldn't move. And I'm like and when I saw that I got to be tough now for my son, Like, if this is dad, I protect you. And I was like, man, I can't have him have the same fear I have. We got to get over it. I got to get over it. And so I remember talking to buddies of mine that I was gonna try to get it a massive oh geez, I wanna.
Speaker 3:I don't want a little dog, I want a big dog, Like if here's my thing.
Speaker 2:If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna try and do it, big man. So I'm just gonna get it all the way out the way. I don't need to ease me into nothing, throw me into 12 feet, we'll figure it out. And so we ended up getting away to get finned and somehow, like, my fears of dogs finally went away. Like as a kid I wasn't, I was scared, but if I had my dog I was cool with it, right. And then it was like then it was like when I got a lizard because we had a lizard then it was like I got terrified of dogs and I couldn't do like I can't trust you dog, I don't know you right. And then when I finally got finned, I was like, man, we could do this. And then just somehow, stuff just started, naturally, just went away, right.
Speaker 2:And then I saw my son. It took him day and a half. He was no longer scared of the dogs, he was taken, finned by the collar and going around the house and walking. And I was like so that's how I just dealt with it, I just got it, I faced it, you know, and sometimes that's what we have to do. We have to face our fears. Because here's the thing about fear. Right, we fear the unknown, we fear the thing that we imagine was gonna happen. Right? People look at the dog. They see teeth, and let me tell you what fin is a lab and a pit bull mix right.
Speaker 2:And some of the moment you say, pit bull, oh my God, it's a killer dog, right. And so we just faced it. And when you find out it's not as bad as you think it is, then you can deal with it. But it's that false perception of things that makes sense. I think that's where a lot of people get stuck, because we've created things in our minds or we just fed into the fear so much that it created this bigger. I don't wanna say to where fictitious, because some stuff is real, but we've created it bigger than what it needed to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the way that I view fear. So, like, I have a very simple view on fear, right, my view is there's two emotions, that's it. There's only two existing emotions, and everything else roots from those. There's love and lack of love, right? Lack of love we call fear. And so, in my perspective, if you're operating from a place of fear, there's no love there, right? And so in those moments and those times where I'm fearful, I have to ask myself, like, am I operating from love or fear here? Am I operating from feeling love, feeling full, or am I operating from feeling depleted, scared, worried, like I don't know, I'm not gonna get food or whatever, right? And so that perspective, that simple, simple perspective, has changed the whole thing for me.
Speaker 1:With fear, because I grew up scared of everything, man. And look, I didn't have comfort growing up. I didn't have security, I didn't have those things. I was scared, dude. I was scared that I wasn't even gonna survive. Now, through my teenage years, I thought I was invincible, but that was a delusion. It wasn't that I actually thought I was invincible. I think I had more of a death wish, kind of like let this take me out, god, what am I gonna let me get out that easy, bro. I was gonna have to go through some stuff. So I think that there's just a lot of misconceptions with fear and I think people use fear to handicap themselves. And I don't think it's on purpose, I don't think people choose to do that, but once you get in that trap, that's a hard one to get out of and it's like how do you get out of that trap of fear, of being scared of things of, like you were talking about the dog man I had? I don't like I was scared of cats for a while because my uncle used to have a cat and my sister used to have a cat and they were both vicious, vicious, vicious creatures to me and I didn't even do nothing to them. Maybe I did, I don't remember, but they were vicious to me.
Speaker 1:I'm innocent, I'm a child, okay, but I had this fear of cats and then on through life, like I would, really I would test my fear against like dude, I would drive reckless in cars, I would do stupid shit on bikes, all kinds of crazies. I was fearless with that stuff. But then, like dealing with somebody or having a conversation about something, I didn't like I was so scared of those things. I was so scared of judgment, I was so scared that I wouldn't be accepted. I was so scared again of everything.
Speaker 1:And so, having the perspective change of like okay, with this person. If I'm scared of this person, if I have anxiety or whatever, I'm scared of this person, that's right here in front of me. If I'm scared, what am I really actually scared of? Well, maybe those things are legitimate, but the thing is, like you said, it's not something that we have to have.
Speaker 1:And so then I just asked myself, like, how do I deal with this with love instead of fear?
Speaker 1:Because even if I do have the trepidation, the fear, the things that are like inside of me, I don't have to like hang on to that.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna say ignore it, because you do gotta deal with it, because if not, like you just move in on past it and it's not a thing that's actually gonna be helpful, but letting it linger, because the fear only serves as a lesson. But if you hang on to it, it's not a lesson, it's suffering, all right, and I think that I was just so tired of suffering and I just wanted to find out how to quit suffering. So I'd started praying, started asking God and all this stuff. I just started trying to find different ways to not be scared because, like I said, I'm just a scared person and so, taking that view and then really trying to apply it to different things, I really try to find the holes in it. But again, it's so simple, it's really hard to find holes in it. And I wonder what your perspective is on the whole fear thing, like just from what I said, with the love and lack of love, what you think about that From the biblical perspective, you being a preacher man and all.
Speaker 2:So perfect love casts out all fear right. And when you're saying like just the lack of love and the one thing I was probably gonna add to fear was like fear also can be like an emotion or something too right, like a warning sign.
Speaker 2:Definitely, it's definitely an indicator it definitely Like something's going on right and I think, one of the things I like when you say you're let's deal with the holes of it. So, when we're looking at certain fears like, or like things that we love, like we gotta really look at it. Like, like you were saying, what is it that's causing me not to move forward? Right, let's break it down, like, because when we look at fear, you gotta look at it. Is it a thing? Is it me succeeding? Like there's so many different broad perspectives that it can bring it to the table, and if I and then let's I don't know which one you wanna go down or you want me to pick Whatever man, so, like, if we look at it from a perspective of us successful, right, let's.
Speaker 2:I think that's the biggest fear that people have of, maybe why they don't start a business right, or maybe why they don't talk to that girl or that guy that they like because, they're scared of the rejection piece right, or I don't know if I should get this thing because I'm scared of indecisive, I don't know if I'm gonna make the right choice, right, and so then that's where that comes back into that love piece, like if, when you love God, god then shows you and his relationship of who you are right, and so it's just really identifying who you are as a person and knowing who you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you're so, like if to start the business or to talk to the girl or whatever, the fear, what would the fear be serving at that point? Right, so like, is it tangible? Is it tangible fear, or is it like the indicator that what it's telling you is it something? Is it telling you something tangible or is it just bullshit? I guess would be the simplest way for me to ask.
Speaker 2:So I would think anything that wants you to be successful, of course you have the antagonist. What's the enemy? It's not gonna want you to move forward in doing it, and that's that rejection or that failure piece. And so I think that's a lot of the fear that you gotta deal with. Like, for example, man, like, if, like, I'll just use this here in the industry piece, I'll use me, I mean, I think I'm the best example to talk about it. Right, everybody has a fear, and my biggest fear was and let me go back because fear is actually also implanted in us too Like, think about it, when we were kids or babies, there was only a few things that we were scared of because it was an unknown, but then there was certain stuff that was planted in us.
Speaker 1:There's, like I remember I know there was a study or a test done with kids in heights Like kids will not crawl off the edge of a table, like they won't just keep going, they stop, like almost every time, and I don't remember I took it to some psychology class, but it was a study that we had to go through to, where it identified the way kids like there's just an inherent no, that that's programmed, like don't do that. So at what point, though, does that fear though, no longer be the lesson? Because at what point is it like oh, I'm not scared of that, it's just I'm not gonna do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where I think the majority piece comes in. To know like, hey, you know, is this really gonna be good for me? Because, like the B-Skier in front of a gun is a valid fear, because you can lose your life, right.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll push back against that. I'll push back against that because I would say, if you're fearful in that moment, you're gonna make a bad choice. I'm not saying that it's not. You can't be aware, like you can be aware, that that gun's going to kill me, but you don't have to be scared that that gun's going to kill you, right? You don't have to be fearful of that, because I think that that fear, anytime we're in that emotional state, obviously you're not gonna be happy there, it's like, unless you're asking for it, but I think that that emotional state that you get in get you out of line with correctness or righteousness or the light or whatever.
Speaker 1:And so if that fear exists, even if somebody is standing point blank right With a gun in your head or whatever, I think that the best way to deal with that is to not be scared, to have faith in something larger than what's going on there, and I don't know any other way to articulate that other than God. So, but if I'm standing there and somebody is pointing a gun at me and I'm scared, I'm not going to make the best decision to keep me alive. I'm just not. I'm gonna make a fearful decision to protect myself, but that still may not be the right thing. Now, I'm not saying it's a thing that you can do or that anyone can do, but we've seen it happen. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? Yeah, and I was just using it trying as an example, not saying like you know what I mean. Man, maybe lose my train of thought.
Speaker 1:Well, it's well, haven't so having the fear of somebody shooting you? Right, and it's a legitimate fear. It's not illegitimate. Yeah, that's what it is legitimate.
Speaker 2:And I think back to your point too is again go set an identity piece like right, you know who God is right. So there's times I had guns and stuff put on me.
Speaker 1:And Me too. This is me too.
Speaker 2:This would be like before I say it was let's do it, bro.
Speaker 1:Like let's go. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean you just crazy and stupid. And I was like, well, you don't control, have control of power of my life. Now, like I remember just got out the car accident man, we was out and this one dude was talking about he's gonna go pop the trunk to kill me, and I got mad and I was just like, well, first of all, bro, you don't even control, you don't have to. Your, my life is not in your hands, my life is in God's hand, and if it's my time to go, cool, but you don't say when it's time to go, he does. You know so. But then that goes back to that part of knowing who you are right. And so if we're looking at from a Christian standpoint or a biblical standpoint, you have to know who you are in Christ.
Speaker 2:When you know who you are in Christ, then you'll realize like, hey, I don't really have to take this fear right, all my fear fears are gone or being cast away because guess what, I'm in. So love with God, that I don't have a fear that I can't be successful, right. And so when we think about when no one all right, is this the thing to do or not? Like if God has placed an idea in there from you, right, all ideas are birthed from God. Like that's gonna help you be successful let's put it like that Then that's coming from God, because there's something that he has placed inside of you that he's trying to get you to use. It's the gift right.
Speaker 2:And we talked about, I think in Bible. We talked about the man with the five talents, the two talents and the one right. So the man that had the five talents multiplied it and got 10, the one with two multiplied it and got four. But the one that had one talent, he was so scared that he hid it. And then, when Christ came back, he said you, wicked and slothful servant, though you have a whip and a gas on the teeth, is because sometimes we're scared to step out and use that gift that God's given us and it goes back to that point where I was talking about like some stuff can be imputed into you, right, and I was gonna use my example like a parent or a role model or a guardian is so crucial for a child because they look up to that individual to give them the encouraging words or to help them with life. And then if you plant negative seeds, like hey man, that may not be good enough for you, or you're not gonna make it.
Speaker 1:It starts to build a lot of doubt.
Speaker 2:So then there it is. It comes that doubt right, it comes that that's a part of fear just doubting right, and so when there's doubting, there's no faith, and doubting faith can't mix. So you don't have faith, not in God, you don't even have faith in yourself, and then you're slapping God in the face because, to give you place inside of you, you don't even believe that it could be profitable right. And so then you're like almost no good to anybody. So then it's kind of nautistic.
Speaker 1:That seems kind of nautistic, like kind of like well, none of this matters. That's kind of what that starts to feel like. Yeah, and you're just numb.
Speaker 2:You, just like you, become a robot or a zombie. What they per se nowadays Like you're just a zombie, you're just going through the motions, but we're all here to serve a greater purpose. So once you know who you are and you have your identity, you know that's a good gift. Well then, everything that God is a yes and a amen. It's a green light. It's a green light until he does something or he shuts the door, and that's for your protection.
Speaker 1:And that door only changes your direction. It's not even that door closing only changes your direction. It doesn't stop you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not saying all you're done is just saying hey, you're not going that way, like don't go this way, I got another way for you.
Speaker 2:Like just, and I'll go back to me, like, so one of my biggest things, where it even came just with ministry, where it came with football, where it came through talking with people, is because there was some negative seeds that were planted in me where it was saying hey, man, I don't think you're good enough. And so then I would question myself well, I only could go, but so far, because that may be too good, I'm good with it, I should be satisfied. A second or third place, don't worry about be number one. But then there's another part of me that says, nah, man, I don't want that, I don't want to be number one. Yeah, see, yeah. And then so the way that you do that. And then there's plenty in like I love hearing people's success stories, like when I think about a Dion and I even say this guy's name because he was he's on Netflix Paul, I can't think of anything like Paul Ruff, whatever the YouTube or that was boxing all these people, I think about Jake Paul.
Speaker 2:Jake Paul there it is. I think about him, I think about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like at least a lot of successful people's, they all had to deal with some of that fear, right? And so you have a choice whether you're going to be succumbed by that fear or you're just going to push through it. You know what I mean, and so when I look at those people's, I love hearing their overcoming stories. Right, and God's called us to all to be overcomers, but you can't overcome something if you don't have an obstacle in the way.
Speaker 2:And so when we're looking at these different things, like, do I trust God enough? Do I trust the Christ in me? Do I love God enough let's say, you do like that Do I love God enough to know that he's going to be with me to get through this? When we're talking about him being our shepherd, he's like the shepherd, if you look at Psalm 23,. He's in front of us, he's behind us, he's surrounding us, he's the omnipresent God. Right? Do I have enough love than God to say, hey, man, he's going to walk me through this here situation, he's going to get me through it, right? So when you think about those things, man, like that's where it comes back to. And then that's where we're in a one point where I'm saying like it's affecting, like this whole world, is because there is an absence of a personal relationship with Christ. Because once you have that personal relationship with Christ, he then tells you who you are, right.
Speaker 2:He then starts guiding you, man, and when I'm saying like a parent and a guardian is so important, because guess what? That's what a guardian is supposed to do with their child, or their parent does with their child. They lead them up, show them, guide them into life, and but then, if they're not there, even if they're there, god does that for you too. So it's just really one of those things like who's reports you're going to believe. You know what I mean. Like you're going to believe your report. You're going to believe God's report. Are you going to take that step?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that if you assess like, do I trust myself enough to make that call? I think the answer is always no. Like it's like because we're foolish in this world. Like man, I'll go buy a cheeseburger at midnight, bro, it's not the smart choice, right, because I know my digestive system doesn't work that well when I'm trying to like. Like logic will apply there. So, like, if I know I'll make that stupid choice, what other stupid choices am I making that I don't know that I'll make? Yeah, so it's really.
Speaker 1:It becomes really difficult to trust that I know that I'm making the right choice, unless you give that guidance, like you allow yourself to be helped or like you put it out there and forgot. And so you brought up something about a couple of sports athletes, and I wanted to bring up two specific people, because I started reading this book called Winning, but it's Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, and so I'm really fascinated with the mind of these two specific individuals others as well, but specifically these two because they have the same trainer, they had the same trainer and what I like about it is like the fear part of it. It's like what I liked about Kobe called it the Mamba mentality. Right. In all reality, it was just a complete dispelling of fear. It was just like, no matter what's going on, I'm doing this, no matter how bad, how hard, how much it hurts, I'm doing it. And being that committed to something I always wanted to understand how can someone be so committed, regardless of their circumstances, how can someone fight through a torn quad and still play a full game without even limping? How can someone do that? No clue, like, how are you even able to do that? But he did it, kobe did it. You know Kobe would show a cut and the thing is is like you obviously gotta know when to rest, you gotta know your body will? You gotta know these things and you gotta know how far you can push yourself.
Speaker 1:But I think it's really important to understand that the dispelling of fear, the ability to push through something that seems terrible, that sucks or whatever, but to get on the other side of it and to know that you withstood that and you're fine, all right. And I really admire people that are able to do that. I really admire people that are able to put aside their little bullshit problems and to be able to accomplish something greater. And I think about things like that because I wanna let me be clear. I don't like attention. I've always been scared of attention. I've always been scared of the responsibility of attention, but I've always done things that always garnered me some sort of attention, and then I shell up as soon as that attention is garnered. And so I've always been put in positions to gain attention, and I've never wanted it. I've always been so like get away from me, I'm just gonna go high for a little bit till the attention goes away, and then I'll start doing something again and thinking about Kobe, thinking about Michael Jordan.
Speaker 2:How could I?
Speaker 1:have dealt with that attention, because everybody's looking at them, the whole world is looking at them and they're still out there gritting it. They're still running their mouth, they're still out there. And then you talked about winning or coming in second. I should be happy to. I think, the most important thing that one has to ask himself did I do everything that I possibly could do? Did I keep my word to myself? Did I keep my word to God? Did I do everything that I promised that I would do to accomplish what I said I was going to accomplish? And if you haven't, you're scared. You're scared, but what are you scared of? Why are you still holding onto that fear? And I think that that's something that I think about a lot, because having to overcome addictions and things like that, what am I scared of? Why am I holding onto this? Well, I'm scared that I won't have a way through it. I'm scared that I won't know what to do. I'm scared that I won't have guidance. I'm scared that I won't know where the next thing comes that alleviates this pain that I'm feeling. I'm so scared to have to deal with this, but that's the only way to not have to have those things is to deal with it. Like you said, you got to have something greater, you got to be able to pull into something larger, and it's just the two people that I brought up, kobe and Michael, and reading that book it made me just think about like, how strong, how strong does the stranglehold of the world have to be to cripple you every time you try to step out of what your norm is, to elevate yourself, to be beyond that, and then that doubt like we talked about earlier just starts creeping in, just like.
Speaker 1:There's this little story called the devil's yard cell. Have you ever heard it? I'm gonna give you a very brief version of it, but this is something that I used to give in impact meetings when I was doing sales, and so this is something to motivate people. But it's an interesting thing. So, like it's laid out, the devil's having a yard cell, right, he's got all of his tools laid out on the table. He's got all the things that the devil would use, right. He's got hate, he's got anger. He's got all of these things. They're all for sale. Going along and checking all these things, somebody picks up this little wedge shaped thing Like what's this?
Speaker 1:He's like oh that one's not for sale. And they're like why is this one not for sale? He goes oh, that's the most valuable tool that I have. I'm like what is it? Doubt, that's the brief of it, that's the whole thing. So the devil can't even sell his wedge shaped doubt, because that's his way.
Speaker 1:In the moment that you doubt yourself, the moment that you doubt, you're not capable, you've lost. And so whenever you face those moments of doubt, you're allowing fear to come in. If you don't say, look that doubt, that I'm feeling that stuff, that everybody's saying that judgment, that I'm feeling none of that stuff is important. I know what I'm supposed to do. Like you said, your identity with God. You've been given that identity. You can dispel those things.
Speaker 1:But when you start feeling that doubt, somebody calls you crazy. Somebody says, oh, you're delusional. Somebody says, oh, what are you talking about? You sound like you're in a cult. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, because you can't doubt what God has you here for. You can't doubt what purpose you're serving. Once you have that assignment, once you know what that is, you cannot doubt. Because every time I feel like you do that, you take a step back. Now we're all gonna do it Like it happens, but I have to keep in my mind.
Speaker 1:I think, that if that doubt shows up, I'm doing the right thing, because that doubt showing up means that I'm being challenged, I'm being questioned, and am I gonna do what Christ needs, what God needs me to do? Am I gonna do God's will at this point, or am I gonna do it, daniel, once, and go buy cheeseburger at midnight? You know what I'm saying. It's like it feels freeing to give up that control that I have to make those decisions. It feels so freeing and I think that's the freedom people talk about in Christ that I don't think is explored very much, because I've seen a lot of addicts start going to church right, and they get addicted to Jesus, but it becomes an idolatry thing. It's not even like I believe it with my heart. It's just like I'm gonna keep saying these words until I believe them and maybe that works.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but it just seems so empty and I worry about the way some people deal with these things and they're using fear to guide that thinking and they're missing the whole idea of what that relationship is supposed to be. And this isn't my mind. This is not me telling people how to do it. But I think that once you start questioning the, the methodology or the indoctrination or however you're going about these things, if you just ask yourself what's my relationship like, what is my relationship with God like, and is God leading me where I need to go or am I leading myself away from that? Because that's the only way you're going to lead yourself is away from God, because you making decisions means that you're allowing the ego and the devil, the doubt, all of that stuff to start guiding you and pointing you into a direction. So I Don't know. That's what I think about, about. I just went on a little tangent about all these things.
Speaker 2:It was not, it was a good tangent, I mean, but this is what we do anyway. Yeah and our personal time when we talk. But there were, there is, there's. I'm gonna use those two examples. Yeah and I'm gonna make it even more simplistic, because when we're talking about perfect love, cast out off fear right. You know why Jordan and Kobe and any good athlete are great they love the game. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So check this out when you really love something. It doesn't matter what's in your way. Yeah because when you really love something, guess what what's real love? Sacrifices, right, you want to sacrifice Getting up early in the morning to go do a 5 am Workout? Look bro, that's a sacrifice. All right, you're on. It seems like one.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, that's a sacrifice. No, it seems like one. It seems like one from my athlete telling you that that's a sacrifice when you in college. Yeah, that's a sacrifice.
Speaker 2:You do other things right, yeah and then when you even think about like that, playing through the hurt, right, yeah, that's a true love. And so, when you could, when you add a case to like a relationship, that when you love somebody, right, let's just use like the closest form that we can have to any love. It's like from a parent to a child, right? And so when you think about that, that's the closest way we get to the Gopi level. Gopi level, goddess is.
Speaker 1:Unconditional. Yeah, it's just unfailing.
Speaker 2:You can't do it. I mean it never fails. And so, as a parent any good parent they will sacrifice for their child.
Speaker 2:Have the time let's be real as adults, we don't be want to get up and go to work every day, like these days I'm most days this is like this I'm looking at the clock like brah, I'm tired, I don't want to get up. I don't want to go to, I'm gonna. I gotta get you ready for school too. No, I don't want to do out there. Let's have a day off, right. But you get up Because you know well, I got to get the bills paid. I got it. I got to go out here and make a living for us, right? I can't just sit here and be lazy, so you sacrifice getting up.
Speaker 2:So, all those different things. It pushes that fear away because you're in, so love with it, right. And so then that's where it comes back, like With just God. And when I think about this, I think about reading some of those stories when I was in school, even hearing about certain people that's over in, like Africa or the foreign countries where they're getting killed every day for their faith. They're not worried about death because they know where they're going.
Speaker 2:Right but because they love God so much and even in and the interest right, they love God so much that they were willing to die for, because he died for us. He loved us so much that he died for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah the fear of death. I think that's one of the biggest things that we as society face. You bring that up and it makes me think, like I think the fear of death Is the biggest fear and I think it's the wrong fear. I don't think. I think fear of death is foolish, because we're all Going to perish in our physical bodies, all of us. There's no avoiding it.
Speaker 2:I Think is when we talk about death, I think it's the fear of how we're gonna die right. Well, I suffer, you know, I think for me maybe I think about like, am I gonna be the one that suffers? And I say this because I've been around people that taking their last breath and it's not a like, it's not a real cool like, it's a real peaceful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like, oh my god, like, is that? Like, am I gonna suffocate and I'm gonna suffer any few seconds or moments, whatever this is? Or then you hear about people passing away in their sleep like what did they go peaceful? Like so is that? It's that unknown piece? Right? I think we were talking about this earlier and then sometimes, that that unknown piece brings fear too. Right, because Because here goes a question right, how do I know I'm gonna? Go to heaven? How do?
Speaker 2:I know I'm gonna go to hell, like is this a real thing? To me that's an easy answer. I mean, for me it is too. But I'm just saying.
Speaker 1:For most people I might even have a different answer than you, but to me it's an easy answer. And the reason why I know it's an easy answer for me is because, like the idea of suffering, I do think that being here and facing this life, it is about Not suffering through the pain, not suffering through the things that you go through. You're supposed to be at peace with these things. So if you are being hung on a cross, there's no suffering. Right, it's not to suffer the suffering that we endure.
Speaker 1:Am I going to heaven or hell? How did I face these things in life? How did I face these sufferings that I just Woe is me and just curl up in a ball and say this is just my life and this sucks? That's why it's an easy answer for me, because I know that I'm facing the things as they should be faced and I'm not doing it arrogantly. It's not like, oh yeah, I'm going to heaven because I'm doing this. It's like, no, I'm just don't want to suffer here, and the way to not suffer is to love Period.
Speaker 1:There's no other way to not suffer, in my opinion, and the only way to love is through God because, like you said, the agape is the only True, undeniable full. The whole thing? Right, yeah, that is the of. God part of it, and so I know that, as long as I continue to operate with that, that I'm fine. I'm not, but again, it's not even about a destination, it's about how many people cannot take with me, because I don't go to heaven if my brothers don't go to heaven.
Speaker 1:That's my mission, because if the people around me are not blessed and loved in heaven, I'm not blessed and loved and cared for and stuff like that. I haven't done my part because I'm taking it all too personal. I'm making it about me, but it's not about me, it's about all of us. If one of us goes, all of us goes, none of us go, none of us go, all right. And so I have to operate that way and that gives me a sense of being not even being, just a sense of fullness, because I know that, no matter what my feelings don't matter about this this person needs to love and care the same as I did. It doesn't matter what the circumstance of the situation is, and as long as I can keep viewing it that way, I know God's using me in a way to Deal with those things, to get all of my brothers to heaven. I say brothers in the sense of every human being alive, because anybody that I come in interaction with, that's an opportunity for me to show grace, to show love, to show care. And I, if I'm taking things personal, if I'm taking things oh, this is a shot at me. I'm not doing that. If I'm taking. Oh why are they mad at me? They're not letting me come over. They don't blah, blah, blah. It's ain't about me, though.
Speaker 1:Hurt people hurt people. Healthy people don't hurt people, and so if you're hurting people, you're unhealthy and you need help, you need love, you need care, and that's suffering. The only way to get out of suffering is love. The only way to heaven is love, and so I know that I operate that way and so I'm cool, but I don't know that that's how everybody believes. I don't know if that's how everybody feels. There's probably scripture that that supports some of what I said, because I've learned that a lot too, some of the things that I've just figured out in life.
Speaker 2:There's scriptures of support in me if I just read the damn book Now.
Speaker 3:I think that's what anybody just read the book is your answer to life.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in my opinion, when it comes to like death right, I Just gave you my testimony. Yeah, I know hell is real so hell's real, heavens real. Yeah and I know what the word says, that the only way to heaven, where Jesus says I'm the way, the truth in life, nobody comes to a father set through me.
Speaker 2:Yeah so I know that he's the key right. He was the key for me to get that demon off of you. He's the key of while I'm here. So my belief and accepting of him and having a personal relationship with him, I know I'm gonna be with him in heaven right.
Speaker 2:And I to your point, like, yeah, while I'm on here on heaven, I'm gonna do as much as I can to either plant seeds, to water seeds, but any day God gets the increase, I know I can't. Nobody could get into heaven like off of my coat tail, right, right of course you know like they Relationship they got it.
Speaker 2:They got to do it on their own because, I just remember it, a few was a buddy, was used to be like younger, like, well, you know, my grandma, right, is she go there? She knows you got a spot for me, she might ready gonna take me ever, because that's that's what I was. And it's like, well, I can't take you here, baby, you gotta do this. Like, oh, so it's just kind of just, that's how I view it and I think.
Speaker 2:And then there was also still, as a Christian there was before I had that experience there was that question hey, is all this stuff for real or is all this stuff fake? And then, once you have that personal relationship, then you're like, okay, no, this this really is real. And I think, and for me is just, I just want everybody one, I don't want anybody ever get to the life and death. Yeah, cuz then there's not a there, there's not a guarantee, uh-huh, you will be able to continue living like you might get saved and go to heaven. But then that's it right, cuz I I digress well, I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess the way that I perceive this is like fear, hell is fear, and so if I'm focusing on that, I'm running. I'm running away from that. I ain't got time to run away from shit. I've been doing that my whole life Running towards something, now Right, running towards purpose, running towards fulfillment and running towards peace, instead of I'm running from my problems, running from what I'm scared of, running from all those things. And so To me it's the same love, lack of love, all right, and so heaven, hell, love, lack of love. That's the existence of the things. I'm not saying that they're not real from my perspective. I just don't have it as a destination. It's just because, once we leave this physical world, I don't think we truly understand that. It doesn't. It's not shaped like this.
Speaker 1:The stuff don't look like this you know, right, our bodies, that we think we see we may see our loved ones or whatever in heaven and all that stuff and that's fine, but we think they're gonna look like this.
Speaker 2:We don't know that no, the Bible tells us we'll become spiritual beings. Yeah, but again, what's the concept of that? Yeah, what does?
Speaker 1:that look like, and I think that that's where I I see is because it's not a, it's not a place where you go and visit it's. It's a shapeless, nameless thing. Like it's not nameless, this shapeless thing, it doesn't have a form that our human minds can conceive, and so to me, hell is kind of the same thing. It's the love lack of love. I'm not saying it's not there, I'm just saying the existence of. I'm not going to run from hell, I'm not gonna do the fire and brimstone, I'm not gonna do all that stuff because, though that may be true and valuable, I ain't got enough space in my head to be worried about that, because I know where I'm focused, I know what I'm doing. That's my name, jack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't run away from it. And and why you don't run away from it is because why do I have to fear something that I have authority and power over?
Speaker 1:exactly.
Speaker 2:He. And when you become the end, set Christ as yours every heat. The moment you accept Jesus Christ, he gives you power and authority over all six in disease and over all devils. Mm-hmm. So wait a minute. You telling me, devil, I used to fear you, but wait, I have now power and authority over you. Oh, I'm the cop now. You're, I don't have to run from you, I, I can face you what you want to do today. I ain't got no doubt because I have authority over this.
Speaker 1:Like there's nothing that you can sell. The devil can tell me to dispel my authority over him. Right, and see, that's that thing that I call the ego. Right, a lot of people identified as the devil. I call it ego because in my mind it's that little thing that's sitting in your head that's always trying to get its way, always trying and, and, and I know that Thing is only trying to keep itself alive. The same thing as the devil's, same thing as hell. The same thing is lack of love. Those things try to stay alive because it's a poison, it's something, and only way it succeeds is if it kills you while it succeeds. And so I just I try to focus on and I again I encourage people to I I just I'm not saying that Don't pay attention to hell or whatever it is, but I'm just saying that, like, worry about what you need to worry about and it'll work itself out.
Speaker 1:If I'm worried about oh, am I going to hell for this? I'm thinking about the wrong thing.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're thinking about, am I going to hell for this knee, I think. Well, dude, are you really say like? Have you really said because, like, when you know you don't worry about those things? Yeah? Right right when you know you have the money to pay something you don't worry about. I need to get the money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. If you know you got the money pay your bills, you ain't worried about right, if I know hey man, I got food in a place.
Speaker 2:I ain't worried about what's for dinner. I'm gonna put was in, you know, in my fridge, on the, on the stove or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah me.
Speaker 2:So it's just kind of like once you know, you know right. Yeah but then it's getting to that that knowing piece right that I think that's what's the hinder that can be a long journey.
Speaker 1:That can be a very long or it can be a very quick yeah. But here's the thing.
Speaker 2:Nobody can tell anybody how quick or how long that journey is gonna be. That's something that that individual has to come across. And then here's the thing we can't be judgmental for somebody that it may take a lifetime or it may take somebody Two seconds to get it right, I'm is only a tool right, you know. I mean, everybody has their own different levels of perspective.
Speaker 1:Yep, time is a tool, because in Infinity there is no time. All right, so, like, the only reason time is valuable to us is because it's teaching us something. All right, what is it teaching us? And each person the thing that it's teaching. That might be a little bit different, but the reality is time is fictional, it's not real, it's made up. It's something that we use to guide our lives and live our lives. When I saying ignore time, not saying Don't be late for work, but what I'm saying is like you know, I was the value of time is Based on perception, because haven't you sat and the clock has gone by quickly.
Speaker 1:But you've also sat, it's gone by very slowly you see the expression watching paint draw, it's like, but the same amount of time has technically passed. So what is the perception of the time? What's that's the that's the value there. So if you can find a way to perceive time in a different manner and see, this is where I'm good at things in life. It's like all of the things like they're not waking up, the things like that. It's about giving yourself a perspective that makes that not a thing that causes you bad feelings, because those bad feelings start creating doubt. You start you know all of these things. So if I need to wake up early in the morning, I need to adopt a perspective that's gonna allow me to do that with as little conflict as possible. So you say waking up and going to do the things as a sacrifice, a Sacrifice, for what a desire. Okay, well, those are your desires. It's not really a sacrifice. You're not sacrificing your desire. You just don't have that right. But you have something larger that you love, that you care about. So having a perspective to say, oh, my goal is this, so what I, my desires don't matter. Oh, do I want to go hang out with the boys and stay out late, drinking and stuff like that, fine, understand, and you feel like you're sacrificing by not going. But are you really sacrificing by not going? Because the perspective that one would carry, if you think you are sacrificing, you're causing yourself suffering Because the sacrifice isn't actually real. What's happening is you're giving up something for something else, and the only reason it would be a sacrifice is because you desire that greater than what you're actually doing, until you don't. And so that's the only reason I see sacrifices of as a problem, in the sense that the use of language when people say that they're sacrificing, they think it seems noble or like they're giving something up of value is like oh, I sacrificed myself for my family. I don't believe that, though I don't believe you sacrificed. I think you did the thing that you thought you needed to do.
Speaker 1:Now, if you claim that as a sacrifice, that means you're blaming something else for why you didn't get what you want. And I just don't, and I'm not saying that that's truly how people feel. But when you use the words that way and you think about it that way, you start limiting your own self-belief and you don't even realize you're doing it because you think that, oh man, I don't get to go do this. Well, why have bad feelings? But why be like, why have? Why worry about any of that? And it's the same thing for like like hell.
Speaker 1:For me it's like is it a sacrifice? No, because I'm not going to hell. Like what I'm doing is not a sacrifice. Me not being able to go Smoke weed and drink beers and all that stuff is like I had my fun doing that stuff and it was all cool and well. But not doing it now is not a sacrifice, because I'm not giving it up, I'm done with it. I'm not exchanging that for something else. I've made decisions in my life to know that If I'm truly to sacrifice something, all the sacrifices needed has already been done. Right, god gave his only begotten son, so this who who shall ever perish, so have everlasting life, or whatever the scripture actually reads, right and so like. There's no actual sacrifice beyond that. That sacrifice has already been made. Now it's just do we make the decision to live in that way, or the decision not? And the only true sacrifice I think you can make would be sacrificing yourself to not live that way.
Speaker 2:That's just what I think so I think that's a good one way to think right, and I'm gonna say that I'm like not Dementioning, I don't, it's just, yeah, just a perspective, it's just perspective so that you can give yourself the best chance, because how many times we put roadblocks in our way For and for what reason, yep, and I was going to say, like you have. I think desire Is in part of that too right like there, there is an ultimate goal right.
Speaker 2:There's a goal in something that they love doing. Yeah, there's some kind of desire there's an objective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's an objective, what you want to end it. So there's a desire of right, like Michael Jordan's desire was to be the greatest basketball player. Coveys was to be the greatest basketball player. Right in in a marriage, you know, the greatest spouse, I'm gonna be the greatest spouse, or I'm gonna be the greatest father, right, there's always a goal that's driving it.
Speaker 2:Like, even in Christ, I Want to be the greatest To what I can be, be great at what I was called to do. So when I get to heaven, he could say well done. But I don't want to hear well done, loyal, faithful servant. I want to hear well done, son. That's what I want to hear, right. So there's something that is driving me right. That's that. That's that push. But it's also connected to if that love piece like so they go, they go hand in hand. So I think, when, when we're saying, or when I say, when I'm sacrificing Something to get to that goal, because when you think about it, you, you do, you, whether you want to use the word sacrifice or not, there's something that you have to put down in order to get to go, like you got to make a choice.
Speaker 1:You do got to make a choice, I think every day, I think all the time. I think that's the most constant thing is what choice Do you make, god's?
Speaker 2:will or not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that that's the. I think that's the choice that most people don't even realize they're making with every decision that they make. Everything they do, every step that they take, every time they turn, is turn the car on like it's, like my decisions are my decisions, in line or out of line. But if you have no line, how do you know?
Speaker 2:just you're just living. You know what I mean and like it's funny I said, is because of Ashley to a what goes more in person in prayer. God just spoke something real easy and simple to me. He was like you make a choice by you. You choose your choosing this right now. Like I'm not, I'm not forcing you to choose, you're choosing what you want to eat. Because he asked me about this one thing if I wanted it right, and I was like, well, let me think about it, god you know, Let me go through the thing.
Speaker 2:And he's like but it's your choice. And I was like well, god, you know this here. You know, if you give me all this, I won't be funny like this. Really get to this old Christian. You know, you know you know, talk about funny. And I say, well, God, if it's gonna please you, you know, then he's just like Brian. Brian, can we be real for a second? Okay? All right. And so I think it is like it's being consciously Awareness, aware, right.
Speaker 2:So, when we so because we, because we brought up a lot of good points about fear, right, we brought up the fact of what creates fear is doubt. Right, we brought up not having love. I'm the brain about fear. We brought up about Void is the unknowns and stuff, right. And so I think the other part when it, when it comes to fear, is Am I aware of the choices that I have a friend? Have I thought about each step thoroughly enough to where, if I make that choice, when I stand in front of God, I can say, hey, I did my best, right? Or can it be the one where we just said you know, I didn't really think at that moment, I just kind of did it, because and when we say this, this doesn't mean that everybody's gonna be perfect at it, man, it's just, it's just what it is you know, don't want to be perfect at this, but it's one of those things.
Speaker 2:And then, and here's our problem, I like how we use this balance thing right. You don't want to be so stuck in. Oh my God, am I making the right choice today? Yeah, I'm gonna spend five, 20 minutes just praying. Hey, god, do I put on brown today or blue pants today? It don't matter.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But it's being aware of. Okay, what am I gonna choose today? Right, and I love how you say am I gonna choose to be in your will or I'm gonna choose not to be in your will? Right, and I think one of the things is that we have in this world and I believe, just as a body is we have to understand and know the will of God. Right, the Bible tells us and I'm just gonna paraphrase, I mean John. It tells us about how we pray and the confidence of God's will. And when we pray in that confidence, we know that what we say will come to pass. Because why? It's in this will, it aligns up in this work. Word does not come back, return to avoid, or I love how the easy reverse does not come back empty handed, but it accomplishes out the thing that it's supposed to do.
Speaker 2:Right, so when you understand here it is, the other part of fear is like understanding. I think we didn't brought out like six points for this. I don't know how I can keep it count, it's all right, but it's like understanding, right? Do we understand where we're going? Do we understand the process we're going through or why we gotta go through that process? Do we even understand the reason how we say that earlier. Do you really understand the reason of the fear right now? Like, how did it get here? You know what I mean. Let's get to the root of okay, why is the fear here? And, like I was saying earlier, some of that could have just been you had the wrong voice speaking to you that day. Right, some of it is. You could have watched the wrong show and now you don't know where the influence came from.
Speaker 1:You cannot know where the influence came from.
Speaker 2:Some of them like people scared of clowns most of the time they watched that movie it and I'm talking about the old Stephen King, not the new one. I ain't even seen either one of them. I think I used to be in the scary movies but something about that clown and I was like I cannot watch this movie bro. Oh, pennywise, yeah, I could not. I don't even know what to do there. I could not watch that movie. But then, guess what? I saw the walking the first night of living there.
Speaker 1:That movie scared the mess out of me, right.
Speaker 2:As a kid, I was scared to be around dead people Cause I'm like man. When's the moment they gonna get about that casket and ask for my brains?
Speaker 1:right man, I watched all the Friday the 13th so I was scared of a guy with machete and a hockey mask. That was that way. You know what I mean. And then me.
Speaker 2:I'm the one that will laugh at Jason and Freddie Cougar. Like these dudes are comical, yeah, but to give me a dead body, oh my.
Speaker 1:God oh man. And I, like I watched Candy man.
Speaker 2:Have you ever watched that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that one messed me up, dude.
Speaker 2:And then Blair Witch.
Speaker 1:I watched it recently. I mean it was retarded. But I'm sorry, I don't mean to be offensive to retarded people but, that movie was terrible, but I watched it as a kid. I was like 10. Maybe that movie was messed me up because there's no video camera through the woods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's running around. You don't know what's going on, what it tore me up, dude.
Speaker 1:It made me scared of the woods. I grew up in the woods.
Speaker 2:So you need that hat that I had with the light on it, right yeah, no dude.
Speaker 1:And like man. For a long time it was like and I love abandoning shit out in the woods too. I used to love exploring, but it helped me off a little bit. It helped me off a little bit, so here goes the point right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we'll create fears for ourselves. We just talked about watching movies that placed a picture in our head of you guys should be scared of this, and we're like not knowing if it's real or true. Matter of fact, we know it's not real right and you brought up the candy man, like, I think, every kid, even to this day. I don't even mess with that joint right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I won't watch it. I'll get in the mirror and they'll be like hey, man, you get bowed and say, carry me.
Speaker 1:Or I don't know if you remember the books called Scary Stories and then the lady called Bloody Mary, whatever right there you say in the mirror five times we used to do that when we were kids, bro, but I don't even look. We did some stupid stuff.
Speaker 2:Stupid stuff so then, but this also goes back to kind of like Nicole's message that she was doing in her Bible study about all those different things of witchcraft and how we get into it, and a lot of those things that they're showing or placing on the screen is witchcraft stuff, right, like saying, saying a name in the mirror is really saying like an incantation.
Speaker 1:Yes, it says an incantation.
Speaker 2:You're opening yourself up to that spirit. So whether that's candy man, there's probably, there's actually a demon that's probably associated to it with the name right, whatever, that is this cop pack, as we ain't gonna go in that or that deep but again, remember I said earlier, fear is a spirit, right.
Speaker 2:So what we did was we just invited that spirit into ourselves and then, like the spirit is rampant in this whole world, we evolved the spirit of hate to come and ramp. Well, I think we got all these wars and stuff, man, like we open ourselves or we can open ourselves to being in fear. But then if it's something that you open yourself in, well, guess what? There's deliverance in it, there's ability to get out of it, right. So it's like, hey, do you wanna take the exit of the freeway now or you wanna keep going and just, hopefully the rest stop area will be in the next five miles.
Speaker 2:I don't know and I use that because how many times we've been on the road? Trip. And you see that rest area and it comes up like, oh crap, I missed it, I gotta go to the bathroom. You're like, well, hopefully there's another one. I gotta wait for the gas 97 miles. Yes, you're like oh God, I don't know what to do with this. Hey, if I got a Coke bottle you know, get a red bottle.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So, but I mean, I think we brought us some good points, man, like awareness, understanding, doubt, not having love. I think another one could just be too and this goes with love, like trying to fill a void that we missed or we've been wanting or we desired. It goes back into the desire piece, Like we desire something but we have an ability or we haven't been able to attain it. I mean, and I think, like fear is such a good, a big subject it's a broad subject, right and I don't think we could.
Speaker 2:Man we can have 30 episodes about this and not even touch it Right right and I think the goal I don't know we're out on time Maybe it's give some solutions like how do you get out of fear? So I'll ask you I know you try and get me to interview but and I can come back with it but what are some of your solutions to get out of fear? And guys, I wanna ask him to give solutions, cause I don't know if he told you maybe you've been watching some of his other videos but he's also a life coach too, right.
Speaker 1:So I want him to coach us. I alluded to that slightly earlier when I said this is what I'm good at. So the reality is, in my mind, the most practical way to deal with fear number one this isn't the most practical like what you'd like facing it Like that's the. But the other way to do it is, once you've faced enough fears, you start to understand the principle of the fear's existence, and so I guess, if you've gone through practice of trying to face the fears, the best way in my mind to deal with the fear is to just give it up. Just, if you're scared of something, just ask yourself like why? What value is that fear serving me? If you can just ask yourself that simple what value does this have for me? Because it's trying to do something, whether it's something that you've created in your own mind by watching a movie.
Speaker 1:Right, if I'm scared, if I'm scared of going out and looking at abandoned things because I'm scared of the witch is gonna get me right that fear the way, the best way that I could think to dispel that fear would be to acknowledge the practicality of if that does happen, and if something like that does happen in my cool. I think that's really the only way to deal with it. And so if I'm fearful of something, first off, journal, that's gonna be the most practical thing. That is literally the most. Write down what you're scared of and why you think you're scared of it. That right there, that's gonna solve a lot of your problems, because now you can get it off your chest. You ain't gotta carry it around with you. You ain't gotta pretend that you're not, cause I think a lot of people pretend that they're not scared and they're like I ain't scared.
Speaker 1:That's how I know you're scared. You know how you're. I ain't scared. That's proof you are.
Speaker 2:Hey, can I say this Listen, there's something around, though they said I ain't scared of nothing. And then they say you know, I see the right side of it. They said I was scared this whole time. This was holding me back. I'm like bruh, it's like bruh and so like, if you're going around, I ain't scared of that?
Speaker 1:I ain't scared of me. Like, yeah, you are. Like if you're having to say that you're doubting yourself because you're trying to convince yourself or somebody else around you or compensating for something, yes compensating.
Speaker 1:And so again, I guess to state it again or differently if you want to deal with fear, I would suggest journaling about it, because if you do some reflection journaling, I mean that's I'm going to be honest with you To me that's like praying, it's like giving up to the Holy Spirit, it's like it's like giving it away so that you don't have to hang on to it. But if you don't have a practice of letting it go, whether it be to the Holy Spirit or journey, like you just have to have an action of practice of a way to get it off of you, because our bodies retain these memories and they'll hold on to it, right, and then we'll have these physiological responses to these things that we're scared of. That we think that we've dealt with. We just pushed it really really, really, really, really far down. But if you haven't done the work to deal with it, facing it and stuff like that and understanding the principles, look, if you ask God to have you not afraid, you better be prepared to face the most scary shit that you've ever faced.
Speaker 1:Because you're asking to dispel fear, that means you're holding on to fear, so you're gonna have to deal with it. I mean, sure, pray for that, do all that stuff. But I'm gonna tell you the things that you're scared of right now. Just start giving it up and so when those new things come on that you are scared of that you realize that you don't know how to deal with. You already have a process to deal with it. So when you start praying, god, give me peace, god, give me the opportunity to get past this fear that's hurtling me, that's causing me a hurdle.
Speaker 1:All right, if you have a practice in place to deal with that, look, it doesn't matter what you face, you've got a practice in place, and I think that that's what a lot of things that happen in the church that get taught that I think are missed with the meaning or why. Because, oh, pray, yeah, but why, like, what's it doing? So that's a practice to alleviate those fears, those symptoms, those things that you get. Journaling, and again, it's like, to me it's just a different action that represents a similar thing or the same thing. So that would be my thing Pray and write, pray and write, pray and write. Because in my mind they're operating in the same way, because as I'm writing, I'm praying, I'm thinking about these things, I'm letting them go. So that's my answer.
Speaker 2:Cool. How would you? What do you say? Oh, you ain't gonna say preacher man.
Speaker 1:Preacher man what's up, preacher man what you got.
Speaker 2:I would say remember, you have a choice. You have a choice to accept and you have a choice to reject. And way the choice. Is this a life-threatening thing, right? Like? Is this going to destroy my character? Is this trying to destroy who? I am trying to destroy my call? And if it's not trying to do that and it's the opposite, like it's trying to stop me from getting to the best of me, well then, that's when you know that you have a power of authority, if that's how you can recognize you know, what.
Speaker 2:This isn't really coming from God. This is really coming from the enemy, like if it's trying to stop me and if it's trying to keep me from doing what God's called me. Well, I know that's not of God right.
Speaker 2:So then, just going back again to the Bible, says what God doesn't give us a spirit of fear, right, but of power. So here it is I got power over authority over right, a sound mind. When you're not, when you're fearful, your mind just confused, you act erotically, you act out of character, you do things out of character and then sometimes those consequences are overbearing right. And I'll just use an example. I remember when I wanna say I think it was a Philando who got killed in Minnesota by the cop and he shot like his arm off. And if you saw the full video, that cop was scared right before he even got to the window he already had his gun, kind of halfway blown out.
Speaker 2:And then out of that fear, right, he lost control and his reaction was shoot the gun off. And so it's that sound mind is peace, right, because it's crucial, because if my mind is sound, then now I can process this, I can analyze this, and sometimes to get a sound mind is just take a step back and look right, and then power. So it gives the sound mind power. And then love right, love casts it out of all fear.
Speaker 1:That's the answer to everything. Love is always the answer, and the thing is, is not our definition of, not like the human definition? Oh, love, is I love you, not that, that's a word. What I'm talking about I'm sure what you're talking about too is, it's literally the life force in everything that exists, the action of it, yeah and so the action of representation, of bringing life, of giving life of those things.
Speaker 2:If it's not in that way, then and then the other one yeah, go back, go into prayer about it and then just asking God to either deliver you from it and then just know your identity of who you are in Christ, right, like dude. When you know who you are, then you know there's certain stuff you just won't accept and you won't allow to have.
Speaker 2:You just nip it in a butt. And once you do that, just nip it in a butt. You know what I mean. And the last thing is, like you said earlier, and I think we all agree, you gotta face your fears. The only way that you can overcome anything is you gotta face the obstacle or the thing that is trying to hinder you right?
Speaker 1:All right, man, we'll. Hey, we just spent an hour almost 40 minutes chit-chatting about this, so I'd love to have you on again. First off, thank you for coming on this time.
Speaker 2:Great conversation, hey thank you for having me. I meant to say that earlier. You know what I mean, so you know I already know.
Speaker 1:I'm thanked. Anyways, man, I appreciate you coming on and do you have anything that you wanna plug? Where can they find you if they wanna catch your Bible studies or your sermons? Where can they find you at?
Speaker 2:Awesome. So we do have a website. It's wwwlivecommissionorg. You can catch our most recent Bible studies online. You can catch us on Facebook at commission assembly of Texas Incorporated. We're online there. It also has a link to where you can come to our Zoom meetings as well. And then if you wanna come in person, you can come to our house. We do small groups at our house, which is 1710 Del Mar Drive, garland, texas, 75040.
Speaker 1:And don't come acting crazy but One more thing that I wanna say is commission has been blessed with a location to be doing some future work. Revival Did you call it a revival? What are you calling it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's like a revival Saturdays which will begin in 2024. And it's just one Saturday out the month where we'll start kinda having revivals, and I was gonna mention that up there. But thank you, daniel man, I appreciate you bro.
Speaker 2:You're giving me your point, but we will be there. It's off of Broadway and if you give me a second I can give you that address, cause we just got the keys, so hold on. So the address is 3321 Broadway Boulevard, suite 101, garland, texas, 75063. And we're looking to do a revival every second Saturday between 2 pm and 4 pm, once a month. We're doing that just for the first six months, but these revivals aren't gonna be like your traditional revivals. We're looking for ways to help a community. When we're talking about commission assembly, our focus is to help a community of people. So I'll give you our vision and I'll give you our mission statement, if that's okay with you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely man.
Speaker 2:So our vision is to build bridges that were never there or once there, and bringing them together and bringing them to the kingdom of God, because it takes a bridge. So the bridge is building relationships right, bringing people together, and our mission is to love God, love people and do the work of Christ well, and so what that means is doing your very best to represent Christ well in whatever it is that you do, and so what we wanna do is we don't. We're not a church that likes to stay behind the four walls. We're a church that wants to be in the community and help the community, and the only way that a community can get better is if a community comes together to get better, like there's not one people, one church, one organization. That's gonna make you feel better. The community gets better because the community wants to be better.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. Well, I appreciate that, man. Again, thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it and I'm sure I'll have you on again. All right man.
Speaker 1:So you guys take care. I appreciate you guys for listening. I love you guys. Also help support Brian and commission, because he's out here trying to do the good work and so you know, if you're interested in setting up something or even doing some more reach out work and stuff like that, be sure and get ahold of Brian, because he's always looking for ways to help the community. So if you got some ideas and things like that, send them some stuff.
Speaker 2:You can go on the website too and get all of them too. Love you guys.
Speaker 1:Take care.