Latest / The Becket Cook Show / From Homosexuality to Wife + Kids: Jeff Johnson Testimony

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From Homosexuality to Wife + Kids: Jeff Johnson Testimony · The Becket Cook Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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  Speaker 2: You are listening to The Becket Cook Show with your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Beckett Cook. For more information about Beckett and his ministry,
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• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to the show. I have a special
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: guest today, Jeff Johnson, and he has an amazing story
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of how God saved him out of homosexuality. And there's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a big twist at the end of this episode, so
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: make sure you watch to the end and I'm excited
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to hear his full story. But first award from our sponsor,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Welcome Jeff Johnson.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Hey, thank you so much. I'm so honored to get
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: to talk to you today and beyond it's awesome.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to have you on. And you're coming. Where
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: are you in Georgia?
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  Speaker 3: In Atlanta?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Atlanta, atl that's right here.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Ten years yes.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So you have an amazing story and in the intro
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I mentioned that there's there's gonna be a twist at
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the end. We're going to talk about well, we're not
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: going to reveal that. I like that.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: I like that. I want to know the twist.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: So first let's start off with where did you grow up?
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I grew up in Texas A lot of I
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: was born in Dallas, Texas. Family from West Texas, like
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  Speaker 3: small towns West Texas. I spent a lot of time there.
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  Speaker 3: But my family, when I was very early, we moved
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  Speaker 3: to Las Cruces, New Mexico. So New Mexico is a
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: lot of people in they're like, where are you from.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I'm like New Mexico and they're like, oh, Mexico. No,
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: New Mexico. It's actually a state, like no one else
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  Speaker 3: is from New Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: But I know it's the new version of Mexico, the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: new one.
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  Speaker 3: Yes Texas. So Las Cruses the south end of New Mexico.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: I grew up there, went to you know, started element
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: elementary school, middle school, high school. There is home base
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And so what happened? How how old were you when
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: you were a kid when you started to realize you
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  Speaker 1: were same sex attracted?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah it's interesting because as far back as I can remember,
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  Speaker 3: that was how I thought there was. I had a
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  Speaker 3: kind of a moment in my childhood that something that uh,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: you know, I've done therapy before it and kind of
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: try to figure out there is something happened with like
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: a neighbor friend that wasn't he was older than me,
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  Speaker 3: but we had were playing together and it turned sexual
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: and and there was and that is a memory that
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: began like triggered something in me that just began this
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: process for me of back then it was just shame.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Like it began as shame and hiding and terrified and
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: started my mind thinking looking at guys. But I was
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  Speaker 3: I mean I was very young, Like I've tried to
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: figure that out, like five six, like very very young
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: when this all was happening, and I just remembered all
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: throughout like elementary school, like there was there were moments
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: that I was like very I was very like attract
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: I was more attracted to my friends' dads than and
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I remember thinking that and being really guilty for that,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: feeling guilt for that. And so I had a moment
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: that later in uh, later in I don't know if
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: it was like fifth grade, when I actually told my mom,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: like I went to my mom and told her, like, hey,
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: this is something that happened in uh this treehouse that
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: with our neighbor and kind of recounted all that because
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: I was just full of guilt as a kid, and
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: so I recounted all that with her, and that's where
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  Speaker 3: the first like I told her, this is what I'm
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  Speaker 3: feeling and shame, and I didn't know how to put
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: words around it, but I was just telling her the
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  Speaker 3: experience and that. But that that was a very pivotal
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  Speaker 3: part of my whole story when I was very young,
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  Speaker 3: of how this all kind of transpired and how my
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: mind started working. So yeah, that was that was very
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: early in my life.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you you say that. I that just reminds
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: me of something. I have to tell the story because
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: it just happened yesterday. I as many people know, and
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  Speaker 1: I wrote about this in my book, I was molested
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  Speaker 1: by my friend's father when I spent the night at
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: his house when I was nine years old. Man, and
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  Speaker 1: I I mean, it was that event has affected my
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: whole life forever, sure, but I've I hadn't been able
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: to get a hold of my friend after I got saved.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get a hold of him and tell him.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, I just felt this kind of burden
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: to tell him what happened, and I could never reach
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: him because he's not on social media for whatever reason.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: And let's just call him Tommy. I'm going to use
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the name Tommy. So yesterday I was thinking the thought
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: of him came into my mind. His father's dead now,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: his father died like thirty years ago, but Tommy came
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: into my mind yesterday, and I was like, gosh, I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: really want to talk to him. I want to tell
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: him what happened. And so I just googled his day.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I typed in his name and his in Dallas, and
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: his phone number popped up, his cell number, and I
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: was like, wait, that's interesting, is this real? And I
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: called the number. He didn't answer it first, and then
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I called right back and then he answered and I said,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: is this Tommy from Dallas from Jesuit and blah blah blah,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and he's like yeah, and he had no idea who
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I was and what was going on. I'm like, it's
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Beckett from from Jesuit.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Oh.
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  Speaker 1: He's like, hey, back, well, how's it going? And I'm
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: like good, it was okay. So telling him this was
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the most awkward thing I've ever had. It's like, how
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: do you lead into that it's like, how do you
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: lead into this? And so I'm like, so I said,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: you know, first I talked about, you know, how I
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: became a Christian sixteen years ago and like my life
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: has you know, been radically changed, and and he was
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: sort of like I could tell he wasn't a Christian,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: but he was tracking with me. And then I I said, well,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and I want to tell you something that happened when
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I was a kid with when I spent the night
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  Speaker 1: at your house, your dad molested me. And he was
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: like oh, and he goes and he said, why didn't
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: you call the cops.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, yeah, You're like that wasn't my first
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: thought on that.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Like I was like, well, I mean I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: but like you know, I was too young to think
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: about that. But and then he you know, basically I
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: was like, uh, yeah, if if I had told my
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  Speaker 1: dad about it at the time, my dad would have
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: killed your dad or had your dad killed because my
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: dad was a lawyer and he had like he had
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: clients who would have killed him literally killed.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, And so he was like he was basically on
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: my side. He was all for it. He was like, yeah,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: you should have done it like you should have like, wow,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: he deserved it if he did that to you. And
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: then I asked Tommy, I was like, did he do
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  Speaker 1: anything with you? And He's like no, and and so
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: it was so weird. It was kind of like I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: feel like it was almost like the last piece of
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the puzzle, kind of just letting that, letting him know
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that information. So it's like like out off of me
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  Speaker 1: and like he knows now. And anyway, it just felt
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: like like a huge relief when after I told.
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  Speaker 3: Him, Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask, So like
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  Speaker 3: for you, that just felt like relief of like it's
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: out there. It wasn't necessarily his response that mattered as
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: much as you just being able to say this and.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I just needed to say it to him.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And then I told him after I, uh revealed this thing,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: huge thing. I told him about how I got saved.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I told him the whole story, and then I told
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  Speaker 1: him about the Gospel and I and I said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I really I said, Tommy, like this is the most
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  Speaker 1: important thing in the universe, like you having a relationship
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: with Christ And is he a believer? I don't think.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think. No, he's not. But but he did
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: say I said, you please, I urge you to to
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: get a Bible. And he's like, oh, I have a
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Bible at home. And I was like, oh, good, like
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: read John and the Book of Acts or something, and
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and I said, and get my book because you're I
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: write about your dad and my book I don't name him,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: but I write about him. Right. And so anyway, it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: turns out he's married and he has two kids. And
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that's one of the reasons I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to I've been wanting to get a hold of
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  Speaker 1: you is because I wanted to make sure that you
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  Speaker 1: were protecting your kids from your dad. So anyway, all
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that to say is just was like a huge deal.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: That is a huge piece of the puzzle of your life,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: like to be able to do that, and that's that's crazy.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to do it with his dad. But his dad,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I died thirty years ago, so he was
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: by the time when I got after I got saved,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I found out his dad was dead, So there was
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: no way for me to to have that.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Conversation, right. But anyway, him to go to bed last
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: night thinking about.
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  Speaker 1: But I told him I said. I told him, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I have forgiven your father, and like, you know, it's
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: no longer. I don't hold anything against him, and that's awesome.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: But anyway, it was crazy crazy. But anyway, let's get
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: back to you. We'll be right back after this short break.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: So you, uh so what happened in in high school
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: and college? You you started to kind of live this
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: double life, Like I was doing the same thing in
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: high school and college, living a double life. Like talk
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: about that and like how you were pursuing you know, say,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: sexual encounters and stuff.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was not I didn't like act it out
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: in this until my freshman year in high school became
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: good friends with the guy and at a sleepover, Uh,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: it just turned sexual and and I entered into this
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: like was a very valid relationship, but I didn't have
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: words around that. I was just you know, enjoying his
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: company and we were acting out in this. And that
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: was through high school and you know, and when you're
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: doing that in high school and there's no words around
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: it and you don't talk about it, but it's just
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: an encounter and it's just like sexual, it leaves you
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: kind of feeling crazy on like not really thinking it's
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: a relationship. But then like we ended up, it was
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: weird at the end. We kind of went he was
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: in a year older and he went on to college,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: and I just felt like heartbroken, and I was like,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: now I kind of am able to claim what that was. Like, Yeah,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: it was heartbreak. It was a relationship that needed to
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: have some closure and ending, but in the moment, it
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: just felt very messy, and no one knew like this
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: was very much like it wasn't. I never was like
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: living an open gay lifestyle or it was. I would
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: never have called myself that. It just was all behind
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: closed doors, hidden secrecy. And so then I go off
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: to college and and kind of just went to college.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: And I went to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas,
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: full of farmers and and uh just a country guy,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: you know. I felt like the right place for me
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: to fit in. And so I go there and I
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: was in my head was like I'm starting over, Like
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: I want to start completely over. I don't want to,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: you know, continue that way of living. I and I
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: had grown up going to church, and so there was
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: an element of God in my story, but it was
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: very much religion of just going to church. It was
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: not relationship at all. I but I, but I still
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: tried to withhold the good moral standings of what a Christian,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: what I believed a Christian should do and and act like.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: And at this point, you know, it's this topic is
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: definitely not discussed in the church back then especially, and
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: so like I didn't have any kind of guard, I
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: didn't have any kind of teaching or discipleship around this.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: So like then, I'm in college. I went on a
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: music scholarship. I'm I'm a saying, So I went on
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: a vocal scholarship, and I was just embarrassed to like
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: be inquire and do the vocal thing there because I didn't,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: you know, I had wrestled my whole life. I'm not
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: a sports guy. I did not fit in that crowd,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: and so I just wanted to start over and be like, hey,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I'll try to pleasure fraternity and try to like hang
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: with guys and like recreate my identity here at college.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Well that quickly fell short, and I started acting out
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: with guys in college. And that happened for a couple
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: you know, for freshman, sophomore or junior year again, all secret,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: all behind closed doors, sneaking around nothing ever talked about
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: in the light. It was my junior year of college.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I went to a college like a collegiate conference called Passion.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: It was something that like I had heard a lot about.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: And so it's like this massive gathering of thousands of
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: college students gathering to worship and listen to people. We'll
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: talk about Jesus. And I got invited. So I went,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: and I show up at this conference a few thousand
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: people in Austin, Texas in nineteen ninety eight. And so
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: I go to this conference and the person preaching, this
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: man Luis Giglio, is giving the gospel, and I'm just
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: it was as if my eyes were open for the
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: first time again. I grew up in church, but it
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: was the difference of knowing about God and knowing him
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: was what was happening in those days, those few days
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: of this conference.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: And it's like that, what's the old what's the old
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: line about from here to here? It's like heart, yeah, yes, whatever,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact quote.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, it was all making sense clicking, And I was
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: just like at my life. I was like I'm surrendering
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: my life, like I lay everything down and in that time,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm never going to act out and
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: in any of my same sex desires again, and you know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: making all these promises to God like I'm not going
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: to do it. I'm gonna leave here and again left
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: that conference and started living a completely different life as
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: far as like my relationship with Jesus, like and like
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: reading the Bible and like knowing him and like all
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: about surrendering my life to him. But quickly my desires
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: overtook again and I started acting out, so like it
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: began another whole process of of the acting out that
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I began once again. So it just became again another
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: thing of fighting my battle. But now Jesus was in
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: the mix, and I had something And I always say,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: like my desires didn't change, but my allegiance to Jesus changed,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: So I was I had a reason to fight it.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: It was there was a reason for me to fight
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: it because I I I never you know, my experience
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: was I never woke up the next morning after acting
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: out in this and felt like yay, like I you
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: know good, I feel good. It was always the next
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: morning shame and secrecy and hiding, and and I had
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: become I'm so used to that that I started just
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: living that life like that narrative of I can have
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: two lives. I can have this life over here that
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: no one knows about, and then I can like do
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: this thing over here and like whatever that is my job,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: you know, my normal life that people know me for,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: but they don't know that side of me. And so
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: I began walking that out like that that my roads
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: diverged in two different ways, and so that happened. When
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: I left college, I moved to Dallas. I went to
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: Dallas and took a corporate job for a few years,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: working for a company Eccentric as a consultant. I traveled
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: with accenture and and loved my job. But then I
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: felt the Lord just like bringing me into ministry, like
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: calling me into I was very passionate about music my
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: whole life. I love singing. I loved a songwriting, and
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: so that was very much something that was part of
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: my life. But then I just there was a point
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: when I turned twenty five, I was like, I'm gonna
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: leave my corporate job and pursue like being a worship leader.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: And I did that, and so then I left my job.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: I started leading worship. I got a band together and
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: we started traveling leading worship. Now I'm a worship leader
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: battling this desire, still hiding in secrecy on the side.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Well wait, let me hold on one secd before you
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: get to that. We go back to after the Passion Conference.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: It's right in Austin. What happened? Did you go back
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to college and like get plugged into a church there
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: or that's.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: A great point, great point. Yeah, I went back for
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: my senior year. I started going to an awesome church
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: in Lubbock, Texas, and I started I started playing piano,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: like I was like, I'll play piano here in the
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: praise team at that time, you know, started playing for
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: them and really loved it and got to meet some
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: great people. And my senior year was definitely different because
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: of everything that had happened at this conference in my
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: relationship with Jesus now, so it was different. And I
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: was like playing music in church and like trying to
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: find my place in my foot within the church on
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: how I could serve as the church with the giftings
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: that I had with singing and playing piano and guitar.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: So that was like where I Yeah, that began that
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: whole journey.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And so while you were in this church, no one
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: knew that you were struggling with this other.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Things, No one no.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: And did your did your family ever know? Like when did?
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Not that the family, you know, going back to
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: my story a little bit, like from my childhood, when
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I had told my mom when I was little about
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: like kind of like confessing some of my desires when
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I was younger, you know, I was when I when
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: that happened. I say this with a lot of tenderness
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: and love, and because my parents were amazing. My parents
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: had both passed away in the last three years, and
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: I was very close to them and loved them. And
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I always say, you know, my parents didn't have any
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: training in this. They have no idea what to do
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: when their son comes in and says, hey, these are
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: my desires, Like my parents came from, like their parents
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: were farmers and truck drivers, Like I understand this is
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: not on your radar. But we went to my The
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: answer in that was we went. They took me to
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: a pastor and had me journal what I was thinking
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: with this pastor that I had no relationship with and
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: did not know. And I just remember feeling really awkward like,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: this is so weird. I'm like writing out thoughts but
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: I'm not. But then he was a going to read
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: this and like and it was I just remember that
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: being so awkward. And from then on we never talked
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: about it. So it was like a couple weeks of
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: seeing this pastor and then that shut down.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Nothing else that solved it. Yeah, and we just kept.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Walking through life and and yeah and and you know,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: then then I find myself later in life, you know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: my senior in college, like, I'm in church doing this.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: But no, to answer your question, no one knew, not
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: my I wasn't talking about with my parents. I wasn't
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: talking about with anyone. It was truly just all hidden
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: in secret.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And so okay, so go back to you. You're pursuing ministry,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: music ministry and what talks about? What's what's going on
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: in that situation?
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I start, you know, I I leave
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: my corporate job, I start writing songs for the church.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: I'm now traveling as with the worship team with a
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: worship band that I put together, and they were like
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: some of my best friends. And there was uh, in
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: this season, there is a girl that starts that that
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: that through church. This girl named Jordan like starts. Our
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: pastor introduced us and was like, you both lead worship.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: She's a worship leader, you're a worship leader. Y'all should
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: like lead worship together and get to know each other.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: And he had obvious plans, but that was not on
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: really on my radar obviously, Like I wasn't thinking about that.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: So we started singing together and started like leading worship
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: together at a church in Dallas, and then I love
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: loved being with her. She was so fun, she like
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: became like my best friends. I was like, this is amazing,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Like we're doing this together. And then we started traveling together,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: like I would bring her with us on the road
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: and we'd go travel only worship together. And so that's
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: what we started doing, you know, when I was in
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: my twenties, and.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Through that.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: It became a thing where we actually started dating and
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: we kind of talked about, you know, being interested in
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: each other. And in my mind, I'm just thinking, like, yeah,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: we can hang out and be together. But you know,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: I didn't have marriage on my radar. I didn't have
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: kids on my radar. That was not that was not
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: something that I had thought about given my life story
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: like that. Nobody knews, so that was not on the radar,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: and so we started dating, we started hanging out, we
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: started dating and being together a lot and ended up
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: having over the journey, we had a ten year day history.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: So we broke up three times through this whole process.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: And so the first time we'd break up and it
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: would be like, well, yeah, we're just a lot of excuses,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: we're just not you know, not for each other. That's fine,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: But then our worlds were still very much intertwined and
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: we would still see each other in lead worship, and
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: then we broke up again. And the third time, well,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: the second time we broke up, she we were talking
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: about we were going through like a book together, and
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: she one of the questions in the book that we
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: were walking through together said something about like something about
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: your past, like as in your childhood, did anything happen
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: or something that triggered me, and her knowing me so well,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: this time she was like, it seems like there's something there,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: to which I was probably in that moment, very silent
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: and just like not saying anything. And she was very
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: gracious the fact that she didn't press me that moment,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: but she did say I'm gonna give you a few
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: days and then we're gonna come back together, and I
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: want to hear what it is, and so I want
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: you to take time when you take space, but then
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: I want to hear what it is, and I want
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: you to tell me. So then for those few days,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: I was panicked, thinking, I really love hanging out with
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: this girl. But I'm but how in the world would
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: this work if I told her what it truly is?
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Like I just knew the story I wrote, wrote the
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: narrative in my head, like if I tell her she's
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: she's gonna leave, like she's gonna think it's gross. She's
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: gonna like think that that's so weird. And so we
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: met a few days later. We met at this really
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: special place for rest in Dallas and now it's really
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: special and we sat down and it was, you know, through.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: A lot of what place was it, I mean I
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: grew up in Dallas.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Was yeah, it's in Lost Calenas. It's okay, there's like
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: this like little like like little pond in the middle
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: of all these office complex and stuff, like a like
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: a pond with like a a doc around it. And
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: like for some reason we found ourselves I was living
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: in Lost Cleaness corporate time, you know, so like that
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: was where we were, and I found myself there. I'm like,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: why why lost Cleanness? You know, like now we'd always
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: start buying me Like, well, there's a special moment. So
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I sat down with her and that was the first
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: time that I ever voiced out loud to someone, Hey,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: this is my my thing is I'm I'm attracted to men,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not attracted to women, and I have acted out
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: in that and I've lived a double life and that's
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: the reality of my story. And I expected in that
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: moment for her just like I said, gross, okay, great,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: have a nice life. What I was met with was
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: the complete opposite of that. It was her words were,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: I believe God has something for us, and I believe
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: that he has something in our story, and I'm not
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: going anywhere, and I'm with you in it and I
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: will help you and I'll be with ever we need
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: to whatever I need to be to help walk through
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: this with you. That was shocking to me. I just
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: all that night was was just a lot of tears
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: and a lot of like I can't believe that you
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: would say that, and that you're willing to do that,
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: and so it was it was truly like she was
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: God's grace to me, like in tangible form. And so
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: then we we actually went through counseling. We started counseling.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: We were dating, but we started counseling, and we had
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: we had just actually started counseling, and so we were
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: like went to a session and we and it was
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: the second person I had told our counselor and sitting
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: with her next to me and said, this is kind
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: of what my life has looked like. And it felt
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: really weird because now the world's were starting to like
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: merge more together, and that felt really odd and awkward
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: to me because I didn't I didn't know how to
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: put these things together. They had always lived in compartmentalized boxes. Yeah,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: And and so then we we started working through that
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: together and we started talking about the reality of that,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: and I got real honest with her, and I told
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: her how my mind thought and the places that were
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: temptation to me and the things that I had done,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and the anonymous encounters and and all of that began
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: to unfold. So then we went through another season of dating.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: But then we got to like like year eight in
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: our dating, we just kind of were like I got
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: to the point where I was like, I can't do it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I can't. I don't know how where this goes. I
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: don't know how we could get married. I don't know
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: how I can move towards that because I just haven't.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know how I could be attracted to a
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: woman that way. And so I love you, and there
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: was love that was holding us together. I was like,
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: I love you, but I just don't know how that
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: would work, Like I can't find a way in my
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: head that makes sense. And so we broke up, and
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: then we were apart for two years, and for two
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: years we just she went her own way. She started,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: she dated somebody else. I uh, we started, you know,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: just I kept leading worship, I kept writing songs, and
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I kept very focused on the Lord and very much
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: in a way of for so long I had tried
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: to change my behaviors for her, and those two years
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: were so critical to me because I got real honest
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: with the Lord. And that was the moment when I
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: really like put my stake in the ground of like
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: whether her name is Jordan, whether Jordan is in this
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: with me or not, I'm not going to live that lifestyle,
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Like I made my claim, like I'm not doing that.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: I've tried it. It does not bring me fulfillment. It
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: is not satisfying to me. And so that was really
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: important apart from her, because we had had so many
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: fights of her being in the Holy Spirit of my life,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: of her trying to change and convict me, and it
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: was not intentional for her, it was just how she
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: was trying to help. So in those two years, you know,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: we just God did so much. But I remember being
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: so honest with the Lord and like praying and saying
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: things to him that I had never I couldn't believe
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: I would be saying in a prayer like very angry
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: and very honest about like why is this my story?
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Why did you put me here? In like cussing like.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I was so mad.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: I was just so mad that this was the reality
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: of my life and I couldn't see a way forward. Well,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: then we end up uh long story short, our bands.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: She she started leading worship with her own band. I
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: was leading worship with my band, and both of our
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: bands were booked in Oklahoma City and our bands were
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: all friends, and so we decided to get dinner one night,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: and at these events that we were separately at got dinner,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: I connected with her and I just remember sitting there thinking,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: she's the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: And I'm willing to figure this out with her, and
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: so call her the next day, sat with her, told her,
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Hand'm back in, but this time it's it's it's long term.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: It's not I'm not playing games. And we were married
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: a few months later.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: And we got married, and you know, marriage for me
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: was such a leap of faith. You know, I I'm
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: very honest about this because I feel like so often
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: we can be like, I know guys like where I was,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I know the guys that are listening that are like,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: I couldn't do that. Well, I would have said the
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: same thing, and I was in this place of like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I can't, There's no way I could do that. But
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: I just really felt like I felt like it was
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: the biggest step of faith that I could take to
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: trust that however, it was going to work out. And
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: we talked about we were like, the honeymoon might be weird,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: and it's uh, we'll figure it all out. And I
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: don't know if it's going to work, like, we'll just
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: have to see. And but we went into our wedding,
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: it was so Jesus exalting and every a lot of people,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: not everyone. There were a lot of people still in
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: the room that some didn't know, but like a lot
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: of people knew our story. At that point, we had
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: been we had worked through and brought community into it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: We had brought a lot of accountability into it, a
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: lot of friends that we had invited in that we're
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: walking with us. And so our wedding was a really
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: amazing culmination and celebration of like what God was doing
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: in our lives together. And and we've now been married
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: fifteen years. We have three kids. We have a twelve,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: ten and a six year old.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And what was it like having kids? Like when you
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: first when you had your first kid? Was that just
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: like my mind blowing to you?
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: What I mean, what was mind blowing? Beckett? Yeah? It
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: was my first born son. In his case, he's twelve,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: and I when I had him, you know, it wasn't
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: a story that I ever saw. I didn't think that
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: I would ever have kids for this reason, you know,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: I just that was not written in my future in
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: my mind. So when we had him, I always kind
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: of go back to Psalm thirty seventy four, like delight
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: yourself in the Lord. Then he gives you the desires
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: of your heart. And I really sought to delight myself
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: in him. I saw it with everything I had and
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: all of my might to like seek him and to
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: like really delight in him. But what it meant to
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: delighten him? And when when my kids came into my picture,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: into the picture, I didn't know that they were the
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: desires of my heart, like they were the things that God.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: It was the gift that God gave me through all
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: of this, through all the tumultuous ups and downs, and
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: through all of the hard my kids, my son. When
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: I was holding my firstborn son, I'm like, this is
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: crazy and it's hard for me to I always call
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: these kids like my three miracles, like I believe that
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: they are miraculous. I'm just like, how in the world
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: is God so kind of merciful and gracious to me
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: to allow me to be a dad now, to want
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: to speak to fathers, to like want to tell dads like,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: don't choose your desires, choose the legacy, like don't follow
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: your desires. Follow legacy, like build a legacy for your
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: family and your your future generations that matter and don't
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: when we follow our desires, it it's fleeting and it
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: just leads you to nothing. So I'm just really passionate
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: about being a dad now and with dads, talking to
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: dads and being a great husband. And I felt that
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: I failed that a lot, but it is that's my
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: desire is to be a great dad and a great husband.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things that I talked
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: about this before, but it hit me a couple of
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: years ago. It hit me really hard that just this
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever you want to call it, affliction, perversion,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, like it robbed me of a wife
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and kids, Like I never got to have kids because
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of this this thing that was kind of like just
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: developed in me without my you know, with I had
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: no control over it and it developed me. But that
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: is a that's such an amazing thing because I yeah,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I'm like jealous of you because I just I wish
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I had had that experience of having kids, like it
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: would have been such an amazing thing. And I, you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: because I grew up in a house with eight kids,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: so I was the youngest of eight kids. But uh yeah,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: that's something that I I do regret slash. I feel
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: like I missed out on. I mean, however, you know,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I'm in the Kingdom of God now and like so
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: everything's gravy baby.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: Right right right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: So it's like I don't you know, I don't like
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not like I don't feel like self pity about
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: it at all. I just feel I just kind of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: bummed that I didn't get to have kids. Like it's
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: just a.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Bummer that makes sense, that makes sense, and and you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's something. That's the reason why I'm talking
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: openly about my stories because I want guys to like
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: because there's so many different stories in this you know,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: guys that have gotten the have kids and are fighting it,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: or so many I've met that are still single and
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: solidate and trying to and living mad. And it's so
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: interesting because like it's so like the way that God
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: has set up it is like the plans that He
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: has for you, like you couldn't accomplish maybe with kids,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: you know, and so many you know, you're the things
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: you're able to do that I can't do because I
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: have kids.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Way that you're leveraging your life for God's glory like
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: is amazing and like pointing people to Him and bringing
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: people to Him in such a special way that you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: it's different and I understand it's a human desire of yours,
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: but it's also like, Wow, look at what God's doing
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: in you and your ministry. And I'm a beneficiary of it,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Like I I when I heard it about your story,
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: you know, that was when I was still fighting through
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: stuff and I was so encouraged that someone was actually
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: talking about it and someone was living their life this
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: way that it was hope to me. You brought hope
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: to me that you're a huge part of hope in
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: my story. And so anyway, I just I know it's
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: all nuanced and different, and I while I acknowledge the disappointment,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: I just speak the truth over your life of what
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: God's doing in you is crazy and awesome and I'm
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: so fortunate and a recipient of it.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you good praise God for that. Yeah. And so,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: so you've been married for fifteen years and has it
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: been like has it just been up? Have there been
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: ups and downs? Or has it been kind of just
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: an amazing ride the whole time.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it's been been, it's been interesting, it's it's
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: been great. We have a great marriage. I think, like
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: everyone when you first get married, we've now learned. You know,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: those first few years are hard trying to learn each
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: other and doing life together and being in close quarters
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: and needing space and all those things, all the normal
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: things of marriage. But I've really tried to normalize the
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: same sex attraction thing within my marriage. You know when
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: I'm now talking with other guys, like we all have stuff,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: we all have our things and think, you know, our
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: desires that pull us away from our wives or from
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: our families, and we have to fight those things. And
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: so what I what I love.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: About our marriage. Yeah, by the way, other guys have
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: to fight opposite sex attraction with other women, you know,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: in their marriages, like constantly, they're constantly fighting that exactly.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: But we hone in on this and say, oh, this
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: is so much worse and like make it the thing.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: And I just am like no, I want to normalize
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: this and like make guys not have to be crazy
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: in their minds over that. But you know, Jordan and
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: I we have worked out in our marriage, how what
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: it's like for me, And she knows my the way
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: my mind works, she knows the places of temptation for me,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: she knows. We talk about it all. We talk about
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: all these things, and over the course of our marriage
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: she has learned like so much more even now as
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: we're married, and how I operate. But there's no one
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: that knows me better at this point, and so there
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: has been ups and downs for sure, But I think
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: that the whole sum of it is, like you know,
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: it's it's amazing. It's amazing that we get to walk
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: life together and then I get to be so honest
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: with somebody that still chooses to love me and still
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: chooses to like lean towards me. And a lot of
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: that has come through our community too, Like we have
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: great friends who I meet with guys weekly. We have
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: two couples that we walk life with and a lot
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: of friends, but these two couples really closely. And I
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: meet with the guys. She meets with the girls every week.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: We're confessing things, We're talking about the real things. We're
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: going deep and sharing where we were tempted this week
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: and where our struggles are. And she knows I'm doing that.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of trust built there and built
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: in accountability through our community. So it's yeah, we've learned
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: a lot through that and how to open up. And
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: that was a journey with same sextraction. It wasn't like
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: we started and like told everybody, right. We literally just
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: started talking about our story publicly last year. So this
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: is the public side of it is new, and so
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: that's a whole different thing. But we you know, for us,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: in our commit it's not new. And the people around us,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: they all they've known this and walked with us. Yeah,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: that's a great question. We actually, I was pretty committed
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: before we went public with our story that this was
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: a journey for our entire family. And so in order
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: to do that, I knew I needed to tell my kids.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: So we had the conversation and with the two older ones.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Our six year old is still not you know six, yeah,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: and so at the time he was five, you know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: last year when we were launching this whole new endeavor,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: and so I talked to my kids about it, and
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I told my kids and we had the whole conversation
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: and I had to you know, for me, that was
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: really hard. I had to go from what your kids
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: think of you being the hero to human and and
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: that was that was the hardest part so far of
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: like having to tell them and say like this is
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: like my life and but we're going to talk about
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: it and hope to bring people to freedom in Jesus
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: and to break chains off of people who are living
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: in secrecy and shame and silence. And and so we
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: we we we had the whole conversation with them. And
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: what was so sweet is the you know, now we're
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: public and we launched it with a podcast called Open Spaces.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: And so when we launched Open Spaces last February, the
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: night before we launched, you know, we're having all these
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: thoughts of like wow, you know, it was the way
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: that we we found we could share our story in
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: a in a conversation that people. You know, we didn't
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: want to come out of the gate and be like
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: this is this is how you need to think and
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: this is you know, this is our you know, we
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: tried to enter the conversation in a way of like,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: this is our story and that's all we are going
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: to tell you is just our story. Because God has
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: done a miracle, we want to share it. So when
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: we start launched Open Spaces. The night before we were
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: we were my wife Jordan and I were like, we
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: have a really great life. Are we about to like
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: kind of blow it up?
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Like I feel like, why would we do this again?
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Like you, like, you know, published on the first episode,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: I'm going to share this big secret to everybody because
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: we're in public ministry. And it felt a little crazy.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: But the night before I tell you all that, as
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: you had asked about my kids, my kids were the
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: ones who I asked them to pray over it. And uh,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: you know, sitting with my kids the night before we
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: published this first episode of our podcast and hearing my
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: then eleven and then nine year old a son and
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: daughter pray over our podcast and for the freedom for
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: people to find Jesus in it, that was That's That's
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: what I'm talking about. We're on the journey together and
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: one day I don't know how, but I believe God will.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: I've had I believe that He will give us moments
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: as a family of this is like a mission that
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: we're on together.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Now there's gonna be I know, there's gonna
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: be comments in the comment section that or they're basically
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: like from say, from the accuser Satan. But I'm just
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: gonna ask you this. I mean, we've we've already kind
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: of you've already kind of talked about all of this.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: But just tell me, how would you respond to someone
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: who's gonna comment, which they probably will, you know, Jeff,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Like what are you doing? You're not? You're Why don't
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you just live your true self? Like why don't you
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: just live this is? You're not? You know, why are
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: you married? Like you know, those kinds of questions like
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: why aren't you just living who you are? Like it's
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: ridiculous kind of thing. Yeah, say to that.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I it's interesting because like what I would say
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: is this is the truest me that I could have found.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: But I didn't know that this true me existed until
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: I surrendered everything to Jesus. And when I did and
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: I kept walking with him. As I've said, he showed
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: me the true desire of my heart, and that was
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: to be married, and that was to have kids. It
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: was not a sacrifice. I mean it was a sacrifice
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: to me. There were a lot of ways, as every
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: marriage is a sacrifice, but I chose the way that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: I see in scripture of what the Bible says, and
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: I just went that way, and I was like, you
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: know what, that's faith, Like I have to have faith
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: even in trusting with my sexuality and my and what
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Jesus says about it. And my identity is not in
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: my attraction. My identity is in Jesus. I'm a child
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: of God. And I don't claim anything else. I don't
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: claim any label. I don't claim anything I don't. I
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: purposely never talk about am I strait, am I gay?
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: Am I. I'm like, that's confusing. That's the world's terms
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: that are confusing us. The thing that I claim is
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Jesus above all else, and my identity is in him,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: is what scripture says. And I've and just for everyone,
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: we all have to wrestle with what that means for
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: each one of us in the way that the enemy
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: pulls us away from what is God's best. And for me,
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: he was pulling me away in things that like no
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: one could I know, everyone could argue over the terminology,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: but what people can't argue with is the story that
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: I'm living. Like the story is that I did should
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: not have been married like that. That was not in
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: my mind that was not even possible. But with God,
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: all things are possible. And I stepped in with faith,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: truly trusting, Like God, what are you going to do
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: in this? I have no idea, but I have watched
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: how the Lord has been so kind to us, and
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: that Jordan is the person that shows me the most
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Jesus grace that I could ever experience, and she, you know,
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: keeps me walking close to Him. And it is the
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: best way for me to live is to be close
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: to my wife and have my family and disciple, my
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: kids to be Jesus followers, to tell people about Jesus
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: and raise a family and a legacy to look forward
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: to that everyone knows without a doubt the Johnson's were
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: surrendered to Jesus, and that that's all I care about.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: I don't care about people opinions, I don't care about labels,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: I don't care about any of those things. I care
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: that people will look at my life when I'm dead
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: and gone, and in the culture as it will change
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: and things will continue to shift, and as everyone keeps
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: following culture, I'm following Jesus and I will radically give
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: my life to Him day in and day off. And
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: so it doesn't really matter those comments. That's what I would.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Amen to that. I mean, by the way, so trolls
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: don't even bother during the comments because they're unnecessary. But
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you, uh, you said something that just reminded
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: me of you know, why I've been you know, single,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if the we're sorry. A Butterfield
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: gets mad at me when I use the word celibate,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say chased, Okay, chase thick a word
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: is it's it's actually as you're you're saying, it's like
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it's not really that hard because I have found this
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: treasure hidden in a field. Like it's like I have
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: this relationship. I always say this, like I've had I
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: have this relationship with the King of the universe, and
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: it's so all consuming and all like my whole focus
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: is on Jesus all the time, day and night. Like
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: every night, I mean this is I like every night
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: before before I go to bed, I literally watch three
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: sermons a night or two or two to three sermons
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: a night. Just but it's not because like I'm trying
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: to be like a good Christian. It's just because that's
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: what I'm drawn to. I just want more and more of.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: And so yes, yeah, that's same. Like that's why I'm
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: a worship leader. That's why I want That's why I
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: listen to worship music. That's why I lead worship. That's
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: why I give my life to leading a worship team
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: at a church, because I believe that when you surround
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: yourself with worship like things, change your eyes, lift towards
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Jesus and take your eyes off of yourself and all
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: of your things and your desires and fix them on
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: where they need to be.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I talked to when I talked to a
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: lot of guys who were struggling with this issue, and
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: you know, they're kind of like almost at the point
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: of wanting to bail out, to bail I'm just like, dude,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: just look at Paul's life. Look at first of all,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Jesus was single, Paul was single. Look at Paul's life,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Like all he cared about was running around the Mediterranean
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: planting churches and spreading, spreading in the Gospel. He wasn't
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: concerned about his He was like beaten and jailed and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: shipwrecking and all kinds of terror. He was as as
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: one passor put it, he's he was the most afflicted
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: besides Jesus. He was like the most afflicted human of
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: all time, and was Paul worried about like oh I
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: don't have a wife and kids, or oh I don't
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: have like a whatever. It's like No, he just cared
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: about the gospel and like right Diesus and getting the
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: gospel out. Like so, I just when you kind of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: have this when you pull out and you have this
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: bigger perspective and instead of this like naval gazing perspective,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: it changes everything. It changes the way you see. Like
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I always say this too, like you know, you know,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: people ask me, you know, is your life unfair? Blah
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: blah blah. I've like since I've been a Christian to
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: firs sixteen and a half years, almost seventeen years.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it's amazing.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: I'm getting gold seventeen years ago, I have never once,
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: not for a second, felt like I'm being cheated out
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: of something like I'm being cheated out of a relationship
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: with a guy, or or my life is you know,
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: my life is sad because.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I don't get to have a boyfriend or dah da dad.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Like I've never once felt that, Like I feel the opposite.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I feel like I can't believe God chose me before
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: the foundations of the world to be in His kingdom
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and to give me everlasting life, which is kind of amazing.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm immortal, You're immortal. Yeah, And so I
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: mean I'm just like, and there's you know, people who
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I posted something about, you know, on on Twitter, about
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: my old life, and you know, I got mostly positive comments,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: but there was it went viral, this post, and there
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: were there were obviously some trolls who commented, and and
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: one of them said the most foul thing. He was
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: just like, oh you still want to blah blah blah,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: like really gross. And and I'm just like, get behind me, Satan,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Like you don't know me, Like you don't know what
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling inside. Yeah, and you don't know my relationship
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: with the Lord like anyway, So yes, yeah, haters gonna hate,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: but ignore ignore the haters.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, absolutely, that's throughout scripture. I mean that's what, yeah,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: it happens is And.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: By the way, yeah, on the Sermon on the Mount,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Jesus says, you know, blessed are you who are revived
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: if you're reviled, and people will say all kinds of
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: malicious things about you for my namesake. Your reward is
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: great in heaven, which is really cool because rewards are eternal,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and uh, I yes, I love I love the rewards exactly.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: It's coming.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: So but Jeff, I'm so like number one, I'm so
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: happy for you. I'm happy that you. Like, in my mind,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: it's like you chose the you chose the right path,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: you chose the right the better portion. Like you you
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: decided like because you could have easily just gone the
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: other way and just completely full the full, bore into
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: that life. And instead you're like, no, I'm going to choose.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to choose a godly life. I'm going to
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: choose a godly marriage. I'm going to choose a godly fan.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: And this is the way I'm going to go. So
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I am so proud of you. Thank you.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I wish it is I've done that one,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: but it was a lot I had a different story.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm so.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: Proud of God's mercy. It's all God's grace and mercy
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: over my life.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so tell tell people again where they can
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: find your podcast.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So we launched Open Spaces. It's open Spaces podcast
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: dot com is our website. Open Spaces is our podcast
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: that we have launched last year and telling the first
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: five episodes just kind of unpack our full story and
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: then we're diving into more now and new in the
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: podcast world. But excited about that and started a nonprofit
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: with Open Spaces and hopes to have retreats for people
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: and have counseling and a lot of things that we
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: want to help people in this as we have been
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: helped by others and just see like we just wanted
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: to be open to what God has for us, and
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: as we talk about this, it was important for us
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: to share publicly just to help the guys out there
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: that were me, that struggled, are struggling now and don't
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: know where to go. So we just want to be
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: a place where we can have open conversation about it
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: and remind people that with God, all things are possible.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: And we're not saying you got to get married and
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: your story, that's not it. We're just asking. We're just
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: wanting to say, just follow Jesus and choose holiness in
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: your life and watch what He'll do. There's no telling
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: what he'll do when you do that. So yeah, that's
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: where we are. Open spaces podcasts awesome.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Well, Jeff, thank you so much for coming on the
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: show and sharing your story. I appreciate it.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Beckett. You have been a huge
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: inspiration to me and I'm really grateful to get to
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: be on today.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Praise goott.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Beckett
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Cook Show. Your support makes this content possible. All episodes
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: of The Beckett Cook Show are also available on YouTube.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: For more information about Beckett and his ministry, visit his
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: website at Becketcook dot com.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you to the team at Life Audio for their
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: partnership with us. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: you will find more faith centered podcasts about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: and more.