Latest / One Voice Many Conversations / Crushing Strongholds #21-Guest Speaker Javier Malave from-The Compass Chronicles

Transcript

Crushing Strongholds #21-Guest Speaker Javier Malave from-The Compass Chronicles · One Voice Many Conversations

0:02
SPEAKER_02: Hello everyone.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: Welcome into Crushing Strongholds.
0:06
SPEAKER_02: This is a podcast where we turn pain into power, trauma into triumph, and a place where we can just focus on becoming a better version of ourselves.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: It's also a place where we get to expose the lies of the enemy.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: And how do we do that?
0:20
SPEAKER_02: We do that by equipping believers in the truth and the grace and the love of Jesus Christ.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: And that's what this podcast is about, and that's where the heart and soul is.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: And today I'm super excited because I have a guest with me.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: And this individual is an amazing.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: I've only gotten to know him just a few minutes, but I can't wait to get to know him much further.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, he has so much going on that I can't wait for him to share it with you because I know I'm gonna miss something.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: But he is a podcaster, he is a author, he has um, I believe, eight books now on devotional, faith devotionals.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there are about nine.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, talk about seven or eight books, yeah.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm on my ninth one.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing the yeah, I'm doing the ninth one soon.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and um he's working on a new um podcast, which I'm gonna let him tell you all about it.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: So today I just want to bring to the table and introduce you to um my newfound friend, Javier.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for coming and welcome in.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Hi, Mickey.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me, Mickey.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, I love sharing with fellow Christians, fellow friends.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to meet you.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: I always love to meet new people and have wonderful faith-based conversations.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, what we talk about will have someone lift them up or give them some uh stronger faith to move forward in this uh crazy world that we live in now.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: So, can you do us a favor and can you tell us about your upcoming podcast?
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Because I want to hear more about it.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: And when is it gonna be?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, as you know, I have the Compass Chronicles podcast.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: So that's uh the first one I started with.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh the next one that's coming, which is I'm I'm actually really excited about and nervous as well, is for the Kingdom Forge podcast.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this was gonna be more of a live interviews and discussions, and it's gonna be on real difficult issues that Christians don't like to talk about.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I want it to be where it's gonna be like, whoa, why is he talking about this?
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, because it affects us in in ways that you may not understand, but they do.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it could be anything from the politics to our mental health, which I'm a huge advocate of mental health, uh help, uh just anything, family, uh, kids, children, any issues that really, really affect us in our daily lives, but are afraid to talk about it, those are the subjects I want to bring up.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, as Christians, we sometimes tend to tend to be afraid to discuss issues because we think that you know people may see us differently or think something differently.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: But I believe in being open, allows God to clear your heart and your spirit, and maybe helping someone else say, Oh wow, he he's I'm not the only one, or I've been there, or I understand it, or I have a place where I can talk about it.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, I have a place where someone can I and the thing is, I'm not just looking for Christians to come on either.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for people who want to understand who Christ is and want to understand what faith is.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So those are the people that I would like to at least listen to the podcast and understand where I'm coming from.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's in it's in early stages right now.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm uh working on uh uh with uh Rory, as you know, Rory.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to work with him to try and get everything organized.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, you know how it is to set up uh podcast, a logo, and ideas and and all this stuff.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm excited.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh hopefully we're gonna get it done by the end of September.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're looking at that.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to rush it because then kind of looks, you know, I'm not rushing it.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm leaving in God's time.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: It'll open the doors when things are happening, uh, just like he did with uh Compass Chronicles.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: But uh just to go back a little bit of who I am, just for people listen to me a little bit.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, my name is Javier.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh I am 57 years old.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I am a born and bred New Yorker.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: I people hear me, they can hear my accent.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: People say we have accents, I never do that.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so that's very strange.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but yeah, uh, I've been married gonna be in November 33 or 34 years.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Honey, if I'm wrong, please don't kill me.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh congratulations.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we just celebrated our children's 27th and 30th birthday.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: So we have two grown children.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one lives with us and works in the city, and the other one lives in Indiana.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she works out uh so um yeah, um so uh when we talk about uh you know adversity and then and going through um through issues that God has helped us come through.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I think that's sort of what the topic is about.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Um just to give a little backstory, I used to weigh over 300 and something pounds.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: I was a very heavy man.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: I was a smoker, I drank, I did everything under the sun as a heavy set man or person just didn't care.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Um so uh I decided on myself because I've obviously I've ended up in a hospital a lot of times, diabetes, blood pressure, whatever situation was.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I decided to become a vegan, um, which is very, you know, for someone who if you know the Hispanic culture, we love meat, we love anything with spice and anything like that.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Lots of tacos.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you know, a lot of a lot of stuff like that, you know.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And especially in a Puerto Rican household, we have to have some sort of meat or some sort of uh protein in in the food.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I decided for my own health, let me just try and change the way I eat.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: And uh it was tough, but actually it ignored my A1C.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: It did a lot of stuff, and I actually started to work out and started to run.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you ever asked my wife, I was one that wouldn't even go to the corner store and pick anything up.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: I would send somebody, that's how lazy, I couldn't walk, everything hurt.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, because you know, when you're heavy or you don't care about yourself, the body's gonna say, Well, okay, I'm gonna not work for you.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: So I decided to work out and um I started running and training.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And for a person who never ran, I uh started walking, obviously, and then I started walking six miles a day, and then I started running six miles a day, and just to cut the short short, I was training for the Franklin half marathon, which would have been my first half marathon ever.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: I've run uh 5K's, I've run um, but this would have been my first 10 mile because my goal in life was to run for the first time ever the New York City marathon.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Even if I get there at two in the morning, I wanted to run it.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: But uh God had other plans.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I was training, and one day I got home and I wasn't feeling well.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And I told my wife, honey, I don't feel well.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: She goes, Maybe you kind of overtrained, maybe you're tired, maybe you should take a break.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I said, you know what?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then I started to lay down in bed, and I ended up in the middle of the night telling my wife, uh, I don't feel well at all.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: I really don't.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: He took my temperature, I was 103.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Um and we ran to the hospital.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny, but that day happened to be one of the worst rainstorms New York City has ever had.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And where we live, we live near the East River, so it gets flooded.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: So that day, obviously, the the ambulance came and they said, No, we have to take you to NYU hospital because that's the closest, and due to weather, we had to take you there.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they took me there, and um in all, I ended up getting to the hospital with about I was septic, and I only had about five percent breathing in my lungs.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: My lungs were fully, fully um blocked.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so this day they don't know what caused it.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Um so they intubated me for six days.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh they told my wife, uh, you should make plans.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: We don't think he's gonna wake up.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: He's really, really, really that sick.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh, but God had other ideas.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: He woke me up on the sixth day.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: You see it?
8:37
SPEAKER_00: I was sometimes like you know, in the sixth day, God, you know, rose me up from the dead like Lazarus and just took me.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Um but just to say, when I woke up, I um I woke up really, really upset because I didn't know what was going on.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: I was confused.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you wake up from that, you're like, what the heck's going on?
8:58
SPEAKER_00: And my body was not moving the way it should move.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: My legs were totally uh what I tell people is like, think about when you sit the wrong way and your leg gets sleepy.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: That's what I feel through my whole body every day.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I ended up uh with a disease called Beyond Beret syndrome, which is a very rare disease, GBS, but it does it.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I'll explain really simple.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: It's the um just look at an electrical wire and then the outside black part, right?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: That protects the insides of all those green, red, yellow wires that make electricity run.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: My disease eats the outside and then makes the nerves not function.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: So I have no, I'm in a wheelchair most of the time.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any sensation from my legs up to here.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And when I walk, I can't, I have no flexion on the ankles as well.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: So uh they didn't know what caused it till this day.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: They didn't know if it was fungal or airborne or they took so many tests.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: I was in the hospital for over three months, um, trying to uh, you know, because I couldn't walk.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I had to learn how to walk again, I had to learn how to grab stuff again, how to put up things.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: It was that bad.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And um I was angry through the whole thing, I hated God through the whole thing.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Because that's a little backstory.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: I've been a Christian for since I was 18.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, I knew about God since I was 18.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I got saved at 17 at a Pentecostal church um a long, long time ago.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh obviously when you're 17, you just sort of go with the flow, you don't really know what you're doing, or you know, if you don't have that support that you need, especially as a new Christian, you kind of wave.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And then I wasn't in a place where it was more of uh emotional hysterics than more of a biblical teaching.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: So I was more, you know, um based on that.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: But either way, I um so I knew about God and I knew about everything, salvation and all that stuff, but I never lived it.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: I always did my own thing.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: I always said, well, you know, if I'm saved, I'm good.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to really, you know, uh, I took grace for granted, as they say.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, I got uh I was in the hospital and I got home.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: I was super angry, super angry at the world, at God, at me, because I'm a man, and and as men, we sometimes tend to see we don't want to be burdened on our family.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: We're the ones that have to take the burden, not not them.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: So that was one of my issues.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't do stuff.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: I could do anyone, I couldn't work.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I was a revenue analyst for Cornell Hospital for many years.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: That's in layman's terms of medical biller, but in the S degree, um, which I've been I was doing for over 30 years.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, to stop doing that and to not be able to really do stuff for yourself and gotta get, you know, learn to redo everything.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: I just blame God on everything.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: I said, nah, man, you I you know, I really was trying to get to know you better, and this is what happens.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: And um it took me because I'm very open with it, it took me to try and and end myself um to realize that um, you know, I was taken to uh a hospital and I was there for the a week being evaluated and stuff to make sure.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I wasn't really um knowing God the way that I I know him now.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, you know, all these things are happening and everything.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: So I decided to create a podcast called the intellectual Sasquatch.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason I call it that is because Sasquatch is because my kids always called me that because I always done stuff rough.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: I've always done like crap.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: I I'll just move and run through stuff, or if I'm doing something, I'll be very, you know, I'm adamant.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: If I'm focused on something, I'm going with it, and I'm gonna ramp through it.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: So my my daughter would always say, You're such a Sasquatch, you just walk through everything.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, that makes sense.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And um, an intellectual is because I love philosophy, I love the the um stoic philosophy, I love anything like that.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, you know what?
13:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna make this podcast to prove that God is not who he says he is.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: This whole fallacy about faith and trust and all this, everything you've learned as a kid is all the fantasy, it's all garbage.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: There really isn't anything that fate is not controlled by some natural spirit, it's the dumb stuff we do, right?
13:38
SPEAKER_00: So, and in that process, you have to look at the word in order to go against the word because you have to study it in order to see flaws in it, right?
13:49
SPEAKER_00: We can just try to defend your point and and trying to break down who God is, which is absolutely the most ridiculous thing we can do.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: That's the best way to do it.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: If you're gonna question God, the best way to do it is to get the Bible and go at it because God'll show you in an amazing way, He'll open your eyes for sure.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And and I, you know, I I've I've read books, I've read every self-help book you can imagine, every mental health book, everything.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: So I tried to look at where the Bible stood and where every time I read the Bible, God would always open up something new.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And it'd be like, wait, that makes sense, but hold on, it's not supposed to make sense.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be so instead of deconstructing me, God was reconstructing me in my own way, in his own way.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Um and the thing is, I talk to God like I'm talking to you, I don't talk to him in this sort of like, oh no, hey God, I got issues, you gotta help me.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand it.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I say, hey pop, what's up?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Come on, I need to know because I don't get it.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way my relationship has been with him now.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: It's I I look at him and I say, God, I don't get it, I don't understand it, but what's going on?
14:57
SPEAKER_00: And um, so he I started to look more and started to realize, you know what?
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Everything that's happening now, there's a reason why God everything is done.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I started to say, you know what?
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Let me I love comic books, I love God, and I just love pop culture in general.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: I love everything about movies and and art and all that.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: And uh I said, you know what?
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can combine both as I'm learning to look at God again.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Why not look look for him in the genre that I enjoy?
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Because if you look for God, you'll find God.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: God isn't everything.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this is everything we do.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: This is the section where um, and I love your testimony, by the way.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: You and I have a lot more in common, brother, than I than I would have ever guessed, because I actually was over 300 pounds myself, and I have a story I could share with you.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: But um, this is your time back, and I'm I'm so excited about where you're getting ready to go here because um as I started to learn about you and um kind of stalk you on your Facebook, so to speak, to get to know you, I was like, I can't wait to talk to this guy because um I do not know anyone, and I'm and I mean this literally, that is willing to dive into pop culture and plug it in with Christianity.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: And because it's so diverse, and because you know, kids are rebellious in the pop culture we live in, music, entertainment, all of it comes across, especially in the world we live in right now, with so much evil.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: Like all of the entertainment, it's like, you know, like you know, there's so much talk about it, but yet we forget there's still God's connection with everything and everyone, and you're doing that.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: And I absolutely am so thrilled for what you're doing, and I think you're gonna make a huge impact with that because um it needs to be done.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: I I mean, like I said, I've never met anybody else that's doing it.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: So what you're doing is huge.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: I love the comic book era.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh like I said, Captain America is my favorite.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: I know I'm a model, but but I mean we all have our preferences, but still, it's still comic book world, it's still animation, it's still cartoonish, it's still fun, it's something we enjoy.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: But we think sometimes with God, we can't have those things.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: But we forget that God wants us to have the desires of our heart.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: We just don't know how to plug the two together, and guess what?
17:25
SPEAKER_02: You're doing that.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: So I can't wait.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: So, can you share with our audience what that was?
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, it's it's it was a work in progress because before that it was we were called the compass uh we were actually called the crossroads of thought.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: That's how we started first the Christian uh but I wanted to mix just life and uh trying to talk about anything that was happening, and I and then I wanted to start uh podcasts on that on comic books.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: So I started the Faithful Geek conference.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: So there were two podcasts I was doing.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I was doing the crossroads and then I was doing faith for geek, but they tended to cross into each other for some reason.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: I ended up putting together, so I said, you know what?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Instead of drawing two, let me just combine them.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And um, and then I said, you know what?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Let's just create A Compass Chronicles Faith Fandom and Life podcast.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I wanted to do this type of podcast is because one thing I realized that Christians, we tend to eat each other when we don't understand.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: We're the only people that tend to beat each other up when we don't understand something, and we tend to scare people away.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, and my whole idea was to bring those people that would never walk in a church, would never understand what it is to open a Bible or anything like that.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Because they're you know one thing people have to understand people that are into comic books, anime, pop culture are very into it.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: They're they're huge fans.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't attract them in that way, they're not gonna even pay attention to them.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: So I said, you know what?
19:01
SPEAKER_00: God created art, he gave us the imagine.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: The reason I say that is because who can ever be the biggest artist in the world if it was God?
19:09
SPEAKER_00: God created this beautiful world we live in, this amazing sky, the colors, the animals.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what other artists could ever do that, right?
19:18
SPEAKER_00: So if if he said, let's make them like us, then obviously he gave us that imagination, he gave us that beauty of art.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, the devil will take art and totally destroy it and totally, but the way I look at it is like the ideas that these people come up with, the stories.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the imagination you have to have and the and the vision.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: To me, that just excites me.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think uh as Christians, we should be excited at the art, I mean at the at the like just at the um not just the art, but the stories and everything else that comes behind could be music, could be art, it could be anime, comic book, uh literature.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh all that stuff is just if you leave now.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying to add God to it just to make it sound right.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: What I'm trying to do is take whatever I can out of that and showing that, yeah, God works in these sort of ways.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Like Batman.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: I use Batman as the loss of his family, right?
20:21
SPEAKER_00: And that made him who he is, right?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: So I decided to put that together into when we have loss in our lives, how God directs us into where we need to be or makes us the person that we don't let our situations create us, we let God take that situation and mold us into what we need to be and how to deal with that situation.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: So I try to mix both the Batman and Life.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, Superman, obviously, everybody knows Superman, so I try to do teaching the Superman, and um I do a lot of different stuff.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: I'll use anime uh because I think anime has so much potential, it could be really uh a uh big use for faith.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh obviously, anime is can be very, very bad.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: There are some animes that I I watch one episode, I said, nope, that's it, I'm done.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: There's no way.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Not that I'm not strong enough to watch it and go through it, but why?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Why put myself where I have to really try and work it out?
21:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do watch animes and stuff that are very adult-oriented, but I can differentiate when it's not, I'll know it's it's fake, it's not real, it's not, and then I'll notice if the agenda is a little bit more than what I want out, I won't recommend it or I won't talk about it.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do talk about a lot of different animes.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: There's some animes they talk about friendship and they talk about how to deal with life and things like that.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'll try to combine both together because I think people in that world don't really have the support that they need.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because um people tend to see us as that we're still children in a way, and we haven't grown up because we like comic books and we like figures.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And stuff.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, sure, you can say that.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you know, I'm famous Toys Earth kids.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to grow up.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I never want to grow up.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: I think the Bible says your heart as a child, right?
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Come to him as a child.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Not in mental, but my love for God is like a point to me.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, I love the whole relationship I have with God now.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's something that I thought I would never have.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh and that's what pushes me to continue to do the podcast and continue to come with ideas, you know.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I try to do some episodes that aren't very uh fandom-based.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: I try to do it more, a little bit more faith and life-based, just to change it around a little bit.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I have a lot of fun trying to uh figure out where things are in certain anime or certain part uh cartoons or uh uh animation or anything like that.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Because I think about as a kid, when we used to watch Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner and all that, there was always some sort of moral lesson there.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Always.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: There was always some little bit of uh, you know, you know, you can't blow something up.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Like we didn't need to be explained that if you put dynamite in your hand, you're gonna blow up, you're gonna die.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just we knew that.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't under I think that's one of the things they dumbed us down a little bit.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Society has dumbed down the kids, and kids can't differentiate that an explosion will, you know.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: So, and I just look at that and say, you know what?
23:29
SPEAKER_00: There's always a moral story in anything you look at, be it bad, be it good.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh so yeah, I have animes that I have uh things that I'm uh episodes that I want to talk about that the anime is extremely bad, extremely horrible.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: But I want to show where the dangers are from watching something like that.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I think we need to let people know more about what the dangers are and how to see things and talk about how they are.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, uh especially young people, their minds are still being formed and and being, you know, and God, and I think by letting them know that they can still enjoy the stuff, they can still be as we call otakus, we can still be comic book heads, but still love God.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and still love God, and still follow his his his calling, and and you can see God in everything.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God is in everything.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: So that's the way I kind of like try to push, you know.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, I I want to um ask you a couple of questions, kind of back to your testimony a little bit, um, with with this podcast being about um crushing a stronghold, because crushing strongholds is about um which your testimony um proves that um you're an overcomer and there's obstacles that we face in life.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: And um, I can relate with you when um you were talking about getting angry with God and and how you know when you go through something that's very traumatic, you start manifesting things that you didn't even know you had.
24:58
SPEAKER_03: For sure.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: Even things from um from your childbirth on up, because you you're trying to put pieces together and you're trying to understand it, and you're wondering why the creator of the universe isn't giving you all the answers that we're wanting.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's why we question God and why we get angry with God, because we have um our own ideas of what we think God should do or shouldn't do sometimes.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: But he puts us in the middle of the storm for a reason, and you you went through a horrific storm, and um you were able to overcome it.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: So when you started to experience um after you were sick and in the hospital, and then you went through that depression part.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: Are you comfortable with me talking about the depression part?
25:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a huge uh I'm very open.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I have nothing to hide.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're an advocate for mental health, so I thought you'd be okay with me asking you.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm a huge advocate of mental health.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: I think it's something that uh, you know, like I said, I I'm not afraid to show where I was at that time.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: I was very in a dark, dark place.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was in a week.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: How did you use your faith to start getting back to where you needed to be from where you kind of glance?
26:09
SPEAKER_00: You know what's funny is it actually what started all this to where I'm at now was actually a visit to my primary physician uh for a follow-up.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: And uh I love my doctor, he's no longer my doctor, she retired.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: But um she was one of those doctors that really wanted to know who you are, wanted to understand you're just not your your ailment.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And one day I got there, and um, you know, I'm I'm always one that always smiles.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: No matter what the situation is, I'll smile, I'll talk to you, even though I'm dying inside.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I'll just I'm not one to really show it like that.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And one day she tells me, you know what?
26:48
SPEAKER_00: You have a right to be angry, you know.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: You can be angry, you don't have to be so, you know, ask I didn't because I see you, you're not smiling at me, and I like I know, and I'm like, yeah.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: So when she told me that, I said, you know what?
27:03
SPEAKER_00: I do have a right to be angry, and I got really angry, I let it all out, and um and like I said, I did try to uh end everything, and doing that, uh after doing that and coming home, you know, they give you a therapist, they give you a you know, they give you a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and a psychologist.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: So I said, you know what?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, because one thing with Christianity, people don't believe, they believe that and it's it's okay, but that mental health isn't an issue for Christians.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry to say, but it is difficult because it's not necessarily uh a demon in your because it could be chemical, it could be uh medicinal, it could be traumatic, it could be a lot of things that affect we're human.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: God gave us these feelings, and there are times where our our body or brain doesn't understand them, and we we follow away.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And and I just thought that it would be easier if I wasn't around to be a burden for my family.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I didn't want anybody to carry me, I didn't want anybody to tell me I, you know.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I decided to go to therapy, and I remember the first time I went, I was like, what the heck am I doing here?
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, God, you know, what is this?
28:21
SPEAKER_00: What is this crazy?
28:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to talk to anybody, I don't want to tell people my story.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: And um, but in there was something that just made me speak to and my therapist, her name is Julie, which I totally love her.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, he is one of those people that he's not a believer, but is so open to thoughts and ideas and things that I you know, she was the one who kept telling me, you know, prayer and thoughts and all that are things that you need to do.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: You need to look for those things.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: You need to, you know, prayer can also be a sort of meditation, you know, it could be a way to calm you down, it could be where you're you know, and uh, but during all that, I really became a huge advocate for it.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh um I've written a book on it, uh, just to let people know that just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that God hasn't provided other people to help you, uh, because it's supposed to be everybody helping everybody.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: So if he gave these people the knowledge and the patience and the will to help other people get through something, then and he gives you that, he opens the door for that.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: But that means it's a good thing.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: It's it's he's leading you to that.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: If it was a bad thing, God would never let you sit there and give up all this stuff.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Sure, we do come to God and we ask God all the time, every morning, thank you for waking me up.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: I and the first thing I say is, God, I'm gonna mess up.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm gonna mess up today.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: But you know, I I I I ask that you help me out for the day.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: If I know I'm gonna do something wrong, sort of knock me in the back of my head, say, Hey, what are you doing?
30:01
SPEAKER_00: And then going to therapy every Wednesday helps me do that, helps me sort of get back to square one and and and like you know, like you are.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: We have so many things on the plate, so many things going on, and when your emotions are not there, everything is chaos, everything is, you know, and um so far, you know, it's been something, it's it's a work in progress, it's not a finish.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: This is not a race, it's a marathon.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I have such faith that what I'm doing is something God wants me to do, and something that I think he's opened many doors, like I'm speaking to you now.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: That's something I never thought years ago, four years ago, that I was gonna be talking to people on podcasts or having a podcast or or writing books or writing uh um, you know, I have a coffee company now that I started, Grace and Grind Roaster.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: So that's something that I I'm I'm starting up that I enjoy doing.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Things that I enjoy that I think like you said, my faith through them.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, I just did a last um how do you call it?
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Um devotional called uh for for otakus, which are people who love anime.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: So each chapter is based on an anime character, and then the the biblical part of it, and then the thought.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And and I always put um uh what they call a um what is it?
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh call to action, a CTA.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: I always put a CTA at the end, right?
31:35
SPEAKER_00: And I leave space in there so they can write.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that that one I'm excited about.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: I've two of those that are for people who are me and nerd that will never pretty much ever open a Bible if if it's not, you know, um in some sort of uh fun way.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: So I thought maybe if I did this, you know, and let people read and see that, yeah, through all these animes that you look at, God is there and talking to you and letting you know and and showing you that, yeah, you know, I'm here, I'm real.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, no matter your faults, no matter what you look like, what you like, you know, I'm here waiting, I'll I'll direct you.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Um we're living examples of that.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I my my testimony, you know, I can go back all the way to when I was a drug addict and uh when you know I almost had a me and my wife were at the verge of divorce.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, we I there's a lot of things that have gone in my life that God has always been the one to, even if I didn't know it or didn't believe it, right?
32:36
SPEAKER_00: He was there.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Because one thing is my wife is the biggest prayer warrior I will ever ever ever know.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: She is the strongest person in that way that I've ever known.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: She constantly is, you know, my rock when it comes to that, you know.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, whenever I have a situation or something that I don't, or she knows that I'm not feeling she'll come to me like, let's pray, or I'll pray for it, I'll pray for you, or things like that.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: And um, so you know, I I look for her to that example, you know, because you sometimes as a man, you know, God gives us this authority and these things that we are responsible for.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just the way the Bible is.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: Men are responsible for we're the head of the house, right?
33:19
SPEAKER_00: And spiritually, we need to be the head of the house.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: That's good.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: That's the law that God gave us.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: It's in the Bible, and it's not putting down any women and what they do, no, but we have a certain responsibility that we have to take care of that a woman does not have, or a wife does not have.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she has other responsibilities that God has given her, which is to support what we do and children and all that, but I don't look at it as any different than I am.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: She is exactly in the same position.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: She's my queen, definitely where I need to be with.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: But we're at a place where we know that God has my responsibilities that I have to deal with and hers.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And you know, and as a marriage, we do try to combine both and see how we can work it out.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: But you know, and you and you take that upon yourself as a man when things don't go wrong or things are going crazy or whatever, you tend to beat yourself up and saying, Wait, you know, maybe I did that wrong, or maybe I should have.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And then God comes in and goes, Don't worry about that.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: It's in the past, I forgot about that.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: That's garbage.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to let's move forward.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: Take what you learn and let's move forward and let me take you there.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, does she ever do podcasts with you?
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Um daily devotional every Wednesdays.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, just like a 10-15 minute little talk and then uh a little prayer at the end, just sort of middle of the week sort of break for people if they need something to give them a little hump during the middle of the week was the hub day.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Everybody Wednesday is just like oh, yeah.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: So we try, but um, we did release a few, but it just didn't click or it was just too much right now.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: So we just put that in the back burner for now.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: But I think once the forge um gets started, I think that's where we're gonna be more what she'll be on, actually on with me.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Or um I'm looking forward to meeting new people, you know, and then hopefully do the the uh the compass uh also uh for live interviews because there are a lot of Christians that are are big fandom fans, you know, they they love pop culture, they love and they're not seen, and they're not seen, and I think uh they need to be seen, they need to be talked to, they need to be acknowledged and hoped.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
35:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, that in the Kingdom Forge 2, I think will connect you with some people, but I have a question for you.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: So, what what do you think?
35:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, what advice would you give someone who feels stuck or ashamed of their stronghold and doesn't know how to take the next step into crushing it?
36:02
SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes I think we get stuck.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: So I believe in my heart that God, um, with God's characteristic and our God-given purpose, you know, in his word, it says that he um he created us for a purpose and we have an assignment.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: He assigned all of us to do something specifically, and some of it may be similar, like there's teachers, preachers, you know, um, you know, prophets and all of that.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: We're all disciples.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Every one of us is a disciple.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: We're all us, we're all a student to learn, and we're all a student that's able to help someone else to learn.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think that that God gave us that assignment and that ability.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: But when we get stuck behind a stronghold, we sometimes feel guilt and shame.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: And that puts the roadblock up.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, the strongholds in the Bible, it says we have to tear them down.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: And I love your your your scripture where it says you have to build yourself back up brick by brick.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: In my podcast, I say you have to tear them down brick by brick, the strongholds.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: But then you know what?
36:57
SPEAKER_02: The rebuilding comes.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: So I love that you said that.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: But um, I wanted to share that with you.
37:02
SPEAKER_02: But so, what would you tell someone that feels like they're just too ashamed and they're just they just feel like they have to stay stuck?
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, in it, I'm just I can only speak on my own situation, but what I would tell people is first of all, don't be afraid to acknowledge that you're stuck.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid, don't be don't be uh helpless saying, Oh, I'm stuck and I can't do anything.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Why?
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Um first thing is acknowledge that you're in a place where you don't want to be, and then decide, I want to be out of here, I want to get out of here.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: What do I do next?
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of people, I always say, you know, talk to God like if you talk to me.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to pray, you don't have to get on your knees, you don't have to just sit back one minute and go, hey God, I don't know if you're hearing me.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, and I know I haven't talked to you, but I'm going through something and just let it out.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God will give you that peace.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: He may not fix it at the moment, but he'll give you that little bit of peace, knowing that you talk to him and he hears you, he's not ignoring you.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: And that that every stronghold look at the foundation of that stronghold, right?
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Nothing will stand up unless that foundation is strong.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: So if you go to a foundation and you see that it's weak, hit that foundation, bang it away, it'll drop that wall.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: But look at where that wall sits on.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Because we have to create the foundation of everything we do in life and whatever we put on it, right?
38:36
SPEAKER_00: So God is supposed to be our foundation, even says in the word, don't build your house on sand, hold on a strong foundation.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: So if your stronghold and you look at it, it's in a foundation that is extremely weak, and you know that, then hit that foundation.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't go for the wall yet.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Don't go for the wall, go for the foundation because when you hit that foundation, the wall's gonna start to wobble.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, the wall is gonna start to tick and pick apart because it can't stand on without a strong foundation.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: If you don't feed that foundation, and if you try to work that foundation, and then put God there in that foundation as a cement, then that wall will either crumble or it will become stronger in his faith.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: He will rebuild it, or as we do, you put new caulk when you do new bathroom, you know, you caulk it brand new, you scrape off the old, and you rebuild.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way I see and the way my life is.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: My wall is always up, right?
39:31
SPEAKER_00: But my wall was redesigned or re purpose for what it is now, not where it was before, where I had this I hated everyone, or life sucked, or whatever.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way I tell people like first hit the foundation, look at where it's coming from.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: From where is it coming from outside source, an internal source, or something you may be reading?
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Because people sometimes don't realize that things you see or do affect you mentally and physically and emotionally, even if you don't know it, they do.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: So that's my my my um advice, and and that's just it works for me.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it works for everyone else, right?
40:11
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is look at your foundation, look at where that problem is, and you know, see if if you could be the problem.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people don't realize that they themselves are their own worst enemy.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can beat ourselves up really bad.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I'm I'm a I'm a person that does that a lot, and I still do it sometimes uh when I can't.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm sort of a perfectionist when it comes to stuff or podcasting stuff.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: I'll I'll work on it 10 hours for one script because you gotta allow yourself some grace too, because God gives us grace.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the biggest things that I've been praying for and working on and and and therapy and everything.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Because she even tells me you gotta take a breather, you gotta relax.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, but yeah, that's my advice, you know, and also you know, have find someone that is out of the picture, like not in your life, in a sense, right?
41:06
SPEAKER_00: That can look at it from an outside point of view, you know.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, as they say, a lot of eyes looking at something from different views will get you a different idea.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna pick a friend, the friend's not gonna really tell you.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: Unless he's a really good friend, that's a lot because you do.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: I have one good friend, he'll tell me straight out, you're an idiot.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Don't do this, you're stupid.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, everyone needs that one person, everyone needs that one friend.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: God is that one friend, also, right?
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Christ is that one friend.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: He'll knock you in the back of your head sometimes, say, listen, you know, let's go.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: I I pointed you here.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's go, you know, and um that's the way I see it.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: I see, you know, take care of that foundation, find someone to talk to, have civil discourse.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the biggest thing that's lost in this world.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh discussion.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, I put I put up a uh a thing on Facebook the other day, is like God says, I called you to catch fish, and I called you to have a discussion, not an argument.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Not to win an argument.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not here to win an argument, right?
42:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're here to understand.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: So that's a good post.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: I've seen that a couple of times, but I want to I want to share a scripture with you, and I want to see if um because we have a common interest, I was telling you about this before we we jumped on here live.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, I want to see if you you'll I know you'll connect the dots probably right away because we have a common interest and I want to talk about it briefly before we start wrapping up.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: So this scripture is Isaiah 53, 5.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: It says, But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our inequities.
42:41
SPEAKER_02: The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we were healed.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: Who am I talking about?
42:49
SPEAKER_00: I personally think it's striper.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, I saw you're a striper fan.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I'm huge fan.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, big 80s hair metal fan.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, huge, my friends, and it's so funny because I'm I'm Hispanic and we can't have our hair growth.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: So the closest thing we ever had was dirty curls.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: That was the closest thing we ever had, the long hair, but yeah, oh I I I love I've seen Stryper.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: Not too big, but our my wife and I first ever ever date was a striper concert in 1980.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Nice at Radio City Music Hall.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: We still have the tickets, we still had the picture because I would because I used to work at uh the biggest Christian bookstore in New York City back then.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: It was called Christian Publications.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was in Times Square, it was the biggest one in the state.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: And I met my wife through there.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: She went in there looking for a cassette.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I've always loved heavy metal music, I always have hard rock.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: And when Christian music became that, you know, I started listening to Petra first.
43:50
SPEAKER_02: I like Petra too.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Petra, you know, and Petra was yeah, and I started listening.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm I was a big CCM, you know, fan.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: I've loved, I've seen all kinds, I've seen Mylan, I've seen Everybody from back in the 80s and 90s.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I'm uh I talk with Brian Duncan a lot when he's on he's on Twitter.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I love him.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I I when you said that I said, Oh, I think yeah, that's Stryper all the way.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I haven't seen him in a while.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: Do you know their backlog story?
44:21
SPEAKER_02: Because Michael Sweet, like he left Striper and then he went on his own, and then now they're back together.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: And I was I was when I seen that you you liked um striper, I was like, Oh my goodness, I haven't listened to them forever because I was in the hairband phase with a lot of like other hairbands that I shouldn't have been listening to.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: But I was so happy I found Striper because even as a Christian, I felt it it gave me a little bit more peace and my peace of mind thinking I probably shouldn't be listening to this music, but I like the hairband thrasher kind of music.
44:53
SPEAKER_02: Right, okay, striper came along and I was like, okay, God, thank you, because I felt like, oh, you know, and it gave me something I can still have.
45:00
SPEAKER_02: But one thing I noticed with Striper is like most bands out there, they go through the the fame and the entertainment.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, they hit um the you know, they do the drugs, they they do the you know, express the lifestyle.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: They did it.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: But you know what they did?
45:19
SPEAKER_02: They they they came back together, they went through sobriety, and they conquered it.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: And I love the end punchline to their story, even though the beginning was kind of uh, you know, and people questioned them.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: How can you be a Christian band, you know, singing about you know certain things?
45:36
SPEAKER_02: And and I get it, I get because we're not supposed to partake in the world, but they showed a great example because they went through it, they made their mistakes, they stayed together, they came back, um, they reunified, and their faith is stronger now than it's ever been.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: Their story is amazing, and I encourage anybody listening to go check them out because I was blown away.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they um unfortunately, uh Michael and Robert's father just passed away not so long ago.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was a sad they were on tour, so they couldn't go see him.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that kind of hurt me a little bit because I know how that is.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, I can't even imagine you want to be here with your dad, and you know, you have responsibilities, unfortunately.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, striper has been oh my goodness.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: I the thing is, I started believing I went to a Pentecostal trade uber Pentecostal.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about no makeup, no ear, nothing, women length, ankle length, here nothing wrong with that.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: If you if that's what you want, hey, and I love it because it was my foundation for Christ.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: It was that's where I got saved, that's where everything was.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: But I remember when we got the cassette tape, and now I'm dating myself.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: When we got the cassette tape, for um uh soldiers under command, and I played it in for the first time, and I'm a big rock fan, like and I heard that.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: I was like, nah, that can't be Christian, man.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: There's no way that's Christian music because we all were used to hearing hymns or or you know, stop songs or whatever.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: And back then there wasn't no thing as yeah, praise we didn't have a hill song, we didn't have a um, you know, all these big praise and worship groups.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: We just had regular, uh, and back then Pentecostal, we're not allowed to listen to any type of that music.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: We just there's no way very secular, um, right.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which I it's and I'm sorry to say I hate that word.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: I know.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: I I really did that because secular means that almost it's so a word that makes everything sound bad.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: It's selective, but it's not, yeah, exactly.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was looking for.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: And striper just blew everything out of the water.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Once I saw striper, then I got into Baron Cross, into Blood Good, into uh all these heavy uh bands that took me away from, as you said, the hair metal bands like Rat and Gig Row, and not that I didn't go see them because I saw them.
48:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, Lord forgive me.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: Some of those bands.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: And my yeah, and my and until this day, my my number one band is Metallica.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: I love Metallica.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, always have saw them a few times, not now, now they've become too poppy too.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: And then I don't but see to me, music, I love all types of music, and I will listen to it, be a Christian, be a non-Christian, because I believe there are Christians in bands that are not Christian bands, they're just Christians in a band.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: When people say, Oh, it's a Christian band, not necessarily, it's a person who believes in Christ that plays music in a band.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, we're gonna judge what they say, the words, all that, but I think music obviously was created by God and it's beautiful.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: If you use it the right way, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: And when Stryper came out and started using riffs and drums and saying, you know, God's got this under control, and you know, songs is under command.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what and that became an anthem for a lot of Christians back then, it became a huge anthem.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: And um Christian music today, I have to say, and I know we're going off a little bit off the subject, but because I think it's a little more politic now, it's a little more too commercialized in a way.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: I try to tell people that don't go to a concert to get fed.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: Don't go to a concert to get fed the word.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: They're there to entertain you.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: You go to church to get fed, you read the Bible to get fed, they're there to get entertained and have fun.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know who said that once?
49:39
SPEAKER_00: Rich Mullins.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: He literally said, Don't come to me to get the word.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to entertain you to share my thoughts and my, but don't take it as a religion, yeah.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and that's the way I take it.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: I take everything, whatever music I'm listening to, I'll take whatever part I can from it and make it my own.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, so yeah, yeah, but when you said that verse, I knew striper all the way.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: Like verse, you know.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was assuming you're gonna laugh, but there's the tattoo of Stryper.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, okay.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: And that's the date of our birth, the date of our uh our um I also like Michael Sweet's song 10 because you're talking about the Ten Commandments.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I was like, man, at first I was like, what is this?
50:25
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh my goodness, it's about the Ten Commandments.
50:27
SPEAKER_02: I it was a pretty good song because I hadn't heard it before, but I listened to the side.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, their new album is good.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: Their new album is uh produced really well.
50:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't really listen to that as much as you know as I did when I was in my rebel rebel days, I will call it when I was being you know, the trouble kid that we all are.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: Um I think that um when you want to sometimes when you want to go back into reminisce, you want to listen.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: I I mean all week long I've been listening to Honestly, because that you know, honestly, and um what's the other song?
50:58
SPEAKER_02: Um We Believe or something, or I believe in you.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: Um that one, there's a few of them that I forgot all about, and I was like, I know there's more than one song that they wrote.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: They're not a one-hit wonder band, but no, no, yeah, yeah, they have a lot of good good songs until they got stuck on there for a while.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then they did uh Against the Law, which I think was their worst album ever.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: That's when they were trying to go more secular than when they were.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, and Against the Law.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think after they guess the law, then he went on his own and everybody started doing the stuff on their own.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then uh the bassist left.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: He was the first one to leave, and they got a new bassist, and then Oz was not around for a while, and I don't think he's touring with them right now, he's uh not feeling well, uh, so he's not touring with them right now.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I keep it, I keep looking at them because it reminds me of where I was and what they did for me, yeah.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I tell people that music, and that's why I love pop culture because look what it can do, it can bring you back the beautiful memory, it can also bring you back the horrible memories, but those memories God can take care of, right?
52:05
SPEAKER_00: So that's the way I see it.
52:07
SPEAKER_02: So awesome.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: Well, we we have to get to wrapping up here, but I just wanted to say to you that um I appreciate your time and I appreciate you sharing your testimony with us, and thank you for um being vulnerable enough to um put that on the table because you know I believe honestly that God does help us overcome strongholds in our life.
52:27
SPEAKER_02: And um when we step out on that faith and we start crushing those strongholds the way that way that we do, and we allow God to work in us and through us, what what comes out on the other side is amazing.
52:39
SPEAKER_02: And and I see it, I see it in you with what you're what you're doing.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: You're doing so many things.
52:43
SPEAKER_02: You you have a whole plateful too.
52:45
SPEAKER_02: You're a lot a lot like me.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: But um, but everything you're doing is amazing and great, and you're doing it for the kingdom, not just you can tell it's not self-glorified, but it's something it's something kind of like sometimes when you um overcome a stronghold, it's almost like you're paying God back for getting you through it.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like God, thank you.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
53:02
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know I was there, but you got me through it.
53:04
SPEAKER_02: And what can I, you know, I feel like not that we owe him because we don't owe him anything.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: But you kind of feel like you have to pay him back.
53:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you just want to be honorable.
53:12
SPEAKER_02: You want to just be like, God, I just appreciate it so much for what you've done for me.
53:15
SPEAKER_02: I want to show you how much it means, you know.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: Right.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: And so I I feel like you do that.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: I I I can see that with you, and I love that about it.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: And I'm just so excited that I got to meet you.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: Huh?
53:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for giving me the honor to be here and share my faith and my crazy life that I have.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, thank you so much.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: And and and I hope that you know, I know that God has many things for you, uh, things that you're not even gonna expect, uh, and they're gonna be a blessing.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: And uh I see this the way you are, and the way you make us feel you're making me feel very comfortable.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's very that's very, very huge for podcasters and then to make everyone feel because we'll open up and talk, right?
53:59
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to make them so I see your and especially this topic is a very big and strong topic.
54:06
SPEAKER_00: So I see you going and and I'm I'm I'm gonna be excited to hear where God, you know, takes you uh your ministry to things you're not even gonna expect.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: You'll be like, whoa.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, um, I do need to wrap it up.
54:21
SPEAKER_02: So I just wanted to um again thank you.
54:24
SPEAKER_02: But um, I have one question real quick to ask you, um, real quickly.
54:28
SPEAKER_02: What legacy do you want to leave behind?
54:33
SPEAKER_00: What legacy?
54:36
SPEAKER_00: I was a simple I was a simple, simple Christian man that fought every day of his life to live up to what God wants me to be.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: That's all.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't I don't want no accolades or anything, just a man that loved God and loved his family, you know, and that's about it.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: Nothing, you know, we don't need the uh I don't need the accolades as long as people see God through me, then that's the biggest accolade I could have in the world, and that's who I want people to remember that yeah, this man talked about God and and him talking made an impact in my life that I can follow God and that's the way I see.
55:14
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
55:15
SPEAKER_02: Awesome, thank you.
55:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, um, I just want to share with our listeners and um just say, you know, what you know, thank you for that amazing testimony.
55:25
SPEAKER_02: But um as we wrap up, I just want to ask our listeners like if if there's any testimonies that they have or want to share, I want them to get a hold of me and um and talk to me.
55:36
SPEAKER_02: And and I want to get you on here for an interview because this has been so fun.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: I've enjoyed this and I'm I'm getting better, I think, but I'm not sure.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: But I just I'm loving everything about it.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm I'm loving everything about it, and um, I'm sticking to my guns because that faith part that you're talking about earlier, I call it God's nudge because he literally had to nudge me into action because I sat for over a year when he told me to do a podcast, and I said, You're nuts.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm not doing that.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: You're nuts, and I was like, literally, like, you're nuts, and God was like, No, I really want you to do this.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: And I even told my daughter, and my daughter said to me, Mom, you're nuts if you do do it.
56:14
SPEAKER_02: And so, like, God gives you those little nudges and you step out on faith.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: And so I understand when you said you're you were working through your um the kingdom forge that that you're you know, you want everything to be perfect, but just remember, you know, it's not gonna go anywhere until you push play.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: You gotta push record, you gotta get out there.
56:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited for you.
56:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to see where that goes.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: So, for all of our listeners out there today, I just want to thank you for being here with another great episode of Crushing Strongholds.
56:41
SPEAKER_02: And if you do have a testimony or if you are going through a stronghold, reach out because we are here.
56:46
SPEAKER_02: And um, I just want to bless you and pray for you.
56:49
SPEAKER_02: If you need prayer, you can go to crushing um strongholds.com and you will see that um there's a place on there for um need for prayer, or if you just need a clarity call, get a hold of me and um I can talk to you about um how you can crush your own strongholds if you're struggling or feel stuck.
57:05
SPEAKER_02: But again, we just thank you so much for being here.
57:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's been an honor.
57:09
SPEAKER_02: God bless, and y'all take care.