Latest / 10:14 Moondust / Episode 3

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Episode 3 · 10:14 Moondust

• Moondust: Hey all, welcome to episode three of the 1014 Moondust Podcast. This is take two. I'm the old gunny, and I'm so glad you chose to join us for this ride. Joined by my good friend and co-host Justin Daff. All right, top of the morning, ladies and probably not so gentlemen. Thank you for returning to our shenanigans. Last week we had a great guest and Pastor Kevin. And we have another great guest today. Before we get too far though, just a reminder, we are not professional biblical scholars, preachers, or theologians. We are also apparently not professional YouTubers and podcasters. as resulted by take two. We are just a couple guys trying to do what we believe the Lord has called us to do. With that being said, we have also we also have James back there, manning the camera and the sound system for us again again today. And he is learning right along with us, so please give him some So I think he's actually going to pause this prompter for us and then he's actually going to say hello. This might be the first time he's done this. Hi, I'm James. There we go. Alright, so like Daff said, we're definitely not professional podcasters. I will say though, our studio keeps getting better. not only has my wife Katie donated her dining room to us, Daft's wife Amanda got us this awesome backdrop and we're so thankful for the support of our wives as we continue this ministry. we also want to thank you for returning if you are, and for giving us a chance if you're a first-time viewer. If this is your first time joining us, seeing us, or hearing us, we humbly pray that you get to take away a little deeper understanding of what Christ can do for you and has done for you through the testimony of others, brothers and sisters in arms. Before we go any further, let us pray and ask God to bless these efforts. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. another day that we get to breathe life. And gather together, share testimony, share fellowship of the good things that you've done in our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters. As we continue to go forward, bringing more more hard chargers and warriors, faith to the forefront, I pray that their testimony does nothing but glorify you and that people can see that you really are worth the change. What you did for us on the cross. the your death, burial, and resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father, it makes everything worth it. all the struggles that we go through, and the being able to have hindsight to look back and see that you truly have blessed us. And it is without not without you that we wouldn't have anything. Nah. So as we go further today, let us take this testimony with open hearts, open minds, and open ears. to hear it, to receive it, and to be able to be lights that continue shining people and pointing towards them to you. And it's in Jesus' mighty and holy name that we ask, pray, and give all the thanks and glory. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, so I do want to take a brief moment before we get started to reiterate our mission statement. so our mission here is we're going to glorify God through fellowship, storytelling, and the studying of his word. 1014 Moondust aims to give veterans, first responders, and their families an opportunity to give their testimony, including their service and their journey in faith. Today's scripture, we're gonna be in the book of Genesis and Ecclesiastes. we're gonna be doing Genesis 215 and Ecclesiastes 3, verses 12 and 13. I'm gonna give a little disclaimer here. I am not well versed in ecclesia in ecclesiastes. and when Daff sent me this scripture and said this is what I think we should do, I said. It was funny because we were trying I was trying to spell it on the last episode. I don't know if I did that well, but I think I got it. So we did talk about ecclesiastics. I forgot about that. That's what brought that's what brought this to mind. I got another set of scripture from a a a journal entry that I had done not that long ago. Yeah man. Actually it wasn't that long ago, it was about a year ago now. Alright, so I think it's your turn. I think it's your turn to read the scripture. Okay. I'm gonna be reading from my super fancy ESV little study guide bible thing that my wife got me for my birthday. Ooh, that's other notes for classwork for homework. this is the one with amazing background. I love this thing. It's beautiful. it's an artist series. Now I I have found that the one they have these at Walmart. With that if you like that design. They have them at Walmart. And Walmart has their Bibles on sale continuously. So whatever the sticker price is, it's a little bit off. But that design, it's not the study bible, it is the full like words and words of Christ in red. but it it still has a column. Section for you to take notes on. Is it the big letters for you know for us on the Yes, which I was it's got it's gotta be I'm actually thinking about going to grabbing one because I just I like the design of it. I wanna have it as my house bible. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny you say that. So I was actually at Books Million the other day, and 'cause I've been asked I think I I think we've talked about I've been asked starting with a Sunday school class. Yeah. Sorry, a connect group class. Connect group. Sunday school class. with our church and so I was like, man, maybe I should get a study bible. but all the study bibles, lettering is about Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna have to wear these glasses. That's what this one is the top sections of scripture and the bottom is a study of I'm gonna have wear these glasses and somebody else's glasses to be able to see that. It's Yeah. Let's get let's get in and read this one. This is the the Genesis two fifteen and I'm I'm probably gonna go into sixteen a little bit. but it's it's a short scripture. so obviously we're in Genesis at the beginning of everything. this point is where God has create or God has created man, he's put Adam in the garden. Now in fourth you fifteen right there. the Lord the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely or you shall surely die. I'm gonna read a little study note that I have on it just as in the bottom for that as well. for fifteen and sixteen, it has a little study note and it says the overall picture of the garden suggests that the park like garden is a part of a divine sanctuary. The man is put into the garden To work it and keep it. Since God commanded Adam to work before Adam had committed any sin, work did not come as a result of sin. Productive work is part of God's good purpose for humans. The fact that God commanded the man implies that God gave the man a leadership role, including the responsibility to guard and care for all of creation. This leadership role related to Adam's relationship with Eve, his as his wife, who was given as a helper fit for him. and really one reason why I had kinda picked this scripture is I wanted to get into something that is A thing that I need to take more seriously on a personal level. I'm not trying to make it about me, but it's just something that I notice, but it's also something that is becoming more prevalent in cultures where people are afraid of work. That is a complaint that we hear a lot of times. Well we well, you still do when we both worked at a high school, so yeah. Yeah. Especially in like the younger generation of kids. They are afraid of work. But you would if if you my main point to this was Understanding that God created you to work, to give you purpose, especially in a man's heart. not saying women don't don't need work or anything like that. They have their they have a role and a job. And it it once you feel that and do it to glorify God, you begin finding purpose. And in the purpose you find peace, and in the peace you find joy. And that is that is a a really good thing to to begin to understand. so Work is not bad. And when you go do the work, do the work as the best you can. Yeah. yeah. Not say as best you can, like genuinely try to put forth an effort. Don't just say, well, I came to work today. Like, that's not it. That's the bare minimum. So there's The New Testament one of Paul's letters, and I'm sure one of those professional theologians can probably tell you exactly where, but I can't. Yeah. Common section theologians, I get it. but he's but but where Paul is telling like folks that like even like when you work, like work to the glory of God, right? Yeah. Do do that work. and I'll be honest, man, I've probably read Genesis a bunch. Right. I mean, this is one of the stories that you're told when you're Nee, highway or grasshopper. It's a good Hibboli phrase for you, by the way. I still use it. But I hadn't really thought of, you know, what what you've pointed out here in verse fifteen. and it makes sense, right? Like I got a little garden in the back. Well, right now I got a little weed pit in the back. It was a garden at the beginning of the summer, but we're on the same level. Yeah. my tomatoes are not tomatoing. And my tomatoes are great for a little while and then they but anyway. I really enjoy every spring. My wife Katie thinks I'm crazy, right? 'Cause I'll go out here and I'll spend an entire Saturday, right, man, and and my garden is so small that I I got a little hand tiller, right? And you haven't experienced life until you till the garden with a hand till yeah. Right. And so a man, I spend the whole day out there, right? And I'd be like, kids, y'all come help and they're like, Aye man, we're not doing that. sometimes they do. James will come help sometimes. this funny thing. Yeah, but sure. Funny thing, I've noticed this with Tristan. You take your you take your son out there. You speak to like the work that a man is supposed to do. They might complain about it doing it because, you know, they're kids. But you get out there and get working and doing something. Like James, do you not enjoy like actually getting to do stuff with your dad? And like learning to build stuff or putting stuff together. I enjoy it. Yeah, like it But you complain about it, don't you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, when I woke him out of bed at six o'clock this morning to go help feed veterans. He wasn't very happy. But yeah, fulfill you get fulfillment out of it. And obviously, you know, the the word garden that just happens to be what we're talking about in this particular case, right? Yeah. But But I agree with you, right? Like God didn't put us here to be lazy bums, right? Mm-hmm. He put us here to have a purpose. And I think, you know, especially because we're talking about veterans, right? Yep. One of the one of the difficult things for me when I retired from the Marine Corps was what happened to my purpose, right? Because God's had a purpose for me my whole life, right? Yeah. I You know, when I was a kid, my purpose was to get, you know, is to be closer to him, to to grow into a man. Like that was my purpose. And then I joined the Marine Corps where I served, you know, that purpose. And like immediately out of high school, just like right out of high school, right? And then I retired and I was like, man. What now? Well what do I do now, right? That's funny because you got a little bit different story. You had like a you retired and had a waiting period, but you retired at what, 37? Yeah, 37. 37, 38. Yeah, 37, yeah. I had I went on terminal leave and was already working at my first police department. yeah. Like I got two pay I got a paycheck from the police department and my last two paychecks in the record at same time. Well so line overlapped a little bit. but It was weird, so and especially in my case, right? 'Cause you know, I retired, mm-hmm, went working to school, so that was my purpose, right? The kids were the purpose. that didn't just didn't pan out, right? and when I'm working out, man, I really struggled, like, man. Like, pays well, it's a good job, right? Takes care of my family. You know, it hits all the things. It hits all the me stuff. Right, exactly. but what it At first it was missing purpose. I'll be honest with you, it's not now. Now that I've been there a little while and I kind of understand what's happening, it's really not. but God is telling us here, right? Like, I didn't put you on earth to prop your feet up and do nothing. Now there is a time for rest. Yes. Which is if you go back and also in Genesis, after the creation of everything. First thing God did the the seventh day was God rested. I rested. What did God need to rest for? He does he does. God doesn't rest. What that day was what that was for was for you to be with the Father. Yeah. To make it purposeful. So like if you take a Sabbath day for whatever you do, like people people get real finicky about Sabbath day talk and stuff like that. Like taking a Sabbath day, like My Sabbath day is Sundays. That like just not just because it's Sunday when we go to church, but Sunday is the day that I wake up from the time that I wake up intentionally, like that it that is my intention, is to I get a little mini fast then. I try not to eat breakfast. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. but I go and the first thing that I do is I go to church. I go to Sunday school. Matter of fact, our guest is in our my Sunday school class. I learned a lot from him. and it I go to Sunday school, go to hear the sermon. go to help serve with whatever we got going on with what I can. When we come home it's sermons or like I'm trying to engage with like in different viewpoints too of different things. Trying to engage with God intentionally. If I'm out on the if I'm out mowing my grass, I might be doing something in the yard or doing whatever. But I'm probably gonna throw some headphones in. I'm gonna get my son engaged with me in just being in the presence of the Lord and being able to worship all day long. And that's what And if I don't I noticed that like my whole day or the week starts off. Yeah. If I don't have a way to put him first throughout whatever I'm doing, so like little side story. Last week we had an incident at church with one of our our Sunday school director, actually. she had a little she had a medical episode. okay. I thought you said she beat somebody up. No, no, she didn't. She might. You get her mad now, she might, I don't know. But she had a medical episode, had to be transported to the hospital, and from what I understand, like I don't know really her whole family situation. I'm not gonna put it all out there, but like she has a nephew that helps her out some stuff and he may not be available, so I'll like, you know Pastor's got church and everything. He's about to like we're literally walking into church and we're waiting on an amelist to come. So I I was just like, Miss and she was worried about her car and her dog and all this other stuff. And I was like, Miss Glenda, if you need somebody to go to the hospital with you, I'll go. Like I'm gonna have Trista. She can drive my truck. Yeah. I'll go with you. So I spent I ended up spending all day in the hospital with her. Got to know one of our our Sunday school directors really, really well. Luckily she and sh and she had a heart thing going on, but she got out The other day, yesterday, day before yesterday, she finally got out and was able come home. and luckily we did get her the medical attention that she needed. But everything we did that day, we watched. We we sat in the in the in the hospital room just talking. Talking about God, watching sermons, just talking about stuff with church, like different stuff how we can try to figure out how to help church, how to serve a little bit better. And it was just really good conversation, but the focus was there. Yeah, and that's what you gotta do, right? again, we we're not here to do nothing, right? We're you're you you use the Sabbath. and In in in the modern run as fast as you can world, right? it's hard to do it's hard to say, hey, I'm gonna sit down and do nothing on Sundays. Right. Yeah. It's not nothing. I don't think I'm But I don't think it's nothing, right? Like yeah, like I agree with you, right? You could do it the Sabbath is what is how you rest in him. Mm-hmm. Right. purposely and intentionally. Yeah. And and I'll be honest, I have I have found Doing it on Sundays is great. Mm-hmm. Doing it for an hour every day. yeah. Is is pretty awesome, right? yeah. just my I mean, my thirty minute commute to work. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, I I think I've told you when I get to work, I I do a devotional in parking lot and just take some time to Right. Mm-hmm. and then I just sit there quietly and just listen. Which is hard for me, 'cause I'm an extrovert. Everybody knows anybody listening to this show knows that. Anybody that knows me No, you don't listen a lot, you got bad hearing. that's true, too. but it's hard for me to just sit and be quiet and be still. and I just think that's that's something that we gotta take time to do. So like he's saying here, right, is is he put he put the man, he put Adam right in the garden to work the garden. Right. And then the next verse is where he talks about but it goes into the tree. You had everything you needed for sustenance in the tree in in the rest of the garden. Just Adam had one rule. Yeah. Don't touch that one. Because when you learn I don't even think it was about the y yeah, don't touch the thing. Keep your hands off the thing, kid. We're we're he he literally said, I'm going in the store, you can don't touch anything when we get to the register. Yeah, I know. Listen, man, I got a four-year-old. All right. Yeah, Teddy's wild. Don't slam doors. Immediately slams the door. Sorry, Dad. Like dang. But in in But in that disobedience is where death and what doing something that is not to what God said to do is like the disobedience is what introduced that. Like di at that point, I think that that this is me thinking. I not a theologian or nothing like that, this is me thinking. I think at that point that's where the eternity stopped. That's where you put yourself on a timeline and you put humanity on a timeline for what And and God warned warned us of it right there, for you will surely die. And it's not just that you will you will die, it's like there's gonna you could have existed outside of what we know as time on a linear scale. Mm-hmm. You could have existed there in eternity. But now I he took it on himself to make a way for us to be back to him in eternity through Jesus. yeah. And from the beginning the cross was the plan. Like there's Yeah. There's o there's plenty of other stuff. He did. Our our guest today has a bunch of Like he's real big into prophecy. I love that's why I love hearing about it. Like you know, you get fresh people that are fresh into faith and they like want to end times and everything, we're Apocalypse now. That's what I'm talking about. Well so, you know, we look at the the two verses in Ecclesiastes. Yeah. I'm gonna split these. I can go ahead and read if you want, man. Go ahead. So we're in Ecclesiastes chapter three, verses twelve and thirteen. I know that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor. It is the gift of God. So when I started looking over this, right, like when you sent it to me last week, I'll be honest, I it's kinda torn, right? I You know, the last episode we talked about, you know, the the the modern church sugarcoating things, right? And and and kind of being a little weak, right? and one of the things that we that we see a lot of is, you know, come to our church and God's gonna make you wealthy and he's gonna make you you know what I mean? Everything's gonna be great. It is not. It's definitely not, right? Because it sucks. Because it says here though, right, that That we're gonna enjoy the good of our labor. That doesn't mean we're gonna make a million dollars. That means we're gonna enjoy like it's just like the garden, right? What I man, I am so excited every year, every year with that first little tiny little cherry tomato, right? Dude, that thing pops up and it turns like it's still like eighty percent green. I'm like, don't care, we're pulling it off, we're eating it right now. A little cherry tomato. You you're gonna get 700 more. Yeah, exactly, right. And then two weeks later, Katie's yelling at me because you can't fit any more cherry tomatoes on our kitchen, right? But but we should rejoice in the labors that God provides us. And the last part of that the last part of those verses, this is God's gift to man. Yeah, because God provides us these labors, right? God gives us the ability. I mean, I look back at my military career, right? And I and I had stepped away, and we've talked about Right, I had stepped away from my faith, right? But God gave me the chance to go out and do some amazing things, right? And be part of some amazing things and meet some amazing people. And all that's a gift from Him, right? Even the hard times, right? The you know, the two o'clock in the morning living in a hole, you know, staring out across the Afghani desert, right? Like You're chasing a fox with an rap because you ain't got nothing else to do. Yeah, right. Like I mean, but like those times were rough. They were hard. Yeah. But man, look at what God's look at what God's done through those times so in us. I got a f I got a funny story. I think we're gonna have to finish after this so we can get Sam in here. And it this is I I got a funny story that just happened to me the other day. not to me, but it was I I was able to speak with a friend of mine from from Norway. core. Yeah. now me and him talk regularly. it's usually just like, hey man, how are you doing? His wife has had some recent bounce with cancer and stuff like that. They've been kind of going going through some stuff. But he He was he was a guy that like he ran he went to college before, but he never officially got a degree because he changed degree pass like two or three times, I think. Four years of college he only got one one degree credit. No, after we got after we got out, he went and finished. Yeah. And but he ran out of money and his dad's like, I'm just not paying for you. So he was like one of the older guys. He was our he was one of the older guys that we had that was like twenty one when we were all like or he like twenty, twenty one, we were all seventeen, eighteen years old. yeah. but he He was very, very analytical, stuff very very nerdy. so so am I. But I he's a lot more nerdy than me. great guy. But he we talk all the time. We talk on on through Discord and stuff like that. And I'll jump in and see what kind of video games him and their p him and his buddies are playing and stuff like that. And he I was reading my discussion post for the class, one of the classes that I'm in. Yeah. where I was trying to like the prompt for it so I can like type it up. And he calls me on Discord. Like on a personal one to one call on Discord and I'm like, all right, this is weird. He's gotta be he'd probably done thrown a few back. So something something's going on here. Yeah. Yeah. And We get to talk and long story short short, this man t basically tells me that he's having a crisis of faith. He's never been big into faith. He's like basically given up on God after some stuff that happened. Yeah in Afghanistan and like some of the other s some of the way he was treated then, some of the way 'cause he wasn't the most fit person in the world. You know, if you're not the most fit in the Marine Corps, you're automatically a target. And he he was like, I didn't see he's like, There's things that happened because of that, like 15, 20 years later now, I'm he's like, I've had so many coincidences that I cannot call any of this a coincidence. And I'm like, Yeah, man, like I I'm telling you. It so what I honestly, like I'm taking an introduction to apologetics class right now. so like I kind of took it as a moment to be like, hey, well, what about this like trying to do an apologetics argument? That's not what he needed. Yeah. He didn't need that. He just wanted to be he 'cause we were talking it ended up to tell you the kind of stuff that this dude's into, we got into a little bit of a talk about the like theoretical thermodynamics of the universe before the Big Bang. Okay. So like just Are you sure you don't some of the scientists I'll never mind some of the people I work with are Yeah. Well me and him we were talking and then he's like, Dude, dude, be we got past that and he's like, Alright, I'm dude I'm not saying nothing he's like, I've I've done a little bit of like the scientific study on that stuff. He's like, But that's not what I'm talking about. Like he's like, I'm s I'm agreeing with you, I'm not arguing with you on that point, but I've just seen there are way too many coincidences for this for in my life alone for it not to be intelligently designed. He's like the map I was like, yes, a mathematical improbability. He's like a mathematical impossibility that exact numbers of money of what we would need for things come and pop up for funds with the surgery. they had a freaking tree fell in their car, like out of nowhere after we got back from a visit with them. Just random tree. Just fell in their car. So they were saving up money to get that, and then they had a bunch of other stuff happen. But it's And was like, you have I was like, man, I want you to understand something. One of the biggest graces that we have is the ability to have hindsight, to be able to like I'm letting you know that like God is gonna keep pulling at you if you if you wanna lean into this, he's gonna keep pulling at you. And you if you lean into it, it's gonna you're gonna start to see it more and more. Yeah. You're gonna be able to look back and see all the you're gonna be like, hey man, I laid a a brick road for a path my whole life. I I built this brick by brick. I put this path down. And then you look back and you're like, I a couple gold bricks here that are changing my direction. he handed me he handed me the gold. And Yeah. So it it and I was like, but now now that you know that and see that, you're gonna I said if you start intentionally looking for it, you're gonna wonder where those gold bricks are going to be coming from later. You gotta look you're gonna look forward to when things come for you. And you also know that the path is gonna get hard. And in that, you're gonna have you're gonna be able to have peace. I said, but just no that it's not taking away anything. It's not taking away the difficult journey of life that we have. It's just Be intentional about it, man. I mean, he says it here in Ecclesiastes, right? Yeah. Enjoy the good of all his labor. Right? Is it hard sometimes? Absolutely. Is it worth it? Duh. So much more. Right now, every day. When we reach when we reach eternity, day. Full realization. Yeah, a hundred percent. Alright, man, I think we're ready to I think so. Are you ready? I'm ready. Alright, man, I'm gonna We're gonna we're gonna introduce our guest here. I'll let you take it on. So joining us today, we have our second guest, He's a godly man that I'm going to do my best to introduce. He served 35 plus years in the United States Army National Guard in both Missouri and South Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. During his time in the Guard, he served in multiple communication roles, deployed to Afghanistan and Panama. He currently attends our church at Long Branch Baptist Church in Williston. I don't know if it's a Williston or a Barnwell address, but it's down there. And it's my pleasure to introduce my good friend and a guy that I genuinely look up to. too whether he knows it or not. Sam Fullerton. Hey buddy. Great to see you, bud. Yeah man. Thanks for coming on there. Appreciate it. I'm gonna let you squeeze in and then we're gonna put you in the hot seat. Put me in the hot seat. I like that shirt by the way. thank you. Appreciate it. He will come to church wearing full American Eagle. I almost debate whether he got them from the the the dad section in Walmart. So so I gotta tell you something that's kinda funny. I excuse me, I I just ordered some shirts. I'm a big fan of the Red Friday thing. The Remember Glory Friday. Yeah. And I've got a shirt, my little guy, my four year old, he's got a a Red Friday shirt. Well my two older kids had asked for one too. and so I ordered one. for each of them. and it's funny 'cause my older kids are twins, but James is in that weird he's in that weird like adult small, like too big for a kid's large, but not quite you know what I mean? In that weird size. He's lengthy name, bro. He's he's stretched out. Well that's what it is. And it's 'cause he spent so much time lifting with me, but can't you tell me? Not your brother. And he's lifted almost as much as I am now. Don't shake your head back there. He's better shaking his head. But anyway, so I ordered these two shirts and one for Nora because she's still in the the kid's large. Well they come in and I also ordered a I ordered a Sword of the Spirit shirt from the same company, right? I was like You know, one of those like you spend eighty dollars to get free shipping and shipping. Yes. You know they scan listen, it's a scam, but it's worth it. Stay on the website if you need to hear. So I get this shirt. I'll pull it out. They got the shirt for me. And I pull this shirt out and I just put it on. And I was like, like a can of busted biscuits, right? Pull it out. And they had shipped me an adult small. So needless to say, James has a new shirt. And I don't. James has a little bit less muffin. Yeah, yeah. James doesn't like a can of busted biscuits like I do. All right. Well Sam welcome man. Well thank you. Appreciate y'all having me here. So this is my good friend Mr. and I I'm this is the first time I'm ever actually hearing your first name. Your first name's really Harold? Yes it is. Okay. And it's actually spelled H-E-R-A-L-D. Like you're heralding something, not Yes. Okay. That's that's funny. not just funny. It's funny that I've never like knew that. I would not have pictured you as a herald. Don't don't feel bad. I mean my mom knew me as Harold all through school, and she always wanted to change it also. And as soon as I graduated, it was like, no, I'm changing it to Sam. Okay. So like anybody that knows me, you know, from from a long time when I was back in school and everything like that knows me as Sam. Harold and it took my mom forever to get used to hey his name's Sam now. So it really messes with her. Yeah. Also didn't know that you used to have a mustache. That was a weird fine too. Mustache, goatee, beard, long hair, you name it. I I really long hair. You gotta remember I I grew We were talking at lunch and he's had a he he's had a wild past. you know. I joined the military in eighty one. I mean that's they probably didn't have barbers in Missouri, did they? Well we had barbers. You had to go to like the next state over to get a haircut? It wasn't quite that. Listen man I showed up at Fort at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Yeah, they probably loved you. They loved me. yeah. Yeah, it like, we're gonna have fun with you. Man. You didn't shave it before you went? no. Man, we had we had a kid who shaved his head. I did. You d you were that guy too? Well so I did it for a different reason? I I a couple like the weekend of graduation I was going to and a nerd convention, an anime convention in North Carolina. And I was cosplay I was cosplaying as Agent forty seven, the hit from the Hitman games, and he's bald, so I just shaved my head. Does not change the fact that they will shift gears on your head like a fast and furious movie with that razor. It is they will get they will get hair off of that head somewhere. Hair or skin. Or both. Or both. so from Missouri? Correct. Alright. Joplin. for real? I was supposed to go place. A little suburb outside of Joplin called Diamond. Diamond? Diamond, Missouri. Okay. Okay. born in California. Yeah, born in California. you know. How'd you go from California to I really don't know, you know, I was very young then, so before this was pre toddler type. Yeah, okay. So you were So born in California but pretty much raised in in Missouri. I spent Bulk of my time in Missouri until I moved down here. What did your parents do while you were? A little bit of everything. A little bit of everything? Yeah, mom work nights. my dad was one of these I guess you'd say claimed to fame of just anything, jack Jack of all trades. Jack of traits? Yeah. That sounds familiar. That's kind of what I've become. So joined the National Guard in eighty one. in Missouri though? Or yeah, Missouri National Guard. Missouri National Guard. And then Through job stuff transferred down here or basically got out of the guard for a while towards the end of the nineties. And when I got back down here, joined back in shortly after 9-11. back into the South Carolina. So there you know, if you do the math and everything, there's like forty-two years there. Okay. Yeah. But I only had like thirty-five years of actual service because of the breaking service. Okay. So Man, I was looking some of your some of your MOSs here. They go back to some old ones. I love it. Obsolete, obsolete, obsolete. Obsolete, obsolete. so you were a wire dog? I started out as a what they call a 36 kilo wire dog, which was the original wire dog climb poles, the whole line yards did AIT down here in Fort Gordon. But you know that the Marine Corps just got rid of wire dogs like what like five years ago, six years ago. And the army still had them, but they don't climb poles. They're the guys that just run the wire. Yeah, ours don't climb poles anymore either. Yeah. But started out as a wire dog, went from that to a rat rig operator back when we was doing the what is that? an old one six tile radio. Okay. So did that for a while and then Transferred it from that into being a radio mechanic. That's where I got spent some time at Fort Seal, Oklahoma. Good old Fort Seal, Oklahoma. About 27 weeks down there learning all the mechanics portion of it. And went from that when I got down here to South Carolina, had the opportunity to become a combat engineer. Okay. So become a combat engineer, 12 Bravo. And from that went on to what's referred to most what's referred to as E. Explosives ordinance clearing agents. In other words, I did ra I did route clearance. Okay. And I was the person that if you didn't have EOD there, I could go out and I couldn't render safe. Yeah. So we could we was certified to identify it and blow it place. And blow it place. Yeah. Okay. man, I work a lot of route. We we work with route clearance platoon. those poor guys, man. I was gonna ask him about his the story that you told me or that you've told us a couple of times at Sunday school. which will with your divine intervention. Yeah, I actually had one time I we would we would we did dismount, a lot of dismount because you know we never run Eight kilometers an hour was us running high speed. yeah. so but we would dismount groups and everything and what we was looking for was pretty much the trigger van. Yeah. And I was coming down off of a hill one time. And as you was coming down off this hill, you're you're going at a rate that you know you really can't stop. Mm-hmm. And one step was a click down. Yeah. And a click down. Especially guest dogs. And pretty much I didn't know she was going. During that whole time my whole my whole life passed in front of my eyes, you know, 'cause I was like, What's the click down? And I can't stop, it's gonna click up. Yeah. Didn't have time to go back and investigate it or anything like that, but you know, I I was just Well, whatever it was, in harmony. Yeah, yeah. Man, that's wild. So I actually found an IED on my last combat patrol in Afghanistan. we were left seat, right seating it like I like my relief was there, right? Like it's like me and eight of my dudes and and a platoon of you know what I mean, the people that are relieving us up. There's like none of us. And it was a local that would only talk to me. And so I we had gone to his house just so I could introduce him to the guy replacing me and like, hey, you can trust this dude. And he's like, that's great, man. I'll I'll trust him. can you go check my field? The Taliban was out here yesterday. I'm like, dude, are you serious? And here I am. I said we very first one, because I said we usually ran around in what was referred to as a buffalo. Yeah. I can I always thought the buffalo was just super super safe and never thought anything about it. until one time we was investigating an IED and the EOD guy that was standing between me and my driver is he's just like totally freaking out, nervous wise. I can't believe that you get so close and you're right on top of it because you know, I wanted mine right off of that right front wheel to where I could fully investigate it and I'm like, Well, I'm making EOD nervous, so I gotta be doing something right. Man, I I used to we we I'd be out with some EOD guys. See, well so I'm a print out a leather guy. And so like I learned the old school EOD folks and the new EOD guys, like the old EOD guys were a little more I think the confident is maybe the right word. They also didn't have IEDs blowing up every twelve, so that can flight the newer ones too, right? So like I get it. but I had this Master Guns EOD tech with the the British called in an IED, a suspected IED, and they gave us a four digit grid. Like good looking out, guys, thanks. Couldn't be any more specific. Wow. Thousand I was like that's what, a hundred mile or a thousand by a thousand meter box, yeah. And they're like, hey, this is our suspected and I'm an artillery guy, we're doing a provisional infantry mission at this point, right? We're so we get to have some escort and C O D team out there, and we get like halfway there and I'm like, Hey, wait a minute, what's the link up point? Right? So I call back to my head shed and they're like, We don't have a link up point. Like, what do you mean? They're like, the British are back inside the wire. I'm like, they didn't like cording off the area and no, they saw it and called it in and It's up to you now. Kept on around. Man, so we get out there close, we get out, I'm talking to the COD guy. I'm like, look, dude, I'm like, it's gonna take us hours to search this thousand meter by thousand meter box. Like, we're and he's like, dude, he's like, I can do what I got time for that. So we swept up on a hill so we could see, right? And just by pure dumb luck, we could see it. And you know, D guy goes down there, and it was a wheelbarrow wheel. Will barrel wheel Wow. I mean you gotta be thankful that it wasn't nothing serious. yeah, yeah, but dude, we spent like six hours out here trying to searching this off for a wheelbarrow wheel. Man, I was so mad. I got back in the wire to call my British counterpart. I was like, dude, what? Come on, man. Yeah, so man, what is what is Oregon E? Oregon E was a thob. Okay. Where at? What's it near? We was basically Oregon was still at about the s the seventy five hundred foot of elevation. Okay. it was located down near outside of Sharana. Okay. If you remember Sharana. A lot of people were familiar with Sharon. A a little bit. Organy I think they shut Oregone down around two thousand thirteen. Sharana. But it allowed us to basically run most of eastern Afghanistan all the way to Pakistan. Okay, yeah. So I I was looking at your year here and you and I were in Afghanistan at the same time. I was in but I was at Leatherneck. You were in my area. Yeah, yeah. Well RC South is where we were at, yeah. Yeah. That's It was funny 'cause when he was on Leatherneck or you were you were on Leatherneck in nine or beginning of nine. No, maybe the end of O nine. Yeah nine. Yeah, 'cause we went in two thousand ten. Yeah, yeah, we just missed each other yet. Yeah, so the guy that had the opium field I remember us talking about. yeah. The the opium field right outside the base. The conveniently marked K J B Portigons. Yeah. or KGB ported down or whatever. That guy. His trip. Yeah, on the ghoul. Yeah, so man, yeah, so we man, we were in same same time. so I see I I see you you went to Bogram. Yeah, my second deployment I spent all of it pretty much in Bogram. like I said, I had a lot of communication, so I had all this and by that time I'd reached the point my rank and everything like that that I was basically the NCOIC for communications over a tactical operation center. That's man, so did they have the did they have the chilies when you were at Bongro? The Chili's. The Chili's restaurant? They had a Chili's in Bongro, not not that I was it a Chili's or was it a T GI Fridays. Was it yeah it was a T GI Fridays. Yeah, T GI Fridays when you were at Boggle? No. Maybe I remember was Green Bean. Green bean? dude. Gotta have green bean coffee. Listen, man. Nothing here matches green bean coffee. That's absolutely correct. yeah. So it just those two deployments? Okay. What other kind of interesting stories do you got? Because I see something about a training exercise down in Panama. Yeah, we basically, what was it? 1985, got sent down to Panama with a call. I believe it was called the Azilean Peninsula. But we was down there with the Missouri National Guard and we were down there building roads. really? basically and and to get there was you know we flew into the our airbase that we had at the point in time there at the in Panama City and then you took a bus out to the mountainside that you then got on a what what you would call a a watermelon truck and you spent about six hours on a watermelon truck going over to the west coast to where they would put you on a landing craft and boat you around to the bottom of the Azalean Peninsula. and la and land you on the beach. It was That just sounds like a lot of like you spend more time being transporter than you did actually probably working. A lot a lot of work and a lot of transportation. but like I said it spent mo it was it was a good deployment. How long was that? That was j that was just a a a three week tour. okay, okay. I think James is Parish upper school jumping out of airplanes, perfectly good ones, as Gillian likes to say. Yeah, spent some time yeah, one of the things that I got The opportunity, I guess you would say, was presented to me to go to jump school. Called it the opportunity. Well it I wanted to do it. You know, I just made for sure that I wasn't the first man in the chalk. I was explaining to Justin that that I always wanted to be further back in the chalk. 'Cause as long I would just keep my guy my my eyes on the jump master and that static line and then turn and jump before my mind realized what I was doing. Yeah. Did you ever do hearse master or hearse like spy rig and stuff like that? No. I had an opportunity to go to that school and said, nah, I'm good. I will keep my feet on the ground. I like that. I think that So I'm not picking at you by the age, right? That's that's fine. But we were talking I know we were talking about lunch and you talking about us. how old were you when you won the best warrior thing? Yeah, I w yeah, I I actually had that highlighted about this warrior thing. Well it's actually this is a funny song. They used to the National Guard and everything p participates in it. It goes all the way up through the you know, to the through the army and everything like that. And it used to be called Soldier of the Year. Yeah. For enlisted. And it was sold NCO of the year for non commissioned. And they had both of those. I think it started changing to the Team Warrior Competition. Yeah. around twenty Two thousand eighteen, two thousand nineteen, somewhere in there. But in two thousand nine they they said I'd come down here and and basically because of just moving back into the South Carolina Army National Guard, they demoted me down to an E four. wow. Yeah. So basically Well that's how I enlisted him. So here I was as a specialist and they decided, well, you know, I think in two thousand and four I was forty-two years old. let's send him to the soldier of the year competition. Okay. So I went through the company wide, battalion wide, and then they was like, well right, we're gonna send you the state. Okay. And lo and behold, I I won the state competition. And I don't think anybody expected it. Is this like athletics and it's a two-day event. yeah. So it starts off with full blown PT test, you have the firing, basically your firing, you have ruck march, you have a a list of about twelve different events that you got to make for sure. Then you have a board with about six sergeant majors that are on the board gonna have to But they didn't expect me to win it and then I got sent off to the division. I came in third at the division that year. Turn around the next year And because of doing so well and all of that, they promoted me to a back to being a sergeant. So they decided, well heck, you know, let's send him again. And lo and behold, I won again. So I was sending So you get promoted again? yes it is. Yes. So basically it's sort of funny because like from two thousand and nine to a deployment in in two thousand and eleven We started getting ready for 2013 deployment. I made I made it from E four to E seven. Dang, E seven moving. So I think man, the National Guard cracks me up though, because like National Guard they think nothing of a 40-year-old specialist. No. Right, that's like a really good comment. so I got relieved by a National Guard unit in Iraq in 2005-ish, right? And this army paladin right pulls up beside my my self-capelled cannon, because what Marines do. And the driver hops out and he's a like a 40-year-old specialist. And here I am, a 21-year-old corporal who turned 21 on the deployment, by the way. So I'm the 21-year-old corporal section chief, you know, my cannon. yeah, and he's a forty year old specialist and I don't wanna say just a driver, because driver's important, but like in the you know what I mean? Like I'm the section chief. I've got a whole gun crew that works for me, right? And he's Yep. And it I was like, how old are you, Van? And This was like the this is the Mississippi National Guard. That guy had the biggest chew of tobacco I have ever seen in my life in his mouth. I mean he's carrying a saw like a huge chew of tobacco. I'm like, man, listen man, I don't believe in stereotyping people, but come on, man. I can't say a whole lot. Two deployments I lived on Twizzlers and Copenhagen. well. Yeah, or And rippets. Man, you know Dollar Tree still sells rippets. They do still sell. You can rippets at Dollar Tree. Yeah. I went and w we did our we went with a couple buddies from the Marine Corps, a little gathering for guys that I haven't seen in ten, fifteen years last year for Marine Corps birthday. Stopped by the Dollar Tree and I was like they got they got the sugar free blue ones and the yellow and black ones. Yeah, but my favorite were red cab rippets. Yeah the red tab ripped. You did? a big blueberry pomegranate. Well, no, I like the orange ones. The orange ones are delicious. The orange ones are delicious. One of my co-workers took Morty the other day and he's like, hey man, have you heard of these things? He had two rippets in his hand and I was like, yes. And he's like, you don't know what you're doing to me? And he's like, do you want them? And I was like, sure. And so we stuck them in the fridge and dude I was dying that evening. I was like, I'm so I was so tired. I was like, I'm gonna go ahead and get one of them rippets. I and it was the big can too. I got like halfway through it. I was like, I can't wait, I can't believe I used to drink these things. They're so sugary. Yeah. It was the red power rippet. And I was like, dude, I used to They used to house like ten of these things like Yeah. That was currency for a while. That was like prison currency with rippet. Between you know, between Copenhagen and Rippetz, yeah, that that's So we flew, I did this crazy op with a route clearance platoon. So we got attached to a route clearance platoon. It was weird. Or a route clearance company. We flew from from Camp Leatherneck or what was it, Bastion? Camp Bastion to Kandahar. now keep in mind, so I was in Kandahar, I I celebrated New Year's in Kandahar in two thousand one and two. So like December thousand one and the January two thousand two, I was in Kandahar and it was my battalion landing team dug into a perimeter around the airfield, right? And then I go back in two thousand nine or ten, nine I think. we fly over It's like a small city by the way. Dude, they had the boardwalk with like volleyball courts and and the TGI Fridays. I was like, what in the world? But do you know what they also had? Cases and cases and cases of rippets. And here we are, we flew in, loaded like 40 MRAPs or something like that that had come in, and we were driving them back to Camp Leatherdeck for different units, right? And So like in my truck, I had more people in my truck than any other truck, and that's just because I had the Corman. Yeah. and so it's me, my driver, my gunner, and a corman in an MRAP, a full blown MRAP. All the other MRAPs only have, you know, a driver, a gunner, and a vehicle commander, right? Right. at least for my platoon. And then the the route clearance platoon that we were attached to. they had their full covenant of dismounts and because they were clear routes too. and I felt terrible because like you said earlier, like eight miles an hour is like light speed. Well it's not it's not only just that. You know, all your route clearances is running primarily with a buffalo. yeah. Or or a cougar. Yeah. One or the other. Yeah. And and the thing of it is those vehicle commanders, we got stuck with what we called all of the basically the combat badge hunters. People that they you know, I'm gonna stick my s I wanna go out on a mission and I hope that something happens because I'm after my combat badge. Yeah. And I'm gonna stick myself in the safest vehicle we got. So we had cab hunters that was always So we take off. This is so funny. So we're going yeah, can I I yeah, I just talked about. And and we're rolling but as an artillery unit, right? Like what we're used to is I'm rolling down the road If it doesn't prevent me from getting from point A to point B, I'm just gonna keep going. Right. Right. because in the grand scheme of things, like they that's not my job, right? My job is to get where I'm going and do what I gotta do, right? So our mission is to drive all these things here. So we take off and we're creeping, man, through like downtown Kandahar at like one o'clock in the morning. It's miserable, right? I'm like, why are we going so slow? but I've got every seat in the back of my in-wrap is stacked with the ribbons. Could you imagine the rage that would happen if like let's just say like you ran over an IED on accident and it will it only took out the ribbon portion? Dude, my poor streak of vengeance that would come up my poor Doc is sitting back here and and we had and we had like two cases that we had put in a cooler and Doc was basically the rippet distributor, right? As we're driving. You know what? Honestly, that's fair, medical rations. Dude, the the the our machine gunner, right? I mean he's up here with the machine gun. If he just puts his hand down into the truck, Doc's like, reload. And every one of our vehicles, we I mean Marines get second hand, like the National Guard gets second hand from the regular army, and then we get second hand from the National Guard. Like that's the way it was my whole career. Yeah. And so, like, I was like, dude, I've never seen so many like rippets and monsters and like just canned sodas and just like I've never seen this much stuff in one place in my life. And so I mean we we loaded all of our trucks there like to the brim. We didn't want to take off down the road and every little thing that even looked remotely suspicious, these rock clearance guys would stop. They have precious cargo, man. They're like, We gotta investigate. I'm like, guys, bro, you don't like I know what you normally do. Like I do. I know what you normally do for a living. But we're not clearing her out right now. Let's Well it c it could be it could be worse. I mean, 'cause we we investigated a lot. Of course we want to keep everybody safe, but usually we was, you know, like I said, the tip of the spear behind, you know, a a convoy of eighteen wheelers. And the last thing you wanna be doing is going through some of those passes as we would call them and waddies and have somebody in the last eighteen wheeler call something up to have investigated and you're at the very front and you gotta find your way all the way. Yeah to the back. So it was it was challenging, very challenging. Man, so you had the jingle trucks. Lots and lots of jingle trucks. It's been a long time since I've heard that term. I made that comment. We talked about this last time. Yeah, yeah. I made that comment at work the other day and somebody was like, A jingle truck? What's a jingle truck? And was like, Hold on a minute, I Googled that popped up and you're like, very well. yeah. And let it sit and burn all all night. So I'd keep that truck warm. yeah. yeah. Yeah. Have you ever had the sur you ever had the surf jingle trucks? Yeah. So the We did that a bun or a couple times having to search the the con the cause they had the third country nationals or the the local nationals that would come and help build the Bastion flight line. 'Cause that was what we were doing we did a lot of like driving in circles, protecting the flight line with the Bridgeport Air Force on Bastion. Like when we the couple like security convoys that we got to do for the supply unit that we were attached to. and I only got to do one of I think no, I got to do two, I think. Yeah. Nothing happened on them. literally just nothing. My deployment was like kinda boring, honestly. Like we sat there for a month and a half not doing anything. They were about to contemplate to send us back. so but in any jingle truck thing. We were working there was a civilian contractor that had the contract to help be security for the local nationals and he was in charge of that so he would he's like, Hey man, if y'all need to do whatever to secure these guys that are coming in he's like, they sneak stuff in all the time. Come help us out. And we were like, cool. So we were kind of doing traffic stops with Humvees and Like jingle trucks if they would come by. But one of the funniest things I seen was the British ECP, the British Royal Air Force ECP that they had on Bastion. Mm-hmm. when the jingle trucks would come in and they brought their EOD dog out, like I used to see in their German Shepherds and stuff. but I saw them one time they had this little dog that had the whole chest rig on, it was a little cocker spaniel, and apparently she was the one that would sniff the bombs up top, or she would sniff stuff up top. They took this dog and just chuck her up in the And I'm like, well that makes sense. And whoever was Catching her? Like but he grabbed dog by the handle and threw her up there and she just So I had to work like she just going. I had to work that ECP for Two weeks. You we set off the IDF alarm out there for teaching the Brits how to light a fire? That's funny. They I had one of my guys so we would do the soak lot. So the British you ever work with the British? Yes I did. Yeah, did you do it with their soak lot theory? No craziest thing ever. So the Soak Lot theory, what they thought that they they would take these jingle trucks 'cause these we're hired like Pakistani drivers to drive supplies up to Can't blow the deck, right? And their theory was is that if they sat in a soak lot off base for twenty-four hours, that did if they wouldn't blow up. If they were gonna blow up, they would do it during that 24 hours, right? Because after that 24 hours, they would either chicken out or right? Like that was the theory. And to be honest with you, it worked pretty good. We only had one IED go off out there. But I was gonna say I'm pretty sure we had it, we had a couple for that little soak clock area. Yeah, we only had one. We had one IED go off in a soak clock. and it wasn't even a jingle truck driver, it was some little random schmuck. So those random schmucks were all guys that were waiting to get a job on that local national part for part for or part for working that, they would go with that contracting company, they be a line of people that would just wait. They're like day workers. Yeah, they were just dayworkers that would get a job and they'd come in, have a place to sleep. We've we found a little bit of like black tar heroin and hash and a couple other stuff like searching did you ever go through this did you ever go through their so they had so this soak lot right so basically because the British were making these truckers sit out here for 24 hours a little village like popped up beside it. Mm-hmm. You know little restaurant little you know what mean and it was man it was shady dude we had to go out there go part of our AO, so we'd have to go out there and like at like nine o'clock at night, you're going into like this little hut that they've built. It ain't even like a real mud hut either. It's just like like cardboard boxes and like it's I don't know. It's a a Tan City in Atlanta. Yeah is what it really was wild. But yeah so the British had this crazy philosophy that they had to sit out there for twenty four hours. And then every day Somebody would leave the wire, they go out to the soak lot, and they've got a list of what trucks checked in yesterday and that are allowed to come on base today, right? Well, these guys don't get paid until they make their delivery. So when you roll out there, I mean it is like a fight to who gets in the front of the line. To in their light. I mean their right. And so First I was like, dude, it's out of control. I got this British this British Lance Corporal, which like their version of like a sergeant, right? Mm-hmm. he's out here and he's cussing them and he's like, this guy cracked me up. So he gets them all lined up. But then once he gives them their papers to get on base, dude, they make a dead sprint back to their trucks. Because they know, I mean, it takes I mean, it takes it would take six or seven hours. to get all those trucks searched to get them on base, right? And they knew that if they were at the back of that line, they would be there another they would be in their basement another day. Right? So that means as soon as he handed out the last paper, dude, we had to beat them back onto the base. Because if we didn't, we'd get stuck, right? So we come to the truck, we take off. We're I mean we're flying. Here's the ECF and they see us coming, they open we come in, right? Soon as we stop, all four of the doors in the Humvee in front of me just come flying open and you just see Marines like fall out of it, right? Like, what the heck is going on? They had mounted whoever did the mod on that Hum V Yeah, w what were they called? The E CMs, the electronic countermeasures. You remember the they had mounted the E C switch right beside the fire extinguisher switch. gosh. Somebody hit the wrong one. And instead of flipping the E C off, they flip the fire extinguisher off. The whole cabin is treasure. You don't get that smell out. You can't taste it. So bad. The only thing worse than that happening was the guy that got stuck with writing the paperwork up on all of that. well, dude. I was like, gosh, I felt so bad for him. I was like, I actually called back to our headquarters and was like, hey man, how did you send me another team because I'm gonna send these guys back? They're like, what happened? Don't worry about it. We'll talk about it later. Yeah, I'll tell you when I get home. Okay. Got a big bunch of the meat and potatoes of some of your military service. Anything else you wanna talk about on that part? I'm gonna ask you you what what do you what do you want to tell us? Anything we missed on it? No, not really. I mean, like I said, I've been I've always been blessed that I had a I had a long military service. I always considered myself to be in the right place at the right time. Mm-hmm. So, Yeah. You know, I did s I said I've been there in in and in that time point in time I was one that always volunteered for everything. Yeah. So yeah, I did a lot. Okay. Well let's dive into the the the meat and potatoes of why we're here and get a little bit of a testimony about your faith and how you came to it. I mean obviously me and you go to the same church. You're in my Sunday school class. You're like one of the the military thing is like one of the reasons we kind of connected first off. Like our pastor teaches our Sunday school class. then then not long ago y'all just got done doing a bible study before the Sunday service on the book of Revelation. So would you be in I know you said you had a big interest in prophecy and different stuff about that, all not just Revelation, but all throughout the Bible. But during that Bible study that I went to that one time, I remember you handed me a binder for like all the stuff. He did like a hundred and something PowerPoint slide of going with the Revelation. One of them all also. But yeah, I got I I do a lot on on end of times prophecies and stuff like that. Do a lot of studying not just the book of Revelation, but the book of Ez Ezekiel, Daniel, every quite a few other books first and second Thessalonians. So let's get a little bit into your faith journey. I see that you had a church in a First Baptist church. Is that in Missouri where you I was fortunate enough that I was raised in a in in a in a church going family. Okay. So I accepted Christ at at a very early age. not gonna say too early because I don't think there's no such thing as accepting him at too early. But then got into my teenage years and became your typical teenager. And had a lot of fun. and a lot of a lot of tur a lot of turmoil just went into the military, one of these you name it, I tried to do it type of things. really got away from my faith a lot. you know, a lot of people sit there and talk about when you go into war and stuff like that that you know there's there's no such thing as an atheist an atheist in a foxhole. And and I firmly believe that. People will find it will find God in some of the in in in in some of those traumatic events. But then for those there's a lot of us that had faith and we didn't practice our faith and keep our eyes on God that we struggled with it during that point in time because we couldn't rationalize why some things happened the way they happened. Yeah. That's very. So had a lot of especially during my first deployment, we lost a few soldiers. and it hit me pretty hard. It took me a lot to get through it. after that deployment, struggled a lot with anger and depression and just things like that. Got to spend a lot of time in the Wounded Warrior Center. So basically I went to a deployment, went to Wounded Warrior Center, got out of Wounded Warrior Center, and went to another deployment. Wounded Warrior Center, I'd like what I learned there was basically how to answer a psychiatrist. Tell them what they want to hear. Tell them what they wanted to hear in order to get you down. However, one of the things that I f I've I've read I think it was what was that 2023, 2022 or twenty somewhere right in there. Yeah. went to a a men's prairie dance. up in Roanoke, Virginia. The one we were talking about earlier. We were talking about that plan on trying to go to January of this coming twenty twenty seven. And was just steamrolled by the Holy Spirit. I mean Something about getting six to eight hundred guys together, you know, in one major church. I mean, the Holy Spirit come across me like I have never ever in my entire life felt. And that was really sort of the start into my my journey of where I'm at now and the passion that I have now for the Lord. Well what what made what what stirred you to want to go to that that prayer or that that prayer event by itself. 'Cause I mean, you said you had faith before and some of it was kinda waning, or going in and out, and a little bit of questioning. So what made Like that one in Roanoke, Virginia. Like why why that one? What stirred you to go there? Like I actually had a I moved my mom down here from Missouri. Okay. All right, shortly before that. Shout out Miss Vicky, I love her. She's awesome. Anyway, from that, the gentleman that I had contracted to build the place that we built behind back behind my house for her to live in, was a gent a gentleman by the name of Jonathan. And Jonathan was a a a big advocate of this men's prayer advance and he basically talked me into going with him. Okay. And because I was going to a church with him at that given point in time. And I went with him. Jonathan, I think the world of Jonathan. He's if ever I I've always told Jonathan, you know, to me he he's like the deacon of deacons. He's just a really great guy. But he took me along to this men's prayer advance and after that Like I said, I just sort of got steamrolled. That was I think it's you know, I think all of us have a point in time to where, you know, God has all of us here to do something. And there's a point in time in our life that it's like He flips that switch for I don't know if it's I'm tired of waiting on you, so therefore you need to do this, or if it's just that given point in time in his in his message and his and his wisdom. But that was my point in time. Yeah. And I think you might be onto something with that, that where it might be like 'cause we don't know or can't we can't fathom the foreknowledge of God. Now the fore God's foreknowledge, I've all I've been a big believer that God's foreknowledge does not negate our free will. Like just because he knows it's the same thing as a doctor. We talked about this last time. If there's a doctor that comes you go to a doctor because you're sick, you're probably gonna die. You know that you're about deathly ill, but you go to the doctor for some kind of help and treatment. The doctor, before he comes in there to talk to you, has done tests, ran everything to get your diagnosis, he knows what's gonna happen. if you don't take the medicine, he knows how bad it is, and you go to him. He knows all this about the entire situation, every detail that he can about the situation to the best of his ability. And he's still gonna come in there and tell you. And when he comes into your life and tells you you got a choice on whether you want to accept the treatment or not. And that's up to you. But it doesn't negate the fact that he knew it before he came in the room. You still got a choice that you can accept it or go on. And now get into some other stuff. You might have people nowadays have religio their own religious convictions about taking medicine from doctors. He might already know going in there that they're probably not gonna accept what he's got to say. Just based on previous conversations with him, especially for long-term treatment plans. Yeah. And some of us are a long-term treatment plan. So Well I know at that given point in time, My treatment plan come to fruition. Yeah. And the beginning of my journey into becoming a better disciple of Christ started. Yeah. That's you know, I said that my my my my my salvation didn't start at that point in time. Yeah. But my journey into becoming a better disciple than Christ started at that point in time. That's good. I think that was a big time like some When we initiated the podcast or we wanted to start talking this, this is something that me and him had like met up with for lunch over the summer. And it was a both of us noticing that there was something going on stirring people and Offline I'll tell you a little bit more about my story. Like it was around same time frame or year where some stuff has started stirring in me. But I didn't start taking it serious 'til Father's Day last year when I came to church with and or when we came to church. And like you said, that's initi there's an initiation point where it's like, all right, time to get up and go. And like since then, not saying everything's been easy by no means. not saying life hasn't lifed for me. Like you you've been there for me for a lot of the the stuff that's gone on this past year. And you and the whole church, our whole church has. Like for a church with a two hundred year old building, it is an awesome group of people. and the that stirring around that same time frame of twenty twenty three and then like the last couple of years, we were saying We noticed that there was a lot of people who get on veteran podcasts and they talk about The VA and the the the their problems with the VA and a misunderstanding. I saw something earlier the other day about the the VA where people peop a lot of people were like, okay, understanding what the VA's purpose is for li and like the d disability rating. Some people were like, All right, well if we call it service compensation or medical compensation for service, because we've like when you were explaining it to me, because I was having qualms about going for a couple an injury or a couple of things that I had had happen or how things had gotten worse from those injuries, It's a it's an understanding that it's not a people hear disability and they think that you can't do nothing. And that's not it. It's the VA's purpose in doing that is like, hey, you came to us probably as a decently in shape, good bodied, eighteen to twenty two year old and anywhere between four to twenty thirty years later, your bro your body's probably not the same. And we are the ones that put you in there. And the way the guy explained it er the other day or yesterday that I saw, he said that it's not like he says you don't have a way to sue the federal government the same way you would as a private employer for injuries that they made you sustain. Like if your job made you get up at six o'clock in the morning and PT and then you you injure yourself at the PT thing, Not because of your own negligence or stupidity. Yeah. Even then you you could probably open up a lawsuit against that private company. Can't do that with the federal government. So this was kind of a way for the medical issues that happen with your body because of the work directly. that's the thing that people misunderstand about it. So and also I did not know that 'cause they had a guy like a one of the big guys up from the VA on the podcast that I was it was a clip from podcast and he was like sixty percent of veteran suicides. are people who have never had contact with the VA. What's up? Like VE has no history with it. So I'm saying that I'm not saying the VA is the best thing in the world because I've had my aggravation with them. My aggravation with everything. My aggravation everything. When they told my granddad after they took his lungs or he had to take he had aged orange stuff and they took part of his lung and then they told him lungs not disabled anymore. Yeah that's what they said. They they sent him a letter that was like hey you don't have cancer anymore that long. He's like I don't have a lung so I don't have missing the bottom portion of my lung. So so you mentioned being invited to the to the to the Bible or to the mince prayer, yeah. it's it it never ceases to amaze me how it never ceases to amaze me how we all have somebody in our lives, right? That that that God put there for us, right? Absolutely. To to push us, right? and that's kinda what when we first started this, what we were ho you know, the the hope is, the prayer is, is that somebody's listening to this or watching us on YouTube or whatever, right? And they're like, Man, maybe I do need to get up and go to church on Sunday morning, right? Maybe I you know, I mean And there's so many different things. It it's just amazing. It it will never cease to amaze me where, especially me, right? I'm not trying to speak for everybody, but man, some of places that I find inspiration with with other people, right? with other Christians, with veterans. It it just it it just it I mean, Daf we've known each other for six years now. Yeah. Yeah, about six years now. and like this this whole thing here just kinda like I mean when I say it came together like Like that it it it did. And and so we were really like, should we do this? And then like every chance that came up for me was like, Yes. Fly the next two we the next two weeks I was like, here's the thing that you need to do it. we don't have equipment. Here's your equipment. So when you said that the you know, you're like, Hey, I was going to a church. And I'll be honest with you, that resonates really deeply with me personally, right? Because I was the same way, man. I was saved at very young age, in a little tiny church. baptizing a creek. Baptizing a crick. crick, not creek. North Carolina Appalachian terminology. but same thing, right? Like like through my service man, like saw and I I just kinda stepped away. Like I and then so the irony is is that towards the end of my service I kinda started getting a little bit more involved, right? Yeah. but Is it I I I've had people in my life where like, hey man, maybe you should come do this And you show up and you're like Man that was like like like God obviously put me here, right? It is so obvious to me that God said I mean we send memes back and forth to each other more than we actually communicate, right? Memes that Facebook videos videos, right? But like I mean just Hey man, let's get you a watch day. Yeah, that's a great idea. And then here we are, what, two months later? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was saying that's that's that's when the I recognized it and the tri and the and the and the trigger tripped with me. the th thing of it is is as he's talking about you, as you recognize, you know, it'll what I look at now is all of the opportunities that God presented me with. prior to that. Yeah. And there were so many people that were w that were you know, fundamental in that. So it wasn't just that, you know, with Jonathan at the men's prayer events, but, you know, during my deployments, my first deployment, a gentleman by the name of Frank. Yeah. You know, to help keep me in line on on certain things and everything like that. And probably helped me keep from things getting worse. Mm-hmm. another b gentleman by the name of Casey that that helped out on that. my second deployment, a captain that I had is by the name of John that really tried to keep me straight, you know was was was really a a great Christian and everything like that that as I look back now I see where there was opportunities presented to me that I missed. Yeah, and we've actually talked about like the the young Marine or the young soldier, right, that was that was grounded in his faith. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like like, you know When I was a young marine, right, I saw it but I didn't see it. Right. And and now when I look back and I'm like, Why do you think you didn't see it? your position looking out the doorway was like you ever you ever did room clearing? Unfortunately. Yes. So your per what you see on your side of the doorway when you're looking through it is totally different than what I see. Through that doorway right there, room clearing, you're gonna see something totally in the room. So you gotta f you got somebody feeding you the information on what's on the other side of the doorway. and now I'm seeing it from their perspective. Well I don't know. But I think with mine, I look back on it and we've talked about this many a time. I had a problem with pride. Here I was, I was twice these these these I call the kids, page. Yeah. And they looked up to me. And and I looked I looked I took I took that looking up in the wrong manner. I took that looking up as in I needed to be this gung hole soldier that knew no fear and did everything just full bore. Whereas I think, yes, that part of that was right, but the opportunity that I missed was being that godly person to help lead them in the right direction. Man, I'll tell you that was all due to pride. Yeah, so that's it when I when I was a young marine, right, a and we've talked about talked about McMinn, young Marine, he was honestly your average twenty year old, nineteen twenty year old Marine's gonna be like, he's kinda nerve, right? And man, looking back on it I I squandered the opportunity to like, you know what I mean, really pick his mind. But but he was really founded, it really grounded in his faith. And I think for me, a lot of that was Man, I was nineteen years old. I was and again, this is not by no means this is justifying. If I had a I say all the time if I had to do it over again I wouldn't change a thing because I like because God has put me exactly where He wants me. Absolutely. But at the same time like, man, I'm so mad at myself for missing this, right? but man, you know, I wanted to be I wanted to be liked, right? I wanted to be I w and this is it was so dumb is that I missed it, right? All my buddies would go out on Friday night drinking and I'd go with them and McMen go. He wouldn't ever every time. But you know what he didn't do? He didn't drink himself into an oblivion. He didn't he didn't cuss. He didn't he kept his godly wits about him. The whole time. And he always got all of us home. And we loved him for it. And we didn't realize at the time, right, that he was taking care of us. Like, like godly taken care of. Right, yeah, yeah. We had no idea. No idea. That's the difference than different than a chaplain. Like your chaplain's the guy you go to. Your chaplain is, you know, a serv a pastor, service members kind of pastor that you could get that goes for spiritual guidance. Every unit has a spiritual corpsman. yeah, yeah. Yeah. The later the lady, right? Or lay leader, lady reader, whatever. And so but then fast forward, right, one of my last duties in the Marine Corps was a field artillery chief. and and we've talked About Chaplin Turner on here before. probably one of the driving factors, he was my Jonathan. You said his name was Jonathan. Yeah. So Chaplain Turner's probably my Jonathan, right? Like he pushed me back to where I needed to be. but man, I was the field artillery chief, right? I would say the pride, right? I am the I am the senior artilleryman in the battalion, right? Like, like we've got a We blow stuff up and I'll tell you where it goes. Right, right. I mean, and and it's funny because we did he did a church service at Fort Bragg. you know, we all come back to a regimental staging area and he's like, I'll do this church service and but chap and I were friends, right? And I'm like, Alright chaps, I'm gonna come to your service with you, right? Like and I'm sitting in the back because I'm a back row Baptist, right? And I'm nothing wrong with that. That's I I love it. I volunteer all the time, but I'm gonna sit in the back row. Speakers hurt my ears. But anyway, we're in this G you know, big GP to whatever those tents are called now. This giant tent. It's not a GP tent anymore. And he's preaching and I'm sitting in the back and I'm watching, I'm looking at all these young Marines that like I know these kids look up to me, right? Like I know they they expect a certain thing out of me. And then I'm like, you know, you know what, I gotta set that aside and I gotta listen. I gotta listen to what what God's saying. Right. And I man, Tis Dad couldn't tell you what a sermon was on. But what I do remember is, man, dude, I'm bald. Like, like middle alligator tears, right? And then Chaplain Turner, and he'll tell you, he tells me, he's tell, he'd brag about this, he's like, I don't do altar cause. He's like, I think I don't like altar cause. And so he stops. He's like, I don't know what's telling me, but something says I need to do an offer call, so he did it like and and I look up and there's like twenty-five Marines from this from this battalion that are getting up out of their seats and going up to the front of the tent. And I'm like, Man, like I've had the opportunity, and I didn't even think about it right until later. And I was like, hey man, like go you know, talk to some of the Marines and they're Yeah, go ahead and be talking about there, like crying. I wasn't crying, you They're like, Yeah, like you were crying, but I'm like, Yeah, you know what, man, sometimes God touches you and you just gotta cry. Yeah. Like sometimes that happens. And then I was like, Man, it once again, right? How many opportunities have I squandered to do that in the past? And that is probably the number one primary when Justin asked me to do this that I volunteered for this today was that's my whole thing is I would just I pray and I pray we prayed at we prayed at lunch I prayed last night about if anything can come out of this message and what and what not only what you guys are doing but my participation in today's. Yeah. If it reaches just one person. That just it it's worth all of it. If we had a title for this one and a takeaway, I think it'd be don't squander an opportunity. Okay, and 'cause I mean don't don't waste that. That's the number one thing I regret. So even if even if it if it does if the opportunity that you're not squandering that time doesn't stick that time you get the hindsight or you get the grace of hindsight. Some somebody can get Yeah. Somebody can get the grace of hindsight and look back and be like, man, God really was. You could be that moment that something that God was taking care of somebody. and they like later on, it could be 15, 20 years from now, maybe I mean, could be two weeks before they go. Yeah. But they get to look back and say, God was still trying to reach me. Not us trying to not us trying to reach them, but God was trying to reach them. God, that's him knocking at the door. That's Christ knocking at the door of your heart, trying to get you to let him in. And if you would just Give him a chance. I've seen a there's a there's a growing trend and it started from this guy on the cause I'm the younger guy here. I'm on social media a little bit, okay? Scrolling around Instagram, there's a guy that he was he was doing this 30-day challenge where he was living and pretending to be a Christian and seeing how it would affect him. Like if he cause people's like, you know, even if you just live a Christian life, you will do better. He's like, Alright, cool, I'm in New York, I'm gonna try I'm gonna take this. It's like kind of an Asian guy, I forgot. He got to 21, he got to twenty May 21 and his video starts out where he's like, man, don't do it pretending now. This is real. Like he's he's like, Christ is real, like everything's better. He's like, I'm still gonna have the stuff that I'm struggling with, but it is real. Do it like even He just gave it a chance. And that's really what if you just give Christ a chance. Like Well, so that's what I taught, like, I mean This podcast, right? I I'm a numbers guy. I like baseball I'm a baseball fan because I like numbers, right? You know, I'm I'm I'm sitting here with my my It's got his old base percentage against left-handed pitching is this. Like I I'm that guy. gosh, right? He's a fast guy. Listen, I do. I like statistics, right? And so when we first started, we we we released our first episode right out, jumping on the animal. Literally every day, man. Every day I came over and pulled up the analytics. I'm like, how many views did we get today? Is it looking good? I'm you know, we're sharing it. And then we kind of talked and wouldn't and and I was like, well and Das is like If we reach one person, then then we've done it, right? Then we've done what. Mm-hmm. Right? We've done what God wanted us to do. and I'll tell you, so so I stopped looking at the analytics. Let me rephrase that. I look at but now it's just honestly, I really I'm just looking at them now to make sure that our Project's going out the way it's supposed to, right? I found out yesterday it was not, but it's fixed. Yeah, we we weren't linked on a couple of platforms that I thought we were, but we are now. It's fixed. but so I'm like so I'm looking at it from a different perspective, right? Kind of like you said, right? Like like like it's not about how many it's not about how many likes we get on Facebook, right? It's not about It's not about how many people watch it on YouTube, right? It's about is one person gonna listen to us, right? A couple you know, a hillbilly from Western North Carolina, a redneck from Orangeburg, right? Yeah, talking to veterans, sorry, Hillbilly from Orangeburg. No. Redneck? I'm not I am an amalgamation of all kind of things. Yeah. Whatever this guy is. But we sit down and we interview veterans, right? And if we man, if we get one person to come to Christ, one person, right? you know, a guy I work with, we all called it. Not by our own power whatsoever. Exactly, right? If if our podcast, if this podcast allows God into one person's life. Right? Because God has done all this. Right. Then then we've done what God has God told us to do. We've done what God gave us the ability to do. Just like in the scripture we talked about earlier, right? He's given us resources. We are stewards of those resources. Exactly. It's our job to do that, right? and and I'll tell you, I don't think I even showed you this yet. I shared a clip from one of our other episodes on my social media the couple of days ago. and a Marine that used to work for me like commented on there and he's like, Man, he's like, I watch every single thing you guys put out and it like every time I leaf in tears. And I'm like, it's worth it. Like I didn't do it for the likes, I didn't do it you know what mean? Right. I did it 'cause God said no. And that and that's now the right way to do it. Yeah. Because if you think about it, with the analytics, you're allowing pride and vanity to sneak back into it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And that is ultimately if if if if the devil was gonna attack something, such as a podcast, then he would go after people's pride and vanity. Yeah. 'Cause what's crazy is we got a lot of kudos the first episode, right? We did. We got a lot of good, like, hey man, it was good. despite the sound. The sound was not very good. Content was good. But but it it wasn't the personal Right. Right. And then, you know, I think a lot of times and I think a lot of times we we hold ourselves back. I think sometimes that we have a tendency to and we've talked about this in the past, right? Is We either A hold ourselves back because we don't think we're good enough, right? Or we hold ourselves back because we think that we're the only ones that can do it. One I mean, I It I I don't know how to do this. Right. Well, I mean it's first and foremost it's you know it's us bearing fruit. Mm-hmm. Okay. And and you guys are right are right you know, you you're spot on with with what you're after to bear fruit. because as Justin had made the comment that, you know, I'm big into prophecy. But I have to keep sort of keep my eye on that from a perspective of I can get so far down that rabbit hole that I forget my primary mission of bearing fruit. Yeah. And actually going back and just being, like I said, a better disciple. That's a cry. That's such a easy slogan. And it's it's it's it's funny on how I you know, when you set back and start rationalizing it, how you can get attacked in different ways. Man that gets you that all it's doing is getting your eyes off of God. The devil used the scripture to tempt Jesus. Absolutely. If we think that he can't do it to us, we're crazy. Yeah. He And he can attest of God. He can you know I've got literally binders and binders and on time's prompt. But I've had to take that and go back into just studying really the works of Christ again. Yeah. And one thing I would like to mention to you guys, I don't neither want I highly recommend that you guys get a chronological Bible. there's one that I have, it's chronicle chronological life studies that it really takes especially when you're getting into the scripture and you're talking so much about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And everybody talks to you about the different perspectives that those books were written in. Yeah. And the audience that they was going after. But as you're reading them, and I've seen so much of this, especially in my studies of of prophecy, that people, when they're reading through this stuff, they think that if it says this in one verse and this in another verse, then this must have been a Monday and this was a Tuesday. Whereas this may have been a Monday and this was four or five years later, even. And when you get them and you and you see that the chronological perspective that takes all of those verses and puts them in the proper sequence. To me it's it's done a whole lot more for me of that understanding not just the different perspectives of the audience that they were written to, but the different perspective that I take away from it. Well un understanding that is believed that like Joe was written before was was written as an account for something pre flood. But a lot of people don't know that neither. but I I I might be wrong, but it's very, very early on versus its actual position in the ordering of what you see in the table of contents in your Bible. So it's like I So just like you you like studying prophecy and those things, I'm of I like studying the old testament. Like the old testament is like You would really enjoy you would enjoy the chronological Bible. Yeah. Put together. Mm-hmm. Which with in you know, they'll take the different pieces and put side by side where they have parallelism. I mean, Kings, I'm doing a study on Isaiah right now. I and it I mean, it they overlap, right? They're not Right. They're not And so I I'll tell you what one of the things I want to get. I they make a there's I forget the name of the company, but it makes th there's a chronological the big twenty four foot map? Yeah, the big map. I just can't figure out where I was. I was trying to get Bert to put it in the in our Sunday school class. I think so, yeah, when you went to the Ark. It's like a ti like a twenty four foot timeline. Like I want one of those things but I have no idea where we're gonna put this. yeah this last fourth of July. And one of the things that she bought Miss One the the the the Pastor Bert's wife was this twenty four foot chronological time frame. Yeah. And yeah. It's it's I sat there looking at probably thirty minutes. Dude. I I I've seen and I mean I've seen online right here. I'm trying to zoom in. Look at but I wanna hang this we're not don't get. I look, my lovely wife has already donated her entire dining room to us. And so we're gonna have to really tear what's down. Well, you do know there's ceiling. yeah, I mean it's great ceiling up here, man. Listen, we'll we'll hang it up somewhere. I mean I can hang it up from the cinema office, I guess. it's it's about this tall. Like yeah, like if you walk in on some office doing this, wherever it's To me, if you're really into that and you don't have a place big enough, then then cut it into the pieces that you need, you know, so that you can see it. And it it it it's a marvelous, marvelous path. Have you ever been to the orc? I have not. man. It's it's awesome. I want to go back. It's highly recommended. Highly it and the matter of fact, I think create the Creation Museum Museum. We've got some folks that I ride motorcycles with that just went up there a few months ago. I know we plan on going back again. next time I'm gonna spend at least a day at the Creation Museum and two days at the Ark. I recommend there's so much at the Ark. Yeah you need more than one day to take it in. Yeah, I I really want to go and it's like I mean the the whole the chronological thing is the New Testament I'm not gonna lie, I For some reason I don't have like in my mind the New Testament is I know it's I know it's not it's not laid out in chronological order, right? But I don't have an I can read Matthew and then read Mark and and I can put those I can put that timeline in my mind. Right. Right. I know some people can't, but I can for the New Testament. The old testament ain't no way. Well like I said, I highly recommend them getting your cr a good chronological Bible. Yeah, I'll have to I I think I that might be one of the next ones. Does it have the the these and the thous and the that's a good question. What translation of the Bible do you use? It was in King I prefer King James. Okay. I I have nothing against any of the other versions. Okay. You gotta remember that, you know, the original text was written in Greek and Hebrew. Yeah. So if you're really going to be someone that's like, hey, it's gotta be this or it's gotta be that, then you need to be taking it back to the Greek and the Hebrew and understanding the actual terminology of how it was originally written. Yeah. because there's so much even when you get into the New King James Version or the King James Version or any of the others, it's like God's word never changes. The way that we write it does and has. Yeah. Eternal word of God in here for the story of the re Christ, you know, our fall and his redemption for us to come back to him. It's a story of how He is re trying to reach us. You under you look at it that way and then you understand that God used human hands with human language after the confusion at the Tower of Babel, some people are gonna be confused. For those that don't and and and really if you're not going to come into it with if you're there are plenty of people who can read and memorize scripture. They can tell you what the Bible says, but there's not an actual and I I've come and learned because I used to be one of those people that's like, that you know that sounds kind of jacked up. What about that says this? The the the the God of the Old Testament was real violent and then once you start to like kind of see call me a conspiracy theorist, the Epstein file stuff, and then you're like, yeah, I understand the flood. I get it. Cool. But it's it's you start to see that stuff and you're like, okay, cool. Like, is the God of the test of the Old Testament really such a more violent God? Or are people just jagged up? And he had and it's part of the like part of the timeline, part of us living and existing on a linear timeline is that we have to go through that process. An all-knowing i uncreated creator that is out that exists outside of that doesn't have to do that. Yeah. But then he chose to. He chose to come into our timeline, experience it, experience a human bodily death, but death can't hold him. And he defeated it. And it was the plan from the beginning to show that that's his love for us, for for the for his children. Not only that. But and and God's not a man, so you can't apply human logic to To anything that he does. Yeah, that's like h his wisdom is way beyond mine. And that's h his knowledge is far beyond mine. By any means. And I can humble myself and say that. I just gotta follow the plan. And sometimes it's hard and I get in my own way. And sometimes I'm dumb. We we do yeah, we do that. Can I ask you another question? So speaking of your I mean we're here for an interview. So so you said that you like prophecy and stuff like that, and you we we typically like to ask what a favorite scripture or Bible verse is for people. mine is Matthew four nineteen. the follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Jesus said it then, follow and I make you fishers of men. I learned something really cool not long ago that the what number of completion in the Bible for complete things is seven, right? So the beginning of following like following him and you take four, multiply it by seven, you get twenty eight. Matthew twenty eight, nineteen is the Great Commission. So then you go to start catching fish. That was just a little correlation that I thought was kind of funny. I don't necessarily not necessarily say I know, man. I never put those two together. Somebody might have some. So what was yeah. So you said in your and when we asked you what your favorite scripture was, you said you you know you got it changes quite a bit. So right now, what's your favorite? It when I say it changes, every morning I I have this app on my phone. Uhhuh. The Bible app. And the Bible app sends a verse a day. Okay. Okay. And I get I I I actually go in and and and read this verse of the day. So with that, and then with all of the st the studies that I do and everything, that's why I said, you know, I can sit here and tell you what today's verse of the day was and it's the one that's that's most prominent to me right now, which would be basically Matthew 11, Come unto me all ye that labor. either. Yeah. Imagine that. The the verse of the day that I had this morning that I did that I and I send this out to my wife and my mom and my dad happens to be in cue with what you guys was doing that's for me. So you know for I that's why I say I really can't say what a verse of the day my favorite verse is. Because every time I go into one and I study one, I'm like, wow. This is this is now my favorite. Yeah. And you know maybe I just can't stay focused on one thing, you know. You can feel full like eating a full meal like reading a Bible verse is not gonna get you like sorry, not trying to knock the Bible verse study or whatever. Like reading just reading a Bible verse is like getting a box of cheeses, you're gonna be hungry in a couple hours. But if you sit down and ingest what is in here as a full meal, you'll be full. Like your thoughts and your mind will be full of what God is speaking, and that's when you really get to see God speaking to you. Is I've That like I'll have to sit with a notebook. I don't I don't know how I was gonna ask you about how you do your studies. One because I'm looking for tips. Two like I will sit and read, and like with this one, I like this one because I get a little bit of a study note, and then it'll give me an opportunity to want to go look up something in the old or in the ancient Hebrew or the Greek for what the word was or what they meant it, how they used it in a context for applying it to whatever the sentence structure was or different things like that. That kind of stuff is what I like doing, and then I dive in. into it and I get a better understanding of that. But then I have to sit here with notebook paper. And if I'm not sitting with notebook paper and I like I'll start with like okay cool I need to make a note about that read a little bit make a note and then 15 20 minutes later I got six pages. wrote down of a full before this like before this I get done reading it, like I've got a full meal of stuff that I believe some of it might be me running off of my own thoughts. Some of it is definitely not me thinking my own thoughts. Like some of it is definitely Holy Spirit inspired for me to for it to help me out however I need. Or what's going on in the situation that we got going on. And I think that's where you get like your nourishment from the word and. See, and I think sorry. That's what works for you. Yeah. Yeah. And and for me to say and what what works for me is, you know, not only do I get this verse of the day, I get all of the scripture that or all of the the the not only scripture but also people talking and explaining that verse and everything like that comes with that as you deal dw dwell deeper and deeper into that verse. So it's you know it's it takes ten or fifteen minutes each morning to go through all of that. But the other thing like I said with the chronological that I've found out is I've started back at the first to the at the beginning of the New Testament and I'm working my way through that at at work. I have that chronological Bible setting at my desk at work and a lot of times for lunch, ba that's what I do. Okay. Is and I go back for that. So it helps keep me grounded in not necessarily just a what works for me as as as studying in depth into a verse, but like I said, I I I like the history portion of it and that's with the chronological it feeds my other passion to help keep me involved in what my interest is. Yeah. And it's you intentionally put in Put in you're intentionally getting that time with a guy. And then not only do you feel like it's not a it's not an obligation anymore. It's lot like fitness where like and I I can say this and I'm not exactly that fit. I mean I'm in shape 'cause round is a shape. Hey well. And I'm in the fitness fitness food. In my mouth. In my mouth. No, it but if I I I I'll show you some old pictures of me in the rico I definitely not the most fit marine, but I was not fat and I was about I don't know, sixty, seventy pounds lighter than what I am now on average. but at the same time I try to keep myself a little fitness, you you get a on the days that you don't want to do it are the days that you need it the most. And it's the same way with with with reading the word. Spending time in you don't have to read your word like every second that you feel bad or whatever. But being intentional about your time. in the word and with God and like no a relationship don't work if I ain't caught if I ain't talking with other person. Yeah. Also if I don't shut up and listen. Yeah. The relationship don't work. Man, I I appreciate the the I find a new one every day. it and there's nothing wrong with people having a favorite first, right? Yeah. I've got a few that I like. but like I like I hear people my age, right? This is my favorite verse. This has been my favorite verse since I was a kid. And part of me is like, Man, like you you you need to progress, right? Like you need to like like if you're stuck on that one spot then you're not You're still being bottle fed. You're not gonna be And the other portion of that, like when we was talking earlier, and you know talking about missed opportunities. And I ask you why. You know, that would be my feedback to them. All right. If you've had the same favorite verse for 20 years. Why? Is it your favorite verse? Yeah. And and and let them have the opportunity of of justifying. You know, because there could be two things that come out of that. One, they can fully justify it and it has an all new meaning for you. Yeah. Or it's just I'm sorry, that's the only one that I memorized off the top of my head, therefore it's always going to be my answer. Yeah, and I am so and that's what Man, it and I'm so torn 'cause I know so many really good people, right? They're like, this is my favorite verse, right? but I'll do the same thing. Like I've like like yeah, that's my favorite verse, right? And then I you know, 'cause I get the the daily verse on my I I use the Bible app too, or like I'll do I got the little tap thing. Yeah, like I'll I'll do a devotional or I I I I brag on our youth pastor at Millbrook all the time because because that young man amazes me every time he speaks, but like he'll preach on a word and I'll be like, yep, there it is. And then but I was like, Man, like I can't I I can't narrow it down. You know what I'll tell you what? My favorite is starts in Genesis. Genesis one Genesis one one and it goes all the way to Revelation. What twenty two? You know what I kinda like this map back here too, like I like it all. Absolutely. And I mean so when when I saw that I was like, at least I'm not the only one. It it it it's it's you know to sit there and and I guess have a favorite verse or anything. I have some that I that I I enjoy more that I think of more than others. Yeah. You know, anything that happens that has has to do with what we refer to as the wrong salvation. verses like that and everything that really stick and and and and and cue up on me. But to sit there and and read anything and and try and put it as more important in the Bible then, you know, 'cause that I guess that's the way I look at it at the paper. Yeah. It's like, am I trying to say that this is more important than the rest of it? It's all equally important or else it wouldn't be there. I mean, even if the, you know, so and so beget so and so beget so and so there's some of that, you know, but you gotta look at the genealog but then have you ever done like a deep study on the genealogies and why they're different? If you start reading and like wanting to learn those, like why why why those family lines, like why certain authors mentioned certain wines like there was a purpose behind it. So then that's when you really start getting into studying. You know, in in in at the time that it was beget, begat begat begat, it was the way that they kept track of their history. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But in today's world it's it's proof that that the prophecy that Christ would come from the house of David. Yep. Yeah. You know, and if they didn't keep that genealogy, begat, begat, begat, begat, then we wouldn't have that. So it's all fulfillment of prophecy for the first time. Yep. It it's and that's why when you talk about the favorite verse, I'm like I I don't like I like you said, like I have some that I like. I have a lot that like. But I can't pick out a favorite. I can't I we were joking, I I have never once written in a Bible that I can remember. Right. I've taken notes, I a notepad that I take notes or I write on, you know, like I'll I'll write on you know what I mean? and a few weeks ago I was at church and I don't know why, but we read a Bible verse. Like that. And so I started go check on him, James? Okay. So I started. And then I realized that I star I didn't even start the one that I that I meant to start. Okay. and so I read both of them and was like, they're really good. They're really good. But you knew what I would probably say to that is what was the Holy Spirit trying to tell you at that given point in time? I stood out a little bit more. Mm-hmm. But to me, Holy Spirit was trying to tell you something at that given point in time. I know that what it was was it was pertaining to again, I can't remember exactly where it was, my memory shot, but It was it was one of those like a go f go forth and make disciples. Right. It was it had something to do and I remember I started because of this show, right? I was like, this this yeah. And to me that's more of what your your favorite verse or your ver your favorite verse at that given point in time in your life is is something that God's trying to tell you He wants you to do something. Yeah. So there's so we kinda had a similar conversation riding over here. We were talking about just some stuff that we have in church going on that we were like just talking about 'cause there's some stuff that me and him are bringing up that we're trying like we're working on like a first aid kind of thing right now, especially after the medical episode of Miss Glenda this past week. That kinda we you brought that up at the last brotherhood thing that we went to. Yeah. And then that happened and I was like, yeah, somebody like saying when Ms. Wanda told me that it got brought up at the beat business meeting, I like, Yeah, I bet it you know, a lot of people are thinking about that. So It's amazing how that works. Yeah, and luckily Miss Linda's okay. But it it's people when they go to church, they think that, the church is just after your money and this, that, and the other. And I used to be one of those people too, like, I hate organized religion. Like, this, that and the other. That's what I used to say a bunch. I don't ask Amanda. I would tell her all the time I'm not going to no church, ain't no, but organized religion is dumb. Organized Christianity is dumb. I used to be that guy. And they just want your money, they want you to do stuff, a bunch of judgy people in there, blah, blah, blah. and even like it to the guy that I was commenting back and forth with on our last little reel thing, like, I got to the point where I was like, you just haven't, like, you are misunderstanding the purpose of the gathering. Right, you're having church just as much as anybody else, man. You just aren't like as liturgical or through like procedural as going into a building with them. And and like but it like the the Bible also tells you not to neglect the gathering of the believers for a reason because you need that church family in the world that we live in the world in our world, in the human world on earth right now, in the sinfallen world that we have, you need a church family to help you. And if you go to a church and it's not for you, don't like okay, so why are you you give up on that church? That church might have some. Jack got stuff going on. Because it's where it may not it may not be where God wants you. Yeah. Right? Like I But if you're going there and you're looking to be amazed by the perfect people that are there and Or or like you're going there because it makes you feel good every time you listen and sing songs or because it feels like a concert and not necessarily a liturgical worship service. Like that's on you. humans. Yeah. quotation, air quotes around need. So we it we talked with our guests on our last show about kind of the watering down and we talk we talk about consumerism, right? A lot of churches, let me rephrase that. Not a lot of churches. I I kinda people are like, a lot of churches, I'll be honest, it's really not a lot of churches, right? Like it's really not. I go to a huge church. That to be honest with you, if you'd have told me ten years ago, I'd be going to When I was growing up at a little tiny Ivy Creek Baptist Church in western North Carolina, if you'd have told me that I would go to a church the size of Millbrook Baptist Church in 2026. It's a turn there the size of small hospital. Dude, that it's massive. It's huge. But nobody cares about the building. We care about the building. But we don't care about the building. What matters is the church, right? The people. The souls that are in that We just happen to meet at that building. Right? and it doesn't matter, you know, James and I and and I I hope he kind of gets it when I say this. he's looking at me like I'm crazy. like s it we two, three nights, four nights a week, two nights a week we work out after the little guy goes to bed, right? James and I do. And sometimes man, it'll you know and and I just turn on the Spotify Play Whatever You Play playlist. And so there's no telling what it's gonna play. I listen to there's no telling, right? Right. But it'll man some good old school s you know, mountain hymns, you know what I mean? One of those will come on and I'll be like, man, we're going to church today. Because in that moment, that sh that garage, our you know hood up garage gym that's 112 degrees during the summertime, that's church. Yeah. That's church, right? And in that moment you're doing what Christ has you to do. You're asking you're you're making a disciple out of that young man over there. Leading him in a way to help take care of the body that he has. I and And here's what's crazy. He probably doesn't know this, but he's making a disciple out of me too. Right? yeah. Like Well the whole the key thing there as you talk about it, is whether it's big church, small church, medium church, is the message. Mm-hmm. And it always has to be God's word. Yeah. Because we like you know, we like to pick on bigger churches because they get more attention and everything like that. They stand out a little bit more. They've got more airtime and everything like that. Yeah. But still, it's it's the the message. And we have to realize that I want to get a little into my prophecy thing. That we're getting closer and closer to the to the end of times. Okay? And with that is going to come a huge approach or a huge push in what's referred to as apostasy. Okay? And there is a reason why the number one, there's a book in the Bible that's nothing but apostasy. And it's the the book of Jude. Guess what? Where is it located? Right before Revelation. Yeah. There's a reason why it's there and the reason why it's in that order. So that's where where we have to basically go back and think about it's it's as you guys were saying, it's it it it's not just the church, it's not the people, it's the message and the faith believe of that church. Yeah. Yeah. Because they can be three or four people. And the gospel and being right there just it one hundred percent in touch with God. Or they could be ten thousand people. yeah. I mean I you have a lot of and to think that people are not gonna be h all hunky dory with the message of God and what the gospel is, that you can't take care of yourself for eternity. You have no security in where your soul goes for eternity. I don't care what religion you're looking at until you and I I I did a die a self-reflective dive before coming to faith in that. And it was like I genuinely and I I genuinely don't know and it caused a very, very deep sinking pit in my stomach. Like if I could feel my stomach collapsing in. It was weird. And so then I started looking. I was I started looking, I had actually started I think I told you before I did like a little bit of a dive into Norse paganism. Yeah. I've told you about that at Sunday school a couple times. Did a little bit of a dive into that. Within a week my whole life almost came crashing down and I was like, all right, this This Wait, I got what the answer is, but it ain't. It is not that. And so like it it it's if if the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy. And all you gotta both all of us having shot or you know, pr probably pretty decent marksman. at least I don't know if you've got an expert or not. Fair meddling. but you know that like you take that barrel and you point it there, just that one little inch and you know, couple hundred yards down the road where the target's at, you're so off centered it's not even funny. Mm hmm. And i it's it's when you start taking your eyes off of that, then you you kind of the devil's got you at that point. If you take your eyes off that and you're not looking, you might me we're gonna miss the mark a lot. You know, it it's it's not like that's what sin refers to as the old archery turn or the ancient archery term for missing the mark. no matter how many times I shoot an arrow, I'm never gonna hit and I bow hunt, I'm never gonna hit perfect center. Yeah. But i if if I keep my eyes focused on Christ I still get another shot to go. Every time. And and that's the beautiful thing, right? Is and you and I especially, right, we've lived it, right? You know, young guy, I mean, I'm involved in the church. the little church I went to, we would do a once a year, we would do a the youth ran the church. Man, I I stood up and preached at like 16 years old, right? Like 15 years old. Wild. Absolutely. And then stepped away, right? And and and I lost the mark. Lost it. And and what's so great about about our God, about Jesus, is years later, in a tent. Actually I was at home bee at this point, but with a chaplain, you know, that like Great, I gotta ride with a chaplain right away. You know what mean? And and suddenly there it is. There's the mark. I've I've missed this thing for years. It was there, and then I lost it somewhere. God didn't lose me. Mm-hmm. God never lost me. I didn't really lose God, but I didn't see Him. You know what I mean? And that's my fault. That's that's 100% my fault. the beautiful thing is is that he's given us the chance that for lack of better terms, I do offer. Right? Yeah. and that's they I just can't that's just a I cannot believe I can believe because I'm living it, right? But it's so hard to fathom why God would let any of us, right? Especially someone like somebody like us, right, that said, I'm all into the faith. Then I'm not. For so many years. For so many years. You think I mean when you think about it, how long and how patiently he waited to put that to turn that switch back on in us. And that's what I just a length of time for every human perspective. I'm looking at, you know, sometime around eleven, twelve years old, accepting Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and then at fifty eight the switch gets flipped on. Yeah. You know? And just thinking, Wow, I've missed so much time. And and it it it that really bothered me for a long time when that switch got flipped back on. And that that was once again, the devil just trying to you know make me feel bad about something. But you know I know now going forward what I need to do and how I need to act. And how I need to be and how I want to be. Speaking of going forward, we I think we're about on probably like two and a half hours almost. So if we started at one we might split this in two. But with that being said, What are some things spiritually that you're working on right now that you got going for yourself? This is a question I want to add on our question. What are some things spiritually that you got going on right now or some things that you would like to work on? I want like I said, I've got I brought my chronological Bible to work. I want to I I've always studied the Bible from an historical perspective, a prophecy perspective. And one of the things and this is you you can credit yourself for this. Okay. you study it from a Christ perspective. Mm-hmm. And I feel like that's a piece that I've neglected somewhat. And I want that. Okay. So I'm going back and and focusing a lot more on the New Testament. Okay. And just the story of Christ, the discipleship of Christ. With that I end I I still keep myself entertained with the historical perspective because I bought a like a 13-set encyclopedia set of the history of the church that you know goes. Or the church history is fun and funny. This one is very extensive. It's I I'll share it with you sometime, but it's a very, very, very hard read. It's an encyclopedia system. I'm never going to a PhD. Anyway, those those are where I really want to focus more on. forward is is from I I feel like I could bear more fruit. Yeah, definitely. And that's like I said, one of the reasons I'm here today. I gotcha. That's that's a real good thing. I think learning where you Learning where you come, like reading this. one of one of the things a lot of people get caught up in is they want to see how can I find myself in the scripture or what it can do for me. Stop doing that. Stop doing that. Where am I finding God and his character in in this? Where am I finding And and you can't look at it at from a manly perspective of what is going on in that one specific time and whatever. You have to look at it in the context of the whole. Mm-hmm. And the first thing is accepting the fact that you are a sinner in need of a savior, and by his his his grace and love, he freely gives it to you and everybody there. Through his son Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. And if you really look into it, you really accept it with your whole heart, he can really change your life. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but it can really change it. And it's going to, you are going to find peace and understand what joy is, not just being happy for a moment. Yeah. You find security in knowing that when I close my eyes for the final time, I will be in the presence of my Lord and Savior, the man who was God, died on the cross for me. And just every other person, the roughly I di I did look at numbers for this, about a hundred and nineteen mil billion people throughout history, estimated. every single one of It was for them as well. Yeah. But they just have to accept it. Yeah, I remember growing up, I somewhere in school, somebody brought up the conversation of would you rather be happy or would you rather be content? Right. You know, when you're you know. sixteen years old and idealistic and you know what I mean. There's nothing wrong with that by the way. But but when you're that age I'm yeah, I'm probably gonna be happy. Right? And now that I'm more mature, more crowded in him, right? Happy is fleeting. Right? I mean it is, it really is, right? No wrong, I have some happy moments in my life, right? But It's a d it's the same thing with motivation and dedication. Right, yeah, yeah, right. But like but That's fleeting. But that deep down joy, contentment, whatever you want to call it, that like spiritual joy. Yes, exactly. Is something that man, I just the things that I mean, you mentioned being angry and having those you know what I mean? I mean, I too I've been there, I get it. And now I mean, I was laughing the other day 'cause I was driving to work, and I work on site, so it's like five thirty and five o'clock in the morning, it's stupid dark, going down this little tiny two lane road, right? And I look in the mirror and I'm like, Why is this guy so far behind me? Like, why is he not and then I realized that the car I was seeing in the mirror was not the car behind me. There was actually a car between us that was so close to me that I couldn't even you know what I mean? Right. And Even as little as four years ago. That would've man, I'd have been brick checking him or throwing my hands out, you know what mean? Like I'd losing my mind. dude, you Yeah. You talking about like anger management. Gunny's seeing me go off. I there's been times where like I've had to keep the kids out of Gunny's class, like, hey can I outside 'cause I gotta vent to you about some stuff. You can't we can't talk about about anger anger management with driving because I'm still struggling with that. Well hey, listen, I l I will tell you I'm gonna tell you how to fix and and then we'll we'll we'll we'll finish up. I'll tell you how to fix road rage. Get a bus license and drive a church bus full of kids. I don't know if that would work for Sam. Listen to me. When you've got a bus full of kids and printed on the side of the bus is Bill Brook Baptist Church, Aikens, South Carolina, and somebody cuts you off and slams on the brakes, I guarantee you what you won't do is give them the finger out the window and start cussing. Don't ask how I know this. He goes to raise it up and he's like, man, you're like handle on the steering wheel. You're like, church bus. Driving a church bus. Church bus. All the kids are like, all the kids are like, Mr. Frank, are you gonna yell? No, no, no, not gonna yell. You go to raise it, you're like, there's one finger, but then you're like, praise the Lord. Absolutely. Thank God I didn't run this fool over. Like I'm like. Hey, I'm telling you, that's how you cure take your road rage. gosh. And I'm not perfect, right? my kid listen, I ain't too I ain't too proud to admit it. My kid saw a little bit of road rage come of me last weekend, so and I don't do it very often, but and it wasn't wasn't running people off the road. But you're coming down whiskey, I can tell it's about the sound. I've driven in a of places. And I well I could deal with Atlanta better than I deal with A I have never seen so many bad drivers per capita. of anywhere I've ever lived. Dude, I've driven a downtown Kabul. Yeah. Well you know, over there we didn't mind a few fender benders. Well that's true. If she's out of the way over I'd see you with a whole beach. Yeah your fender bender over there didn't have, you know, some rich old lady getting out of the car saying What I will tell you is, I f I if had the chance to go to Okinawa. So in Japan, in Okinawa If you're in a car accident in Okinawa, the police show up, right, and they determine, you know, like you're the victim and you're the at fault. You're at fault, right? Right. They don't have courtrooms for that. You go to the victim's house, the magistrate, so you have to go to the victim's house. And the magistr magistrates there and then that's how they figure out. It's all taken care of at the victims and And that's what you that's how you figure out what you have to pay, right? Well, if you're an American driving a military vehicle, then you're always at fault no matter what. and I had a young Marine who was driving a Hum V and this local, their vehicle was parked like like they weren't all the way off the road. He clipped their car. I they were apart. It was like one o'clock in the morning because we were coming back from anyway. But he marked this local's car. And so him and the judge advocate and they had to go to this local's house and sit down with the magistrate and work out how much he's gonna pay. And figure out how much that the marine well the Marine Corps's gonna take care of him, it's not Yeah, we're trying to do yeah, do his job. I mean it yeah. Ain't his fault. But yeah, I'll verify I'll laugh. I'll So it's like there's no way to really have to figure out that. I don't think I'll ever be in Okinawa, but I'll keep that me. Well let's go ahead and close this out real quick with the the the final slideshow on a PowerPoint that we all know from our Yeah. Super slide prevention power points. Do we have any questions, comments, or concerns? Questions, comments, concerns, complaints, or rebuttals. Thanks guys for joining us. man, check us out like the YouTubes, the Facebooks, the all those different things. We'll doing more Instagram, Facebook, stuff like that. So we'll send some of that stuff out. if you man, if you want to join us on our show, leave us a comment on one of those platforms. One of us will reach out to you and get you on here. what am I missing? I think that's it. I say we should have another one coming and we might split this one into two. So Yeah we we might split this one into two. We gotta see how long this keep it down to fifty minutes. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we're finding that about two hours seems to be our average out of our We might have to do two two at a time. But I think that's it. Is that it? Sam, you got anything else for you? Just like I said, I appreciate you guys having me on. Yes. And I appreciate what you're doing. I will keep you in my prayers as far as this having success. And would just ask that anybody that is paying attention to this or watching this If you haven't found Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, please do it as quickly as possible. Yeah. Give him a chance. Give him a chance. Man. I promise you won't regret it. All right. all right. Sam, see y'all in a couple weeks. Yeah. Thanks for coming, man. And we'll see you guys in a couple weeks. Yep.