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When Ministry Breaks You · The Worship and Leadership Podcast

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, what's up, everybody, and welcome to the Worship and Leadership Podcast.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Elmer Cañez Jr.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: And like always, my man right here, Willie C.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Simpson.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yo, what is up, Elmer?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: What's going on, man?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, this is gonna be a good one, man.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be this is gonna be a great episode.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you why.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna open up a little bit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna dive deep.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: And today we're talking about the moment that ministry almost broke me.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing about this topic is to say that it almost broke me.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think it actually broke me.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's things that we've grough in life, moments that we face in with family, in ministry, at work, as even in your mind, that there is actually a breaking that happened.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so you want to start, you want me to start?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Brother, I'm gonna give you the floor when this is come up and bad.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, I I want to go back to the specific moment because and this is why it's important.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we're not just sharing heartfelt moments for no reason.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is important because a lot of times people feel like, like, yeah, I I want to be in ministry or I want to be able to serve people and help people, but they feel unqualified and they feel like, yeah, no, that these guys have never gone through some of the things that I've gone through, or or they'll never face these things.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: The reality of it is, yes, we probably have.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: And there's things that we we're just we're human, we face temptation, we face all the hard things.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: We have to deal with you know the stress and the uh humiliation at times, and the the fear, and and there's all the emotions that you feel.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: I feel, I promise.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: You could ask my wife.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I I go back all the way to when I was about 18 years old, and I'm 44 right now.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember at 18 years old, I was so in love.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I grew up in church as a kid, and I think at 12 years old is when I started serving more frequently in the church on the worship team.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And my community was the worship team, like those are those are the guys that I did life with, my friends, and and I I was probably at church every day if I could as a as a teenager.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember I I grew up playing sports, I played basketball, I played baseball, I played football, and I still made sure I was at church, and that was my personal decision.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: As much as my parents wanted me to be there, I made sure that I was there doing something.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I was even there when there was no one there, and I would go to the to the auditorium at the church that was in Sun Valley, California, when we lived in in the San Fernando Valley, and I would go there and I would start cleaning the grand piano, I would rearrange the chairs, I would dust the drum set.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like for me, I found so much joy, not so much in cleaning, like I wasn't wanting to, I didn't want to be a janitor, yeah, but in organizing and making sure that the house of God was was pristine.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I found such pride in that.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like I don't know, I can't explain it.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: I was a teenager, yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: But that led to other things.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think that that was just the love of God's presence.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: At that time, our youth group, we had morning prayer every day at five in the morning.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember my youth leader would pick me up, we'd go to church, and there was about probably on average 10-15 people that were there, leaders and and some other students.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: We called them youth, and we would pray for an hour, pray, and then after that, everybody would go home and go to school, go to work.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I fell in love with the house of God, I fell in love with that place because I had experienced the presence of God so richly in that church, yeah.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was an incident that happened in the church, and I won't go into the full detail of it, but I'll just say this.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people have experienced this where you're almost pushed out of the church, and pretty much to the point where it's like, like, hey, you're not allowed to come back.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, and I hadn't done anything, yeah.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: In in the sense of like, I hadn't threatened anybody, I haven't physically done anything.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was just there were some things happening in the background and with other people, and I I was associated with it in the sense of like, hey, we don't want you here, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that was hard for a teenager to go through because you're like, how do I navigate this?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so then my mom got involved, and and she was real strategic in the sense of like she didn't allow me to react.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, You're gonna show up to church, you know.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Legally, just this was the the 1900s, yeah, yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like, you know, you didn't have all these things that you have now in churches, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I still should have my all my friends were there.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, like I still talked to the people there, like I didn't feel a reason to not be there, and so I remember I would show up until finally they did they did say, Hey, can we have a meeting?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And they wanted it to be formal for me not to be showing up again.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't get it, I did not get it, and for me, it actually broke me.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember the the day that I got the call from someone, someone that's real dear to me, and that they told me, like, what did you do?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why is why is it all of this happening?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't have an answer.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I honestly did not have an answer for them, but just to feel like everybody that I loved and I looked up to was kind of turning their eyes at me at towards me in judgment, yeah, it it broke me.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember my my friends and my mom and my my dad trying to get into my bedroom because I locked my door, and I remember just I'm 18 guys, 18-year-old, you know, man or man child it crawled under.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I had a futon because I was cool, and I crawled under my futon and I did not want to come out.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I don't want to do this, like I'm never gonna serve God, I'm never gonna.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember I just saying these things out loud.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm never, never, never, God.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: If this is what's gonna happen, I don't want any of it, you know.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I when you're that young, you have all these other options and choices, and you think I can make a career of this, I can make that, but in that very moment, like I'm like, I just don't want nothing to do with this.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm already thinking in my mind, what am I gonna do?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: How am I gonna figure out life?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: This has been my heart's passion and desire to love people, to serve people.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and probably about two hours.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I stayed under my bed just weeping and sobbing because it hurt that much.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was like like I'm saying that's why I'm saying it wasn't almost broken.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I was broken.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: But if you know me, something about me is I'm also loyal to a fault.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I've been in places as an adult, I've been in places where they did not treat me right, and everybody could see the writing on the wall except me, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm I chose to see the best in people, I chose to see the best in leaders that regardless of how I was treated, I was so focused on the mission and the assignment that I'm like, unless God tells me to go, I'm not going.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so now that I'm an adult and I've realized how I hold on to something because God says stay.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been so loyal and faithful in those seasons, I realized that that was built into me as a teenager.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: That what was hurting the most was I didn't feel like God told me to go.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I didn't feel like God was telling me to leave, or at least I didn't hear it at that at that time of my life.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so that was really hard.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: But then I look back and I'm like, I probably would have never left that church.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: I probably would have never stepped out of that season had God not done what he did without explanation, without even knowing, you know, and and I've reconciled with with the individuals and everything that happened, and I've reached out and we we talk every once in a while.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I would never have stepped out of I probably would have never left LA if it was not for this moment.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because from that I ended up moving to Dallas.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and when once I hit Dallas and I made it to Dallas, it's where God just started expanding, just opening new doors, yeah, and He started forming and shaping in me different things that I'd never expected, which eventually led me to pastoring and being in ministry full time.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but but it was almost like God had to shake and and rattle my cage in in a way to get me out.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that he did it, sure, but it was something that happened that eventually was was a vehicle that got me to the path where I'm at now.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I tell the people that I met in Dallas I would not be here had that season not happened.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and now I'm here in Clarksville, and just our path as a family, we've gone through different places to different ministries and served in different churches.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And again, looking back, like looking back is always a gift, right?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't know what's ahead of you, but you look back and you're like, man, if if I would have done this or if I knew this, yeah, you know, but you don't have that for tomorrow.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: But you can learn your own patterns and you can learn kind of like how God does things in your life, and then you just have you have to be listening, you have to be attentive to the work of God in your own life.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And now I've realized that when God sends me somewhere, it's on assignment, and so the way my heart works is is it's not that I'm attached to something or someone, is that I know what prayers I need to pray now.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know what to ask God specifically for and in order to step into whatever is next or whatever's coming before me.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: But that season, bro, it was difficult to it to go through it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: I allude to it a lot, especially now that my oldest is 17 and and just watching him become his own man, like I'm like like, could could he go through what I went through and not be broken?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I think back, I'm like, I think all of us would be broken.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so the fear as a parent is like you don't want your parent, your kids to be hurt, you don't want them to go through something like that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so you pray, you pray, you pray, you pray, and and you want to disciple your kids before anybody else disciples them.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's been our heart's desire to raise them in the house, to love the Lord first, yeah, not to get attached to places or buildings because all of that is an assignment by the from the Lord, you know, at least in in our in our life, he'll send and he'll call and he'll he'll tell tell us to move or do this.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's been what we've experienced.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, but the breaking is is part of what helps you learn to be more obedient because because of my obedience in that season, regardless of the pain, I've seen incredible fruit.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people just just I don't know, a lot of people just just sharing a lot of stories of things that they've seen as a result of my my own life and decisions that I've made.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: That at times Willie, we'll step into places and we'll do things and we don't even know the impact we're making.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, but we're just being obedient, yeah, and we're just going down the path that God is telling us to, and a lot of times you don't see the fruit until years later.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so that that incident happened more than 30 years ago.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, m maybe not, I'm not that old, more than 20 years ago, but it's bearing fruit now, yeah, because people that saw me navigate through that season, they've they've drawn closer to God, they've asked a lot of questions, and and and just is for them again for me, I moved on.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I can't believe that happened.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so as a teenager, young adult, I moved on.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: But for the people that were watching all of this happening, the faithfulness and and my desire to stay close to God after this, it just spoke volumes, and I'm not I'm not faithful to God because I'm trying to impress anybody.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not loyal to the church because I'm trying to get gain attention from somebody like, oh, look at him.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's out of out of obedience.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like I want to be loyal to the bride of Christ, right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and so but what you do and how you react and the steps that you take after an event like this, it matters because people are watching.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and people are watching, and so that's been I I know I said a lot, and there's probably a lot of questions, even in what I said, but I would not be here today if it was not for that season when I was 18 years old, and that that happened.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I was gonna be a football player, playing college football, yeah, becoming a a civil engineer, going to to Berkeley, and that was my heart's desire.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then God just shape reshaped a lot of things in that season of my life, and he said, No, I got other plans for you.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: So good.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so, again, sometimes we have to be pulled out of our own plans for for the Lord to form us and shape us into what he wants us to.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I just love that, Elmer.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I appreciate your vulnerability.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Again, you you've shared parts of that, you know, story with me.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I love for me, man, just that that redemptive arc of what the Lord does.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate it, like you said, we've titled this episode what almost broken, but that that is the definition of brokenness.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, here you are, teenager, going through that craziness where it does, I mean, it robs you of all of your strength, all of your confidence, all of the sensibility, even like your directional compass.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then you just see the Lord in his sovereignty and in his goodness and in his mercy, like, man, I'm gonna shape all of this.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this didn't take me by surprise what happened in your life.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I knew and I had a plan in advance, like to use this thing that has broken you to actually better you and build you.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And here we are, man.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Best friends because of it, you know.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: My my my story, my story is very similar to yours.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was just I was just a bit older than you when I did have that moment of breaking.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I was, you know, by the time mine happened, I'm you know, Carolyn and I were married, we have two children, and I am in bivocational ministry.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, working at life, serving here at Life Point, this is the first time that I've been fully employed by a church.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I've I don't say I've always been in ministry, but I've been in ministry, you know, since you know I was in in middle school, you know, grew up in a Christian home, with both my parents being in ministry.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that that was not something that was lost on me.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that was by vocational for them because both my parents served in the military.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: So seeing them balance ministry and vocation was really admirable.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my you know, my dad, my mom, and they would work, you know, 12, 14 hour days, and then they would teach Sunday school, my dad would preach, and my mom would sing and all these things.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so growing up, bivocational ministry wasn't something that was foreign to me.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so we were living in Tuscaloosa, Carolyn and I, and Destiny and Trey were probably a year and a half or three and three years old.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this church that we were a part of, man, was uh really thriving and growing, and those are our formative years.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: We lived in Tuscaloosa, Tidal Town, for about a decade.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And man, that really was the formative year for us in ministry.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that is that is where we learned what it meant to be a shepherd.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my former pastor, he would say, son, shepherds always smell like sheep.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, just to see them love people so well in spite of being hurt and harassed.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so that the church that we were serving at, man, you know, we were a part of literally every aspect of ministry.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we served in kids and we we served with the students, we served with we had a thriving college ministry.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you know, we served in worship as well.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: That is also where I really the Lord revealed to me like that teaching and preaching gift.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I got it, you know, I got a chance to teach there.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I would write curricula and all these sorts of things.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I man, I was just loving it.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was busy, man, but it was it was fun.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the church in one year exploded from one to four campuses in one year.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that we acquired the campuses was really nothing short of miraculous.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and one of those campuses, though, was 45 minutes away from from Tuscaloosa.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm I'm working full time at minimum 60 hours a week.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've got two kids, both under the age of five, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, and we're married.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Carolyn and I are young married as well.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, that's a lot of pressure, you know?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And this you we acquired this church and it essentially functioned like a church plan.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we just had an agreement with the pastor there that was handoff, like it would be sort of like this, just this collaboration, and things started out fairly well.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: There was, there was, you know, definitely excitement from the the sending church, from the sending campus for sure.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was I and another couple that were were basically like like co-campus pastors.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it was I was it was fun for me because like I I love building, like I love like new things.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was an exciting time for sure.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: But man, there was just so much resistance from the people.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't know why it was happening.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then ultimately, unfortunately, it ended up being with one of the pastors that was handing off the church to us, where it literally was like Jekyll and Hyde, where you know we were being accused of impropriety, like mismanaging funds.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he would just flat out just lie on us, uh, myself and and and and my co-laborer in Christ.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And man, it that that was that was devastating.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then what happened is that a few of the hearts of the of some of the people began to get turned as well.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: The same people, man, we're doing care appointments with.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm getting off work, driving 45 minutes, you know, we're we're we're doing Sunday service, we're doing choir rehearsals, we're doing midweek service, we're doing outreach programs on the weekend, you know, we're giving up of our time, you know, to pour in and invest into this church, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, hospital called Sick Visits.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: We we we officiated two funerals while we were there, you know, just in a short amount of time.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And those very same people, man, began to tell us, hey, you know, like you know, why are you guys here?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like what, you know, what's your aim, what's your motive?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: To the point where there were people that were trying to take the church back from us.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was a uh we there was something, some financial issues that were undisclosed to our governing body to come to find out that legally, man, we shouldn't even have this church.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was insane, insane.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember, man, one day I'm at my office, and I I mean, I am just worn out because I had just gotten of just a very discouraging text from a member, you know, uh up there at the campus, and they were saying, hey, you know, you know, we're we're we're gonna take our membership elsewhere.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they were talking about Ichabot, the glory's departed from here.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like, God, what is happening?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like we were so excited.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, and I'll be honest, man, when we were asked to be campus pastors, I did it because I was I was young, I had a strong desire to please my leadership, and and quite frankly, man, I was desirous for it, just being completely transparent.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And all those things were a recipe for disaster.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: If I would have stopped and prayed and sought the Lord, looking back on it now, I know the spirit would have been like, Boy, don't you do that?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: That ain't my best for you.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not again, not that the Lord wouldn't call us to hard, right?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: But he ain't gonna call you the soul sucking.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're right, he ain't gonna call you the foolishness.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back, that was it was a foolish decision, man, because ultimately it almost cost me my family.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I hate to say that, but like it did.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: It almost, not not in the sense of like divorce, but in the sense of like closeness and peace and like leadership and oversight and care.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like it it because I wasn't, I was hardly there when I was there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm checking in.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you guys good?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to bed because I got to build for work, you know.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, in that moment, I just thought, I'm done.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if if I'm gonna be made out to be the bad guy, if I if if you have people blitz blatant lies, then I go confront them, like, I didn't say that.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I got the text message saying that you did.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I know I'm not losing my mind, you know, it's like being gas lit by the devil, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I finally just said, you know, and I mean I just remember I'm sitting there and my wife calls me.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, normally, you know how it is, like, you know, when you're talking to your wife, and like she has that babe voice, you know, she's like, hey, babe, you know, like, you know how it is in the word call.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, careless, she calls me, and she, I can tell something's wrong, you know, because I said, you know, I'll say, hey, sweetie.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and she was like, hey, and you know, she always she always says, Hey babe, always.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And she did not.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying, hey, what's going on?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And she just like I can't do this.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, man, it was just like you could just sense the spirit.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and I said the same thing, I was like, I can't either.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we just both cried.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm you know, I had thank God I was in my office, man.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just closed the door and we just boo-hoo for like 20 minutes, just cried.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like a cathartic, like release, like, okay, like Lord, we know.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And again, to your point, pridefully, so I was gonna stay.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, I was called to this, I'm gonna make it work.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, they can leave, come hell on high wire, like we're gonna build this church.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And Lord's like, I didn't call you to that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, use wisdom, walk in humility, don't walk in foolishness, you know, and thank God for a praying wife.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank God for a spirit-filled wife.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she was like, This isn't good for us, it's not good for this is the Lord wouldn't call us to this.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is our our family's our first ministry, and he's not gonna call you to sacrifice your family on the altar of ministry for the sake of building his kingdom.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's not how it works.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Ministry should make my family better.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my kids want to go to church.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife delights in serving alongside me.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: That ain't happening.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, okay.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, tell you what, we'll we'll we'll get a meeting with our lead pastors and uh and we'll we'll talk with them about that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we met with them, and our past our pastors they they were they were so gracious in, you know, again, allowing us to return back to the to the to the main campus.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: But man, honestly, the the brokenness came from the shame and the guilt at feeling like a failure afterward.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, man, I dude, I I I say resigned, like I pulled back from everything.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we had like a growth track type class.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I pulled back from that, from teaching that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I pulled back from pulled back from doing rehearsals.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I pulled back.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was also served alongside another friend of mine as our connect group pastors, our discipleship pastors.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I pulled back from all of that, man.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, serving in youth, like I pulled back from everything.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember telling Kevin, I said, I.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I remember saying this.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: I just remember saying that, man, maybe the Lord made a mistake.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Man, maybe, maybe, maybe I'm not meant to do this.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe, maybe I heard wrong.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: If I heard wrong about do, you know, being a campus pastor, maybe I got it wrong.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I didn't hear from God about like being called to ministry, being called to teach and to preach.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I got it all wrong, you know?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the Lord never answered that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: He just let me sit with it.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And what's crazy is things got worse.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up losing my job.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had a reduction of force, just lost my position, lost it.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And prior to that, Carol and I, we had been praying and just wondering, like, man, God, are you are you are you shifting us?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Are you are you moving us?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the Lord had showed us your time here with this ministry, with this church has come to an end.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we met we did it the honorable way, met with our pastors and everything.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, this is what the Lord's called us to.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, were we wrong.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't having us change our church, man.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: He was changing our address.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so then we moved in 2017, we moved from Tusk School City, Alabama, to Cross back to Clausville, Tennessee.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is we consider this our hometown because both our families are here.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Our parents retired from the army here.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: So like this is home base.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: We moved back.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I I remember telling Carolyn one day, you know, during service, I said, I just feel like a nameless face in the crowd.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is how I feel.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just what what purpose could God possibly have for me?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like why, you know?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And God doesn't give me a purpose, He gives me a people, He gives me a men's small group.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I'm looking for work, obviously.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's my full-time job, is looking for a job.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I joined a small group here at Life Point.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And man, there's eight dudes in there, and I show up and I'm like, brothers, I I'm here because I got nothing but time on my hands.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the first guy I said, I'm here because I got nothing but time on my hands, because I'm looking for a job.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And those brothers prayed with me every Monday we met, every Monday at 6 p.m., they prayed with me.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: They would not just text me prayer requests, they would text me job leads.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, bro, so hired.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I don't care.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: I will be a street sweeper, man.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I will I will be the dude that puts the cherry on the Sunday.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm gonna take care of my family, you know?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then the Lord does bless me with the job.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, the first guys that I reach out to is my small group, you know?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm working, but I'm still staying, you know, connected with them.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then just over time, you just see, okay, the job before coming on to light point, the Lord showed me, hey son, like I've still got purpose for you.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I still have ministry for you, you know.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that the job I stayed at that job, I was there for two, almost two and a half years, and the law of the Lord me to lead seven people to Jesus.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, okay, God, I see.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: But he never answered that one question.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: He just, he just, he just opened the doors for ministry to continue to happen.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I got closer, my kids and I got closer like through all of that.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: We we we plant ourselves here, you know, at Life Point Church, all in the midst of that, you know, we're door greeters, and we're doing growth track, and then we're serving in worship.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have a random conversation with a staff member, and he says, Hey, what would it look like for you to work here?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Me?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Are you serious?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it and and and here we are six almost seven years later, man.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sitting next to you, not just as a a co-laboring in Christ, but a co-worker here at Life Point Church, man.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, man.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just you you look back and you're like, God, how in you Hollywood couldn't write a better story.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hollywood, I think again, you're Hollywood couldn't script that better, man.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord is the world's best storyteller, and his stories always end with redemption.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: They just always and the story's still being written, like he's not done with either of us yet.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's still breath in our body.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and but then looking through it all, I love this scripture that you had here, man, this theme scripture in in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 8.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, this is Paul speaking.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: He says, For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we've experienced in Asia.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is Asia Minor, modern day Turkey and Arabia.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: He says, For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: That that's where we were at, Omar.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: We despaired of life.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Just God, why do I need to keep on going?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is where we are.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then look at verse 90 says, indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, like hopes, dreams, plans, done.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: In that moment, I was like, I'm done.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I will be a spectator, I will be a visitor, I will be a guest.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: That that that I had just resigned.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm going to do.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: That is it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's my part in the kingdom.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just show up when church is happening, right?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: That is why all of that happened.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: All of that happened.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Looking back, listening to your story, recounting my story.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: All of that happened because God wanted to deprive me of any notion that I could sustain myself.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, like your story and my story, even though they're in different seasons of life, I think I was, I'll I'll say I loved the church so much, but easily think of at that age for me to be obsessed over the church.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think God was already putting something in me.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: But the view I had of my leaders and and I probably held them at such a high standard, yes, like on a pedestal.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's where the breaking for me happened.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, how could the people that I'm looking up to be the ones that are putting me down?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then hearing you you when you said like your your heart was in the place of it, you were desiring certain things, and it's almost like when you put your hopes and you idolize even the church, you you idolize the bride of Christ, yeah, and you idolize the leadership and this and that.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: That there is a way that just like in everything, you know, when you idolize things of the world and and the wrong things, there is a way that God's gonna reset things, yeah, and he's gonna give you a way out, yeah, because he loves you so much and he loves us so much that he's like, I don't want you to get stuck there.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so then I'm giving you a way out.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: This is your way out right here.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then you you come to this place where you're ruffled and you're like, Well, I love that so much.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Am I gonna give it up?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you either get into a car wreck, yeah.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have I have guys in my small group, you know, one of them talks about how he was an alcoholic and he drank and drank and drank.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And nothing that anyone would say would change anything until he got in a car wreck, and and that changed everything for him because it came down to like he almost killed somebody, and it took that gravity of an event, something so like heavy, like, how could I be the person that almost took life?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, that all of a sudden it just does something to you, and and instead of running to coping with his own feelings and trying to figure it out, he ran to Jesus.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, and and and now he shares his testimony and he just shares what the Lord's done and how it's transformed, and he had to serve time because of what he did, and he did it, yeah, and he didn't run from it.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: He he took responsibility, the consequences of of his mistakes.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and but I I just think when we idolize something and we give something the place that belongs only to God, yeah, at some point in our life, he's gonna be like, Hey, hold up, let's let's shake it up here because I don't want you to stay there.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now, for some people, they choose to stay there.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, all right, hey, but I'm right here.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've not left you.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, you're not alone, but you you just gotta turn around.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you gotta repent and turn around.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but there's always a moment in our lives where where I believe all of us can say there's been a moment of pursuit where we've just felt God just reaching out, yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean it might not have felt pleasant, it could have come in uh in form of a disease, yeah, form of an accident.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's not that God's the one doing this, it's very much like Job.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right, you know, like he was tested, sure, but God wasn't the one doing it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, but it proved and it showed where his heart was and where his loyalty was, you know, and who he worshipped, right?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Which was absolutely and I love that you said that, uh, Pastor Omi, because to your point, God God is not the author of misfortune.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way because the Bible says every good and perfect thing comes from our our father above, right?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: To your point.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: But in his sovereignty, he will permit and allow these things.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I love how you said to shake up because that's what God does with idols.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, to be clear, God only does one thing with idols, he breaks them.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Go read what happened to the idol Dagon, the Philistine guy.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just go look it up in your Bible and see what happened when the presence of God, the Ark of the Covenant, was put was put next to a false idol, to a false guy.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Go read about what happened.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only that's the God's only response.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And here's why.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's so funny we're talking about this because I'm reading in Galatians.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he he he calls idols two things.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: He calls them powerless and worthless.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's why God wants to shake up and get rid of idols because they're worthless.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: They don't provide you the life that they promise you that they will, they don't provide you the fulfillment, the satisfaction, the guidance, and the direction.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: They don't they don't fill you and they don't they don't shape you and form you into the image of Christ.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's why God destroys idols.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Not because he's threatened by them.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's God.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: He ain't threatened by a created thing, but it's because he loves us.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, that's not my best for you.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: That thing will lie to you and it will deceive you.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: The idol of ministry, the idol of dude, the idol of effectiveness and fruitfulness will deceive you.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Salvation on Sunday will deceive you if you start to think, oh man, I I must be the look at what I did.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Look at what I did, right?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and so God will say, No, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna, I'm just gonna allow this thing to rattle so you can see how insufficient and worthless it really is.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then we, like you said, man, we're always able to come back to him.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like he says right here.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: It says here, but that was to make us not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: I love how he says he because that's what God does.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's a life bringer, he's the offer of life.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so, man, we're walking in new life.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thank God for that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I love you, Omer Man.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm glad we get to do this together, man, for real.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it just seems the things in your life, they just seem so happenstance and they seem so circumstantial until you look back, until you, you know, you and you always say hindsight's 2020.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you look back and you see, and even then, even in looking back, I still there are some things I still have questions about.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, man, God, like why did it have to happen that way?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, why did it go?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it just so that but at the end of the day, I'm not gonna get caught up in in the questioning, I'm gonna get caught up in gratitude.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: God, thank you.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: When I don't understand, when I can't trace it, I'm just gonna say, God, thank you that I'm here today in 2026, you know, sitting next to my brother in Christ.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: We had a crazy story.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, man, only the Lord could have done that.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: You you you're in you're in LA, you're in Dallas, I'm at Fort Campbell, I'm in Tuscaloosa, I'm in Murray, Kentucky, you're in Australia, I'm in Clarksville.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's come on, man.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: King script up.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do that.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: God is a masterful storyteller, and he's still writing the story, man.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's still writing your story, he's still writing your story, he's not done yet.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: But like, I do want to just join in the warning that Pastor Elmer just said.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: If there are idols in your life, and how do you know?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just do an honest assessment right now.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you know it's an idol?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you responded if it's taken away.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's how you know it's an idol.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, man, if this thing right now were all of a sudden disappear from my life, would I be able to say I have Christ and therefore I still have everything?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if not, this is what I believe about the Lord, because he is a father, he would much rather you take the idol down.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's gonna come down, one way or another.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to come.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just said, go read what happens to the idol of Dagon.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: That every idol in our lives, God, that's because he's holy.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he's wise and he's good.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if there are idols in your life, God wants you to use your your wisdom and your free will to take it down off of the shelf of your heart.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's going to come down, and you get to take it down and set it aside, or God will, he'll knock it down.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: It'll either way, it's coming down, but you'll still be better for it.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: So do an honest assessment.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do Psalm 139, God, you know, examine me, remove those idols, repent, and and walk and come back to the Lord.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to leave us with this.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of us that are parents, you know, we we if you have kids and you're like your children start feel like, oh, I like this boy, I like this girl, whatever.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: And there's that teen, yeah, teen love.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if you've ever heard kids say, like, oh yeah, I love him, I love her.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: And what do we say as parents?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: We say, You don't know what love is.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know what love is.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: But but for them, right, in their age and their state of mind, they're like, Oh my gosh, this is the best thing ever.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: He saw me, he's looking at me, or you're this and that, whatever.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's so real to them.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it because of our experience and wisdom, we're like, they don't know what love is.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because they don't they don't.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's so good, right?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it, but when they and they like this kid, whatever, they break up and it's like the end of the world.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of the times that we're actually being broken, it's because God says you don't know what love is.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so we think we love these things that are not good for us.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: We think that that the things that we're allowing to be part of our life, that that is what's gonna fill us and satisfy us and be the replacement for what only God can do.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so I we were talking, I was just thinking of that's like, you know, we say that as parents, like, you don't know what love is.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and and as adults, I think as adults, it's worth saying some of the things that might be breaking us, you love them and they're great.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's good, but you God can still do more, and God can satisfy you eat way more than what that thing that might be hurting that you're missing, yeah, you know, can can fulfill.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and and I'm I'm not saying that's everything, sure, but there might be some situations that that that's the case.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: And if anything's gonna satisfy us, if we're gonna find peace and joy in anything, it's gonna be in the presence of God.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so we love you guys.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for letting us share a little more in depth of our own life story today.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: But we hope that this has been a blessing to you.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, until next week, peace out.