Latest / CEO Kingdom Seekers / Ep 35: Trusting God With the Gifts You Haven’t Fully Owned Yet with Chris Whittington (Proverbs 3:5–6)

Transcript

Ep 35: Trusting God With the Gifts You Haven’t Fully Owned Yet with Chris Whittington (Proverbs 3:5–6) · CEO Kingdom Seekers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to our podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is living proof that you don't have to choose between your business acumen and your creative calling.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Whittington has spent decades as the successful owner of a steel distribution company in Texas.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he's also the Christian rock artist and worship leader who's crafted a personal style that reflects both his faith and his love for great musicianship.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Chris has learned how to live a dual vocational life, finding balance and impact in both the boardroom and now the recording studio.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: His workplace radiates the message of Christ daily, and he even provides a weekly Bible study for his employees, led by his record producer, who also happened to be a local pastor.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But his path to success was not easy.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was initially challenged by the wounds of a difficult childhood, and Chris had to learn the hard way that forgiveness was the only path to freedom and the life that God had designed for him.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're over 50 and wondering if you've left your creative passions behind, or if you're a younger leader struggling to choose between business and art, this conversation's gonna just be awesome for you.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Chris, to the podcast.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Dr.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Lee.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I am very happy to be with you today.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for the opportunity.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's my pleasure.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you and I were actually just chit-chatting a bit before the episode started, and I was telling you that I grew up with a parent who was an electrical engineer by day and a jazz bassist by night.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've got that lived experience of having a parent who's like, you know what?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do both.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not that common.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to hear about your story.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: How did you get into doing both?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And how did you find the equilibrium between the two?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was born at a very early age.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you got it and laughed.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people don't.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Battle jump.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're expecting you to say something very serious.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, What is he saying?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Look, Dr.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Lee, I was a kid, the typical Houston, Texas suburban lifestyle, five siblings, both parents there at the time.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: That would change not too far hence, but at the time.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad put us to sleep every night, applying all kinds of music.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: The Beatles, The Stones, Bach, Mozart, Burl Lives, if anybody knows who that is.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sing along with Mitch.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: All kinds of pop music as well as classical.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that's going to influence you to different degrees, but for me, I was born with somewhat of a propensity, a love for music, was a natural thing.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that just really fed into it.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: At some point, five, six years old, my brother, my older brother and I each are gifted with the transistor radio.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: We found our pop music stations local in Houston at the time.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And man, I never turned mine off unless I had to go to school or to bed.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Music obviously was a very big deal to me.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I had envisioned one day, like a lot of kids, you dream of being a doctor or a firefighter, or me was writing and recording and performing my own music on big pop radio stations or wherever I could.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be a pop star, a rock star.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was a drive early on.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I never gave up on that dream.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I pursued it in varying degrees through my team years.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Jesus movement or the great awakenings that God has done.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're nodding your head.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was huge.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And Houston, Texas happened to be one of the epicenters for uh convergence points for that awakening.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Had trumpet lessons.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: My parents recognized my some innate talent, loved it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus movement happened.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: A guy teaches me two guitar chords on a guitar, and I'm off to the races leading worship songs and Bible studies at my school cafeteria, any place I could find where people would show up and listen and sing along.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was a very early passion and something that I loved and still love to this day, leading, being a part of a worship team that leads God's people into his presence to sing and praise him.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful, marvelous thing to behold and to be part of, and I'm very happy to do that pretty much every Sunday and have for decades and decades.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a real short version.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in there, not somewhere there.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was in high school, and I met my now great friend, record producer, co-writer, teacher, mentor, Kemper Krab, who some of your people may or may not know his name.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was one of the early Christian rock pioneers, if you want to give a title, along with people like Phil Kagey, Larry Norman, Nancy Honeytree, Love Song.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Kemper was one of those early pioneers of rock music and Jesus music, it was called.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we got to know each other at a local Christian record store in Little Pasadena, Texas, so many years ago, and have become pretty fast friends in Evermans, so over the years.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: We were at a concert in downtown Houston some 15 years ago, and we heard the opening, this opening act, and they were pretty good.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was an Irish band, it was acoustic bass, but they had electric guitars.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I loved the sound.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of turned my face away, and Kemper, my great friend, looks at me and says, Are you crying?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, No.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why would you ask me that?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because, dude, it looks like you're crying.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess so.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because all these years I've wanted to do what these people in front of me are doing.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd seen lots of live bands.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't the first time I'd been to a live show or something.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: But for whatever reason, this one resonated hard.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Kemper, in his fine form, answered me, hmm.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then we never spoke of it.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then about two weeks later, he calls me and says, Hey, we're gonna make your solo album.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that was exciting.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: A big piece I'm leaving out.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had both been part of Kemper's project of medieval Christmas music, the ever popular medieval Christmas music, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: That is a joke.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was a huge success on PBS a few years before.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: It had like 160, 175 million viewings in a two-year period.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they said it was the biggest thing of its type they've ever done.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I was privileged to be part of that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'd become a pretty good musician by then, and I'd been writing my own songs.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So now we come back, Kimper tells me, hey, we're gonna make your solo record.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we did.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: It took a little while to get it done, but he has his own studio in his home.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we share a great friend, Ryan Bursinger, who's the greatest sound engineer in the city of Houston, live or recording.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Kimper will agree with me on that.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we went on and made my first album, which is titled The Bright Portal.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of a shortish version.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Where did your business come in with that?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like from a timeline perspective.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Another great question.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I had during those years of developing my own art, and now I'm 20 and I'm married.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And by we my wife and I had our first of four kids.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in there, I'm still playing at church every Sunday and developed a core of friends who are musicians, very, very good musicians, and who have done some other pretty great stuff.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm watching them sleep on their mother's couch, no shame in that, or in their car, or you know, less, how would you say, I don't know, glamorous places, lifestyles, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, you know, I can pursue the music thing too, but I even have a wife and now a baby, that's not going to work for me.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I had been working in the structural steel world or businesses related to it for a few years by then, and continued to do that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't take the path of going full-time artist, which in some ways I regret, and in a lot of ways I don't, for the aforementioned reasons mostly.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I went along and continued to play, continue to get better, continued writing songs.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we make my first solo album.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: At some point, I had another kind of a long story, but I had decided after those years in the structural steel industry that I knew I knew that that I needed to start my own business.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and I will be just honest with you and tell you something I am not proud of.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I told God no.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I told God no for about 10 years.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I am not, I'm very much not proud of that and actually ashamed of it.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: However, being God, his his ways are not thwarted, regardless of what some in Christianity will tell you that we can thwart the will of the living God.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, it ain't in the Bible, so it ain't so.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, he kept after me.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And through long story, I'm not bore you with, but a set of circumstances, it became clear to me at at one point.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is our twenty second year, I think I got that right, for Whittington Steel My Business since I started.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's twenty-two years now this year.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Had to take my shoes off to count, you know.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: My shoes are on.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the set of circumstances came to bear.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was painfully somewhat obvious that God's saying, No, you're doing this, dude.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to tell people, not it's easy, I guess, for me to say now, but it was very difficult.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was a difficult decision to make.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: The upshot of that, Dr.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Lee, you gotta step through the doors.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: See, I said no.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I knew better.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: God, the risk is too great.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I got all these mouths to feed, six at this point.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept saying no.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually he made circumstances come to bear in my life where it was obvious that it's time.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: You need to do this.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Stop saying no.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So with a$5,000 loan from my fabulous in-laws who told me it was a loan, not a gift.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And don't get the wrong impression, they'd given us many gifts.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's interesting that this one my father-in-law decided was a loan.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Another story, perhaps, for another day.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it was a loan, and off we went.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I had built some really strong relationships with several customers working for others, and you know, put out a couple of feelers.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if I do this, will you support me?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer was a resounding yes, the handful of them that I asked.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I quit my other job doing much of the same thing, selling Schwarzer Steel, and within a week was receiving purchase orders from some Fortune 500 companies on a halfway broken down laptop and fax machine in my bedroom at my house.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we were off to the races.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I admit to you, my lack of faith was still in evidence.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Again, not proud of that, but having learned much from it, that's why I think today I can encourage people.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Step through the door.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Am I telling you whatever God opens a door, it's gonna automatically be just as good as you imagine and even a lot more?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna promise anybody that you'd know I was a liar.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I do know that we can trust him.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what I get up every morning, Dr.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Lee, and ask myself, do you or don't you believe God's word where he says he makes all things work together for your good?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we gotta ask ourselves that and tell the truth, be honest.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: There are some days where I struggle with that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I rehearse it and I know that it's true intellectually, and it eventually gets to my heart that I know that I know that I know that God has looked through the tough times, and if you want more detail, I can tell you about hard times for my wife and I and our kids, and everybody has them.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't have a unique thing to my story, I I doubt.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: But but I do know that we never missed a meal, we never didn't have a roof over our head.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: God has taken care of us, and that's not that's a cliched sounding thing to say.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, I lived it.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: I bet you have too.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people who listen to your show, watch it, can say the same thing.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: He is faithful, he is always faithful.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's never failed me and he never will.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the truth.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: All day, every day.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I we'll just cry together.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna laugh together, we're gonna cry together.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're fast friends.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny because I typically don't record multiple episodes, like two Macs in a day.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband and I have been in this really interesting new season where promises are like coming to fruition.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Things that God has said, hey, this is what is gonna happen, they're happening, and they're happening in ways that I think are kind of calling out some last remnants of like, hey, I need you to look at this differently.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think about Joshua, and interestingly, one of the episodes today we ended up talking about Joshua, but I think about him in that moment of knowing that Moses didn't get to go forward and that he's the one that gets to go forward, and also like imagine carrying the weight of right, and also the piece of there's warnings in that, and not warnings from the sense of if you do this, it's gonna be, but there's very painfully learned wisdom that he gets in that moment.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel so much like today has been a day where God's just like, hey, I'm giving you through these guests some painfully learned wisdom that you need as you're like moving forward.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I'm giving you all four of these on the same day.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's right as these other things are happening, and everything you're talking to your guests about, I need you to take that with you.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was actually just sitting here reflecting as you were talking because that is the piece you were saying around we tell God no.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the conversations we had earlier was around how God exists outside of time, he's the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: My sciencey brain always just gets so blown away with knowing, okay, God exists outside of time.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So he knew like you're choosing it, it's your free will, but he knew you were gonna say no 10 years before you said yes.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all ordered and used for your good, right?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like I love stories like this where people are like, no, thanks, God, and he's like, Okay, yeah, I knew you were gonna say that because there's plenty of places in my life that I'm I was like, No, God, I'm not doing that.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'd be like, Yeah, God, I'll do that if.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to say the if out loud, but it's a definite like caveat of or of English, yeah, there were conditions.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'll only do this if.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I find in so many of the people I talk to, he like leads us to this place where he strips away everything that causes us to put those conditions on there or put those exceptions on there, or like just straight up say no until we're like, okay.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you you talked about you have to step through the door.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: We actually use this example a lot because God could kick God can kick you through the door.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like he could kick anybody through a door.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: He could have the back of your shirt and shut up.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you find yourself on the other side of the door.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't do that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that causes a lot of questioning and like uncertainty for people.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have it I'll go live and I'll have people say, if God is so good, then why does he yada?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always one of those things.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't God force these things to happen?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, just by you asking that question, you're misunderstanding him.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so before I truly believed, like I hated that he didn't kick us through doors.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now I love that he doesn't kick us through doors.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love that he's like, I know you're stubborn, and I know this is gonna take seven years, and that's okay.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And not okay from the sense of we want to stay connected and turn towards him and draw closer to him, but like he's like, I know you, I made you, like I designed you.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't think we're gonna do this.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: He knows our foibles, he knows our shortcomings.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do we think he's not aware of our shortcomings?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's laughable.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's absurd, it's absurd on its face.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you said you have four kids, right?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we have three, and I think about when my kids were little, and actually, we just had this happen with one of our kids recently, and like keeping some details murky for their private, but like they did something.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband and I knew they did the thing, but they didn't know we knew they did the thing.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, Did we let them know that we know?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I think we wait.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Okay.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we waited, and then more came to light, and then they came to us and they were like, I did a thing, and we were like, We know.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: How great is that?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: You waited for them to come and confess.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, What do you mean you know?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, You're a bad liar.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Which is a good thing.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I also said, Do you know that your father, I don't know what your father exactly prays around this, but do you know that I have prayed this with your father?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for God to not let you get away with anything.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I do that for your good.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so you can get in trouble, it's so you learn that your boundaries are tighter than some of your friends out here.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like God loves you so much that he's gonna keep you on the straight and narrow more so than he is these other people.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, and my kids were like, Are you?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, That's I don't I said, Yeah, it's uh I get it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I if I were a teenager, I probably wouldn't love my mom praying that prayer either.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: But you want to know who's really gonna love that prayer?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your 20, 30, 40-year-old son.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I love the way of a good friend of mine says it, Doctor.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: My job as your parent is to make the cost of sinning so high for you that you're unwilling to pay it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I just think that's should be on a poster, I don't know, over the doorpost of every house.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's it, is I don't want you getting comfortable in that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also from a place of experience, from a place of wisdom.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you what, coming back from that is so much harder than just respecting it in the first place.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned that you had these difficult times.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is something you mentioned in your description.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about learning that forgiveness was the only path to freedom.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about this forgiveness of your own dad and how winning that battle changed everything?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank and another great question.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was we were living the idyllic suburban lifestyle, which I mentioned before in Houston, Texas, the fourth largest metroplex in the in the world.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: An incredible city and place to live.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're living this idyllic suburban lifestyle, and my parents decide to move us from that to a little uh small town, really essentially another suburban situation.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much further, 15 miles away, not super far.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh nice little town, Friendswood, Texas, and it's on the way to Galveston off of uh I-45 South.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And probably within the year there were cracks in the dike of their marriage, and uh been it became my mother became aware of infidelities by my father, and it was just cliched as I'll get out with secretaries and who knows we all so cliched.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you'd come up with something a little more original.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, it hit the proverbial fan, of course, and that began a downward spile of what eventually ended their marriage was dissolved in a very acrimonious divorce, after which my mother and my five siblings, and I think only four of us were still at home.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: The other, my two oldest sisters, I think.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I know one of them for sure was had her an apartment and was an adult.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: But at least my mother and three of my siblings and I were cast overnight into a very deep poverty.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: My mother had been a stay-at-home mom and hadn't worked outside of the home for a paycheck.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that was true through the divorce.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And my father just gave no support whatsoever, not even a nickel.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so we were thrown overnight, literally, into a very deep poverty.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think the house, the nice house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the town, was went into foreclosure.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was all very shameful.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We had to move from the one of the nicest houses to one of the very smallest and oldest houses, probably built in the 1920s, little frame house had a Hole in the floor, one gas heater in the house.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a big house, so it didn't require a lot of heat.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Had a piece of plywood that you slid the original barn door over the bathroom to get in and out of the bathroom.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And our lifestyle changed radically overnight.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: My little mother was able to get a job at a nearby daycare and eventually directed that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: But at age 11, I was buying all my own clothes, probably about half of my own food.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: God love her.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: My mother, she was doing all she could to keep a roof over our heads and some food in the house.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: She was doing everything she could.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: She was thrust into a terrible situation.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I remember my little granny, we called her granny.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: My mom's mother helped us, but she didn't have a lot of money.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was a tough time.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: I would see my father two to four times a year.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: He would come to the little house.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: He and my mother would have words.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: He probably ended up giving her a handful of buck dollars or something to placate her at least for a few minutes.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he would talk to whatever his kids was around for a few minutes and then he'd be gone again.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: I got really good, Dr.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Lee, at lying to my friends.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Where's your dad?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Where's your dad?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's on business trips.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was eternally on business trips.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was so embarrassed.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: We were living in the worst house in one of the highest per capita income towns in Texas.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was a kid.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was embarrassed.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was ashamed.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was not as hip and cool and popular for your parents to be divorced as it is now.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh that was that was beginning to change even then, but it hadn't changed much yet.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was tough.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I got really good at lying about where he was.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Again, not proud of that.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: But that obviously meant more to me than it should have, and there were other lessons that would come with that later.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: God teaching me to be less interested in pleasing man rather than being obedient to him.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're nodding your head, you understand that.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love how different stories, same lesson, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: There literally is nothing new under the sun, is there?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, like, what does that look like then going into your business and then like I know it I've got the spoiler alert, I know you do forgive him, and that yeah, that isn't helpful to freedom.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: But what I guess I'm just I'm over here going, I'm appreciating this contrast, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because we know what happens in the end.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And also I'm hearing this and going, My heart's just breaking.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that you know, a preteen, my son's 14, and and my husband and I, we've been open.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Our our kids know we struggled at a time.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a conversation around like how do we continue to do this together?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Was again very much when we were like in that turned away phase from God, and and yeah, he's so good that we're together, and she was never.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think about just the impact that even us struggling had on the kids.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, my heart just breaks a little thinking about you actually having an experience that's just way more intense and sad.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I was having a conversation with a guest just a little bit ago talking about how when your dad does things like that, like what your earthly father does impacts how you see your heavenly father.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: That was the thank you for that transition.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly like you said, there's nothing new under the sun, there is no real or different story.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's all the same.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Adam and Eve.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And sinned, where there were consequences to that sin, and yet God blessed them in ways that they hadn't imagined at the time.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: Very similar deal.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, to answer your question, look, it was a process for me to forgive my and in some ways I'm even still getting there.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's an odd thing.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I think about forgiveness.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a one-time episode?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is it an ongoing process?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's I think it's ongoing, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think I agree with you.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is too.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's internal, but I think we grow into it even.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's this internal process of like of releasing the expectations that you had over that person.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And also like releasing the shame and guilt over things that you maybe did in response to that.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's also, I think, feeling all of the emotions, the justifiable emotions of anger and sadness and confusion and and all of those things.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I feel like it's I I thought what I've found, and I'm curious to hear how you view that, but I've found that it's a conscious choice that I make the first time.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's a okay, and Jesus help me remember that I forgave this person.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And anytime that something comes up that makes me forget that, help me remember it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you're describing a process.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going forgiveness.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Look, it took me a long time to learn this from newsflash.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: God uses the pangs, the suffering, the hardships of this life.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, each of our sanctification processes as Christians to make us into the image of his only begotten son.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the deal.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned time earlier.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Time, as all things, is God's creature.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it is therefore inside of him.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: You said outside of time.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: You said the same thing.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I like to think of it, it's inside of him.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is inside of him.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: The cosmos is inside of him.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So he is working all things together for good.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: There, his arm is not so short that it cannot save.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: He is continually, constantly involved in every single aspect of my life.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Am I saying he cares whether I pick up the red candy or the green one to eat?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he's so concerned about things like that.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I do know that, look, here's my attempt at a deep theology.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: You ready?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm ready.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: God's sovereignty is this hand.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: This hand is man's responsibility.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: The two interface.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you to a degree that's gonna satisfy you or me how that works.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mystery.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know that it's true.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the choice thing.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: People struggle over that.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's really unnecessary.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you and I believe that he's is right now, at this moment, making the good times and the bad times all work together for mu for our good.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that how much I need to concern myself with where this choice is initiated or hang-all, yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can I tell a quick story?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this is so funny.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I this morning was like I said, when I looked at my schedule yesterday and went, oh, there's four podcasts.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband actually turns 40 tomorrow.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, there's a bunch of things.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and there's a bunch of things happening, and like he's like, there's just you know business owner life, okay?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, summer for teenagers.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: School's coming.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm doing all my stuff and I realize I haven't eaten.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm hungry.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I go in the kitchen and my husband's like, Do you want the last bit of this bacon?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Where did you get bacon?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't make bacon.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen you make bacon.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Where did this bacon come from?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, What are you trying to ask?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You like bacon, the bacon's made.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'll eat it if you don't want it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you want the bacon right now?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I've already eaten the bacon, and I'm like, Okay, but how long has the bacon been in the house?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like I'm asking these things.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I get a little uptight around food safety.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so he looks at me and he goes, Do you want the bacon or not?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or not.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm just trying to figure out, and he stopped me.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's been, he and I have again just our relationships.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's like, I'm starting to understand you.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, Jesus is showing me you and your heart so much more.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, babe, I know how you feel about food safety.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: So why would I try to feed you something?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Why would I jeopardize?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, and not only that, he's like, it's one thing if I was comfortable eating it, because I'm comfortable eating, he's comfortable eating things that I'm not.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: He'll leave something out for hours and I'm my wife and I, by the way, have the exact same dynamic.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I was like, you know what?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm eating it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm eating it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trusting him.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in the shower and I'm thinking about this.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I the shower's always where God talks to me.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, You are doing the same thing with me as you just did with your husband.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think we don't know what matters to you?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: You are trying to get information because underneath all of that is a lack of trust that we actually care.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a control thing.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, but I do want to choose to trust.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want to choose to trust that God cares.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to choose to trust.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to choose going back to yours.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't care if I eat the red or green candy if it doesn't matter to me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: But God cares if I eat the red or green candy if he knows that one of those is gonna hurt me.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And God cares if I choose the red or green candy if he knows that I have a really strong preference and I'm not seeing something.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: He cares about those kinds of things.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I came out of the bathroom, my husband was standing there, and I said, Hey, I am so sorry.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I disrespected you there because I made an assumption that you don't know me and you don't care about what matters to me.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not who you have shown to be at all.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Exactly, he goes, Now, to be fair, if you were asking because I hadn't eaten the bacon yet, I would get it.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, But I knew how important today was to you.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know how much you care about this.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want your mind worrying about anything.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just goes back to what you were saying there around he does, he cares so much.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that does come from growing up in a household where what I wanted wasn't always considered, or what mattered to me wasn't always something that mattered to other people.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started questioning because I had to ask the question because I didn't know if you'd considered what mattered to me or not.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: You want to make assumptions, you want to make the right assumptions.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's a quick trip.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it always leads there, but it's real easy to step over that line into second guessing.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I heard you saying.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Second guessing.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Even people who a friend of mine wrote a song several years ago.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, we hurt the ones we love.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's somewhat cliche, but it really is true.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's that look, I'm trying to agree with you.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: I understand completely where you're going.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a control thing.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I trust you, but I don't trust you.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think I know better than you.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and really, it's essentially what I was doing with God and telling me to start my business, and I'm second guessing him and telling him I don't think I think if you knew what I knew, God, you wouldn't be cushing me for this, which is absurd, of course.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it is.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's also, again, I feel like Jesus has so much tenderness for that, right?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because we watch him in the gospel over and over with people who are doubting.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my favorite the things I've been praying so much lately.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: People who are doubting.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he and but when he's talks to people who are doubting, he's not mean about it.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think of the one line, and I could be getting this wrong, but I think it's the dad who has the son who keeps like having seizures, right?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like rolling into the fire.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I believe, help my unbelief.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been praying that a lot.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, God, most of me, 90% of me believes.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there is this part that's doubting.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is this part that has been hurt.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that used to be the 90% part.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love that it's only 10%.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: But like, can you help me?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can you help me in that 10%?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I can only imagine growing up with that experience that you had.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: What I heard was, it looks like we're moving into a better opportunity.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And in reality, everything's about to fall apart.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Get ready for the rug to be pulled out.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, oh, this looks good.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then it goes really bad.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine then God putting something in front of me and being like, hey, look how amazing this looks.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, yeah, don't trust that.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been burnt by you before.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've been burnt by a father before.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: So why trust you here?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so grateful for this conversation because I think that this is something we have so many leaders, and we call them high responsibility humans.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're in charge of so much.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they're so good at taking care of other people.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're so good at being trustworthy.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking at just the description of what you are doing and what you did in the beginning of you've got weekly Bible study.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: People are obviously having a phenomenal experience working for you and with you.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have people that leave and see what it's like in the world and they beg to come back.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not everybody.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to oversell it.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it has happened a number of times.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is saying something.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: I asked God I finally got in line with His will.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, let me start a business and create a culture where I would want to work.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was that simple.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was really that simple.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I could do the technical side of the business and probably likely be successful because I'd done the same thing and enriched others.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: So there wasn't a big, huge doubt there as far as the technical side, but equally as important to me, maybe more so, was that I create a culture where I would want to work.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: That means treating people the way I want to be treated.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: In my granted, please don't get the wrong understanding, my very imperfect way.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: I am still a sinner, after all, as I'm not sure.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, Amy too.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that amazing?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, a place where we could.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the bottom line.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Treating everyone as a fellow image bearer of the living God.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: When you put when you strip it down to that reality and truth, how much pigmentation of color is in your skin or cultural differences which we let divide us, all of that goes away.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you're being truthful and honest and just seriously wanting to love others, that stuff doesn't matter a bit.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Not one who.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, look, in saying that, I need to be careful.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that that different cultures don't have their importance and that people don't love them.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Of course they do.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: What is culture?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Culture is as Doug Wilson says, I'm gonna butcher it, but I think that just is religion executed.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean executed, but I can't say that.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what you mean.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like it it's the the theory put into practice, right?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not a good idea.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, yeah, culture is important, but nothing to quote the scripture will ever separate us from the love of Christ.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: So am I gonna let culture or the way someone looks or speaks?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: I better not, because that's sinful.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And God says not to be not to care about things like that.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's very clear in the word about making those things more important than the truth of loving people.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't mean winking at their sin or my own.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there has to be processes for that.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm making it sound real easy.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: In our business, we have about 15 employees at any given time.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've helped them.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've helped with hopefully sound biblical relationship advice.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: We've helped with illnesses and needs for money to pay for surgeries and whatnot.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly don't tell you that to gain anything from it.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I believe in what this word's not in Genesis, but it could be.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's commonly called the Dominion Principle.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: That means Adam and Eve's mission to till the earth, take care of it, order it, grow it, is still our mission today.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Christ, the second Adam, has come.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that responsibility is first and foremost to push forward the kingdom of God throughout his world, throughout every tribe and every nation.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't be interested in having one Christian nation and a bunch of other non-Christian nations.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Our job is to turn every nation into a Christian nation to glorify God because it's all his.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's our job.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's our mission.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And man was made to work.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: I like to get that one in.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: He put Adam to work before he before they send.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: So many people don't know that.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a seminal important thing to understand about the nature of God.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And also, yeah, he designed us to co-create with him, to have dominion over creation with him, in union with him.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that the toil and the pain and the struggle and the suffering.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was the part like that that was what came in after.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as a result of our sin.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: When I see people suffering at work, I'm like, okay, so we already know that you're out of alignment with God's promises, because if you're suffering at work, we've got a problem, right?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so and there was one more thing I wanted to ask you.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of people who are, and I say this, my husband's turning 40 tomorrow, like I said, I'm turning 40 at the end of the year.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: And ideally, we're hitting that, we're 50% of the way through, right?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people who listen who we we don't know how much time we have left.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: If we're going off averages, right?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So for people who are in the average back half, 40, 50 plus, who have regrets about their life choices and they're like wondering if they took the right path, and they've maybe left some of those creative pieces behind and not found the way to connect them together.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's your message to that?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Get after it.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry if that sounds crass.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Find a way.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the deal: here's the big old wild card, not wild card.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: God will bless that.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: However, He chooses to do it.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean everything I imagine this could be will come to pass and then some?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it always comes down to the same issue.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do I or do I not trust him?
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you gotta open doors, make some doors, step through those doors, do everything you can.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Art, for example, let's take that one.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh always wanted to be a singer or write songs.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Find a church that has a group like that, some sort of outreach group.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: There are churches, especially in bigger cities, that gets tougher when you get into the hinterlands.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can't find one, just like with the Bible study, start one.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And people will come and God will bring people into the fold, and you will learn, and they will learn, and you will grow together.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the point, the bigger point is to answer your question, don't sit and be idle.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because God, you said it earlier so brilliantly.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Obedience.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: And sitting around and dreaming, we romanticize dreaming.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Boy, we can get into a whole nother thing on that, right?
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I won't take you there.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: But sitting around and doing nothing and just thinking about it, there's a thin line before you cross over into ceiling because you're not taking action and being obedient.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know, because I've done it way too many times.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wholeheartedly agree.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a difference between pausing and resting and collecting yourself.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we used to call this getting ready to be ready.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes after you get knocked down, this is something that as a nurse practitioner, I used to see people do.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm remembering when I want to say.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: I had been a nurse for maybe a year.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I wasn't, I was a baby nurse, is what I would say.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was getting on the campus bus and I heard this sound.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know when you hear a sound and you're like, I know when I turn around, I'm gonna have to do something about this, right?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna be able to pretend this didn't happen.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm stepping onto the bus and I hear it, and I'm like, okay.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I step off and I look over, and a cyclist has run into a pedestrian.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So bike and walker.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the walker has fallen back and hit in her head, right?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I look for a second to see if anyone else is responding.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're not.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, okay, I'm running over there.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I get over there, and the woman who's gotten knocked down immediately tries to get up.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this happens almost every time.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: People get hurt and they immediately try to get up.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, ma'am, lay back down.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's our impetus, I think, as humans, when we get knocked down, is we don't stop and go, hold on a second.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let me make sure that I'm good.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so helpful to have someone who's like, hey, you actually hurt.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sit here, process this, yeah, figure out what needs to happen.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's make sure you're good.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure your parts are all where they belong.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the other piece of this is okay, but when it's time to move, you gotta move.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I say is sometimes I think we get knocked down and then we sit and we stay there and we don't forgive and we don't process and we don't do any of that.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get bitter and you get resentful, and you're like, nobody's helping me up.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, people have offered their hands to you.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're just like refusing.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or people have been like, hey, Lee, come on, come over here.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, no, I'm just gonna sit here.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: You want to get up on your terms and you want it to be a certain kind of way, and you want everyone to know how hurt you were, and you want like there's a lot of stuff.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, y'all, I'm not I'm talking about myself more than anybody else, but but I think it just comes to this moment where you're like, okay, like you said, now this is idle.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is this is resistance and refusal to do what I'm called to do.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm grateful that you brought that opportunity for distinguishing that out because it's what you said earlier.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: God's not gonna kick you through that door.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, and okay, you spent the last 50 years not walking through a door that you knew you were supposed to walk through.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: So what?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: God knew that.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: So go anyway, go anyway, and you'll find I don't care what age you are, I don't buy into stuff's inevitable and you become this over time.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: It does happen, but come on.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's a series of choices over time.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Some good ones and bad ones.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you start even at the age of 70 or whatever it is, you begin to practice this.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: God, I had this desire.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've had this desire since yesterday.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've had this desire for five years, I've had this desire for 50 years.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've never done anything with it, therefore, we're giving you the opportunity to show me no, that's not the way for you.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, on that basis, I'm gonna pursue it.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: In whatever little way or big way that you have loaned me the resources to do that.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you look around and you have to be honest with yourself about what's available.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: But then you step through that door.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know we keep coming back to the metaphor, but I think it's a good one.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you do step through it and you get better at stepping through it, and you get better at recognizing his voice, if I may.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: As leading.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: God does that in different ways with different people.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: There isn't one way that I'm aware of.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is you practice it like a muscle and you get better at hearing God.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: And with, as you said, so poignantly, obedience is gonna just magnify that.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he's gonna confirm, give you confirmation after confirmation.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, this is the right path.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, this is the wrong path.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Take a U-turn here, whatever the deal is.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it can't happen without fomenting trust between you and the living God.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: How does that happen?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Opening his word.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible is the only record of reality that we possess, the only one that exists.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: And opening it, studying it, get yourself to a church where they teach the entire Word of God, not just the happy parts.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: If there's not a Bible study, start one.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Learn as you're teaching.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've done that lots of times.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's the best.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Feel like I've learned more about the Bible in the last year, just writing on it and teaching people about what I've seen in it.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And also because it's wrong, too, right?
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's you have to be you have to be ready to be corrected, right?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: By God and by other people, and to be able to discern the the good correction, right?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: So oh my gosh.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: But got God uses means, Dr.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Lee.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that that includes other people correcting me.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, this has just been such a beautiful conversation.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: If people want to connect with you further, particularly maybe they want to learn more about your business and or they want to listen and learn more about your music.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where should we send them in the show notes?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have my website, Chris Whittington.com, C-H-R-I-S, W-H-I-T-T, I-N-G, and likewise, my business is if they want to know anything about my business, it's Whittington Steel, just like it sounds, it's T-E-E-L.com.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: And on the personal Chris Whittington.com, you can hear all of my music.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've written several things if anyone's interested.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: There are interviews there and lots of fun stuff.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to listen to more of your music.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're a very eclectic household.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: I told you I grew up, my dad was a jazz bass, but we were listening to all sorts of things.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everything and falling asleep to if any, I'm gonna, if there's any Cincinnatians listening to this, WGRR 1035, I'm sure it's not that anymore, but it was the oldie station, the 50s, 60s, and a little 70s, and now I'm like the oldie station is the 90s and 2000s.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember listening to those things, and so music has always been such a huge part.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited to hear more and to share it with our kids too.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll be thank you very much, I hope you like it.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's never any guarantee, Dr.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Ryan.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Give it a whirl, you know, maybe something will click.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the beautiful thing about music too, is that it's just like our ministry is like it touches the people it's supposed to touch.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: And all all music isn't for everyone the same way all ministry and all podcasts and all everything is for everyone, and we create because if it even helps one person, then that was what it was for.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's to promote the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's that honestly is my reason.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: If I was not gonna make art except for money and fame, oh yeah, no, I know.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: If I was doing this podcast to get famous, yeah, but we'd be done, right?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or we were eating, yeah.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he's been so good with how he's blessed it to this point, and that's what I love.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think that's the best part I want to say for anyone who's just questioning should I do it or not?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, step through that door.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if nobody listened to this, yeah, if not a single person to listen listen to this, and all I got to do was have these conversations with people, I would be blessed.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's the proof and the pudding right there.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: It has value.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: It has value, even if it's only for me.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: And God has been very much glorified in our conversation today.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's at least two of us.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you again for joining me.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, to all of our listeners, I hope that this has blessed you as well.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: We always love hearing from you too.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to send us a note in the show notes, you can actually send us a message right there, or you can respond if you're coming here from email or from our blog.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: But we just love hearing from you.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's anything you'd like us to share with Chris, we'll gladly do that as well.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for listening, and we will see you next week.