God Can Still Use You!

0:00 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit, so as to form one body, whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so, the body is not made up of one, but of many. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Bumper Sticker Wisdom. I am John. I am Terry.

1:02 So good to have you back. How are you today? I'm glad I'm home. You know, I'm in a routine, been in a routine of the same thing for quite some time. Most days when I leave work, I call you first and then I'll call my dad. And it's one thing that he always kind of points out. It's like, you know, it's over now. Yeah. You know, he says it to me almost every time. It's like, you know, I'm on my way home from another long day. And all you want to do is piss and moan about what happened. And all those kinds of things. And, yeah, it does affect you. I'm not going to say it won't or doesn't. I'm just saying. And, you know, he always kind of points out that it's, well, it's over now. On to the next one. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, you know, I think we spend a lot of time focusing on the negative. We do. Lots of people do. I think we all do it. I think we're all guilty of it. I had a friend today. She was just kind of complaining about, well, someone did this.

2:03 And I said, listen, we all bleed the same color. We all just pretty much, there's a lot of people out there that don't really care. You know what? But that's not who God says you are. And he says you're more than enough. And don't let people ruin your day. Don't let people do that to you. And after I said that, I screamed at kids and I was like, okay. Practice what you preach, dog. I was just like, man, okay. I'm listening, Jesus. I'm listening. Ain't that always the way? Every time. I think that you got to remember there's opposing views, right? There's an opposition.

2:43 There is an enemy. And you know, when he starts to hear you speak. With the power and authority that we have in Christ. What do you think he's going to do? He's going to come at you. He's going to what? Here you go trying to preach up her. I want to give you some love. I'm like, dude, I work with kids, and I have screaming babies. They're teething. And one day I have a kid today that had a very bad diaper rash. I mean, when I say diaper rash, he was bleeding. I'm not saying bleeding bad. It was just a rash. It's a chat. Poor baby. That sucks. It is over. It's over. It's on to the next thing. Now he gets to go home with his mother. Yeah. Before we get going too far, we better say a quick prayer and then we'll get started. Heavenly Father, thank you as always for giving us this time, the means. the opportunity father god thank you for giving us the vision to seize it father we just want to lift up anybody right now who's taking the chance taking the opportunity to listen to us right now that we give them something that father you feed something into our minds into our hearts that comes off our tongues that just uplifts their spirit and brings them closer to you father we love you we thank you for your goodness and mercy and it's in jesus name we pray amen amen amen amen and if anybody saw the stickers on my hat yes i know they're there I'm still like, I'm from the 90s. I still leave my stickers on my hats. He does. I don't know why.

4:03 I've done that forever. Yeah. I washed your hat yesterday, and it still stayed on. Yeah. Leave it alone. I did not peel it off. It's dry in there, so hopefully it's nothing dry. I leave the, well, this one don't, usually they put those stickers on the top. They do. The size sticker. They put it on the top. But this is. This specific hat has a corduroy bill. Oh, yeah. That's kind of weird, so it won't stick to that as well. Yeah, you remember? I used to wear those as a kid. You remember that? I remember those. I'm older than you. Yes, I do remember that. You ain't that much older than me. So today, and I'm, what? Yes, I am much older than you. You're not that much older than me, bro. You're not that much older than me. My brother's your age.

4:54 I'm a little older than your brother. Your brother's only. You're like two years apart. You're still old enough to be my sister, not my mom. So calm down. Moving on. Moving on. No, we got to settle this. It's funny because I was telling my friend today. She was like, she was like, well, she was talking to me. She goes, yeah, you probably went 40, 47. I was like. Bless your heart. No, I am not 47, but thank you. I said, I am 54. She's like, no way. You're 54? I want to look 54 and look your age. I was like, I appreciate you, but, yeah, I still have wrinkles. You don't have very many wrinkles. No, I just want some gray hair. That's all I want is gray hair. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. I'm excited.

5:45 I look much older. Look at mine. You look my age. I look your age. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. See, so it doesn't really matter. Right. You remember that old man? I'm sorry. This doesn't belong in our show per se, but the joke he said, he said, uh, men's average life expectancy of a man is 76. Average life expectancy of a woman is 81. He's 71 years old. He's 81. So I figure if I just transitioned, I was like, Yeah. Squeeze that extra five years. That's funny. Do I get bonus years because I transition to a female? No, you do not. Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend. I know that's silly. It's funny. It is funny. I don't want to take this way out there.

6:37 Yeah. So the reason I opened up with scripture today. I know everybody who's listening that's ever been involved in church or really spent much time around Christ followers has heard we are God's hands and feet. Those words are not specifically in the Bible, just so you know. But it's said in a way that makes you feel like it is. But the reason that I came with the scripture that I had today is looking for that. specific scripture i was looking for wherever it describes us as god's hands and feet and i started thinking about the body of christ right it's really just an image of many parts making one body right we're all part of christ's body we're all part of his as long as we've taken him into our heart and we're all called to a certain thing right we're supposed to and we all do it in different ways right but at the end of the day we're called to Love God, love others. And every time we have an opportunity to present someone with the love and hope of Jesus, we should be taking that opportunity.

7:49 And we had a unique opportunity this weekend, which isn't one that I normally would take, but it happened. And we were mowing when we got home from our side job, and we were getting to mow the front yard, and a gentleman walked up on us, clearly. been sleeping on the streets, and he just started talking to us. He wanted to mow our yard. I'm like, I'm not letting you mow my yard. I'm sorry. No, sir. Yeah, I didn't say it, but I wanted to be like, my wife has a very specific way she wants this done. I can't let you do that. I wouldn't have told him that. No, we're good. Well, obviously I did. I told him, look, man, no, I don't need you to mow my yard, but I have a little bit of cash. I gave him some cash, and then we just talked for a few minutes.

8:36 You let him talk, and you let him vent. You let him get out what he needed to get out, and he was very emotional, very, you could tell he had a lot of hurt in his heart, you know, and you could tell most people won't let you sit and talk about some Jesus sometimes because people are very, you know. He wasn't, he told me, so he's from, he wasn't, obviously he wasn't from here. He was from Missouri. Some bad things happened. bad circumstances uh with an ex or with his wife who he had found having an affair and this is his story so and there's a few things that i want to connect here before you know but uh because obviously people can say well it's just his sob story what what about the other side of the story look i get it i didn't hear that part of the story okay i'm just telling you from what i saw and what i from my perspective he was very broken i was talking about He left Missouri, just went to a truck stop, get me in somewhere, you know what I mean, and ended up here and was hoping to get to Wyoming was what his story was. I don't know why specifically, but he thought he could kind of start getting on his feet, getting his life together and things like that. He didn't appear to be someone who was using based on what I know. As far as using drugs and stuff like that, I've been around some addicts and things

10:08 like that. So have I. I kind of didn't really, he didn't come across like that. He really genuinely came across as somebody who was hurting. We took the opportunity to share Jesus with them, which he said he knew Jesus and that he asked us about our church. He asked if he would be welcome there. I was like, 100%. If you walk in with me, no one's going to turn you in. He goes looking like this. I said, dude. 100%. Yeah. Come in. Come in. Now, don't go storming at the stage. Yeah. But, yes, everybody's welcome. You know what I mean? It just reminded me in that moment that that's what we're called to do. We're called to see those opportunities and seize them, like Mark said a few weeks ago. But it's not something that I'm accustomed to doing very often. It's only over the last probably year that I've become more comfortable with that. And also, I find it so interesting how God operates. Because he reminds you of those things in places where you're broken. Like I was not in a good head space on Saturday. I was kind of dealing with something, you know, I was kind of dealing with some things.

11:20 It was low. I told you, I think I told you, I feel a little low, man. I just feel blue. And then here I, here, I hear this guy comes and you know, it's not a matter. It wasn't about the changing of perspective because I'm fully understanding and aware of how blessed my life is. But I'm also got a lot of demons and pain that I have to still work through. And life still happens, right? Things coming at you still. There's still things coming at me that cause a struggle. And the last time I felt like that was the time that that woman asked me to pray for her at Walmart, right? So I just find it very interesting. And I also find it interesting that Some of our friends from church, the ones that we talked about last week, they're going to Jordan. They were leaving today. Yeah. And yesterday she was on stage talking about kind of gave a testimony about what this was about. Yeah. And she said she just mentioned saying yes. You know what I mean? Saying yes to God. Yeah. And that's kind of what that ties into to me. Being God's hands and feet. Whether it says it that or not, it does call us to do that, to be his hands and feet, to act in his stead, right? We are supposed to be the outward visible image of him, as close to like Christ as possible, obviously knowing that we are broken, living in a broken world with sin still on us,

12:50 right? Although cleansed, right? So anyway, I just found it really... It's interesting that the circumstances, I found it interesting that I did it. Because normally I would have just blown him off. When he started walking in the yard, I was just like, I didn't say nothing. I knew he was coming. And, of course, Kevin was kind of like, Kevin doesn't know how to react when it comes to that. And it was funny. Because Kevin said something when we walked back up here. He goes, I just felt something come through me.

13:33 I said, Kevin, you know what that was, right? He's like, no, that was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, yeah. You're touching him. The Holy Spirit's going through you, you know, to touch this man. Yeah. And he was just like, dude, I felt so. I said, it's not a weird thing. It's just a glorified thing. I understand. If it's uncommon to you, it does feel weird. He didn't know what to do because he was just like, I don't know, Terry. That was just, I don't know. And I'm like, it's the Holy Spirit, Kevin. The Holy Spirit comes through you like that. I'll be honest with you, too. I didn't think about it until just now. It actually makes me feel good that Kevin got to witness it. I talk about these kinds of things with my group. He's one of the four members of my men's group that we've been doing for several years. I started that with him because he wanted to read more Bible. He wanted to understand better. So I think we've probably read the entire Bible at least once. We've read several books many times. We've discussed different scripture.

14:41 We've changed our method many times. We've added lost people and all that. So it kind of just, I was in awe of God. Yeah. Right? I was like just so stricken by his consistency, by his love, by his goodness. I was at a position in that moment feeling like, I don't know. No, God was pretty much telling you, you know what? You might be blue, but look where he's at. Right. I mean, you're better off than he is, but look at you. Right. You made him feel better. His name was Caleb. His name was Caleb. If I see him again, I'll call him by name. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I think that the thing that I got out of it was, like, after that, I worked on the yard. And I just kept saying to God, thank you for even allowing. Why would you choose me? You know what I mean? Why would you choose me in that moment? You know what I mean? And I was just so in awe of him and so grateful. And, you know, people who disbelieve or whatever can say lots of different things. I don't really care what they think. I can tell you how I feel, right?

16:05 And it's not just about my feelings, my lovey -dovey feelings and things like that. It's not. I truly felt. spiritually connected. You did. And how you were speaking to him, I was just like, because your words are always so pure, always so great. Your words are always so just, and I don't want to put you on a pedestal, but I will your words. Your words are always so powerful and awesome and loving and caring. And your words are always great. And people, you're just in awe to me when your words come out of your mouth. Especially, towards other people. You really are. I mean, your words are awesome. And this guy was just like, just for him to look at you in your eyes. Cause he, his gaze was so on you, you know, it was good. It was good to see him just engaged with you. I remember telling him, um, I should have recorded it and I didn't even think about it. Uh, I prefer not to do things like that because, um, yeah. Not that I'm trying to hide it. We didn't hide anything. We're out in public, right? Anybody could see it, but that's not, I'm not the kind of person that wants to glorify myself. That's not why I'm even talking about it. I'm talking about it because of God and like the awesomeness of him and his, his love for me, but also his love for Caleb in that moment. Caleb needed somebody with a positive word. Caleb needed somebody that was willing to listen to him for a minute to let him. get

17:37 things off his chest. And we kind of guided him a couple places, guided him towards our church, guided him towards the tent revival that they're going to do here in 10 days, 9 days. By the time this comes out, it'll be a couple days. But anyway, you know, it's really about glorifying God. And yes, I think having some sort of evidence of it is cool and all, but his heart has evidence. Kevin has evidence. He saw it with his own two eyes. You saw it. I was there. You know, so I think that there's something that we could get to carry with us after the fact. You know what I mean? And now here we are, you know, two days later. He could carry that on to someone else.

18:20 Yeah, 100%. You know what I'm saying? And guess what? What's the scripture I talked to him about? Romans 828. Yeah, Romans 828. It was. And what are we talking about in our Bible roulette today? Right? It was. Something to that nature. I think that God has a great plan for every one of us. Absolutely. But just because he has a great plan doesn't mean it's not going to be hard. It doesn't mean we're not going to face trials and struggles. It doesn't mean we don't have to pay the consequences of our actions. We absolutely do. But if we will stick to it, we can make it. Absolutely. And those who persevere, you know what I mean, who reach the end of the race, there's a great reward.

19:01 Absolutely. So anyway, that was what I had on my mind today. It was just the hands and feet thing. I just find it interesting. First of all, I find it interesting that there is no scripture that actually says that. Right. But you can understand why they might put that together based on certain context of scriptures. Look, we are sent out to do work. Right. We're meant to, once we are in the fold. We're to be the light, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, sitting on a hill, right? It's funny because Pam said something about that, you know, be in the light. But, you know, what do you honestly... Do all your fighting in the dark. You do all your fighting in the dark. You have to bring all that. You're fighting in the dark. You have to bring all your stuff to the light. But you really do all your fighting in the dark. And when she brought that, I was like, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It really does.

19:51 And when she was saying that, I was just like, that makes a lot of sense. Well, I mean. When we're in the light, you can see your enemy. Absolutely. And so you don't really fight there. You don't have to because the enemy don't want you to see him coming. No, he doesn't. And I found it real interesting. Look, some people may have gotten uncomfortable with it, but about how ChatGPT responded to, if I were the devil, if I were the enemy, what would I do? And it's pretty much spot on to what is happening in our world. Absolutely. But it's been happening for a very long time. Long time. And I don't know if you know. I don't know if your parents ever listened to it, but my grandfather, my dad's dad listened to Paul Harvey. He had that. If you've ever heard that clip, that's essentially what ChatGPT said. And it was like, okay, talking about if I were the devil, man, what would I do? Take God out of schools, do this, do that, do all the things, right? And I'm all for people's freedom to do whatever they want to do. Do what you want to do. I'm not telling you to. To come with me.

21:00 I'm not telling you to believe. I'm not telling you nothing. I wish you would. Yeah. Because I love you. I don't want to see anybody in pain. I don't want to see anybody in the final destination in the pit. You know what I mean? I don't want to see anybody there. I don't want to be there. You know what I mean? And I guess for people who don't believe that's real, they're not afraid of it. Right. But I'm afraid of it and I still mess up. You know? It's crazy. Yeah. But who, what, what are you supposed to, I wonder why there's a, is it, is a natural, is it like a natural instinct to be afraid of the dark? I'm scared. I'm scared of what's in the dark. Well, yeah, you're not scared of it being dark. You're scared of what's out there. Yeah. Cause you don't know. I mean, you don't know what's come behind your back. You don't, you know, and it was a, this is another good point. You know, when, um, Payne was talking about the armor. You know, everything's on here. Nothing's on your back.

22:03 Because God's got your back. Or your community. I was just like, that makes a lot of sense. And when she said that, I was just like. Yeah. What did she say? What was the quote from Alexander the Great? Oh, it was Alexander the Great said, I have. Wounds and scars all over my body except for my back because I never turned from a fight. Yes. I was just like, wow. That was pretty deep. That was very deep. Pam's message was really good. We always talk about the full armor of God and stuff like that. I've actually heard her talk about the full armor a couple times.

22:46 I just love the way you and I talked about it recently and talking about how the enemy has schemes. You know what a scheme is? It's a plan. It's a plan. Right? He's got plans for you, too. Just like God does. And it's all about what you want to acknowledge and what you want to follow. Yeah. It's what you want to pick. Which one you want. Which one you want. You want this one? You want this one? Which one weighs out more? I can tell you one thing, and I'll tell you why we fail more often than not. The enemy's plan looks good right now. Right? It looks really comfortable right now. It looks really nice. That looks pleasing. That's fun. God's plan don't look like that. Oh, it doesn't. Because we don't understand. We can't fathom afterlife. Absolutely.

23:32 You know what I'm saying? So God's plan, that was really hard. It doesn't look like a lot of fun. Yeah. Impatience. It's just, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Think about it. This is why we fail because the enemy's plan is all about right now. Yeah. I can't do right here. But like, like. like Jason and I said at the beginning of this whole show, when we very first started the grain of salt, you pour out a fricking Morton salt container and take one little grain of sand salt out. That represents your life. That represents right now. All the rest of that is eternity. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it actually goes even bigger than that because eternity goes on forever. So pick out one grain of sand and then look at the entire beach. That's just like. Yeah, it looks like glass under a microscope. It does.

24:22 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was really good. She did get a message, but it was cool. The darkness and then, you know. Yeah. That was good. I enjoyed that. But we always have each other's back, you know. Well, it goes into why community is so important, right? Community is so, yeah. It really is. Still not great at that, but I'm trying. I know you are. And you know what? It's all about the trying. It's all about the steps. And it's all about, you know, who you have on your back. And, you know, just be able to pull them a little closer. Just a little at a time. Yeah. That's all it is, you know? I'll be square with everybody.

25:12 Like, it really comes from a selfish place. The lack of... consistently committing to relationships because there are things that I want to do with my time. Yeah. Right. And I don't have, okay, after work, after the daily life stuff, after this call that we answer, there's not a lot of time. And so now I'm, now I had to not only find time for you. But I also have to find time for friends. You know what I mean? And it has to be more consistent. It can't be once every great while. It has to be consistent. Well, you find out there's a lot of people that actually want your attention. And it's hard to fulfill that.

26:06 I have lots of attention. You don't have a lot of attention for me. That's what we struggle with. I feel like you always have to be talking to somebody. I do. My jaw is always... I've got no comment. No comment. I'm going to keep that one to myself. I am my mother's child. I just want you to know this. My mother is ten times worse than I am. But it's not even that. It's just... It feels like because you... I don't know. It doesn't even really matter. I don't want to get into... airing our dirty laundry or anything like that. But it's, you know, sometimes it feels like there are times when I just want your attention. I just want your attention. Whether that means us conversing or just you and me in the room doing our separate things without you talking on the phone. You know what I'm saying?

27:04 Again, my desire. or my lack of consistency in relationships has more to do with my selfishness than it does with the fact that I don't have relationships. I actually have relationships. I'm just not a very good steward of those relationships. That's my fault, not anybody else's. I can do my part, right? And we've had a lot of conversations about I shouldn't have to reach out. You know, I shouldn't have to be the only one. To reach out. I agree. Well, if neither one of you is going to reach out, you know what I mean? Then I guess the relationship is over. Is that how you want it? You know what I mean? So you have to kind of be accountable to yourself and don't worry about the rest of that. That's right. I have that problem too. I felt the same way about my children. I felt the same way about my brother and sister. You know what I mean? Why do I have no connection with any of my aunts, uncles, cousins, all my grandparents passed, but why do I have none of those? Because those relationships were never stewarded. Right. You know what I mean?

28:15 I never talked to them, ever. And I was the kid that nobody wanted around anyway when I was young, you know what I mean? As I got older, obviously, if they had taken the time to know me as an adult, it would be different. That's what I'm saying. Those things are perpetuated. All of this, the reason I am the way I am now is because of all that. Right. Right? And so now I'm trying to fight back all those demons to try to. That you're good enough. That you're enough. And not even just that I'm enough. That, like, somebody actually cares. Somebody wants to be, like, have a relationship with you. You know what I'm saying? Like, I was telling, who was I telling? Oh, it was you. I was like, I talked to four people. Just kidding.

29:03 I talked to four people. Two of them live in my house. That's true. The other two, I don't really get to talk to all that much. Yeah. And I might not talk to you at all sometimes. That's true. Unless you want to get on to me. Or we want to fight. Or I want to pick a fight with you or something. We don't have to always fight. I'm just kidding. We don't fight like that. I'm just kidding. But yes, I agree. Like I said, like we talked, you know, what was it, Saturday? Sometimes I just want to just. Just bull with you. And when I say bull, you think it's gossip. And it's not always gossip. It's just because I just want to just bull with you. And you're just a serious man. I'm not that serious. You are pretty serious. So serious. I'm going to cut a groove in my face. I'm not trying to be.

29:54 I know, but it's not. You have got to learn to just. Sometimes, though, I've already heard this story. I don't care. Several times. I'm going to say it three more times. If you like it or not. Oh, you kill me, dude. You kill me with that. I'm like, I already know. I don't need to hear this again. And I'm going to say it as much times as. It's like that. It's like that TikTok. You ever seen that TikTok? He goes, I'll buy you a purse. If you say two words to something. I don't know what you're talking about. And she's like. what, what'd you say? And he's like, I'm going to tell you these just two words. And she's like, what'd you say? And he's like, no, I'm giving you. Oh yeah. You get to, if you can make me mad, if you can make me mad, it was two words.

30:36 She goes, what'd you say? And he's like, huh? Huh? What? What? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's yeah. That's me. Like you're like, bro, I usually said that three times. I was like, I know I'm saying it again. I know. And I don't try to, it's not like I want to get agitated or irritated by it, but it's hard not to. It's like, okay, dude, I hurt you. I hurt you. But then if I do it, how do you feel? I know, but that's after all we've been arguing. No, no. I don't mind talking about our personal issues because I think it creates a little bit of a space for people, an environment for people to understand that. Hey, we're a married couple. Yeah, we're not perfect.

31:24 It all means we are not perfect. And it's nice to be able to let people know that, you know, someone asked me the other day, she said, you should share all the stuff that y 'all behind the scenes. I'm like, no. Like, you know, like we do the bloopers and stuff like that. And like, you know, like I was telling her, we said something, I said, yeah, we had to like cut that part out because it was like we were arguing about, we were arguing with something that. We had a tough go of it for a minute last week. I got frustrated with you. And I remember saying, okay, wait. And same thing kind of happened again today. That wasn't about you. That was just like all the things were piling up. Like I said, people, we do go through struggles and something that, you know, not everybody needs to see, you know.

32:07 Yeah, some stuff is ours. And we need to work it out. But it definitely, I don't mind people seeing the reality of things. Like we're not. Perfect. Perfect people. We're not a perfect couple. We're not. It's like I was trying to tell my friend that. This is not a church. You know, she was like, oh, I shouldn't do that. You're at work at church. And I'm like, okay. Yes, I'm a very Christian woman. Yes, I do believe in Jesus. And I am not that person that is. I go to church, but I'm still. A person. I'm still fleshing. I'm still... I'm still fleshing. I like that. I'm still fleshing. I'm still... I'm not perfect, you know? I think that the problem with the church and the problem with the people outside of it is that we all have the wrong impression.

33:02 We all think, because we've been taught at some form or fashion at some point or another that the people inside of it should be above reproach. They should have no problems. They should have no... sinful desire, no sinful behaviors. I'm going to say amen. And that's really just not true based on what I understand. Our righteousness is not dependent upon us. It's dependent upon what Christ has done. And, you know, people will say, well, once you have Christ, you can't sin anymore. And I'm like, well, I want to know where it says that because I don't see that. Right. You know what I mean? Not from any, I look at, Paul struggled with pride. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely.

33:49 You know, Peter struggled with accepting his call. You know what I mean? Like, he really did. He struggled with believing all that Christ was doing. He struggled with why this and not that. You know what I mean? Like we all do. Do we not all have those same issues? Like, well, God, if you can save them, why can't you save me? I'll give you a really great example. I remember from my own personal life. I don't know if I want to say this out loud. I remember specifically when I was going through my divorce at the time. And, of course, I didn't know what was going on in her life necessarily, but it looked good from the outside. And I remember thinking, look, this wasn't even my idea. Why is she? why is it things are going so much better for her than it is for me? I was fixing, like I had, I don't want to go down this road too far, but to set up the circumstance, I kind of talked about it.

34:50 Like I, she finished college. She took, got her, her, her license to be a nurse and all that stuff. And the plan had been that once that happened, I would take a part -time or different job and I would start going to school so I could work towards my goal, which was to be a teacher. And, I took that job, and then not long after, she decided she wanted a divorce. Okay. So I'm now working at this job that's not very good. I had gave up a different job that was okay. Not my favorite job. I wouldn't go back to it, I promise you that. But it was a good job. It supported the family while she was in school and all that kind of stuff. And they gave me, I started out, it was supposed to be part -time. They gave me full -time hours. And then, I don't know, almost a year in, they're like, we've got to cut you down to 20 hours a week. And I'm like, I'm a single dad with three kids, man. I can't do that.

35:48 And for the first time in I don't know how long, I got a call from my brother about a job. I hadn't heard from my brother in a while. And I got a call about a job where I currently work. And anyway, I'm going through all these struggles. I'm like barely making ends meet. Things look pretty good over there. Of course, I didn't know what all was going on in her life. I'm not saying that that's true. I'm just saying that's what it looked like. And I remember specifically saying, and even asking God, why am I struggling so bad? You know what I mean? This wasn't even my idea. This wasn't even my plan. I had no intention of doing this. You know what I'm saying? But I just instantly questioned the plan. You know what I'm saying? Not understanding what she was going to go with, what she was dealing with.

36:42 Right. Not understanding that I had to deal with some things, go through some things to get to where I was supposed to go. Right. You know what I mean? And she did too. Right. She's had to deal with plenty of her own. Right. But it's just, I'm just the same idea that I'm talking about with Peter. Like he's like, why this and not that? How are you willing to save that person, but you're not willing to help that person? Why did you raise Lazarus from the dead, but you didn't raise this person? Right? We all have those questions. I get it. I totally understand that too, you know? I get it. I don't understand either. But I know his plan is better than mine. Right. And if you've ever watched Bruce Almighty, I kind of imagine that's about how it would be. Yeah, absolutely. He just goes, yes to all. If you say yes to everything. The whole crap's going to break apart in bad ways. You know what I mean?

37:30 Yeah. Like I said, I'm glad we met when we met because I don't think we would have ever been where we are today. You know what I'm saying? I had to go through some stuff that I had to go through to get where I am today. Yeah, 100%. You know? I don't regret my first marriage. I don't regret that relationship. She's like my sister now. We've known each other for so long. But in the grand scheme of things, that wasn't the marriage for me. Honestly. Yeah. This was the marriage for me. This is the one that's satisfying. And it still comes with trouble. It does. Can you believe that? At least he talked to his.

38:13 I don't talk to mine. Talk to who? Oh, the camera? Is that what you're saying? No, I'm talking to your ex -wife. Oh, well, we're not going to get into all that drama, but I'm just saying, like, you made me forget what I was trying to talk about. Oh, just that, like, I'm far more content, far more satisfied, far more happy. Yeah. With this relationship. God has a plan for all of us. You know, we had to go through those struggles. You know, just like I said, when I got divorced in America, I was like, dude, now you can keep a job? Right. Right. You know, but, you know, like I said, you know. But again, you don't know what's going on behind those doors. Yeah. Right.

39:00 And you always want to kind of, you just kind of project onto them or pretend that they're, that they're. their situation is so much better than yours. Yeah. When the reality is it's not. Yeah, it's not. They've got their own crap. Problems. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. But you know what? I am better, like I was trying to tell my friend the other day, I am better, I'm better five, I was better today than I was five years ago. But I'm better five years ago than I was 10 years ago. I'm not the same person I used to be 12 years ago. Dude, I've got more in my life. five years ago than i was 10 years ago and listen to me you know and i'm not saying i'm any better than i was then today i'm still learning i'm still doing the things i need to do and i want to be able to i want to be able to be i want to be able to tell you about god i'm not going to be the best at it but i want to try i want to help you i do do you struggle with that sometimes like feeling like you're not the best Teacher? Advocate for God, like the best advocate for Christ. Because I kind of do too. Because I'm like, oh, I should have said that when I was there. Dang it. Of course, you're always going to do that. I want to pray over that. Shoot, I said that in my prayer. Well, I kind of, going back to how the conversation started with being the hands and feet and that gentleman or Caleb that we had our interaction with, like, I can't tell you how many ways I second -guessed myself after the fact. You know what I mean? It's frustrating because it's like,

40:34 It's like what we talked about with prayer. It's not like God's up there with a checklist. Oh, yeah. Making sure you say all the right things and all that kind of things. At the end of the day, as long as you didn't say anything that was a lie on God and you were pointing the glory towards him as being the one who saves, I don't know where the harm is in what you say. Right. You know what I mean? Like, as long as you're not feeding untruths and trying to present yourself as something that you're not, which I don't think I ever do. You don't. Some people will. There's a lot of people. We have a lot of haters, but that's okay. I'm going to be very honest with you right now because this is how people are, the judgmental people. This right here, this is whiskey. Okay. Anybody out there that's watching that right now and listening to it right now will have an opinion. Lots of people will have an opinion. Some will not. Some won't care. Right?

41:43 But think about it. Does the fact that I'm talking about the glory of God and the glory of Christ and how he saves and how he is the one, the way, the truth, and the life, does this disqualify me from saying that? No. I don't think so either. But understand what I'm saying. Right. Right? Now. That's the things that go on inside of our minds, right? We go, and this is something very simple to me. This is a very simple little thing. It's like, okay, did I, like I said, I told you I was praying to God after we were done. Like, why me? Why would you pick me? Thank you for picking me, but why would you choose me? You know what I mean? Why would you choose me right now in a place where I'm like very discouraged?

42:32 Why would you? Maybe that is why. Maybe that's exactly why he chose me for that moment. Because he knew I was discouraged and he knew how I would see it. He knew I would say, okay, I see you. I understand, God. I understand that even though I'm struggling, you can still use me. You can still use me. Amen. Amen. That's good. It's like we talked about last week with God's not finished. He's not finished with you, man. And just because you're a work in progress doesn't mean you're failing. It just means you're a work in progress. I mean, we're all being put together. I'm not all put together yet, you know. It's just bits and pieces, you know. I truly believe that we will never be fully and completely put together until we're in his presence forever. Absolutely.

43:24 I truly believe that. I do believe that too. We will never be able to do it perfectly. We'll always have some issue. That causes a problem for us, whether it be a feeling, a pride, a failure of faith, a failure of something. There's something. So I just don't feel like, I feel like all those things are attacks of the enemy. Those are all lies, right? That's where that helmet of salvation comes in, right? We talked about that. Pam talked about that in church. That's to protect your mind. Yeah. You need something to protect your mind because a lot of that comes through, you know, Anything, whispering, you know, people, you know, trying to, you know, lead you in the wrong ways and, you know, all that. That's, you know, that's something that needs to be happening, you know. Think about how we were just recently, we were talking about how the fights are had in the darkness, right? What's the darkest place in you? Go ahead. You know what I mean? If you can battle in the darkness, you can be the light.

44:39 Yeah. Right? We're literally called to be the light of the world. So, I don't know. I think that outside of that, figuring out that balancing life is difficult. It is difficult. Balancing out your time. No matter where you're at and what journey you're on. Right. Balancing out your time. Balancing out this. Balancing your budget. Balancing, you know, doing all these things. It's a struggle. It's hard. There's a lot of things that are required and you don't get to balance those. You just have to do them. Like your work. You have to do it. You don't get a choice in that. And that consumes a third of your life in a week. You know what I mean?

45:25 And then another third of your life is taken up by sleep. And bathroom breaks. You know what I'm saying? I like to sleep. Girl, I don't feel like I can get enough. I think I'm going to start going to bed at 8. I can't. That's too stinking early. I know you could, but I can't. But see, that's the thing. There's not enough time in the day. And in order for me to do all the things and still be able to do all the other things, I have to. I have to. I got to be at least until 10. The problem is lately, though, it's not 10 for me. It's like 11. Mine's no longer than 9 .30. You want to be in bed by 9. I don't even want to be headed to bed at 9. I do. We can go to the gym at 4 .30. I know. I know. But we don't do it every day. I'm trying. Maybe we can go to bed earlier. I'm trying. Okay. We'll shift gears. You have done this to me in two different directions. One time you complained because we don't talk about sports, and another time you said, we're not talking about sports. You can't have your cake and eat it, too, so you get one or the other. This time you're going to talk about sports. Okay. What did you think about that football game? Jeez Louise. I was like, oh, it was a good game. So it was going to be

46:58 two weeks after the game. Our first quarter was terrible, John. The first five plays were the worst. They were terrible. They were so terrible. In that last game, we were all sitting around the table playing a game. He's like, I got timeout. No. We got to watch it for, was it two minutes? Well, so I was paying attention. So we're talking about the Longhorn game. They played number one Ohio State at home. There was a kicked ball fumble on the first possession and then what probably was going to be a touchdown that was not caught but popped up in the air and turned into an interception. We're down 10 points quick. We were down 21 -3 in the fourth quarter. Dang. And I looked up and I see it go to 20. We're at some friend's house and we're playing dominoes. And I looked up, and I'm like, if they score here, there's like 12 minutes in the game. I'm like, if they score here, there's still enough time to get back in it. They scored there. I kind of stopped paying attention. We're playing dominoes. It's a silly game, but it's a hard game to play. It is. You have to pay attention. I look up again, and they're going in for their second touchdown.

48:02 I was like, uh -oh. It's 23 -17. We're down by a score. He's not one to play this game anyway. I said, I'll scoot over here. I'll have it back towards the TV. At least you'll sit across from me. You can see the TV over my shoulder. So if I know something's going on, I'll know you're looking. You'll be like, mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the eyes, I can see the eyeballs, and you're just like, mm, mm, we got to pause. Yeah, I watched it again. I watched Hollywood's mother score to make it 23 to 17, and I was like, okay, they get a stop here. You got a chance. Like, you literally have a chance. They kick a field goal. He missed the field goal. I mean, at this point, I'm standing up watching the game. I'm not doing that game no more. I'm watching this game. We got to pause. And so I watched them score that one, and then we watched the final drive to take the lead and then an interception to end the game. Texas, number four Texas beats number one Ohio State. Yeah. And I'm sure some OU people were so mad. Oh, they got one. Beat by Michigan.

49:01 I know, but they were just, I mean, of course, you know, OSU was wanting us to lose so they could, you know. Sorry about you. Oklahoma State beat Oregon. Yes. Unranked Oregon State beats number six Oregon. And then unranked Michigan, who should have lost to Western Michigan, beats number 11 Oklahoma. Yes, there was a lot of upsets. I guess technically. The Texas win over Ohio State is an upset because we were the lower ranked team. Here's what I didn't want. I didn't want them to automatically project us to number one. Yes. I wanted them to keep us two or three. Right. But they didn't. We're number one in the country.

49:43 Yes. It's okay. But, hey, look, if you know me enough, you'll know that I say this. It doesn't matter whether you're number one or not. You want to win an Addy, you've got to win all those games. You've got to win all of them. You've got to win those games. You've got to beat those Ohio State. Absolutely. You've got to beat LSU on the road. You've got to beat A &M on the road. You've got to beat Tennessee on the road. You've got to beat OU. You've got to beat Georgia in the SEC Championship game. You've got to win your playoff games. You've got to win tough games. If you want to win a championship. You better go out to play. You better go win. Yeah. We can't play like that again. No. If we play like that again against a good quality opponent, we're in trouble. We are in trouble. But. That first quarter was so fluky. It was. I was just like, some of the calls were called. I was like. You know what's funny? I text dad at the like 10 minutes into the game. We're down 10 -3 or whatever.

50:36 I said, they're not going to beat us on this fluky crap. No. And it took forever for us to finally get in the game. But once we did, I was like, okay, we have a shot here. Yeah. Like our defense started playing better. We stopped Jeremiah Smith. Jeremiah Smith. cooked us in the first half. Yes, he did. Second half, he did not do as much. We were able to stuff their run game. They only got a field goal. It was 20 -3 at the half, 23 -3 going into the fourth quarter. We scored 21 in the fourth to win the game. And everything we want is right in front of us. It's time to go get it. Let's go Ohio State or go Texas. And our neighbors across the street are Michigan fans. So it was cool because the night before she came over, we were talking about that.

51:24 But anyway, what else you got to say about that? Cowboys suck. Just kidding. Just kidding. I don't think that that is indicative of anything. I want you to think about this. Huge division rival on the road, September 11th weekend. It's New York, right? They're doing all the FDNY stuff. It's all this extra energy. You know what I mean? And at the end of the day, we had two possessions in the entire second half. We had the ball twice in the second half. And we still only lost by one score. Yeah. If we played just better on defense and stopped them on a couple of third downs, it's probably a completely different game.

52:04 And if we didn't miss anything, we'd be in the final. Did he miss one? He missed two. He missed two field goals? Yes. How did I miss that? You missed T -Phil. Remember? Because remember when we got that taunting? Oh, that was an extra. He missed the extra point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, dude, you cannot miss Phil goes. I don't care. Yeah, but Cam's Gatobo can freaking go and do a freaking backflip, and that's not a taunting. I agree. It's all about the Cowboys. I'm sorry. Everybody's always going to be like, ooh, yeah. I don't know. It's, you know. Haters always got to hate. Haters are going to hate. They hate on us, too. That's right. What you got for me? To cover his crack. To cover his crack? Quack. Okay. You know, his quack. You know, quack, quack. But it goes into my, you know. To cover his quack. Why did the duck wear underwear? To cover his quack. That's one of the better ones you've had in a while. That's one of the better ones you've had in a while.

53:18 I'll give you that one. That was funny. I love that one. Camera light went out. Since you brought up underwear, I'll bring one up too. Okay. Knowledge is like underwear. It is useful to have, but it's not necessary to show it off. Amen, brother. Bill Murray. Amen, brother. We don't want to see no underwear. Or quack. No quack. No more quack. We'll see. You know, that's the thing about these episodes. Sometimes I'm like. I feel like we're all over the place. I don't feel like there's much direction and all that kind of stuff.

54:04 I feel like there was at the beginning, but then we kind of lost our momentum. And I'm always kind of like, how's this going to turn out? I want us to have at least an hour. Yeah, I agree with you. If it's a little less or a little more, I'm not too concerned about it. But yeah, I felt like we kind of lost it there for a minute. We'll find out in post -production. I'm funny. I don't care what you are. I'm funny. Oh, funny looking. You probably. So anyway, man, we love having you. We love doing it. Well, I can't speak for her. I can speak for myself. Love doing this. Don't care what anybody thinks. I'm not going to stop doing it. We are trying to love on people.

54:45 We want to be the hands and feet. Yes. We want to help others. We ask if you have interest to reach out to us. You can do it through our socials, Instagram, Facebook. You've got an email. We've got a phone. We've got a website. I mean, there's really no excuse. If you're interested in us or interested in what we do or interested in prayer or need something from us, then by all means, please reach out. We're continuing to pray for our friends who left for Jordan today. They're going to be gone for roughly three months. And we know it's a little bit of a dangerous situation over there right now. Yes, it is. Being the conflict in Iran and all that kind of stuff.

55:26 But I'm just believing in big things. I'm believing God is a big God and that those things can be all worked out. So protection over them and that those two centers that they're planning to open up get opened and everything goes well. And beyond that, we love you. Thank you for being here. See you later.