
The Fire You Carry
Hosted by Nole and Kevin, two active-duty Los Angeles County Firemen with over a decade of service each, this podcast explores the fire we all carry within. Join them as they interview respected men and share lessons on how to be better husbands, fathers, and leaders. Drawing from the front lines, they tackle issues like trauma, fitness, and family life, providing universal principles for any man looking to stoke his inner fire and live with purpose.
The Fire You Carry
245: Safety Second with Jim Stitzinger
In this thought-provoking episode, Nole and Kevin welcome their good friend, Pastor Jim Stitzinger, back to the show. They dive deep into a powerful concept from an article Jim wrote: Safety Second. This idea presents a revolutionary paradigm shift, challenging the common prayer to "keep us safe." Jim argues that when we make personal safety our ultimate priority, it can lead down a path of compromise and fear. Instead, the scriptures call us to pray for things like boldness, holiness, courage, and discernment.
The conversation explores how this mindset applies directly to the lives of first responders, parents, and anyone striving to live a faith-driven life. They discuss the importance of being prepared for challenges, trusting in God's plan, and focusing on what truly matters: our character over our comfort and our holiness over our health. This is a must-listen for anyone looking to sharpen their prayer life and live with greater purpose and courage.
Safety Second post by Pastor Jim
https://jimstitzinger.com/uncategorized/safety-second-how-should-christians-pray/
https://crossroadscommunitychurch.net/about/
https://crossroadscommunitychurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/1048142
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Nole (00:13.838)
Welcome back to the fire you carry podcast. Today's episode is a fantastic one. Kevin and I sit down with our good friend, pastor Jim Stitzinger to talk about an article that he wrote that he shared with us that contained an idea that for me and for Kevin was revolutionary. It was something that we had not thought about before. And it's so basic. It's something that is going to be so common.
you're going to identify with it immediately. And I think it's going to cause a paradigm shift in the way that you look at this topic. It's titled safety second, which is just a fantastic, but probably doesn't mean what you think it means. So come along for this ride with us. Big thank you to pastor Jim for coming on. We always love talking to you. We know you guys love listening. He's a good dude, a deep thinker. And with that,
you
Nole (01:09.592)
Enjoy.
And so when you start to prioritize safety, you make choices based upon personal risk avoidance. And my argument is a lot of times, particularly in a gospel context, that takes us into a pathway of compromise, into a pathway of ultimately cowardice. Instead of doing the hard right thing, we do the thing that gives us momentary, temporary safety.
Kevin (01:55.212)
Welcome back to the Fire You Carry podcast. Today we got Pastor Jim Stitz back on the show. I appreciate it.
You got to abbreviate I'm afraid to pronounce it. Stitzinger.
Nailed it. Nailed it. perfect. Perfect. Don't doubt yourself.
You say it with confidence.
I don't know what episode he was back on, we were introduced to you by one of our favorite humans on the planet, the Dave Thiebaud. And when Dave Thiebaud raves about somebody, you better listen because he's one of them stellar human beings. Pastor Jim, you run, is it Crossroads Church?
Jim (02:33.76)
I'm one of the pastors at Crossroads. I'm the outreach pastor here.
out in Awesome Town in Santa Clarita. And I know you have what's a very cool, you've had like, I've attended, there's not too many pastors on the planet that rolled jujitsu, right? And we've seen you did this and I've gone up to it and I don't know if you guys are still doing it, this Jesus and jujitsu, which is one of the cooler ministries I've seen. And you also, think Noel attended the first responder stuff that you guys did as well.
Yeah, it was very.
We're an unconventional church and anything that we can do to get the gospel in front of the world in a God-honoring way, we're going to maybe give it a shot. So it's a lot of fun.
That's very cool. you're, mean, that community is flooded with first responders up in Santa Clarita area. So.
Jim (03:24.213)
It really is.
So there's a story that Dave tells. if you guys don't know, Dave Thibault is a high level black belt in jujitsu. He's competed in everything and won a lot in the back. And he tells a story about a 17 year old girl choking him unconscious and not really, you know, in this keeping your guard up and not, you know, what do you say? Discounting your opponent or whatever. That 17 year old girl was
Your daughter? Yeah, absolutely. I was there. I saw it happen.
Which is amazing. And I think I wanted to see if you can give us an update on Jessie, cause Jessie is a total stud and had gone to our stair climb and put on a BA and just completely smashed that. And you could just tell she's just a stellar human. And I think she went into the Navy and I saw some updates that she was like first in her class. And maybe you could talk about.
Yeah, she in fourth or fifth grade fell in love with and set her sights on becoming a member of the Navy, basically helicopter paramedic group. And so she is in the special forces category and has a really unique role as she is in that role. So she's still in her, one of her last phases of training, but she is now a purple belt. She is
Jim (04:48.046)
just a absolute joy, uh, functioning of salt and light, loving Christ, honoring him as she chases his dream and excels in the Navy. She's unbelievable. So it got Bill here a little different. We're of all of our girls, but she, she's got some unique talents.
Yeah.
Kevin (05:06.594)
Did you bring that up to her? Like maybe the Navy is an option or the military is an option or is that something she had on her heart? Yeah.
She was, we were in Louisville, Kentucky and she loved to swim and she started thinking, how can I get paid to swim? And there's not many jobs that do that, but she found the rescue swimmer role in the Navy. And since that moment, every school project, every skill set, everything was a building block towards getting a shot at this type of role. And then she joined the Navy at 19 and
graduated top of her class in boot camp and God's just blessed and she's been humble and faithful and it's been really exciting to see her journey. So proud of her.
love it. That's so cool. And one of the reasons we had you on the show is that you recently sent us, I want to say as an article or a blog post that you did on your website, which is JimStitzinger.com. We'll put a link to it. But it was about safety second. this, this is about fear and safety, which is really wild. Obviously you are very knowledgeable in this and the Bible, but I think one of the things that hit me hard is I have a lot of fear as a father.
Like I joked like I never had any fear before I became a dad. And then now I worry about everything. And a lot of times I pray for their safety. Like I pray like, Hey, that they, pray for the kids and the wives and we're gone from them quite a bit. that they drive safe in that they are safe and that they are, you know, protected, but you had a different perspective on this and I thought maybe we could just go over it.
Jim (06:43.406)
It's a prayer that we've all prayed and we prayed, Lord, keep us safe. We've put that before God, whether you believe in God or not, I think everyone has at some point made a cry or plea for safety. And just like you, I do it with my kids, all three of my daughters, my wife, know, any kind of sketchy thing we're about to get involved with. We pray for safety. And I want to be specific that
It's not wrong to pray for safety. The big point is it's not the primary. It's not our primary priority. It is something that is good to do, but there's a much higher priority. And I want kind of to build towards that because when you, when you prioritize safety as your number one prayer, then you start to make decisions in light of that. And you start to decide, okay, I'll do this. I'll choose that course of action.
based on mitigated risk, path of least danger. I'm going to do everything I can to try to stay safe. Well, for you and all the others that you work with, if safety was your priority, you would have chose ice cream scooper instead of firefighter. I mean, that you've chosen a line of work. You've been called into a line of work that is not safe, just by nature. So if your primary goal was safety, you wouldn't be doing this job.
And so when you start to prioritize safety, you make choices based upon personal risk avoidance. And my argument is a lot of times, particularly in a gospel context, that takes us into a pathway of compromise, into a pathway of ultimately cowardice. Instead of doing the hard right thing, we do the thing that gives us momentary, temporary safety. And so that was what was on my mind. I started to look through the Bible.
And I came to the conclusion, and if I'm wrong, I've asked someone to help point this out, but I cannot find a single prayer for safety in the New Testament. Not one. There are some in the Old Testament in Psalms, Psalms four, verse eight, Psalms 32, verse seven. There's a couple in Isaiah, but nothing in the New Testament. You think if anyone was concerned for safety, you would have found a group of Christians huddled together.
Jim (09:07.598)
praying for Paul to be safe or Peter to be safe. mean, Paul's going on these journeys and you know, there's robbers and their shipwrecks and all these things. And somebody would have been pleading God keep Paul safe. And yet you don't find that. What you do find is prayers for us to be bold, steadfast, holy, courageous, loving, righteous. We find prayers to be protected from the evil one.
which is not our modern day concept of personal ease. You know, a, a, an environment that's free from, from disturbing things. Being protected from the evil one is a prayer that God would keep us from the powers of the enemy, from Satan, from the destruction of sin in our life. That God would deliver us from evil was actually the prayer Christ taught us to pray.
So in fact, and here's one thought I'll give you, is the only time I can find the word safety that Paul uses is in 2 Timothy 4 18, where he says that the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. The only time Paul talks about it is when he says that God will bring me safely through death's door to heaven. Nothing's gonna block that. That's a powerful thought.
reading through what you wrote on this and we will link to it. But I think the thing that struck me the most was that final point that you just made. And it's a mindset shift, I feel like, where you're taking, you're taking a tactical pause, or at least I am taking a tactical pause and looking at it. Cause I pray for this every day with my kids, just like you guys do. And again, I agree with you. I don't think it's wrong, but
I'm kind of an extremist. now think it's the total waste of time, but we'll get to that. But I feel like the mindset shift there is, is really just looking at the reality of we are saved. And so this time on the earth, it's temporary, it's temporal. It's, it's going to be here one moment and gone the next. And we go on into eternity.
Jim (11:03.95)
Yeah
Nole (11:29.992)
And so the way that we should view that time is not in how do we extend it? How do we make it more comfortable? How do we make it less quote unquote dangerous, but rather how do we serve God and all those other things that you listed that the prayers that you do find, you know, in the new Testament. And that is tough because from the context of me personally, you know, it's easy. I don't actually
I don't know that I've ever prayed for my own safety, but I've prayed for the safety of those around me all the time. You know, it's easier when it comes to you to be like, yeah, I'll be fine. But then when it's your wife and your kids, it's a different story. But then recognizing that God has numbered our days and that he knows and he's chosen that. And of course that doesn't mean that we just go, you know, live right. Right. Right.
breakfast.
But we do know that if tomorrow's the day, there's not anything that I can do because tomorrow's the day.
Yeah, Psalm 139 and 16, and Job 14-5, it's God that controls the day of my birth and the day of my death. Those days are already set. Nothing I do. I mean, as much as we all diet and exercise, like, man, we're doing everything we can to hold back our laziness. I mean, we're fighting for that every day. That's great. But the ultimate day of my death has already been nailed down.
Jim (13:00.684)
And so now what we're talking about is the quality of life between my birth and my death. And what I don't want to do is what Paul warns about in first Corinthians nine 27 about, he says, I discipline my body, make my slave less possibly after I preached to others, I'd be disqualified. Like I don't want to do something that shipwrecks my life. And then it takes my, the gospel presentation that God could use through me and, and it dishonors Christ. I won't do anything that does that. So
So what we're talking about is not that we live recklessly, but I want to pray for boldness. I want to pray for courage. One of the hardest days of my life was when back to my daughter, Jessie, when we drove that girl down to LAX and dropped her off, walked into a room, gave her a hug and turn around left. And now she was with the Navy. It's one thing to drop your kid off of college. respect that. It's a different thing when, when, you know, they're taking that step and you know, many of
probably listen to this, have done that themselves and they've been that person and dropped off their kid too. So, but I told her that that was a turning point for me because that's when I almost stopped praying for her safety and started praying for her preparation that God would make her ready. And I think that's the prayer for anyone who has to step in line of fire. Yeah, we want to be safe, but we want to be discerning. We want to be alert. I think about what
what we are urged to pray for and to be throughout the New Testament, to be discerning, alert, aware, prudent, cautious, to be wise in our words, to be holy, be steadfast. Like so many things, like that's where I need the Spirit to meet me and they'd be working in my heart to produce. And of course then safety too. It's not saying we shouldn't pray for that, but I mean, how can we say with Christ, your will be done?
if what we really mean is your will be done as long as my ease is not impacted.
Nole (15:03.872)
Right. As long as I'm not going to be uncomfortable. I'm going to remain undamaged. Right. Yeah. We don't see that born out in the, in the new Testament.
Yeah, as long as I'm not
Kevin (15:13.526)
It's such a thing though, as me as a dad, you want to protect your family. You want to protect your family. And that should be, but you you write in here, which I thought was really special. says, God is far more concerned with our holiness than with our health, our love than longevity, our character more than our comfort. And I think, you know, sometimes I'm robbing them. feel like of some of that.
I wouldn't say persecution, I would say some challenges that would shape them and shape their character and shape how they could be resilience in the world because I'm trying to protect them. I'm trying to protect them. I'm trying to like, don't do that.
Who keeps us safe anyway? mean, ultimately who does? You guys go into horrible situations. You're walking into just devastating, perilous moments routinely. Who's keeping you safe? Is that you? Well, no, it's God doing that. And so we thank him for that. We praise him for that. Man, you walk out of one of those blazes, you say, thank God that we're all back here at the station. We praise him for that.
But even on the worst day when we lose somebody, we still say, God, thank you for your confidence, the confidence we have in you. Thank you for your kindness to us, your grace. Even though it's hard to understand now, we're gonna trust you. Even with our kids, it's God who keeps those kids safe.
So true. Orgism challenges that they need to go through, right? Yeah.
Jim (16:43.894)
Yes, sir. There's a great quote I put at the end of this article from a man named Stuttered Kennedy. He was a chaplain during World War I. And he said this from the front lines to his family. said, first prayer I want my son to learn to say for me is not God keep daddy safe, but God make daddy brave. And if he has hard things to do, make him strong to do them. Life and death don't matter. Right and wrong do. But then catch this line.
daddy dead is daddy still, but daddy dishonored before God is something too awful, too bad for words. he ends it by saying this. says, I suppose I can put in a little bit about safety too old chap and mother would as well. We'll put it in, but afterwards, always afterwards, because it doesn't really matter near so much. That's strong, isn't it?
Powerful,
Yeah, that's really strong.
His point, that line just grips me because if we die or when we die, we want to be remembered as godly men, no matter what our career is. As people who love Christ, we're running from the world, we're showing God's love everywhere we could. But if we sin in some bombastic way that dishonors God, that's awful. And you mar the name of Christ in the community, we don't want to do that.
Jim (18:09.08)
So his point is character and of course, a little safety too. Just put it in second. And that's, that's kind of the big point. Just put it in sec.
You can throw it in there just in case.
Yeah, put it in, afterwards.
Which is so funny because there's like this running joke in the fire service, at least with our fire department, everyone's like safety first, safety first. And we know that it's like impossible to do that. You you're climbing an 80 foot ladder and everyone's safe. Hey, remember to put your helmet on safety first. like this plastic helmet isn't going to do anything if you fall off an 80 foot ladder, right? But it's kind of, I don't know, what would you say? It's like almost like a running joke that everyone says, safety first, brother, safety first. But, and then that delves down into, you know, the
The personal life is like, I'm like, you know, put on your seat belts, did you do your thing? And like, there's a part of that that has to be done, right? It has to be done. I instill that in my kids. But at the same time, I'm in talking with you and reading this. I can't be in fear. The future is so much fear, fear of financial insecurity, fear of what they're going to do and what they're going to accomplish. And I have to trust in God more and get out of this fear.
Jim (19:19.97)
You think about the freedom that you have when you recognize that I've Colossians 3-3, I've died and my life is here with Christ and God. You know, if we've already given our life to Christ, if we've already taken care of our eternal destiny, we know where we're going. Then we get to live every single moment in a great freedom. I'm not worried about it. I just absolutely not worried about it. And that releases you to do your job well, because now you're completely mentally present.
not because you're ignoring the potentials, it's because you've already taken care of the potentials.
The end is the same,
So the way my brain works, hearing you talk about this, obviously I said, my first thought is I have to stop praying for safety because this is totally unnecessary. So that's my first thought. But I think maybe my secondary thought, maybe this one's better.
is the idea that instead of praying for the safety of Indy, we'll use my youngest as an example. Instead, perhaps I should be praying that God, Indy is yours. You created him. You have a plan for him and I accept that plan. I embrace that plan. I look forward to seeing what that plan is and your will be done. Right. That's the thing, which is a scary prayer.
Kevin (20:34.67)
Bye!
Nole (20:46.808)
to pray for me, for any parent. I mean, I've lost sons, right? And so maybe that's the plan. And I don't believe that it is. And I pray that it's not, but for me to like speak and think and say those words, like that could be the plan, right? don't know. You know what I mean? But that feels like a much more genuine.
prayer, if I could actually pray that, then Lord keep Indy safe. Like keep Indy safe feels like that I think culturally and especially in our American context, like that's the right thing to do. We pray for safety. We pray for healing. We pray for all those things. You know, we pray for a lot of stuff. That's not necessarily bad, but what is that final? What is that focus?
What's the end goal? We want, we want our, your hearts want our kids to be protected. And I'm with you on that. And I don't want us all to like now double clutch when we're about to say the word safety. You know, like it's not wrong to utter that, but we have to say what's, what is God's priority? Here's an example is Paul in Colossians four talked about, he prays for an open door for the gospel.
Yeah.
Jim (22:05.806)
Like he always says, God cracked the door. I'll run through it. What, what, what's on the other side of that door could be tragic. could be, you know, ultimately it was his own death, but he's saying, God opened the door. Yeah. Whether it's in our gospel conversations with other people, whether it's in opportunities for career advancement, whether it's in things with our kids, you're saying, God opened the door, make us alert and ready for what's ever on the other side of that door. So my prayer for my kids is God,
give them your love, help them to know your love, help them to walk in your pathway, keep them from temptation and sin, protect them from what the world would want to do with them, give them alertness. Matthew 10-16 says, be sure to serpents and innocent as doves. Make them discerning and alert, prudent so the world doesn't hurt them. Keep them above reproach so they're innocent.
I think when we say safety, we mean these other things. We just don't articulate it that way.
Yeah, that's a really interesting, let me go down that road a tiny little bit, trying to think about what I mean when I pray for Indy to be safe. Because like Kevin, we think about and talk about a lot, allowing our kids to be bold and dangerous in the world and to get injured. But that's a normal part of childhood that, I we actively, I actively encourage. So I'm not actually praying that Indy won't injure himself.
because I think that that's right and appropriate as a young 10 year old boy, he should be injuring himself. And if he's not, then we need to step up his game.
Kevin (23:45.866)
Yeah, you see a nine year old with bruises on their legs and arms. I'm like, all right, you're doing something, buddy. Good job.
So I'm not talking about that kind of safety. I'm definitely talking about the type of safety that would permanently damage him or, or kill him. Right. That's the kind of safety I'm talking about. And I love the point that you make throughout this, this article, this post is, is more along the lines of what actually really, really matters. Is it, is it how long Indy lives or is it that he's
in heaven with Jesus for eternity. And obviously for me, the secondary thing is the most important. And of course I want him to stick around until I'm an old man and I die. But the other thing is a lot more important. And those are tough. Those are tough truths. That's hard to, maybe this is why I've never heard anybody talk about this before, because it's not easy to talk about.
It's a little uncomfortable.
I mean, you have to be in this world, like you have to be in this, line of work that you're in, I think to have an honest conversation on this, because every single day you deal with potentials, you know, the what ifs of life. And it's very easy to let your mind go down the wave of fear, you know, worry over the what ifs. And so then we can end up then, you know, gripping even harder on this, on
Jim (25:13.23)
on things we think will keep us safe or we don't make a crucial decision for fear of our own life. And again, you know, we're not advocating being irresponsible or cowardly with decisions. We don't want to just be reckless, but we can't say that we control life and death when God does. What we can say is I can control where my attitude is.
I can control, you I'm responsible for my own drive towards holiness and my own pursuit of God's wisdom. So I want to walk in a worthy way with Godly desires, with a powerful faith. Like those are the things that I'm responsible for.
Yeah, it's a weird dynamic because I think, you know, we do see some things that our families would typically not see, right? Like the other night we had this guy who said he was delivering Uber Eats on an electric bicycle and he was riding around. Somehow got into some sort of road raid incident with this guy and we saw the aftermath.
This guy ran him over with a truck head on and his nose was completely off. I could see through his nasal cavity and he was completely destroyed physically. Like he had broken legs, broken arms, broken this. And I'm like, man, these streets aren't safe. This here's this guy. He's just trying to deliver things. And I'm trying to contact his mom through his phone. As we're on our way to the trauma center, trying to patch them up and do all the things. And then the sheriff showed up and said, Hey, it's not always like what it seems. It seems like he was trying to carjack multiple cars.
and the hood had enough of him and ran him over. I was like, these streets aren't safe.
Kevin (26:59.63)
I do see things and those we see things that our kids don't I am I hope they don't see these type of things and I think that warps sometimes my perception of safety or maybe I don't know if that because I am in fear when sometimes when they go somewhere I'm like, hey, I know that area. That's a terrible area. Don't go there. But not but also know that like I can't control that they have their own path. They gotta do their own things and maybe my experiences are different than theirs, but I don't know.
Maybe our prayer in that moment is God open their eyes and help them to see the danger they're around. Give them discernment, help them to hate evil and run towards what's good. We can sharpen our prayer life to the specific point of what we actually mean. I know with my girls, I've got, twins are 22, my youngest is 19. There's a lot of things that they may wanna do. And my prayer life just skyrockets when it's like.
God help them to see the danger of that environment. Help them to be discerning to what that person wants from them or is going to try to do and give them alertness and help them to see what intent the evil world has and give them boldness in their vocabulary and all that kind of prayer that echoes the things we do see in scripture. You think what the opposite is, like what we ask for is safety, what we want is peace.
Hmm.
And the peace that God promises is not a location, it's a person, it's Jesus. And he says, my peace, I leave with you my peace I give to you. Like what he gives us is himself. And so we have the reality of Jesus Christ who is our peace. And that's why like the Psalmist can say in Psalm 23, even though I walked through the valley shadow of death, I'll fear no evil because you are with me.
Jim (28:53.122)
Like, why am I at peace in the middle of this military experience or this fire, this tense call out with the Sheriff's Department? Like, why are we at peace even in that hard situation at home when there's conflict between spouses and a kid and whatever the disturbance is? Like, how can all of us be at peace in that moment? Because we have Jesus and He's with us in that hour.
You said something at the outset and it's, it's something that stood out to me a lot in the article itself, but just the idea that our prayers reveal our priorities. And I like that a lot, especially as you were talking about the more targeted sharpened prayers. I feel like taking a step back and looking at really anything that we pray about through that lens becomes pretty interesting because a lot of prayer
that I find myself engaged in or here just being raised in Christianity is kind of parroted. You know, it's just like, this is what we pray. This is how we pray. This is what we say, especially if you're in a group setting. Right. Right. Everybody starts speaking that Christianese prayer language. And when someone doesn't, it really stands out and you go, well, and then maybe that means that I'm not actually
really paying attention. I'm just kind of going through the motions. I'm not really thinking, okay, when I asked for safety for Indy and Heather and Avery and North, what am I really, what do I mean by that? Like that's a fascinating question to me that you've broken down in a couple of different ways. And that really is fascinating. And we should be precise with our language. I think there are times and places where when we, there are, well, I know this for sure for me, there have been times when I,
I'm so devastated by something or so broken up about something or just such a bad place that I can't really pray very well. And in those moments, I have just said to God, like, Lord, you know my heart and I don't know the words. I can't speak this well enough, but you know my heart. think there's a time and a place for that for sure. But I also think that the sharpening in the direction going back to revealing our priorities, I think that's really insightful and something worth considering.
Jim (31:14.926)
Yeah, something that can be encouraging on that front that some of most effective prayers in the Bible are really short. Yeah, it's Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's, it's God helped me. God's not impressed with a really long prayer. That doesn't impress him. You know, what, what he needs is just to hear our heart. mean, when he says to cast our cares upon him, cause he cares for us, like I have to, I can't cast something and retain it at the same time. I gotta throw that thing and
I'm casting my cares on God saying, God, I give this to you. Yeah. So I think it's a good exercise for all of us to sharpen our prayers to exactly what is it are we asking God for? Like, here's an example of, yeah, as a chaplain with the sheriff's department, I pray all the time for my deputies, you know, going out with them, whatever we're doing, we pray for them. And what I'm praying for is that God keeps them alert, helps them be discerning, to see the danger, to anticipate the problem.
that in God's providence, maybe the bad guys are extra sluggish and really dumb tonight. And they're, they're, they're easily identified and they, they just, they, they, there's no fight. God take the fight out of them. Like you look at how David prayed about his enemies and song.
Yeah, there's a lot of that. Yeah.
God make it all happen on the streets tonight. So when my, when my deputies go out, they encounter the most lethargic compliant bad guys and make if violence is involved, give my deputies the strength to do exactly what they need to do to restore order and to come back safely. And I will pray that. But yeah, but we sharpened.
Kevin (32:56.846)
Let me give you a scenario. Noel and I get people all the time and we have guys from the podcasts or the Fire Up program and there's a very communal supportive community that we have and somebody might be going through something. know, like they're, they delivered a baby and their son is in the NICU or they're going through a struggle in marriage and people will say, well, you pray for us, you know.
How do you pray for somebody or what would that look like into this context if somebody said my son is in the NICU? Yeah, and and you know and said will you pray for us? How would that look?
Yeah, the immediate thought is knowing that God is the creator of the body and the great physician of scripture calls and that he knows what our frame needs. And Psalm 139, he knows what that little baby needs. And my prayers, I go out to make that heartbeat strong, those lungs work well, that blood flow smoothly, healing to be there. We put before God what our desire is. That's part of prayers for us to hand to God. Here's our desire, heal this baby.
And while you're doing that strengthen the parents give them grace help them to sleep when they close their eyes help them to rest this entire scenario in your hands and Make us willing to accept the outcome Here's our desire, but make us willing. That's why when Christ teaches to pray he says your will be done. Mm-hmm Like I have a will I have a desire, you know, I got I got things I want to see happen But I have to surrender it
to say, your will be done. Make me ready to receive your will. And so we, we plead for exactly what we want in the case of that baby or a couple that's struggling in their marriage. God gives them humility, help them to see their own, the sin that they bring in the picture, help them to know forgiveness from you so they can hand that forgiveness to others. You help them to know your love so they can love like you do. Yes. Our prayer requests just get really specific.
Jim (35:03.468)
And honestly, the only way you're gonna pray that way is if you're reading your Bible, because you're not gonna know those thoughts if you're not reading the Bible.
There it is. No, that's great. That's super helpful because I'm wondering, like, obviously you're not praying for the safety, for, you know, you can pray for healing. You can pray for, you know, togetherness with a wife and you can pray for those.
Yeah, so we have a live fire exercise right now. We have a little group called Iron Sharpens Iron. It's a little thing we're prototyping that we want to roll out in November. But it's groups of guys getting together and you make a 30 day commitment to exercise every day, pray, read your Bible, have a spiritual conversation in your home. So you're bringing the scripture into your home and having, you can't always read and pray with your family, you know, just challenges in life.
but you can have a spiritual interaction every day with your family. And then you have to give up something. So you give up some for 30 days. So, and then you check in every day with the Marco Polo app and just keep everyone updated. But I mentioned this because it's been fascinating to watch as the guys learn to pray and they would say they prayed before and it was basically, thank you for this food and keep us safe. And you know, whatever other things were on their mind.
But as you're reading the Gospel of John and you're watching how Christ met needs and talked to people and people interact with him and asked him questions, you learn to pray and you learn to see this is how we talk to our creator. This is how we interact with our savior. This is how we confess sin. This is what it means to pour out your heart to God and leave something with him, to know how much he cares for us. And so even today, like day 16, it's been radical.
Jim (36:51.086)
to what happens when your mind is saturated with word and then it starts to come through in your vocabulary and your prayers. So it's been fun.
That's awesome.
That is awesome. It's always interesting when you're in a group of men and there's always not always when there's one or two guys who are clearly in the word like that. It's magnetic in a certain way. And sometimes for me it's really convicting because I won't be in that place. And I'll think, why am I not in this place? Like, listen to this guy talk.
And I'm not talking about pastors like you, like you, that's your job. You know, not that it's not awesome that you do it, but it's expected. Right. But when you run into somebody else, you know, when I run into another guy here on the job is who's a fireman and, just in his natural conversation, there's, there's truth from scripture or even actual scripture coming out. It's, it's really cool. it's, all it takes is being in the word.
Well, like
Nole (37:59.244)
Right? That's kind of quote unquote all it takes.
Yeah, it's not a seminary graduate degree course. It's literally, a bunch of guys reading the Bible and every day saying, here's what I'm learning. And to watch the discovery go deeper and deeper. mean, they're teaching me all kinds of stuff as we're just learning and growing together. And I know on the 30th this month, it's going to be exciting to say, hey, we did 30 days of this, and then we all want to turn around and start new groups and just see what God does with this little initiative.
Yeah, now it's time to keep that moment I'm going.
But it comes back to this whole idea of what are we praying for? If our prayers review our priorities, then I want to make sure my prayers are God's priority. like you think about, here's an example, like the three Hebrews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Nebuchadnezzar told them to bow down to the statue or I will burn you, I will kill you. And they're like, no, not doing it. If their prayer was for safety,
They would have done what almost like so many professing Christians would do. They just bow down to the statue and move on with their life. Like just do it and move on. And their thought is, no, I'm not going to dishonor God. Even if I'm the only one not going to do it. And ultimately they say, you can, you can throw us in the fire. Even if you kill us, we're still not going to do it. And you know, because their focus was on, I'm going to glorify God, matter what you say. They were fearless. And then they watch how God protected them.
Jim (39:32.362)
That's what we need in our lives. That's my prayer for my kids is like, God, I want my kid to stand up to the Nebuchadnezzar of this world and say, though you do anything to me, I'm not going to dishonor God. And then that gives us a chance to watch how God will protect his own. And you stack Nebuchadnezzars of this world against the Creator, boys, we know who's going to win that fight.
Man, that's the boldness. Man, I wish I could get to that point, right?
Incredible. But we, but we do that every day in small ways. Like we, win that battle. We're only got seas. And so it may not be a massive statue. Yeah. That kind of bow before this idol situation. It's bound for an idol in our own private lives. It's the places where only God sees like we're, can win that battle in small, imperceptible ways.
that in time build a reservoir of strength so we can say no to the thing when it really matters. I think a mistake a lot of people make is they think that they're going to, they can compromise along the way and then they won't compromise when it really counts. And the truth is you're not going to do that. You're going to fail unless we are winning the battle where only God sees. We're fighting for holiness in that arena. And then when the big test shows up,
Hmm.
Jim (40:57.346)
We've prepared to win.
Yeah, that's so true. mean, there's so many of the guys that are out there that talk about, know, what you do in the little things you do in the big things and trying to like force yourself for, you know, to do something that's uncomfortable once a day or something that you don't want to do, which builds that like resiliency in your brain and things like that. I think, you know, I'm looking at it like, hey, that my
You know what mean?
Kevin (41:26.082)
This is very eye-witting for me that my prayer life has to change because I do pray but many a times it's like thank you for this food and make sure that I'm safe and I get on like and I think you wrote in your notes it says we should pray for holiness over health, character over comfort, love and longevity. those are, that's huge.
That's big stuff. But look, we all, we all, know we all do things every day to fight our own laziness. Like we got to build that strength. Right. I mean, you, you know what day of the year it is, right? What number you right? It's 289, right? It's day 289.
I know why you, yeah.
That's how many push-ups we're doing today.
No, let's.
Kevin (42:11.789)
Go!
So January 1st, started, literally January 1st, I did one pushup and then two and then three. And I didn't get every day, but so far we're fighting to get to December 31st and do 365.
How are you breaking these up? Are you going 289 straight? I'm like, are you that guy? Like Dave probably can do that.
Yeah, Dave, Dave, that's like a one handed thing. He just does that. Like, no, no, no, this I get bored. So like right now it's sets of 50. Yeah. And it's throughout the day. It's not like all at once, but like just the goal. just a subtle goal of every day. Just do one more pushup. Not a big deal. But, you know, it's those little things we do like you guys in your cold plunge experiences and other things that I know you're a part of, like you, you do that to fight laziness and fight.
you know, the just the cobwebs of life, but then spiritually, you know, every day we're fighting to keep our minds in the right place.
Jim (43:11.694)
and chase after Christ.
I love how the things that are eternal, the things that really matter that have to do with God, the spirituality, there's always something in the physical world that mirrors or reflects that. And if you go back to what you were just talking about with compromising on the little things that only God sees and then expecting yourself to step up to the plate and do the right thing when the big challenge comes, obviously that's not the way it works.
And if you look at anything, whether it's sports or, you know, being the best of your job or whatever, you can't expect to just kind of coast and not really practice and not train and then go run the marathon and win or do whatever. Like in the physical world that never works. And we all know that intrinsically. And yet we're able to look at the eternal things, our spiritual life and think, now I'm relatively a good person. I'm not going to put the shopping cart back right now.
I'm going to look at this thing on my phone that I shouldn't look at, you know, all these little tiny compromises we make throughout the day. And then, but when the big challenge comes, the thing, the sin that will shatter my life and dishonor me, I'll resist that. Like, why, why would you, you've been training yourself to fail your whole life.
Here's a question. Someone asked me this a while back and the question stuck in my mind is where have you already given your heart over to sin? So that opportunity is the only thing you lack. Like you've already given your heart over to lust over to anger or to jealousy. So the only thing you're missing is the opportunity to execute. That's what happens is so often like we, we engage in that sin and then we get convicted instead of saying,
Jim (45:00.044)
I've already given my heart over it. All we're talking about now is the timing. And that's the difference between Joseph and David. Like Joseph was solicited relentlessly to be immoral with the known leader's wife, like the top guy, his wife. And Joseph's response was, how can I do this evil and sin against God? He already prepared his heart to win. And so when the opportunity showed up, he was going to win.
because he already feared God and he had won that battle where only God saw. Versus David, he was going to fail. That was like so easy to see because he had already compromised. And then when the opportunity of Bathsheba came, he was going to sin. That's a no brainer. And the difference is how'd you prepare your heart? So as men, are every day we're
Hmm.
preparing our heart with all the inputs we have from our time in the Word, our prayer, our conversations around the firehouse, the people we choose to associate with, the music we listen to. All those inputs are putting something into our mind which will either galvanize us or weaken us.
You made me think of that. I think it's that famous quote by Jordan Peterson. It says a harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control. And I don't know. mean, I know another pastor in front of ours, Jeremy Stalnecker, we've had on the show, who does jujitsu and you do jujitsu and you're doing 289 pushups today. But I know some of you guys train me because
Kevin (46:44.718)
They have that, you're a dangerous man, I've seen you roll, but you have it under voluntary control, obviously, but as part of that, for safety, if something did go down, like are you preparing yourself for something? Is it okay to prepare yourself and to prepare for maybe a future calamity or something that'd be, and that you can handle?
Every day, every day. In my world as a pastor, we were taught early on to be ready to preach, pray, or die anytime. And I can't live in an unprepared way. So no matter what that means, if it's prepared to protect the vulnerable or to serve in some way, I have to be ready. So I don't have the luxury of not doing that.
So you're not doing it out of fear, but as just a protective mechanism to say I'm preparing.
No, if we're going to, if, if something's going to happen, mean, if we're going to get a fight, I want to be good at it. You know, like that's, that's, if we're going to have to do hard things, I want to be part of the solution, not, not a liability. And so whether it's something in the physical world here dealing with a calamity, a tragedy, dealing with evil, if you have the, the bad guy shows up and we have to take care of that.
No matter what the problem or situation is, I want to be ready to do my part that would best glorify God. If that means restraining evil and being salt in that way, let's go.
Kevin (48:17.634)
Yeah, that's it. I love this because I feel like when you're prepared, you're not in fear. Like if you've ever had to do public speaking and you've got your speech prepared and you've memorized it and you've gone over it a million times, I'm not I'm not in fear when I give it a five minute notice and I'm terrified. Right. And I'm totally in fear. And it's the same thing with the firefighting. Right. we train and prepare all the time for the worst case scenario. But I'm not in fear of going up on the roof and cutting holes. We've done this. We've trained. We know what we're doing.
Like in jujitsu, there's, when you start as a new jujitsu player, your breathing's all over the place. You're just exhausted. Your cardio is shot because you've not been in a physical altercation with people a thousand times. But then you hit a point where you've trained so much that you kind of anticipate how things are going to go and your brain can function because your breathing, your heart rate's low. And now it's fun. Like now we're looking forward to this.
to the train opportunity because it's a chess game, but you've trained and prepared. even spiritually, whether it's a gospel conversation, if you study the word and you learn how to engage with people and be winsome with it and show people, explain God's love, like you're not scared. Like the fear goes away when you trust God and you have his word and you just start the conversation.
So I thought of something when you were talking about the inputs that we have in our lives, whether it's what we're looking at on our phones and music we listen to, there's a real positive thing that you could do as a man who's a first responder next year that would be a really positive input. I believe you're speaking at Hume at the first responders conference next year. What are the dates for that? Do you know?
Ah, let's go. Oh yeah. It's March 22nd, 23rd. Stand by. I'll confirm March 22nd, 23rd of this coming year. March 20th and yeah. 21st, 22nd, Saturday, Sunday.
Kevin (50:16.063)
Awesome.
Nole (50:23.5)
March 21st and 22nd next year, first responders conference. Heather and I went to this last year. It was a blast. Hume is great. The people that work there are awesome. And this year, pastor Jim Stitzinger is going to be there teaching. So we're trying to rally a group to go and we're going to go and harass pastor Jim as he tries to teach. It's going to be right. okay. Okay. Well, I'm not in on that.
to go.
Jim (50:48.014)
Bring the mats, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Nole (50:53.167)
I will heckle you from the crowd. But yeah, we would love to see you out there.
That would be a lot of fun. Love it. Well, this is a good subject. think it just challenges all of us to take a look at how we pray and ask God for exactly what we actually need and rest our lives in Him and trust Him for safety. So hear me. My point is that we have a lot of things to pray for and just put safety second.
safety second. All right, my last question is for you, because it's all it's it's common Halloween. We've been I've been conflicted with this. It's an unsafe night. We know. It's an unsafe night. We know this. I've horrible things on Halloween. Yet at the same time, full disclosure, my kids will get dressed up and go ask for candy and go do trick or treating.
We're talking about safety,
Kevin (51:52.194)
This year, my youngest is being a minion. has these goggles. It's hilarious looking. And we do that. But as I've grown in a Christian walk, I do see some of the things that could be challenging with this like it, you know, that maybe it's not the best thing. And I do worry about them, you know, going out on the town. And my oldest is getting to the point where she's asking if she could just go by herself with her friends, which I'm like, no, no, because I'm in fear.
Yeah. And I don't really believe in the holiday. So I just want to hear your thoughts on this because I respect.
Well, whether it's Halloween or your kids going to a party or there's a lot of discernment where you can err on the side of alertness and awareness. And, that's different. Like this whole idea of praying for safety doesn't mean that we just advocate our, or, you know, abandon our roles, protectors and, and defenders and guardians. We don't, we don't just stop doing that. In fact, we, do with every ounce of our being. so if there's a question of danger or
uh, imprudent people or whatever the challenge might be. You've got every, every right as a dad to, voice into that. I think whatever you do to mitigate harm, you know, Halloween is a holiday. You can, there's a lot of fun things to celebrate. There's nothing wrong with kids getting dressed up and go asking people for candy. You do that any day of the week, but yeah, you're not, you know, you're not celebrating death. You're not celebrating evil. You're not celebrating the demonic side of
of the world. So to get dressed up, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But on the safety side of it, you're just discerning. you go with your kids and you take whatever steps you can to say, here's where we're going to go be with like minded people and enjoy that. Because there's a lot of content that can come into our kids minds that's just not healthy. And you don't need to expose them to unnecessary evil.
Nole (53:54.062)
Strong answer. I agree with all of that.
Well, then this is super thought provoking. I thank you for coming on. I think you were on episode two 14 and episode 95 before, so I would encourage. Yeah, well, that's what it says here. I don't know anything, but I think that's if you want it. We did an amazing bio with you. I think that was a episode 95, which is very cool. And I would encourage you guys if you want to hear more from Pastor Jim is to check that out and then.
Do you guys have any of the other stuff coming up at Crossroads in San Carino?
We just did our big first responder fellowship back in September, but November 2nd, that Sunday afternoon at four o'clock is our next Jesus and Jiu-Jitsu get together here. So about an hour of open mat and a Bible study after that. You may be familiar with the Jesus and Jiu-Jitsu national group that has been out there for a little while. I just talked to them and invited them to come out here and do one of their events, which they said they were
would love to do early in 26. So I'll let you know when that is. That'll be a fun thing.
Kevin (55:08.494)
It's really cool. I haven't seen anything like that. I mean, you had like 60 guys in the room last time. It was insane. And then there's everybody's going, there was this, you know, we taught everybody was rolling, they had some pizza and then they all sat on the mats and you gave this just a phenomenal sermon afterwards. And it related to kind of the fight and the fight in life, which I just thought was very cool. And I had never seen a ministry like that, which my hat is off to you. I thought that was
It was crazy.
Nole (55:34.282)
really.
It's not everyone understands it, but it's a way to bring the two things together and people seem to appreciate it. So, we've got that. have a new little ministry called Debrief On Demand. And that's a ministry for first responders to talk to somebody about whatever challenge they faced as they're heading home from work. you've gone through something and you just need to pray with somebody and you...
You don't need to explain the story. You don't need a narrative. just need to say, Hey, could you just pray for me? I'm about to go home and I don't, don't even know how to relate to my family right now from what I just came off of. so through our website, there's a link there to click the debrief button. And, that email will go to one of our guys here. We've got, we have a ton of retired first responders that are godly men and women, and they've been in the arena and they're there. They've left it now. So it's safe to talk to them. There's no implications for your job.
yeah, you say whatever you want to say, or you say nothing and just say, Hey, would you pray for me? And, sometimes I get those calls. Sometimes it goes to the other, other team members, but that's a pretty cool thing to do to just say, Hey, when you need to pray with somebody to the best of our ability, you feel that you click that link and we'll get you.
Man, I really like that. That's very cool.
Jim (56:50.894)
And then there's a whole spouses fellowship here for wives of fire and law enforcement to get together monthly. And it's a great conversation, great encouragement. So there's a lot of things happening. We're pretty excited about it.
Very cool. Maybe we can put a link to Crossroads Event Set and then also we'll put a link to your article that we're referencing this whole episode. That would be great.
All right. have two hard questions for you. Go that I may or may not post the first one. A good friend gave me a shirt and it features a picture of a representation of Jesus and at Jesus's feet, there are a couple of sheep and in Jesus's hands is an AR 15 style. What do you think about that? Pastor Jim Stitzinger.
You know, if you're talking about the creator of the universe, he's got weapons. We've never even seen. Step down to saddle him with an AR 15. The scripture said the word of his mouth, like he speaks a word and he says you're done and he unplugs you. Like, I would say, you you, you can't, you kind of like took a step down to put an AR 15 in his hand now.
Ooh, I really like that perspective.
Nole (57:58.196)
I really like that perspective.
Jim (58:16.438)
It messages, it messages to our culture and our day. you're talking about the God who has lightning and can send that your way. There is a whole.
Yeah.
Nole (58:30.966)
The black rifle is a joke. Yeah, I feel like it's a wonderful shirt and I love it because I like that kind of thing. But it can be, like I understand, I put it on and my wife was like, are you going to wear that? And it's a fair question because it does represent different things to so many different groups of people. And not all those groups of people are going to see that shirt and want to have a conversation with me where I can explain myself. They're just going to look at me and go, you know.
Look at that, an aga-weirdo, you know, so, okay. That's question number one. Question number two, I get jammed up, I won't say regularly, but I get jammed up here and there because 80 % of the t-shirts in my closet feature some sort of skull or representation of death. I get jammed up about this and I've been asked if that's biblical. And I don't know, I just want to know. Like as a Christian,
If I'm going around wearing shirts with, with skulls on them. What do you think about that?
Well, God made the body and he doesn't want us to desecrate it. Move your head again. What's, what's on that logo right behind you? Case in point. So now if your message, if your message is Matthew 10, don't fear those who kill the body, but fear the one who kills both body and soul and hell forever.
If your message is, what are you fearing? Are you fearing physical death? Are you fearing eternal death? If that's your message, go for it. But if it's, if it, if it's a, I'm not saying this is true of you, but like the world has a fixation on death because it's a suicidal world. the whole, the whole goal of the enemy is, is drag everyone to the grave as efficiently as possible. So I tend to not be a fan of things that
Jim (01:00:34.806)
that make death look inviting or yeah, that scream that now I'm all for lethality in the hands of the right people. know, the, you know, where it's needed, want extremely lethal, efficient people to do their work with the best weapons. I we need that, but I like to be more stealth.
Mm-hmm.
Nole (01:00:56.642)
Yes, we do.
Nole (01:01:01.518)
All right, those are good. I appreciate those answers. Thank you.
You know, I'm doing this since the last fire up, the group that I was in, the small group we committed to doing the Bible in a year plan. It's like you're going Old Testament, New Testament, Proverbs, you know, like you're going back and forth. So we're going through Leviticus and it's just like, it's wild listening to all the sacrificial things that people have to make. And then they're like, you looked at your neighbor's stone and the death you did.
It's just like...
They will be burned alive. were just just kill kill kill. And then it was wild like the community will of Israelites will go out and stone this person to death like over and over and over again. And you're like, this is our God. This is like you will be stoned.
Yeah. I mean, it's, there's some severe consequences, but even all of that was God teaching people consequences. Yeah. Like all of that was showing that the wages of sin is death. And you had to build that into humanity because humanity thought sin without consequence. And that's why God had to bring about the flood. You know, there's consequences. And so when Jesus finally shows up and John says, behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
Nole (01:01:55.917)
Hmm.
Jim (01:02:16.94)
man, that's the thunderclap of all, you know, is to show us that it's Jesus who separates us from the guilt of our sin. yeah, it's a lot.
Is there still conf- I mean obviously Jesus paid the price but is there still consequence for sin?
Yeah, we all have the scars of that, don't we? Yeah, we do. He forgives us of the guilt of it, but I still have to deal with the consequences of it. Even as a Christian, there's a lot of things we all do and bad decisions we make and things we say we shouldn't. And while we can be forgiven immediately by God and by others, still have to deal with the consequences of it. And in that case, then our prayer is, give me grace with the consequences. I embrace what I did. I own it.
I accept responsibility and now God give me grace. And now our prayer is God give this man the rest of his life, give him grace to endure the consequences of what he did. I mean, that's, that's raw. That's, that's real.
Yeah.
Nole (01:03:22.679)
Yeah.
Yeah, I you look at the people that Jesus used in disciples, they are not perfect human beings, know, they were awesome. Saul, Paul, like that was wild. Yeah. Yeah. That was what the purpose is.
Yeah. One, one thought on that too, is sometimes Satan brings up the bad things we've done in the past and smacks you with it. And I don't know if you're like me, but every now and then you look in the mirror and all you can think of is the list of bad decisions that you've made. Here's the trick is you have to end every one of those sentences with the statement. That's what I'm forgiven of. Because if I let it sit with, here's what I did. And I let it sit there.
Hmm.
Jim (01:04:06.306)
then all I did was took us back to the cross, but I take us away from it. But if I say that's what I'm forgiven of, then I'm reminding Satan and hell and even my own heart. That's what Christ paid for on the cross. That thing is forgiven. That's covered, man. I'm free from that. So yeah, I did that and I could tell you a whole lot more too, but that's what I'm forgiven of.
No.
Kevin (01:04:30.924)
That's a great line.
Yeah, that's good. That's a good reminder.
Well, so grateful for you guys. Thank you for what you do and for the impact you're having in our lives. I love this.
Thank you. It's good talking to you again.
This has been the Fire Eucary Potter.
Nole (01:04:58.062)
There's a couple of things in the show notes that you should definitely go check out. We've got links to pastor Jim Stitzinger's website where you can read the original article that this was based on. It's definitely worth a read, even though I feel like you got a pretty good handle on it. it's well written. It's something that you should definitely go read. And there's a bunch of other good stuff on there as well. We also have a link to crossroads, which is the church that pastor Jim serves at. They're doing a lot of really cool things there.
And we do also have a link to the debrief ministry that they are doing, which sounds really cool. And to be honest with you, I'm actually going to be testing that out very soon and not because I just want to test it out, but because it sounds like something that would be actually useful for me with some stuff that I'm dealing with right now. So I may or may not report back on that, but it's a cool thing.
So links to all that in the show notes, make sure you go check that out. Do go back and listen to the other episode that we did with pastor Stitzinger that will be linked to the show notes as well. Plenty of links in the show notes. If you're not checking out the links in the show notes, you should be. So go do that. And of course, as always, our next class, the fire program is coming up fast and you need to sign up right now. Thank you again for listening.
We'll see you next week.
you
Kevin (01:06:44.974)
He starts his company?
he did about 50 years ago, 45 years ago, he started buying pastors libraries when they would retire, keeping the books he needed for libraries. He was building, selling off the rest. And that became a company called books for libraries. So he still builds and sells primary theological libraries all over the world.
That's incredible.
So like, for instance, this is the best illustration. When Saddam took out Kuwait, he stole all the books and threw them into the rivers and drove his trucks across on top of the books. And my dad was one of the guys they flew in to help replenish the libraries in Kuwait. Cause he knows how, he knows. So just down the street, he's got a warehouse and he's all the time buying libraries. We've gone into small public libraries, bought those from
Whoa.
Jim (01:07:37.24)
places, schools, all kinds of things, just hundreds of thousands of books, everything from cookbooks. I had the largest war history collection of any kindergartener you've ever met. Yeah. Any book on guns, I take them all. Outdoor survival, I have them all. Cause I had just taken from the library. We were working. So.
you
Nole (01:07:59.662)
That's where we go.
I love that classic. I don't know what commercial that is where it's like an insurance commercial. You're turning into your dad
Kevin (01:08:09.632)
He's like, no. You know who else books on submarines? My dad.
And so that explains books in our family. We have a lot.
That's so cool. I love it.
I I was smart enough to have read them all and retain, but at least get a lot of knowledge.
I love it.
Nole (01:08:36.216)
So I'm just catching up, but I too really enjoyed the article. It was thought provoking and I agreed wholeheartedly with it. And it's not something I've ever heard anybody talk about. So.
Here we go.
I love it. All right, we'll get in. And I have like the Cliff Notes version of it. And then I had some notes from the websites.
Yeah, so I'm ready.
Nole (01:08:56.108)
Let me hold on before you start. are recording, no worries there. But I do have to try to figure out why my volume is so low. Just give me one second.
Jim (01:09:06.926)
It was 2001 when we last got to catch up. you know, one of the things I love is when years go by.
What?
2001 you say? Is it 21?
2021. 2021. Yeah. Some of you probably weren't born. 2021. No, what I love is when, when you circle back and good men are still doing the same thing. I love that. mean, that's the Bible uses the word faithfulness, just when, when you, you know, you may not interact for a couple of years, you've got a lot of stuff to do, but you come back together and good men are still on the same trail of chasing after Christ, running from the world. It's just encouraging.
Yeah.
Nole (01:09:49.332)
Yeah, it's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
Take some work. Well, you're the man. Thanks. No, no, but I don't think we should delete any of that. That's great stuff.
You're gonna close that out again?
Nole (01:10:05.774)
find a way to weave it in. I'll just tag it at the beginning at the end. All right, here we go. going stop.
Wait, when are we going to get Jim to the Fire Up program? No, weekends are so hard for you. know that,
Yeah.
you know what thought about
We're going to schedule a special one, late next year, cause it has to be that far out. We'll just do another midweek class, which we haven't done forever just for pastor pastor Jim.
Jim (01:10:28.841)
aren't you kind? Hey, I would I would love that. I would absolutely love it. I look forward to it.
We'd love to have you.
Kevin (01:10:37.57)
Well, all the best to you and the girls and everybody. And thanks again. We'll keep in touch, brother.
Absolutely. Thanks guys. See
Thank you.