Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#204 Addison pt 2, Healing and Spiritual Authority
This episode delves into the transformation from guilt to freedom through understanding one's true identity in Christ. Richard and Addison discuss the importance of community, divine healing, and the authority that believers have, encouraging listeners to embrace their journeys with faith and vulnerability.
• Sharing a listener’s impactful letter of encouragement
• Emphasizing the core message of grace and acceptance in faith
• Reflecting on personal transformations and overcoming struggles
• Highlighting the role of community in facilitating healing
• Discussing effective communication of the gospel to various audiences
• Encouraging active pursuit of healing in all aspects of life
• Claiming the authority believers have to command healing
• Concluding with a reminder of God’s intimate involvement in our lives
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Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and I wanted to tell you guys a little bit about what's been going on over here at Love Reality. We have been doing this since 2017, and the whole purpose of this ministry is to tell anybody who's willing to listen that, by grace, through faith, they are free from sin, and we have preached this high and low, near and far, and we get responses a lot of the time. People write in and I wanted to share uh one with you today that really blessed me, and this was somebody who wrote in and they said hey, I just want to say thanks for all you do with Love Reality. You encourage us in our true Christian identity and remind us that we now have the nature of God.
Speaker 1:It's so different than the actions of those in the past who've shouted at us, scolded us and made us think we weren't trying hard enough or praying enough and that's why we were sinning. They made us think we didn't love God. Your approach, on the other hand, brings comfort, safety and joy. You let us know that we aren't bad people or people who are merely pretending to be good and will do bad if, given the opportunity, you believe in us and this encourages me so much and makes me feel safe. Thank you, and please continue the good work. Man, that is encouraging to me. I love that he said that you believe in us.
Speaker 1:You know, the reason that we believe is because we believe in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ is our righteousness, he is our sanctification, he is our justification, and we do not see anybody in the flesh, and so we see everybody for who they actually are, before the foundation of the world, and praise the Lord that this brother saw that and was encouraged by that. And we want to continue doing this, and we'd love you to partner with us. If you go to loverealityorg slash give, you can partner with us in doing this, and we just want to see more of these stories. We want the gospel to continue to set people free as it does, and so we're aiming to preach it as clearly as we can. That is our prayer for the eyes of our hearts to be open to the inheritance that we all have in the saints. The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can, and that's why we want you to hear these stories stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to life.
Speaker 2:So I start praying. I'm praying and I'm very conscious of like I'm probably being loud enough, so I hope my family can't hear me, because I know this is going to freak my wife out. And then I'm just like weeping uncontrollably. I just crying and I'm crying and I'm like yes, lord, yes, lord, yet like yes, and then he starts laying out this thing for me. He's like I want you to learn this, because I don't want you just to be a person that does it for other people.
Speaker 1:I want you to have a burden on your heart to make sure that other people know. Long time coming. It's a returning guest. It is Addison Collingsworth. As with any episode of the Death Alive podcast, you might want to be careful. I don't think I don't know who's to say what we get into. We're about to start this mug, addison.
Speaker 2:the last time we were together, bro, recording a podcast we were in like a tiny little atticbnb in oregon on a lr tour, having a good time how many people were in that house with us oh gosh, it was more than 15. It was a lot of people we crammed in there it was more than 50 people.
Speaker 1:Were you staying in the same route? No, tyler and I were staying in.
Speaker 2:No, I was down in the guest room. I think I was splitting with justin goodwin, or yeah, at least one point. I don't remember because it was like two trips that we took to Oregon, each within two years, and those trips totally blend together. So I don't remember which is which, but I'm pretty sure I split a room with Justin. I think that was it.
Speaker 1:One time we all got an Airbnb and then we had to leave the Airbnb because we had we got busted for having more than, like more people than I guess.
Speaker 2:It was the mildest partying I think they probably had ever seen, but it counted, yeah, but it's talking about the gospel and in a small room.
Speaker 1:But, dude, yeah, that was the first time we really hung out together and we recorded that episode. And that episode, man, what was, what was the feedback that you got after recording that episode? Because that was a two hour long barn burner and it was just like complete vulnerability, complete. Yeah, this is who I was. This is what happened. What was the feedback that you got when that episode came out? Yeah, so it's interesting.
Speaker 2:There were certain. There were certain people like on my wife's family side that heard it and they're like, oh, that was really good, and then we didn't get into specifics that go there, so I didn't really ask. And then there was people on my side of the family where I'm like, did they listen to it? They almost act like they did, but they never said anything. So I don't know. So there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2:It was really nice to connect with my, uh, some childhood friends that have understood the gospel now and they're like, oh, I had no idea I was struggling with the same thing at the same time. I think that you said that because whatever. So those conversations were great. I think the one I was most nervous with about the reception was Cameron, because I I think in the first podcast, if I went into it, I had these couple touchstone moments. I remember my early life, like high school and college either, when Cameron and I were dating for a few years, engaged or married recently, where I would break down and I'd tell her certain things, right, like the somewhat extent to the addiction I was struggling with, and all these things and those little glimpses always shocked her and she didn't know how to process them and I always felt guilty for sharing, like I was just dumping a load on her and then expecting her to clean up my emotional baggage. So I knew she was in a different spot um, not quite to understanding the gospel of getting to freedom, but that's her own episode, her own dtl testimony. Uh, that came a year and a year after.
Speaker 2:Actually we recorded um, but still I was worried about her reception and it was really positive, um, it was great. I don't think there was understanding at a deep level because it hadn't happened for herself. But it wasn't, um, what I was fearing, where it'd be like devastating to her and be like, hey, I gotta pick up all these pieces of this kind of husband. I knew that I didn't really know or whatever. No, she handled it really well and yeah, that was the best reception I got was definitely my wife and how she saw everything. But yeah, I can't, I can't complain how spirit handled that for everybody. That was great.
Speaker 1:What is it? Do you think that just allowed you to be so open and vulnerable? And yeah, talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the revelation of the level to which I was dead to my old self for sure, like just definitely how far I'd come. I had an addiction that was like a I was. It was a junkie. I was getting my fixed 12 times a day and then it went down to like very soon after understanding the gospel, to like once a month, right. And so that radical of a change in your life is, oh, I'm really like this is different, right? So there was that for my vulnerability. I've also been, I think, before understanding the gospel and freedom.
Speaker 2:I use vulnerability as a tool for mental manipulation, so I'd be over vulnerable to shock people into giving me sympathy in order to people please and get my way. Admittedly, in college I'd be bad at classes and I'd overshare about my depression and things going on, in part because I wanted to share, but also because I wanted to get the sympathy right. So there was always a practice there. The only difference now is that I don't have to defend that old man so much that I can just speak. The other half of it is something I've learned even more in depth over the years.
Speaker 2:Now is I just have a really simple faith and it sounds cliche, but it's very much like one plus one equals two. It says I'm dead. I'm dead, that means I'm dead, that means I can share everything. And if anything, I have to remind myself man, some people are not comfortable with this type of honesty just fire hosing it, and I have to hold it back for the sake of being all things to all people, right. So that's just kind of how I've been with a lot of things in my life, just minus this one specific area of struggle. I thought I that was the only thing I had a problem with. So yeah, it was. It's natural to me now in freedom, it's beneficial and positive.
Speaker 1:Okay, I didn't really know you at all before freedom. Do you feel like freedom changed your personality? Do you feel like how do you feel like freedom? Because I don't know, before I'd seen you and you seemed I don't know if you were shy or if you were more laid back, and now that I've known you for a few years, I would not say Addison is shy, I would not say that at all. But maybe you weren't before either I'd oscillate a lot.
Speaker 2:So not only is it brought stability, but I would fluctuate between being overly confident to try to mask my insecurities especially if people like me, for me, or just the benefits they get from me, all this stuff. So I'd be overly showy and put up a defensive cockiness and then I would swing the other way, where I'd be like introverted and self-conscious to and then shy Right and then shy right, and that also would play between the social groups. I'd move between like kind of the jocks and whatever as much jock as you have at Culture Academy at that time to then the nerds, and we'd all move between those groups. So it played to that and I would say there's been evening out and of course, there's been confidence and self assurance and that my identity is secure. So I'm not I'm really not too worried about what people are going to think. Only in the context of hey is this a hindrance to have them hear what they need to hear. So confidence, leveling out, stability and just show up.
Speaker 2:And I'm the type of guy like if we're going to hang out, I was at your house and I was really tired. Being a dad helps with this, but if I'm like hey, I got to take a nap. I'm just going to take a nap on your couch, it's fine. Like I'll fall asleep, it'll happen. Like I'm secure in that. That's fine. Now do I get to take a nap? No, sad kids are make sure of that. But it's totally fine, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I remember thinking that after freedom, like we had arrived somewhere and I've said this, a lot of people have heard me say this all the time We'd arrived somewhere. And now that's in the rearview mirror a little bit. I realized that we arrived at the beginning, like we arrived at the beginning of maturity. Understanding the gospel, understanding what we had in christ wasn't like the end. It was like, oh, now we're going to start growing in christian maturity. When you got back, let's say, from Oregon your episodes out, you're going to church Talk to me about what it was like preaching the gospel and what you came up against, that you weren't expecting or like that. What happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was really so. That first year was just a lot of rest and growth, from summer of 2020 eddie gave me his testimony and hearing that, that first few months and then getting involved and helping out, love, reality and doing all the stuff to then the trip in october 21. There's a lot of growth in there and just figuring things out and then that obviously continued, but a lot of it was okay. How do I now communicate this in quiet confidence? I don't remember if I talked about it last time, but one of the big things that happened in that first six months so from like July 2020 to the end of the year, was what we always caution people about. I was the fire hose for the gospel. I had the gospel anvil and all that stuff. There was a lot of alienating my wife at the time. It was not down. It was a lot of alienating my wife at the time, who was not down. It was a lot of causing fights, family members and awkwardness and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:So coming off of that and especially after the trip, being energized, but in a new way, right, I was just like, okay, how do I effectively communicate the gospel? And then, how do I make it more. Mine Paul talks about like my gospel, like mine, like my personal testimony within the gospel and how it affects how I share it right, like my personal testimony within the gospel and how it affects how I share it right. So I'm like, how does it my gospel? And what I quickly learned and what god led me through was that I needed to, now that I had this understanding of god's character and heart, I needed to tear down the floorboards and build it up with some core assumptions, right, that god's love, that we're his children with that status, is why god gave us what he gave us, why he did what he did not for to prove something, not because we earned it, not whatever but because of who he is and that we're just his family. And so, starting from there, I need to read a ton and I need to pray a ton and I need to. Just, I'm a researcher, so I need to figure this out. So at that point I'm like, okay, just absorb scripture and figure this thing out, do Bible studies, all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And so what I quickly came to realize is that culturally it's funny my background was Adventist. Growing up, I was a thousand percent the Haystacks and Super Saver runs of Friday's Adventist. I was not a theological Adventist. I knew nothing. I had a lot of assumptions, a lot of ideas, just vague ones that would get me through tests in high school, but I really didn't know, right. So I'm just like, okay, adventist, non-aventist, christian, the label doesn't matter, I just need to start from the start, like the beginning, right. And so I just started reading.
Speaker 2:What I quickly found out is the responses I would get from sharing the gospel with different people. That didn't make sense to me. I didn't know what the lies were, the hangups or whatever. I quickly started seeing the difference. When I read for myself, I can start identifying like, oh, this is the lie. That's because of this theological background or this faith background or this person that they see God in this specific way. So this is how I have to communicate, Right? This is the thing, like the buzzwords of hey, do you know? Here's Romans six. You're free from sin. Here's this. That's not going to work in every, any situation, and who you're talking with. So it was a season of really learning the application of how I spoke to others.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing that was happening when I got back is so October 2021,. We're in that. We're in that trip, we're recording. My wife is pregnant with our, our second son, right Today. We have four kids. So it's whirlwind of difference, right, but she's pregnant, yeah, so she's pregnant with her second son, right Today. We have four kids. So it's a whirlwind of difference, right, but she's pregnant, yeah, so she's pregnant with her second son. So obviously, I go on a trip with people she's not down with because she's still awkward about this while she's pregnant, and then all this stuff happens. I think that was the one we got sick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all got COVID-19. It was in the middle of the pandemic. I remember worldwide pandemic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was bad. Yeah, so you stack everything on top of each other. She's furious, right, understandably, and I'm settling. Okay. I don't want to use the, the hammer of the gospel. So I actually inverted and while I'm doing all the studying and learning how to speak to other people effectively in my own household, I'm walking on eggshells. Unfortunately, I'm regressing because I am. I fell into a period in a season where I was I love my life, not unto death, and or I whatever the opposite of that is, but basically, I was just like.
Speaker 2:I didn't, yeah. So basically I was just like, man, I don't want to upset the apple cart. I already I put my hand in the mousetrap. I got slapped too many times. I'm just going to be quiet.
Speaker 2:So there was this weird dichotomy of this life of on fire for the gospel and talking whatever, and then at home I'm timid as a church mouse, like reading my Bible, but I'm like, oh, it's weird. If she gets out of the shower and she's reading my Bible, she's, she already thinks I'm pious and I'm rubbing her face. So I can't help it because I'm so excited. But she's also pissed off and I understand it, because she wants to sleep. Dang it. Yeah. So all that, right, and we just, and then we have a newborn, right and all this. So it's this kind of weird transition period. So, yeah, that was the biggest difference when I got back. Like that, 2022 yeah, the start of 2022 was that.
Speaker 2:The other thing that was going on at that time was when Eddie came along for my company I had Simply Smart Homes because we recorded about a year and a half into that venture, or no, it was three and a half years. I'd done it three years prior to Eddie being there we were massively in debt. I think we were $100,000 in debt and I might have talked about this last testimony. It was a lot of money and it was 99 99 my direct fault it was. It was all old addison making dumb decisions about a 3500 lease on a space that was five times as big as we needed, because I've worked van and an employee, I couldn't pay in eddie and all this stuff right. All new office furniture, all this stuff right I like that man.
Speaker 1:It was super nice. It was nice yeah.
Speaker 2:And God had. God worked all things for his good, but it was really dumb to sign that contract when I did at the beginning. But anyway, so we're working out of that debt and in the I think it was the summer of 2022, we finally worked our way out of the debt. We did the Dave Ramsey snowball Right and at that time, God's just showing up in miraculous ways every day at the office right, eddie and I are how did you do the dave ramsey snowball like?
Speaker 2:so it was just like all these advertisers I had contracts with. There was all these, all the the back payments for the bank. We used to joke about a we, eddie and I would play two games. One was we we guessed the thickness of the overdraft statements from our bank account. It was like this thing. And the other one would be like you'd be like one. Two, draw, open our bank apps and see how overdrawn we were. We can't compare, oh my goodness. People are like ha, I'm $98. You're only $72. I win. So it was. But it was also just God, god just showing up constantly every month no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And I always pulled through on it because as God stressed especially at that time was integrity. Make sure we follow through your word. And if I didn't know the exact timeline, I'd tell them hey, I've got a concrete plan. Here's what it looks like. I'm going to get paid over like ghosting me because then small claims court sucks. It's not worth your time, it's a lot. So if I hear, if I heard that on the other end from a client, I'm like, oh, that's really considerate. They're not trying to screw me over, they're actually they've got a plan and here's the idea I'll call them on it, I'll check up on them, and they did, and I I'd have an answer right. So we're doing that through and God was blessing us with clients Half the time.
Speaker 2:I think God was prioritizing Actually, I know God was prioritizing not the ones that were going to pass the most to help us with the debt, but always clients that needed prayer. And that's where the it's another Tuesday, just another Tuesday line from Eddie and I came because we were praying for clients that like we had one that had been on the kidney transplant list for almost three and a half years and it was dire, they had like less than a year if they didn't get one prayed for them and then within a month they had a new kidney, like it was that we had a. We had clients that would have like bad elbows, bad knees, bad shoulders, like whatever stuff. We pray for them and they we'd see healings, like all kinds of stuff. It was just God was just blessing and miracles were flowing all the time. Meanwhile we're overdrawn and we're playing the bank slip game, just laughing because, on the grand scheme of things, overdrawing on money versus seeing the power of God flow all the time is it's comical. At that point it's like father has the cattle on a thousand hills. Bank account says I'm overdrawn by a thousand bucks. Who am I going to believe? So that stuff was happening all the time. And then we finally got to zero. We finally dug out of all of our debt.
Speaker 2:And God had another miracle for us where our landlord just so happened to sell the business development that we were in to a new party. The same day I went in to ask him for forgiveness and come with a plan and I offered, hey, if I could find someone that will, because I knew God would fall through if I said it. I was like, hey, if I can find someone to take over our lease the exact amount in that spot we have, because he was having a hard time filling out certain spaces, so I knew they'd accept it Will you let us get out of the lease? Can we transfer it to them? And he just so happened to have sold the complex that day. So I have no problem, as long as the new person knows that this deal is here and I'm not like trying they don't think I'm trying to mess them over, so I'll talk to them and make sure they said yes. And then we prayed about it.
Speaker 2:And then, through one of our very close friends and someone that God intervened in her life and Marine, her son close friends and someone that God intervened in her life and Marine, her son, just happened to be working for a company that was looking for an office building and ours was perfect and they took over our lease. I was like two months later and we were out that third fixed $3,500 a month fee that had built up a lot of our debt in no time flat. That was our last major thing. So yeah, we're at net zero. Nine months prior, eddie had introduced me to his friend. I knew him before because of the LR trip, but before it was we fan right, and he was just this wacky Asian dude I had never met that was offering business advice in all this like books we could read and just basically being a personal business coach for as far as I could tell because this was very early on, for no other reason than we just were gospel homies and it was cool, right, right. So he had been coaching us and also help, instrumental in helping us get out of debt and advice and all this stuff into finally getting out of debt.
Speaker 2:And then, along with that, we had been completely revamping the entire business model because, as god made it very clear to me now that I was free from my pride and ego, fundamentally how I set this up, it was never going to work. It's like in the office, when they go to the accountant and they're like, yes, we've done the math, the more clients. When Michael Scott Paper Company, they're like, we've done the math, the more clients we get, the more money we're going to get. He's like, yes, but that's on a fixed cost pricing model. You have a variable cost pricing model. Please recut the numbers. It was that moment where God's just like look bud, this is doomed. You got to change or it's got to be done, because this model is never going to work. It worked for you and maybe you and Eddie, but it's never going to scale and you're going to get out of debt or you're going to get right back in debt.
Speaker 2:Pui was helping us completely change everything. We were going to go from being doorbell, smart doorbell jockeys in lower middle income neighborhoods to $100,000 one size fits all clients in mega mansions around Lincoln and Omaha and Nebraska, and it was going to be just totally different. And we had all the marketing material, all the plans, everything. We'd spend an exhaustive nine months making this happen while getting out of debt. It was our main focus.
Speaker 2:Then, after all that time this is, yeah, summer 2022, we met up with Huy. We met up with him once a week and we sit down and we're like hey, time to have our business meeting, let's review, and he just goes. Guys, we meet up officially once a week, we talk all week, but all we ever do is talk about the gospel and love realities of ministry. That's all we do. He's even in these business meetings. We just do that. We never talk about your actual business. He's. That's where your heart is right.
Speaker 2:Like we'd been volunteering, doing subtitling, all this, this stuff for I think it was wave two at the time and wave one or all this right and he's just maybe you should just do that, like you ever thought about that, maybe you should just do that. We're like, huh, yeah, that's a good question. Let's bring that to prayer. Why don't we just do that? Because two years prior that would have been terrifying. I'm like my entire reputation my name is in this I just hit the five-year mark, which is the mark that a small business, if they make it past five years, that's usually the sign that they're going to make it, because most businesses fail before five years and the very few that do make it it's like 20%, 30% or something like that. So we made it. And then that's the moment where it's like maybe we should just call it quits. So, as ludicrous as that sounded, I immediately it resonated with me just struck a chord with my heart. I'm like there's something there Right.
Speaker 2:And two years prior I'd had that vision of praying about what to do with the company, in the midst of COVID and Jesus coming in, seeing him walk in. I didn't see his face. But I like shoulders down, walking in and pick up my business card on my desk and being like this company is mine, I'm going to do what I want with it. So let it go. Okay, done. So I've been living that way. I was like Lord, if we don't make a dime on any client, you just need me to go install a doorbell for an old woman that needs prayer for a hip whatever Cool, whatever Cool Done. So I was like cool, the prospect of shutting this down doesn't scare me at all. They prayed about it and it was confirmation. It was like, yeah, you should go do that, go help love reality, do that. And then let this thing go.
Speaker 2:And I had talks with people about like selling the company, talks about like selling the IP, but none of it felt right. God was just like, nah, just trust me, like you want to salvage something out of this, because it says that you're, it proves to other people they're being smart with your money and what you put into this, and it shows you something you don't need those external validation marks, even that. Just get started. So I'm like, okay, got it. And Eddie was game too. So that was it. So then that led to summer of 2022. And around that time I had been toying with this idea of hey, it'd be awesome to get all our people together again and go out to my parents, have a place out in the woods out in Wyoming, and it'd be cool to get a bunch of people together and camp style and whatever hang out.
Speaker 1:That was the greatest vacation like my life I don't know about you. It was so much fun and you're being humble. Your parents have property in grant eton national park, which not very many people are able to have property in grant eton. How many of us were out there 50, 40, I don't know a lot. We we had plans to have property in Grand Teton.
Speaker 2:How many of us were out there? 50?, 40?, I don't know. We had plans to have people tent, like tons of tents. That never came to fruition, which I think was probably good as far as logistics, but yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1:And it was pretty much just vibe session. What are we going to do tonight? We're going to be around the campfire and we're just going to vibe out to some gospel. There was like confession that took place. Like it was amazing bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if he'll hear that, but for my brother and his wife it was pretty instrumental for them to in their faith. So it was a lot for a lot of people. I think it was the turning point of hey. So when you talk about and I guess I'll touch on it a little bit here when you talk about the kingdom of God, you talk about a culture. So I almost like to say where I'm from, this is how we do things. Like Huy and I on our study every week, we talk about this Like where I'm from, this is how we do things.
Speaker 2:So if you met a friend he's from Mexico, it's like hey, in Mexico, god, this is how we do things, and I think that trip was so indicative of in the kingdom of god, this is how we act this is how we get together, this is how we have fun, this is how we confess, this is how we lean on each other, this is how we grow, this is how, whatever, and so it's just perfect little encapsulation of exactly what the culture we were looking to instill and grow and protect was, and I think it couldn't have been a better starting point for me, with Love, reality, like officially I'd been volunteering and all this stuff too. Right Now, I just get to fold that into my eight to five, which, quite honestly, my eight to five was already ministry. It just happened on the other end of a doorbell or camera, so that was just on the other end of. It was less pretext is really all it was. It was switching from can I tell you something to can I tell you about the lord? Yeah, do we get to talk about the lord? No, so that was basically it. But amazing trip, it was really cool and god, just the second. The idea came together. God, just, it all just coalesced. It was perfect. Yeah, that was 2022, that was so 2019. Second son 20, 2023. Our daughter was born. This is between kids and everything too right.
Speaker 2:I was also the same summer for cameron that things clicked for the gospel, which would have been a totally different trip if she wasn't there, right, it would have been totally different vibes, right, right. So there was that too. So, yeah, a lot of stuff happening that that summer that year. And then from there I was a, I was doing love reality stuff, me and Huy and Eddie, right, but me and Huy, I got to actually work with them on a day-to-day basis doing love reality stuff. We're the, we're the nerdy logistics guys, him in strategy and me in operation stuff, so in it. So it's just like, hey, if you've been on one of the bible studies is, hey, if someone needs to fix something, I'd do there. Or internet church should be the guy behind the screen doing all that stuff. Or like organizing spreadsheets or whatever else nerdy stuff. So, yeah, that was it, and that was about a year.
Speaker 2:And then there was about, yeah, wholesale shutdown, simply smart homes. Then I'm doing that for a year and then towards the end, god says, hey, there's some, this is something else that I want you to do. There's another step, there's something else. And I was like, okay, I get, that is good. It seems like this makes sense. What is there more to do? And he's just like yeah, there's something to do with Hui, there's something I want to set up with Hui, which, to my happiness, was exactly who I love working with and I got to work with him the most, being the kind of operational logistics guys so that made total sense to me. So the transition then happened from that to us working together and Hui and I starting a company.
Speaker 2:I had a company named Thankful. We started a company named Thankful with the idea that we want to spread, the original idea being we want to spread the gospel to all corners of the Internet in a way that reflected the kingdom of God. Culture, difference being, if I, if I'm a pastor at a church, I'm like, hey, guys, guess what we're gonna do? An eye like a phase one mcu marathon at our church. You gotta come check it out and everyone's sweet. Yeah, they're gonna show all those movies, they're gonna give drinks, popcorn and all this stuff. I'll be there. And then you sit your butt in the seat and they're like gotcha, here's a 40 minute sermon before we start and everyone's just kill me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why did I?
Speaker 2:come to that. I was just like I don't want to do the digital version of that, which is what I think happens a lot. I was even the good version of a this is pastors and people that are evangelists, which has its place, and I'm not discouraging it at all, but that wasn't quite it. I want to be like hey, what does it look like to have someone in a influential space that's just really geeked on rock climbing? They're just they free and they get the gospel, but they're just they love rock climbing and they've got a social following and they're just doing rock climbing stuff, but their viewpoints of the kingdom come through in that. So that person can reach an audience that is totally different than you and I, and the only thing stopping them is they're well, they're an artist, which usually it's.
Speaker 2:That person can reach an audience that is totally different than you and I, and the only thing stopping them is they're well, they're an artist, which usually it's like a starving artist, because they're not a business person. They're creative, right. So they need logistics, they need help, they need all this stuff to do it. Find those people and then help put the funds in the brains behind them to help them be their own business owners and have those businesses and pour into something that's bigger than themselves, to the point where it grows everybody else, and so that was the grand vision right, and we've been working on that for the last couple of years. But that all came through we coaching, eddie and I and the business, before working together at LR for a year and then the last year and a half doing our new business. So yeah, in conclusion, between the last time recorded now I had about to have a second kid I have four I was in one job. I'm now two jobs later. Life's been, life's been moving.
Speaker 1:So you're still working with thankful and doing that yes, so, right now, a startup mode. So you're still working with Thankful and doing that yes so right now a startup mode.
Speaker 2:We're still building what we want. We've gone through a couple of iterations. One thing it's been a season of God teaching us patience. I don't think it's funny with simply smart homes, I would have killed for any of the six iterations of Thankful we could have had where we could just be printing money. Any one of those ideas I'd be like, oh please, let me have those. And God has had us turn down possible options so many times over because he's this is not the path I have for you. This is not the one door I want you to go through. This isn't it? You needed to learn something by studying this and preparing for this, but this one, isn't it?
Speaker 2:When it came to different business models and different ways we're going to charge money, and all this like different avenues. At one point, we were like looking into revolutionizing wealth management industries via our marketing and tech expertise and how every bank is their website's a sloppy mess and it's very boring and it's just archaic right, stimulating that and figuring out a way to do it and no one else could. And we're just like man. This will print money and the gods guess it will Now move on. Yeah, it would have. I gave you that idea. Now just wave it bye-bye and move on, like okay, okay, I got you, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's been a journey of learning patience. It's been a journey of learning patience. It's been a journey of learning trust and knowing that God has a bigger plan. That often we get comfortable and we think we have this bird's eye view of everything God's doing and we're like understand every facet of it inside and out, just because we've been in it for a little bit in that one aspect, one little pinpoint of it, and God's like no, no, no, no, come back up to you know, seated by the father, come see my perspective and stop getting so hyper-focused on this one little thing, because it's bigger than that. So that's been the last couple of years and there's been challenges with it, I think, because financially, people don't understand how we and I joke, people are like man y'all are. You have four kids Doesn't seem like you're making any money from this job. So you're either crazy or stupid. Like you're either stupid or you're crazy.
Speaker 1:That's a Forrest Gump line. He's either crazy or just plain stupid.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so we just have to be there and say, no, we're just trying to be obedient. And there's moments where it's hard because you just really the old me would try to speak and he'd be like, hey, they need to see that you're doing something, they need to see your work, they need to see whatever and this is a few months back. But God is, I am your validation like full stop period. He's, I'm your validation. Don't seek it, stop Right. And that was another moment in my life before where god was like money is never anything but ink on a page or numbers on a screen. So yeah, that's. It's been hard in that aspect, because I think both of us in our lives with family, friends, different colleagues, different people that don't understand it doesn't make sense, our lives don't make sense at all. They're nuts, right, let alone all the spiritual stuff that goes on and all this. But just from a paper aspect, it just doesn't add up for people. So, yeah, so yeah, I had to be settled on that and learn that it's okay.
Speaker 1:Tell me about the spiritual side of it, because both you and I have been on like a journey of understanding different things and been learning a lot of different things and, man, you've really taken the bull by the horns. Talk to me about growing in that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So remember when I said I was very culturally Adventist but not theologically Adventist. So there were things that came up that were in the Bible. Say, like you read through 1 Corinthians, for example, that I would read, and I'd just be like, oh, that's a thing. And then I quickly learned from people around me that that does not seem to be a thing, because people are wildly uncomfortable if you talk about that and there's different spots in the Bible that are like that. I always fascinated me. I was just like that's weird, why would that be sensitive, why would that be odd? Because I just, yeah, I didn't know what. I didn't know. Right, I would stick my foot in my mouth a lot in conversations and get slapped down and be like, oh sorry, I brought that up, sorry, yeah, I guess I don't know anything. Leave it alone.
Speaker 2:So that started back with in Simply Smart Homes in 2021, eddie's discipling me. I didn't want to call it that, didn't know what. That's what it was at the time, but that's exactly what was happening, right? So he's discipling me and there's this moment where we're sitting around at the office and we're talking about first corinthians. We're talking about, like mark 16. These signs shall follow. Those that believe, raise the dead, heal the sick, cast out demons, preach the word, all this stuff. We're talking about it and we're he's mentioned the series, series that he's been watching, and he basically says, hey, like jokingly, do you want to go to Walmart? We can pray for people. I'm like called his bluff. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And you can see, he's like, yes, got him. So we went to I think it was Home Depot and I don't remember. I think it was Lowe's and Home Depot because they were close and we just prayed for a couple of people.
Speaker 2:Right, I was nervous as all heck watching Eddie do it, heart pounding, pounding so loud I couldn't hear myself think right to random people. And there's a couple of people that were offended and said no, but there's a couple of people, like the first one, eddie, was like hey, put your hands on him. Like this guy that was unloading it was like forklifting and unloading stuff in the back of Lowe's and Eddie had me put my hand on his shoulders and was like, hey, just say this. And then the guy was healed from a shoulder pain he had for years. Right, he was just like, thank you, it doesn't hurt anymore. This is crazy. I can move my arms and I was like one of the touchstone points in my life where God got bigger. I was like that was me. That wasn't him doing it, that was me.
Speaker 2:If there was any illusion that it was Eddie, specifically because there was something about him, because the dude just knows Jesus' heart, I was just like, oh, it isn't about us, it's God. It's no longer we who live, but God who lives in us. Mercy, mind-blowing. So that moment happened and from that moment on, for the next less than a year, I was obsessed. I would actually beat myself up for not taking opportunities to pray for people. And then what happened is, as I became more obsessed with the specifics of it and not enough with the relationship with God, it became sour because there was this weird mix of guilt and like for lost time and it's just this weirdness that came into it. That kind of had me stop moving that way, stop being bold in a way that would pray for people on the street and lay hands on those that wanted it. So that kind of got put on the shelf for a few years.
Speaker 1:Wait, explain that there was guilt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that kind of got put on the shelf for a few years. Wait, explain that there was guilt. Yeah, so there's.
Speaker 2:I heard this quote that authority and ability feel a lot like responsibility. Right, it's this idea of like, if you know, you can so imagine this. Imagine you had a magical wallet that every time you reached into it you just pull out a thousand dollars in cash. Right, if you saw a homeless person, don't you have a moral responsibility to give them that money? And then, if you drive through your life, can you not now stop for every single homeless person to give them that money, because that could mean the difference in life and death in life?
Speaker 2:And if you go through that logic and you talk about healing, that way it starts, if you don't see it in the context of god is love and your authority as his child, and how he moves. Like this, we live in the spirit, like the wind. No one knows where it goes or comes. They hear it, but they don't know where it's going. If you don't understand that, then it can get weird and then it becomes this thing where there's guilt. Like I didn't do that. I should have done that. I'm beating myself up because I was too nervous to say something to this guy, but he really could have used it. Now he's gone and I missed my chance and all this junk right, and I didn't have a good way to process it because, other than eddie, I know at that time cameron didn't understand the gospel, so it was. It was wildly uncomfortable for even to think about that if she was already thinking I was getting into the cult and I'm like running hands on people deep home Depot. She's just like get back the frig up.
Speaker 2:Get away from me. That's too much. It's too much, you're right, especially with our faith tradition. It's too much. So I didn't really have a good way to process that right, a healthy way, so I just let it sit. And then that miraculous stuff is still happening with Simply Smart Homes, and there were still moments it was happening, but it was just weird. And then it sat dormant through 2022, through 2023. And then last year there was a moment I had.
Speaker 2:I remember I was just feeling convicted. Huy and I, two years ago or a year and a half ago, started a weekly study called Bigger Than Me, and we talk about discipleship and consecration and what it means to walk the narrow path right the way. We talk a lot about surrendering rights. We talk a lot about submitting to God's authority. We talk a lot about what it means to love other people and love not your life unto death, what it means to pick up your cross and walk all these things. So God had been convicting me a lot in my life about like consecration what does it mean to consecrate myself? What does it mean to be set as, set apart, what does it mean to walk this way as a Christian, and that had been sitting with me and one day I remember I was getting ready, I was in the bathroom and just preparing for the day and I heard this song.
Speaker 2:If you've, if you watched it, it's one of my favorite Christian movies ever. Prince, prince of egypt right, I know people love ten commandments and whatever. But prince of egypt the brothers dynamic I did, is so good, right, and the music and everything. But in there in the soundtrack there's a song through heaven's eyes, right, I love that song and I actually been listening to it that week on on repeat because I just loved it.
Speaker 2:And it starts off with this like this kind of drone, but it's melodic, like na na, na, na, na, na, na, na na. So I kept hearing that and as I'm hearing it, it just gets louder and louder and I'm like it feels like this is like everyone in the house can hear this. I know they can't, but it feels like everyone in the house can hear this. And then, without me thinking about it, I'm repeating it. I'm like na na, na, na, na na. And then I'm kind of asking God like what is this? And God's, you've been asking about it. And he's just, are you ready to actually take a step where you consecrate your life in a way that's different.
Speaker 1:Okay, we are going to take a really quick break and I want to tell you guys about something that we do in our community, the Love Reality community. You know, we started online Zoom sessions during the pandemic that turned into our Bible study circles and we quickly found out that people love community. They love learning and understanding and talking about these things that have changed our life, this understanding of what Christ has done, and that has been going on. I host one with Elias Groff. We host one on Monday nights. It's called the Death to Life Bible Study. Just this last week, someone came on and they had a question. They had just received some truth and we talked for almost 45 minutes just answering questions, going through scripture and seeing what God has done through Christ.
Speaker 1:And so if you like these podcast episodes, if you love the Death to Life podcast, I think that you're going to be really, really blessed to check out the Death to Life podcast. I think that you're going to be really really blessed to check out the Death to Life Bible study. You can go to loverealityorg and look at the circles tab. You can find out what's going on in all these different Bible studies, and I would just encourage you to join one and fellowship with the saints. The Bible says that we ought to meet with the saints more and more often, and so much of the time we can't do it in person. If you can do it in person, awesome. If you can't join a Bible study, come on Monday nights 8 o'clock, central to the Death to Life, bible study and be encouraged and strengthened in the Lord. All right, let's get back to the episode.
Speaker 2:A few months prior to that, I had started to be like, oh yeah, I remember that pastor series about divine healing and all these gifts of the Spirit. I remember that one Eddie and I watched for a little while. I remember these things. So I started watching those again, right, and I think that was all. God needed the curiosity to crack the door open to reach me and get over whatever cultural hesitation I had. And he was asking there and basically he asked me it's like are you ready to consecrate your life in a deeper way? And as I'm hearing that, I'm like yes, and he's like okay, do you want to pray with me? I'm like yeah, of course. And so I start praying like that. And then I just start praying and I never done it in my life. It was like praying in tongues and I didn't know it was. I had no idea. Honestly, it was a little freaky because I was just like, okay, lord, I trust you.
Speaker 2:I'd been praying that prayer for that same last month about God I give up my rights, my thoughts, my feelings, my actions, my choices, my life decisions, like how I steward my marriage, my family, my work. Like I give up everything. You have permission over my body, soul and spirit. Everything you want to do, whatever you do, it's yours, the keys are yours. Whatever you want to do, and I've been pressed to pray that way, and I think this was God cashing in on that. He's just I'm going to do, I'm going to do this. So I start praying, I'm praying and I'm very conscious of I'm probably being loud enough, so I hope my family can't hear me, because I know this is going to freak my wife out. So I'm praying and then I'm just like weeping uncontrollably. I'm just crying and I'm crying and I'm like, yes, lord, and then he starts laying out this thing for me. He's, I want you to learn this, because I don't want you just to be a person that does it for other people. I want you to have a burden on your heart, to make sure that other people know what their authority is in me and what they can do for the kingdom, like that they're not powerless, that the enemy is not greater than I, that they can do something and all that he is a defeated foe. Right? This is what you're going to do. It's not just do it, you're going to teach it, you're going to explain it, you're going to move in this and, very simply, he's just not because he's you're special, because you're my son, but you're not going to do this because you're special. You're going to do this because you understand, I right, and that's always the part I want to emphasize because god lives in us, right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, and that was a marked point in my life where I'm just like things are like things were different on going on entering the gospel, obviously, but I'm like this, everything has a different frequency to it. I was just like man, it's not a game, this isn't a a game, right, I just got, I just went from the semi-pros to the pros. I was just like, okay, this is serious. So I just started rapidly consuming everything I could about how God operates and how he intervenes in our lives and how he moves. So just every video, every series, every book, just anything God would put in front of me. I was just devouring, right, and what I quickly realized was that man, I've got to write, I've got to write.
Speaker 2:So I had previously just finished up a project where I spent three years writing out what the gospel was to me in excruciating detail, and 40, 50 pages, wherever long, where it's just all these different facets of the gospel. God's cool, it's going to take you a year, but I want you to do the same thing for divine healing. I'm like dang okay. So I'm just like got it, I'm going to start writing. And so I just research, and I research obsessively over every single verse I can find on this subject, every verse of every healing miracle in the entire New Testament and some of the Old Testament. But, like Jesus and the apostles, how did they move? What did they say? Who was it for? How was it done? Like, here's all the misbeliefs people have around this subject, right, or just gifts of the spirit in general.
Speaker 2:And so I just meticulously started going through that, and along with that came boldness of I need to start praying for people. Now I can't let. And God revealed to me some of the hangups of before, of feeling like the burden was on my shoulder because it was all about me and if I didn't do it, no one else would, and all this stuff. He's. He settled some lies pretty quick there, and so I learned okay, this, what this looks like, is different, and within that I can give some a bunch of different testimonies, but I can remember there was this time where my family and I went with some relatives down to Florida, right, and at this point my wife has seen it enough that his old hat. She's like, yeah, go do what you need to do. But we were going to Florida and my aunt was with us and my aunt was.
Speaker 2:She had fallen on the floor during a trip actually and hurt her right forearm, right. She had actually broken, or for her it was torn, ligaments yeah, I think that was it, the strain ligaments. But she had a hard time even holding her phone up. She couldn't keep it upright because the weight was too heavy, so she had to use two hands. And I remembered hearing that I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go talk to her.
Speaker 2:So I talked to her and I'm just like, hey, like I see your hands, you can't hold your phone up. Right, what happened? She explains it. I'm like, cool, I've been learning some stuff. Can I pray with you? So I pray with her and it's hey, in Jesus name, arm, heal ligaments, heal tears, everything, reform in Jesus name, right now, right, and then I had I looked around. I'm like, oh, your handbag, your handbag is really heavy. Right, can you try to pick it up? Don't really hurt yourself. Pick it up and tell me what your pain level is at. If it was at eight before three, it's one then eventually I'm having her do standing in the plane doing kettlebells with this thing with her arm just up and down nothing.
Speaker 2:And it was that moment. I'm just like, see, see. And yeah, that was it. It was just like she was just like, okay, look look at this, this is amazing, right. And then the next day I did something very similar for my mom. She had fallen and broken micro fractures in her left forearm because she's left-handed and my aunt was right handed. Same thing. I'm just like, hey, let's pray for your arm. There's a lantern on there, there's an iron lantern, and that was like a table decoration of the house. First thing it when lifting up same thing, no pain, right.
Speaker 2:There was a time where we did a little talk before at my church and we were trying to show people how to do evangelism in the gospel, and this was really early on, so I was very nervous. After that call from god right, just be like, do this. Where I called up our pastor and I was like, hey, I'm gonna do a live demonstration of how you pray with authority. And I'm like, hey, pastor mike, hey, are you in pain right now? He's like, yeah, my neck's been killing me and I've had this headache all day and it won't go away. So I'm like, okay, cool, here's how you do it. In Jesus name be healed head to toe. Okay, mike, how you doing? And he's like it's gone, it doesn't hurt anymore.
Speaker 2:I remember because that was one of the very first times since that whole mess with eddie had happened and there was shame and guilt, whatever. I remember god immediately in my head. He's like don't freak out. And he said something very profound to this day that I remember. He was like act like it's normal and they will expect it to be normal, even if you're freaking out. Don't freak out. What you can do for their growth. The best thing right now is be like and that's how you do it? Cool, even inside I'm like that's how you do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mic drop no. And then we've prayed for a couple of people with a burn on their arm. There's one, one woman, that had a burn on her arm. There's a couple another person with a headache, and yeah, it was just healings. And I've got on that trip down to Florida. I'm bouncing all around. I should have written most of these down. I usually forget, but there's a reason I forgot.
Speaker 2:With this other testimony, we're down in Florida. Cameron and I took the kids. Yeah, my wife Cameron took the kids to Disney World, love Disney World. Right, we're going to do a one-day trip just while we were staying in Fort Myers. So make the three hour drive up to Orlando and then do a one day trip, cause my son's favorite ride is journey into imagination with figment at Epcot. So we're like, cool, we're going to make it. See some great close friends that live down there and we, we were in this big old store at downtown Disney, the shopping district called world of Disney, and my wife has one of the strollers. I have the. We have three kids at this point. So she has one of the kids, I have the other two, the older boys, and she's going to do some shopping. So, as was my habit at that point.
Speaker 2:God's just like you want to go. Should we go? Should we go? Should we go? There's a person over there you want to go. Let's pray for him. Okay, cool, patient with me. It's like dad like, yes, hold on, I'll wheel you over, right?
Speaker 2:I go over to this woman named Jody. Jody is sitting in one of those Walker wheelchairs and and just sitting completely down and she's one of the cast members what they call staff members at the stores and I asked her. I was like hey, I hope you don't mind me asking that she's. Oh no, not at all. One of the surprising thing is most people don't mind it when you ask that. I always thought people would get offended very rarely. No, everyone loves to talk about themselves.
Speaker 2:So it's not hard to get what happened. She tells me that she got hit in the ankle by a guest on a power scooter and just shammed her shin or not her shin, the back, her calf just rammed into it at full speed. Then, a couple weeks later, a staff member, a cast member at disney, in a golf cart, hit her in the same freaking leg, the same place it's. I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. This poor woman right.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, okay, jody, bear with me, I won't make you do it more than a second, but just to get, get a gauge, can you stay? Like what, how painful is it to stand? And she puts her walker over. She stands up for a second. She's like 10. If I don't sit down, I'm going to collapse. I'm like, okay, sit Right. I'm like, hey, do you mind if I pray for you? She's like, oh, yeah, that'd be great, awesome, pray for her.
Speaker 2:I have her stand up and like no multiple prayers or anything at this point, which I'd come to expect, seeing God show up, no pain at all, she's just standing. I'm just like, let me take that, walker, put it over here, you don't need it anymore. And I'm like, let me tell you something Jesus loves you as his daughter. He loves you, paid for your healing already before he went to the cross, but the stripes on his back and the enemy can't do anything to you because you're his daughter and we just told him to get lost and your body is your own, your well, your body is Christ's because that's your inheritance. Right, and she reveals she's a Christian and I'm praying for her and we're praying with her and just for her life, right, it was just awesome. And I just tell her hey, here's the thing You're going to. If you're moving you might forget that your body will remember what it was to have a limp. Just remember, you're healed, you don't have to obey your body, you don't go according to the flesh. Just remember, I'm healed, I'm going to walk straight and retrain your body to walk correctly, right.
Speaker 2:And then I tell her that thing starts nagging. It comes back at all, even a little hint. You just go in Jesus' name, I am healed. The fact is, my body hurts. The truth is, I am healed, I'm going to walk according to faith and not sight. And you keep walking. And then the other thing I told her was throw that freaking walker away. I'm like, give it away, throw it away, go locker, sell it whatever, do not sit back down on that thing and come into agreement with that. You put it away and when I saw her a half hour later she was still standing. No, no walker in sight.
Speaker 2:And then god had me go back to her and he's you're not done, so went back and we prayed over her and anointed her and called the holy spirit to live in her like he was already, but like in a new way in power, and for her to be able to do the same for the other employees at the store because 50 of them I'm not going to get to all of them that day, right. And we prayed for some people at checkout a woman with a bad wrist, another woman with a bad back, another, and one of them had a sister who had been a junkie and they were really concerned about him. So we prayed over her, um, and yeah, that was just part of a day at the shopping area. And today, yeah, another tuesday. I think you actually know it was a thursday. It was a thursday.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say it would be awesome if it was a tuesday, but that's a slice of the hundreds of times like that's just become life, right, and as I've had that happen and god has shown me and the same thing has happened with what I've seen as spiritual activity, right, and that's a whole different subject when it comes to demonic influence and all this stuff going on Two sides of the same coin. They're usually not that and I can share verses on that and everything, but that was becoming the regular and the one thing God really instilled in me. He was like anyone can do this. That is a Christian that has me in them. One, two.
Speaker 2:It's not dependent on your mood or your knowledge or your understanding. It is dependent on your obedience. Will you say yes? And the verse that he always brings up to me is the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth, into, in and to, as that word is particularly important because it involves movement. You have to take that step of faith, you have to move forward, and what you need it's why we don't need to worry about the words we speak before powers and principalities, but God will give it to us. We just need to open our mouth and give him permission to speak.
Speaker 2:And so that was what I quickly learned. He's like I don't care if you're not feeling good. I don't care if you're in a bad mood. I don't care if you're just like I don't want to help this person because I'm mad. He's like you do it because I want to do it and it's for their sake and for their love, and it's not about you. I can gladly admit there's been multiple people I prayed for that have seen healing that I didn't want to pray for. God, stay your butt over there. I'm like God, I don't want to. They really were mean to me. He's like is it about you or me?
Speaker 1:Do you have any idea how many people you've prayed for that were healed?
Speaker 2:So this is the funny thing. I was keeping a score as God called me out on it and it was probably in like the 40s at that disney world trip last year, last spring. And then god told me very specifically he's I don't want you to keep count anymore, because I want you to do this so much that counting is a burden. And by his grace it's become a burden. So I stopped counting. I was just like I'm not gonna keep track anymore. And you do this. I try to do it a lot when I can.
Speaker 2:Here's the funny thing is I would say it's like this. It is a lot like stage fright. So if you have there's some actors out here that'll say they'll get stage fright, they're 10,000th day of acting, the same they will have first. The only difference is how they handle the body, bodily reaction of stage fright, how they steward it right. They're just like pushed through out of habit and just like this method right. So for me I feel the same way. I still get the same butterflies, I still get the nervousness. Sometimes it still gets the better of me. I won't, I'll hesitate, I'll hesitate. And God once told me he's just like hey, it's like a stage cue, now's your cue. If you miss it, no worries, I'll cue it up again. Now's your cue. No worries, now's your cue, because I'm going to keep sending them. If you keep stepping out and you miss them, I'll just cue up another one. So there's times where it's still gotten me and there's been times where God's hey, this is not right at this moment, there's something going on. But yeah, that's what I try to aspire to live my life that way, and not from a burden of if I don't do this they're not going to be okay but from a burden of. I have a wallet with a magic thousand dollars I can generate, so why wouldn't I give it to every dang person I meet? Why there's no reason to not to? Just there you go, here you go, here you go, you go. It's not mine, it's not my money. Here's the here's.
Speaker 2:Actually, if I had to summarize divine healing, this is the analogy god's given me that I really appreciate, because I appreciate really simple, complex ideas boiled down to simple analogies. Imagine that god has put in your lap a check for like a billion trillion dollars all the money in the universe, whatever it is right, and on the check line it's jesus christ. Right, the christ. That's his signature, that's the money in the universe, whatever it is right. And on the check line it's Jesus Christ, right, the Christ, that's his signature. That's the money.
Speaker 2:You're like you're giving it and you're like, cool, I believe the signature. I know he has this money, so I'm going to go to the bank and check it. And you go to the bank, you know the bank's got that money, the check's good, huh. So in that moment you have a choice. The choice is either believe what the person, the teller behind the window, is saying that the check's no good, that the amount isn't in the account, that the the signature isn't good, the person that gave it to you was lying, etc. Or you go full, karen, and you stand there and you'd be like, no, I know you have this money in this bank. I know this check is good. I personally know the person that wrote this check, that name on that signature. So you will not tell me that I will be denied. In Jesus name, you will move and you stand there and you don't move.
Speaker 2:That is divine healing, because Acts 10 38 says a god appointed jesus of nazareth with power in the holy spirit, to go about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil. As we know, in other verses like this the son of man was was made manifest for this express purpose to destroy the works of the devil on the cross. He said it is finished for a reason. He is a defeated foe, but he thrives the enemy thrives of us and especially Christians, not knowing he's defeated and not realizing the authority we carry. Because Jesus and the apostles and I've looked through every single one. I've written this up At the end I'll share the doc I've got on this Jesus and the apostles never asked God if they should heal someone ever.
Speaker 2:You can look through. The closest we come is one instance where someone kneels and prays before someone before they raise someone from the dead and we don't know what was asked there. That's the one instance. We don't know what was said in that prayer, right? That's the one instance. We don't know what was said in that prayer, right? That's the one time. Jesus was never like father. Should I heal this person? You know we did be healed. Walk see.
Speaker 2:You know what the apostles did? Money I have not, but what I give you freely get up. Why? Because they knew they weren't talking to god. They knew god was talking through them to the devil to tell him to leave and that he did not belong in that son or daughter of god. And they had to leave because they knew who they were, because they met christ in themselves and they knew what he said and they believed that he was in their heart and they knew he spoke through them and they knew the authority they carried. It's why those people could be like in the name of jesus, who paul preaches about, and things would still happen, not because they knew jesus, but because the name carried power and it was because jesus. It was about jesus and not them. Now, mind you, as we know, that story goes, you can get jumped doing that. It's about relationship, right, but all that to say sickness and disease is never deigned by god, it's not him. So that's the my five minute sermon on. That is bro you got me.
Speaker 1:I want to run through a wall right now. I'm soon, like right now I and I've gone after this, but I haven't gone after it the way you've gone after it.
Speaker 2:It's when you see it when you, you see it. So think of a verse like we were not given a spirit of fear, but of power, love and self-control. Right, right, the spirit of fear is the enemy's tactic the fear of how people will think about you, the fear of being a weirdo among your colleagues, other Christians, the fear of the person you're praying for getting offended, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The power, the love. Power and self-control. Self-control over your emotions making you nervous to stop you, Power to speak and have things happen, love, the motivation for doing it. So when the Bible, when it says, and he was moved by compassion, I love it. Jesus was always in the Father's will, obviously right, he did everything in the Father's will. But when it specifically mentions another reason for Jesus healing someone, it's usually he was moved by compassion, and compassion is just taking empathy and adding movement to it. You empathize, you're like I feel for this person, but you don't let it just sit in a feeling. You actually put your feet on the ground and you move and you do it. You actually put your feet on the ground and you move and you do it. And the only thing disconnecting those two in the spread of Christianity through the globe in a radical way, the way that Book of Acts did, is the lack of knowledge that the people perish for, because they don't know the authority they carry, and that's usually because they don't know that they can die in Christ. They don't know they're free from sin. They don't know they're healed from sin. They don't know they're healed from sin. It's funny. I was joking with Eddie one time. I'm like wave two healed from sin is really just exactly divine healing. It's just when you talk about laying hands on people, everyone gets freaked out that it's charismatics and all this over overarching stuff and they don't they get all nervous about it, but that's just healed from sin, if nervous about it, but that's just healed from sin. If I've been healed from sin I know you've been healed from sin then why aren't you healthy?
Speaker 2:We've got an enemy that's wrote himself out of the story in Western culture, because the enemy is just this pitchfork wielding red suit, wearing fork-tailed caricature, and he wants to be that way. So we forget he exists. So we don't land eyes on him in Jesus' name and go you, you, you are the problem. Get the heck out in jesus name now. He doesn't want that. He wants to stay in the shadows. He doesn't want people knowing blowing up a spot. But that's the difference. That that's why he had to kill all the. That's why he tried to kill all the apostles, because he's gosh. If people understand this, people get this I'm done for. So I gotta kill him, I gotta kill them all, and yeah. So anyway, I could talk about this for hours. What is healing?
Speaker 2:taught you about god that god has paid for it all already. There are so many. So the one of the greatest tools the enemy devised in order to get us to position god as not loving and kind is the what-ifs of life, of disease and sickness. So me being like, okay, if I pray hard enough, god will heal me immediately. Even in faith not positioning the prayer right, but even in faith, that statement is positioning god. It is positioning that he has not healed me yet or he doesn't want to heal me yet because there is something that he wants to teach me or some reason. He wants to leave me in suffering, and not suffering in that laying down my life for a brother, I'm going to go and spend my Saturday doing this or that or whatever. Not that suffering, suffering in a physical, mental way that would actually impede us helping other people. That's counterintuitive, right, and so even that thought process positions God as not loving. We always talk about the unjust judge and the woman knocking at the door and hey, come out and pestering God and how God isn't like that. We can pray to him. He wants to do it right, but healing is just the reinforcement of that same false idea. Healing is if I pray hard enough. God will heal me. And God's just like look, the bloody, marred body of my son was the payment. I couldn't have given a greater payment. I paid that. I wrote that check, I put that money on the account. I gave you authority to cash it. You just got turned away by this teller and you just assumed I was the problem. You assumed I was the problem. You assumed I was the problem and he's no. It's the same attitude that he uh told moses and moses, like lord, the egyptians are bearing down on us. We got to get across here and god's, basically, I gave you a task, I gave you a mission, I gave you the power to do it. Raise your staff. You do it. God's just you do it. I gave you authority, do it.
Speaker 2:And now god's same thing today. He's you do it, not because he doesn't love us. He just respects free will. Because, unfortunately, the enemy uses humanity's free will and authority against humanity and God's children, just as much as God wants us to. He uses someone else's addiction to drink to then get in a car and kill someone. He uses someone else's anger to boil over. The enemy abuses human authority and free will. And God's here, just I won't violate your free will, but you have free will. I've appointed you to do it. You do it Not because he can't, because he loves us, and there has to be free will and love. Right Again, every time I talk of one facet of this. I can just go on forever, but what it's really taught me is that God is love. God is love and power. He is love and power. He just chooses to manifest his love and humility, and by honoring our free will and choice. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Man, I want you to give that Google Doc doc out here when we finish. But let me ask you this one more thing yeah, how has? Okay? So you're walking around, moving in power, moving in authority, believing that jesus has actually accomplished this. What do you do when there's pushback from Christians, from people that you love or that you grew up with, or because they see the way that you're moving and they're not comfortable? How have you handled that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's people that don't understand. God's had me very direct with it for different reasons, in different environments and in order to be all things for all people. Most of it's been pretty positive. Understand God's had me very direct with it for different reasons, in different environments and in order to be think all things for all people. Most of it's been pretty positive. There's not an understanding in our faith background.
Speaker 2:I think as much about moving into the spirit and relationship with the spirit and manifest as gifts of the spirit, right, but the main thing I just go back to scripture. I just go look, that's okay. Like basically I'm the guy that if you're like I don't think it's in the Bible, I can sit there and give you 100 verses, I mean, go through the whole thing, step by. I like we'll do a Bible study right now, let's do it. And by the end of it usually it's just okay. I know it's there, but I don't think that's for me. And usually at that point, other than just talking until I'm blue in the face, it's just okay. But just know you have everything you need to do to get started today. Now, if you believe Jesus is alive and you have him in you, you have everything you need to do, because he said you will do great and greater things than I and leave it. And then it's just pray for them. I just hope they get it Right. And then this is God just brought this up. This is interesting.
Speaker 2:I've actually been more afraid, and this has never happened. I've been more afraid of someone coming up to me and being like, hey, if you knew this all along, why did so-and-so get hurt? Why did so-and-so die? Because that would press on the guilt of saying what used to be. That would say, yes, you had responsibility, you didn't do it and God's already settled that. But that's what I used to think about. Man, what if someone goes Ashton? It's cool that you prayed for me and I feel better now, but what about so-and-so? They were suffering. You did nothing. You couldn't have driven your butt to the hospital and prayed for them. You couldn't have done whatever right. And that was this thing I had to settle where. I'm just like no, I have to understand that.
Speaker 2:The purpose of moving like this to show other people that we can, for me to do it, but also show other people we can, and to realize that I am obedient to what God, where, where and what God tells me to do. And that's not to say if I'm in supermarket, supermarket, and I see someone, I can't just stop what I'm doing and say something Right. But that is to say that the lie would come in, that says that everything's on my shoulders and then it's my responsibility to bear it. When it's really, it's Christ, it's always been him right, and so I just need to trust the Holy Spirit will lead me into all truth. Really, to summarize, on the short end of it of people getting mad if there's a lack of understanding, that's okay.
Speaker 2:Part of the reason I've done so much writing on it is because I want to show biblically exactly why this is true. And then you know, there's no use arguing past that. And then, on the other end of it, I haven't had that situation. But I would just say that we need to be obedient to the spirit, and that's also why there were 72 disciples, that's why they kept growing, because God's like hey, there's a body, there's an eye, there's an ear, there's a mouth, there's a nose, there's whatever, there's a whole body that's supposed to work in tandem here.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, what about when people push back on just what you believe about the gospel? How have you handled that? Did it become easier as the years went by?
Speaker 2:in these last three years yeah, because I think the any doubt the enemy would try to press into me about it about would come from maybe you are wrong and god is just like you know what. The easiest way to drill that out of you is like boot camp just read and read and be so much, be so solid on what you know. The gospel is that it'd be like you sitting here and trying to tell me my name isn't addison, right? I'm just like you're never going to convince me. It's not right. You're literally never. And so at this point I'm like I'm just reading and reading, and then that turned into read like so, along with the god of the divine healing doc was my doc. I named solo scriptura, which is just by hundreds of probably more than a thousand bible verses on just what's the gospel, and that was my method for moving through there, and usually if someone asking, I'm like, hey, let's study this together. Here's everything god's shown me. Here it is carte blanche, take a look, feel free. Uh, yeah, so actually I was reminded of this one thing. I want to share this, this one question. I don't whatever listener this is for.
Speaker 2:There was something that I was reminded of recently on a Facebook chat about prayer. Okay, so I talk a lot about divine healing and praying in authority, right, god in us, through us, praying towards the thing, god in us, in agreement, praying towards commanding it, whatever. So I used to ask the question to myself why does God need us to pray at all for things to happen? I'm not talking just hey, buddy, what's up. I'm talking like hey, god, please help this person, or please fix this scenario, or please help this person get this job right. I was always just like why? Why does that make sense? If God is loving and kind and he wants to do it already, why do we need to ask why doesn't he just do it already? And and he wants to do it already, why do we need to ask why doesn't he just do it already? And is he actually callous and doesn't care? And I'm mistaken. And in my heart, even before I really had a close relationship with God, that never sat. I was like, no, there's more to it than that. He's not Zeus or something, or he's just the Roman or Greek pantheon where they just don't play things to them. No, that's not it. So what is it? And I never knew and I just put it on the shelf and I'm just like, okay, god, you'll address this. Well, it's like a couple of years, god has explained it to me like this so imagine God being our father. He's a good father. Imagine he is surprises.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm going to take you to the toy store. Here's $5. Here's a $5 bill. Buy whatever, go crazy, right. And we look around and we're like, oh, this is really cool, I can get these toys and these toys I can reach this. But I really want that one on the high shelf. Right, I can't get to that one. And so I, you know, we go back to our father. I'm like, hey, dad, I want that toy on the shelf, but I can't reach it. Here's my $5. Can you buy it? Cool. So he takes the toy down, takes our $5, gives them both. A cashier buys it, hands it to us.
Speaker 2:That is prayer. So prayer is for the things that are hands and feet as ambassadors for the kingdom. We can't physically do in our presence, right. Besides talking prayer, there's different types of prayer, right. But when you want an action to happen, god has, voluntarily, as his children, as ambassadors of the kingdom of God, as his sons and daughters, royalty in the kingdom, given us authority, christ himself, being like all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Now, go right, he's given us authority. We take that authority and through walking as citizens of the kingdom, we instill the culture of the kingdom with kindness and love and generosity and self-sacrifice and all these things right. But in moments where we can't do that, because we're not in the same space as that person, they're not physically here, we pray and we go. Lord, here is this bundle of authority you gave me. Please take it back. I voluntarily give it back to you. Thank you for giving it to me to the beginning and carry this thing out. Thank you, lord, and preemptively thank you. And that's why it's not because God can't do it, it's not because he doesn't want to do it, it's because he has voluntarily, like coming as Christ himself manifest as a person on earth, vulnerable, right, voluntarily given authority to humankind to glorify him as much as we're glorified in his presence.
Speaker 2:And then little tidbit that also helped unlock and explain what happened in my bathroom when God had me start speaking in tongues. God was like add this, this is speaking in tongues. He's like imagine we're in that same toy store. I go off and I run back to you. I'm like Addison, I can't explain right now, but I need that $5. Give me that $5. I need it. I can't tell you, trust me. I'm like, yeah, of course, dad, here you go, he runs off and he comes back tongues because he's like why?
Speaker 2:This is a oh man who had this quote mills, I'm trying to remember. It seems as if god does nothing else but have a good man pray, like that quote. And it's that quote again. It seems as god does nothing else but have a good man pray first, like good man pray now. I think how he positioned it. I'm trying to remember who said that. And people are going to be like screaming as they're listening to this. I think how he positioned it. I'm trying to remember who said that. People are going to be screaming as they're listening to this. But I think how he said it is.
Speaker 2:God can't do anything. I would phrase it as can't isn't the right word. I think God doesn't, because he purposely uses our authority on earth, because by using our authority as Christians on earth, he is honoring free will. He is not. This is going to sound nuts, but think about it.
Speaker 2:If there is someone out there that's committing sin and hurting people. They are still exercising the authority and free will they had given to them as children of God, in the image of God from Adam and Eve, they still have autonomy and free will, even to do evil, even to hurt. So a lot of people would ask why wouldn't God just snap his fingers and annihilate them? He's love, he's love, and love necessitates free will. But you know how he does address it. He uses our free will, those that are obedient to him and submitted to his will, to intervene and to do it. And that's not to puff us up, that's not to make us think that I'm special because I withhold God. It's no. It's amazingly humbling to think that the God of universe one would come and die for us, two would live in us, but three would work through us.
Speaker 2:And we see so many examples in the Bible. Why didn't God just kill Goliath? Nah, he used David with some stones. Why didn't God just part the Red Sea? Nah, he had Moses raise his staff. Why didn't it? Why didn't it? Why didn't it? Why didn't it? It doesn't make sense. I always think of it like Lord of the Rings. Why didn't Gandalf just do it himself? Why did he use hobbits? Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:So I just wanted to share that tidbit about prayer and also about tongues because, much like divine healing, tongues is a very sensitive subject that a lot of people will debate. There isn't there's only one type of tongues or two, or whatever else, but I just like to outline that a little bit because that was a revelation for me. That's really been helpful. I will say it is a revelation of perspective. That will not make sense if you are not looking at it from a kingdom perspective, as a son or daughter of God who has died in Christ, because it is audacious to the extreme and it sounds hypocritical, downright heretical, to say that God has to work through us and I'm not saying he has to. Can God make something so big that he can't lift it like no, but he chooses to, and so now it comes full circle. It's man.
Speaker 2:I see why, when I didn't understand these things, I felt so much responsibility to do this, to pray, to act, whatever. I just didn't have the understanding of god's character down pat enough and know him personally enough to know that he wasn't generating that guilt, shame and and all that weirdness. But it is an awesome responsibility but an awesome joy to be able to do that. It's the same joy I feel like Christ had every day while he was on earth, just being like I get to show my father's love to these people in the most radical, physical, in-your-face way possible, that you were a leopard and now you're clean. I was blind, but now I see. I can't believe he didn't have the biggest smile on his face. Getting to do that all day, every day, how could you not? Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Addison. How do we get these resources bro?
Speaker 2:Just Addison Collingsworthcom. That's the easiest. Everything's on there. I think we'll probably put in the description of this episode, I'm sure, but that has everything on there, because I realized I put everything in Google Docs and it's a mess. So addisoncollingsworthcom, it's a link tree, the last DTL episodes on there, a bunch of other stuff, but all my writings on there. Because I also do like a weekly for thankful for Queen Ice Company. I do like a weekly newsletter called Bigger Than Me, thankful for being a nice company. I do like a weekly newsletter called bigger than me, bigger than meorg, which does a weekly or biweekly newsletters on how to show compassion in your relationships as a parent, as a spouse, as a coworker, as a child, as anything like that, Right. So I take these things we're talking about here, make them radically practical and package them up in a way that hits people's inboxes. So there's all that stuff on there. Everything's on the link tree, so I'll just plug that.
Speaker 1:Bro, I'm on fire right now, man, I'm holding it together, but this has been such a blessing man, thank you. At the end of these I don't know if you've been listening recently I do some kind of a pastoral call and then a prayer, but tonight, man, I think you're up. Oh, I'm so game. Yeah, man, if you want to say something to the listener, directly to the listener, and have a prayer for the man, go ahead, man, please do it yeah, okay, so forever.
Speaker 2:this is. God has not abandoned you. He's not turned a blind eye to you. He's not deaf to your suffering. He's not ignoring you in the depths of whatever situation physical, mental, spiritual, suffering you're in. He's here. He's there in the room, right there, right now, with you. He has not ignored you. He has paid everything for the blood Of the stripes of the whips On his son's back, for your healing. It is there.
Speaker 2:The verse that is coming to mind right now is there will come a time where everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Will be delivered and God's word does not return void but sets out to accomplish or accomplishes what it sets out to do and, as Christ said on the cross, it is finished. So, whatever this thing is, whatever you're being accosted with, whatever the enemy is trying to do in your life, whatever he's held you down, those chains are broken. In Jesus' name, I want you to know, christ in you is calling out deep calls to deep, is calling out and he is breaking those chains, and he is breaking those chains. So, in Jesus' name, every sickness, every disease, everything that is haunting and pushing against you, everything that is hurting you physically, mentally, everything that would weigh you down from running this race. In Jesus' name, you are cast off. You have no permission in this temple, in this space, space with the holy spirit here and his fire.
Speaker 2:Now, in Jesus name, there is no room for you. You need to leave in Jesus name. Now. You do not get to come back. In Jesus name and in his name, this body, this temple that was made to run well, that was made to stroll and skip and jump and just play and create and make, and love will do so, as God intends. In Jesus name. There is nothing that will hold you down in Jesus name. That is his desire for you, that is his destiny for you. In Jesus name.
Speaker 1:Amen. Thank you, my brother, Love you man.
Speaker 2:Love you too, man Thanks.