Life Around "The Fire"
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Life Around "The Fire"
From Family Dinner to Covenant Alignment: Guest Speaker Stephen Crews on Marriage, Faith, and the Feasts
What if your home life felt lighter, your marriage steadier, and your faith more alive—not by doing more, but by aligning your time with God’s? Stephen Crews joins us to trace a humble, hopeful path from the family dinner table to covenant alignment, sharing how Sabbath and the biblical feasts became the backbone of his spiritual growth, marriage, and parenting. His story moves from a loving childhood and long hours on the basketball court to an unexpected conversion and a marriage defined by extreme ownership, patient leadership, and simple, steady practices that invite the presence of God.
We dig into why attention shapes identity—beholding and becoming—and how small decisions compound into a life of peace. Stephen explains how honoring the Lord’s calendar isn’t about legalism; it’s about relationship and rhythm. He describes eight years of observing the feasts and the surprising ways God has met him, including a last-hour answer at Passover that still anchors his confidence. We talk about leading at home by example, learning prayer from a spouse, and why a weekly Sabbath can quiet the noise, strengthen unity, and make room for genuine rest. If the times feel darker, this conversation offers a bright, practical map: realignment over hustle, presence over performance, and a household faith that actually works.
If this resonates, share it with a friend who’s craving a saner pace, subscribe for more conversations like this, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s one rhythm you’ll try this week—Sabbath rest, a shared meal, or your first feast?
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Shalom to you and your home.
Howdy folks, and welcoming back to another episode of Life Around the Fire. And once again, we have Stephen Cruz in the studio with us today, and it's been a real treat hearing him kind of share his heart on this whole aspect of beholding and becoming that we we really do become like that which we give our attention to most. And without any uh disclaimers we here focus our attention in on Jesus because of who he is and uh how he has transformed our lives. And so, Stephen, I'm gonna take a little time and just kind of do a little bit of uh interview and testimony concerning your life and letting people know a little bit more about you. So why don't you tell us how old you are and what your status in life is as far as married, dad, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01:So okay, sure. Thank you for having me on the show once again, laugh around the fire. My name is Steven Cruz. I'm I'll be 39 years old in October. I was born in 1986. I am married, married eight years. We have one son, he's 15 months old right now. Such an honor to take care of him, steward him, and yeah. I've been walking with the Lord now for 12 years. I got saved around two, 2013 now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So what's what's your relationship like with your wife?
SPEAKER_01:My relationship with my wife is probably the best it's ever been. Being married eight years, you know, I think the first takes like five years to iron out the wrinkles. But we are in the eighth year, and I really felt like it was uh the eighth being a new beginning. We actually did a little ceremony to commemorate that, and we really felt like you know, the Lord is prospering us in in all areas right now of our lives, uh, prospering us in our soul, in our marriage, in our ministry, and in our home. And so my my wife is a full-time mom, which is such a blessing to be able to uh raise our son and not have to use daycare or someone else to uh to look after him and have someone else. You know, it's funny, you know, we everybody wants kids, but then they want someone else to raise them. And then 15 years later they wonder what will happen and why their kids are acting funny, and so such a blessing. You know, God honors those who honor him, and so that's really our heart posture is to, you know, me being the man, the priest of my home, is to to be the provider to go to work. I have a grace, and all men have a grace to go to work, and so I've tapped into that, and it's been a joy, it hasn't been a burden to go to work and to be the provider. And you know, she's really reined in the you know, just to see her grow in motherhood has been a blessing to the wisdom that God has given her how to, you know, just teach even just a 15-month-old that he's he's very smart. What's his name? His name is Benjamin. And your wife? My wife's name is Pierlene.
SPEAKER_00:Purleen. Hey Pierline.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, baby.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we go. Hey, man. Uh and so uh uh you live in Jacksonville, right? Jacksonville, Florida. Yep, born and raised. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. And your lifestyle or your life before you came to really a relationship with Jesus? Well, what just to kind of a little outline of that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, sure. Yeah, I grew up, I have one older brother. I have two loving parents. They've been married for, I don't know, 30 or 40 years, something like that, a long time. They are college, college sweethearts. But uh yeah, I grew up in a loving home. My dad went to work, and so that's probably where I got the uh the uh the mantle or the anointing to go be the provider. My mom was a stay-at-home mom with us. We went to public school, but we always had I tell everybody this. We were I can I can never miss or remember a time that we missed a family dinner. We were always at the table, the four of us having dinner. My mom made dinner every day. That's rich. It was ready pretty much when my dad came home. He changed clothes, came to the table, we sat and ate as a family. And so really like foundational things that were scriptural and biblical that my parents were doing that I didn't even realize that it was, you know, of the Lord, because you know, we never went to church, but looking back, I can pinpoint certain things such as coming to the table and putting our feet underneath it as a family, was very much of the Lord, even though we didn't, you know, go to church or talk about the Jesus. But the fact that they we were there, we made time to sit. Um, and that went on for for quite a while, many years, decades.
SPEAKER_00:That's uh you're and you're like you're you're were you a troublemaker? No, I was a nice young man.
SPEAKER_01:We uh I'm a basketball connoisseur, played basketball growing up. We used to play before and after school and during school, ring, and we would always be out there shooting. Um how tall are you? I'm 6'6.
SPEAKER_00:6'6? I look up to you, man. Yeah, thank you, David. Oh, yeah. Praise God. Yeah, don't get accustomed to it, but I feel but yeah, I haven't played basketball in probably like two years.
SPEAKER_01:I've picked up running. So I try to run. My goal is to run three times a week, but I've only run once in the past week. So hoping to get another run in this coming week, but I'm doing about two mile runs to to kind of make up the the lack of of basketball right now. But with you know, home life, you know, you kind of gotta put things to the side of what you want to do with family comes first.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes. So you weren't really uh troublemaker per se, and good grades at school.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, good grades. I was on uh what's that called? National Honor Society. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you just finished your master's degree too, right?
SPEAKER_01:I did, I got a master's and master in theology.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, congratulations again, brother. Yeah, big milestone there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was a journey that it took me four years to get. And it's interesting how the Lord just laid out those classes where I would take a class and it was speaking directly to the season of life that I was in. And so, you know, that only made me take a class or two a semester. And so it was took me four years, you know. It was really supposed to take like a year and a half, right? To get that degree. It took me four years, but the Lord used every bit of that four years to teach me.
SPEAKER_00:That's the year so from basketball to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01:To Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:What what what what what what happened?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I just a friend took me to church and I never left. Went to a church that had it was uh considered a mega church, thousands of people. And the pastor there was, it was as if I was the only one in the room amongst thousands. The Lord was using him and he was speaking directly to me. All the other people, the thousands of people, you know, disappeared, and I was basically sitting there by myself, and that went on for quite a while. So some friend took me and never looked back.
SPEAKER_00:And so you see you talk about relationship with a real relationship with the Lord, and how that is very foreign, perhaps to somebody listening right now. They're they're they're listening like a pretty cool story, you know. I still don't get it. How how does relationship happen?
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's a great question. Well, it didn't start off like that. My wife is actually the one that taught me how to pray and seek the Lord. She's a pastor's kid, so she grew up in the church, missionaries and church planners. So she was always around that environment. But when you know, I got saved, got connected with my wife through college. And so I, you know, I remember asking her how to pray. And I think in that, how she was teaching me how to pray, it was a relationship. And so I think she planted that seed and a light bulb went off of, you know, I saw I had no, you know, church background or any kind of ecclesiastical knowledge. So I had no like religion or I had nothing in the way previous. So when it was taught to me and showed to me the right way by somebody, I just the light bulb went off. And there was no blockage, there was no hindrances, it was just hit the ground running.
SPEAKER_00:And so C. S. Lewis, famous writer thinker, said along these lines, he said, considering his conversion, he said, one day I wasn't a believer, and the next thing I knew it, I was. It wasn't the big emotional thing that took place with him. It was just he had in his heart reached a place where he believed that Jesus died for him. And all the things that Jesus expressed about himself, he was exposed to those statements. And he went from being a skeptic to being a believer, and that's where his connection point took place. And not everyone has that heavy-duty downpour experience where they're just wrecked. Some people are more like do coming on the you know, settling. And both are valid.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so that's what I'm hearing in in your life is a little more of the do settling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a good way to describe it. I mean, I've had many encounters with the Lord. We could sit here for hours and weeks. But I remember even at the beginning, you know, you know, 12 years ago, you know, it taking some time, you know, like you gotta, you know, just discipleship takes is a process. And so I remember many, I've had many encounters with the Lord and that that do falling on the Mount of Hermon, so to speak, of my life. You know, I remember being on the side of the road one time crying out to the Lord and and him showing up. And so, you know, he uh he's encountered, I've encountered him in many ways, and so I've always been a loyal person. And when I understood, you know, loyalty to Yahweh, it just clicked and made sense. And I've I've never let go and turn back as just continually to develop and grow over the past decade. I mean, I don't I don't foresee it ever stopping. It's a living and breathing relationship with the one true living God. And I've you know, just praise God that you know, I have a wife that is on that same frequency. And so our home life is, you know, it's easy to be on one accord in agreement. You know, it took time to get that way. As with any marriage, two people becoming one, you know, cats and dogs, you know, you gotta learn each other's language, you know. No one knows what anyone else is saying. We all have our own definitions for words, and so getting on the same wavelength. And so I I didn't grow up with sisters, so you know, you know, been playing basketball, you're around other males, and so you have this, you know, different mentality than than women have. But when I finally understood, you know, what her role was and how I was to use her and steward her as a as the husband, you know, the light bulb went off again. And that's when it really the rubber kind of met the road. And instead of bumping heads, we were starting to walk hand in hand.
SPEAKER_00:And yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um we we praise God for that. There's a lot of testimonies on that too. And we're just very thankful that the Lord, you know, when we we choose to honor the Lord, and I said this on the previous session on the podcast about taking ownership. And so I just took at the early stages of our marriage, I took extreme ownership for my failures. And I didn't blame her. I I took the ownership. And so even though I'm not solely to blame, you know, they're two people, it's 50-50, you know, you're gonna have a give and a take. But as the man and as the one that the Lord was looking to, I had enough sense to take extreme ownership for stuff, and and I did that. And I think the Lord, you know, honored that and poured out more mercy and grace. And I learned to go to him first. I learned that at the beginning of our marriage, I was about words, and you know, now I've realized that it's living a life, a leader to be a true in a true leadership and being a true husband is leading by example, not by your words. And so through that taking ownership, the Lord Solomon was teaching me, like, you know, you need to live, if you want something done or you want to see something changed, you need to live it out. And you need to be the example and bear start bearing fruit in it that she can eat and pick and have her own revelation and get on board with the things that I'm showing you how to do. Like, if I'm showing you something, it you can't just go immediately and start telling her what she needs to do. That's not gonna work. You need to start, you know, praying to me, seeking to me. You know, I see what's going on in her life, I see what she's doing. We need to work, basically worry about yourself and and get your business in order and and not be so heavy-handed with language and words, but you know, you know, the Bible says to not be harsh with our wives, but you know, to treat them as co-heirs of the grace of God. And so all these things just coming together. It took took years to get over that hump, and a lot of mountains, you know, travailed around and around, uh finally, finally getting them and passing the test and stuff like that. And so now we're in a place, not only spiritually, but you know, emotionally, on all levels, connected more than ever.
SPEAKER_00:I can uh I can really attest to that and just briefly um comment that I've spent time with both of you. Excuse me. And uh eating, having a meal together, and it was comfortable, which is a real compliment to the two of you. It was enjoyable. I look forward to the next meal that we have. I can't say that about everybody. I've been with some couples where it's been uh comfortable to be together, and they might be saying the right things, but still the air is uncomfortable. And you guys have a good air about you. So that's uh that's a real yeah, yeah, that's a good thing. So see, in just the next couple, three minutes, five, maybe whatever. Is there something that's been on your heart and mind for I don't know, might be the past few years or something that's been that that you feel like you could share just a bit of what the Lord is bringing to the forefront in your life?
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's uh that's a deep question. I really think from my walk with the Lord in my life and in this season that we're in on the earth as a body, as the ecclesia, I think the Lord now more than ever is the urgency to get in alignment, covenant alignment to be exact. And so I think there's a sense of urgency for the body of Christ to get into covenant alignment and understand what that is and start molding and shaping their homes and their lifestyles and their calendars around covenant alignment with with the Lord. And so what I what I mean by that is it's it's very simple, but it's also very very deep and rich to keep it simple. Covenant alignment is is getting in into agreement with with his calendar, with the with the feasts. There's four spring feasts, there's three fall feasts, it's the feast of the Lord. It's not the Jewish feast, it's not the feast of Israel. It says plainly the feast of the Lord. And so as believers, we can well, we're good at humans are good at picking and choosing. We we love, I talk to this about my wife all the time. I say, please, if you see me picking and choosing, you gotta point it out because I'm not trying to be, you know, picking and choosing. I mean, what I mean by that is, you know, a lot of people say, Oh I'm a believing tithing, but I don't believe in the Sabbath. Well, it's the same that's covenant, right? The Lord didn't do away with any of it. He came to fulfill the law and bring it to its highest and fullest expression, not abolish it. And so you can't have, you see a lot of believers today, you know, tithing, but they're not choosing to honor the Sabbath rest, which was made for us and is a benefit for us. And so that's when I mean covenant alignment, you know. As believers, these as Christians in the Western Church, specifically here in Jacksonville, is my frame of reference, we love to take Jesus on our own terms and our own turf. Well, that really doesn't work in the grand scheme of things because it says, you know, there's a warning that says, you know, hey, we've done many things in your name. You know, we we he said, Well, I depart from you, I never knew you. And so the Bible is a Jewish book written to a specific group of people in a specific time period. And our Savior is a Jewish man. There's a Jewish man in heaven that rose from the grave and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and so he observed these feasts. The feasts are all about him. Everything in the Old Testament is a prophetic demonstration of a type and shadow of Christ. And so Jesus fulfilled the spring feast already. The fall feasts have yet to be fulfilled in fullness. And so, if we're gonna say we're believers in Christ, but not observe the feast, which is covenant alignment that I'm talking about here, it's about honoring, it's not about religion. Again, it's about relationship, observing, honoring, engaging, scripture engagement is what we like to call it. It puts you in a place to receive from the Lord. And I've been doing this for eight years now. And each time that I make an attempt in my own special way at home to honor the feast, the Lord shows up and continue, continue, he continues to remind me that I'm in these things. And so, for example, this last Passover of this year, 2025-5785, it was the last day in the month of Nisan that the Lord showed up. And I and I thought to myself, you've done it again. I didn't know if you were gonna do it, but the last day, the last hour before Sun said, the Lord showed up and did what I was asking him to do. And it really, even to this day, months later, I still pause and reflect on, you know, wow, you continue to show me that you are in these things. And so I don't need anyone to try to persuade me or debate me or anything. I'm not gonna do that with anyone because I I've encountered him and I know it's real. So that's my charge and my encouragement is to try, and the Lord's gonna show up, and you're not gonna want to get away from it. You're actually gonna want to dive in deeper to the roots of our Christian faith. And so you there's seven feasts each year. I've been doing it for eight years. That's 56 encounters that I've had just by the multiplication. So, I mean, the numbers just expension expensionally grow. And it's just exciting to build history and God. And so the picking and choosing that I was talking about, you know, covenant alignment. We uh, my family, we observe the Sabbath in our own special way. It's not perfect, but we we try not to go our own way and honor the Lord and honor each other and pray for each other and and rest and allow the Lord to do what only He can do is make things exponentially grow. You know, we like to say we unhitch our hag, our unhitch our wagons and come around the table of the Lord or come around a you know, campfire, so to speak, metaphorically, and put our feet up and rest on the Lord. And so that's what I mean by that's what I think after eight years, the intensity of what the Lord is doing right now, I think it's getting in covenant alignment. As we look around the world, things are getting darker and darker. The light of the body of Christ should be shining brighter and brighter. And I think covenant alignment is a key aspect of becoming the light a city on a hill shining in this dark time.
SPEAKER_00:That's uh pretty profound, and I I'm 66, right? And uh I've been in relationship with the Lord over fifty-two years. Okay, so it's it's been a stretch of time. And it wasn't until three years ago that I began celebrating the feast. It was by the Lord speaking to me, saying, I want you to experience the code. And it's been that was my genesis. That was my entrance into a very profound encounter that renewed many things in my life. And so I'm growing in my understanding and my hunger at the age of sixty-six. So it's never too late or too early to come into covenant alignment. And so, Stephen, thank you so much. And once again, would you close us with a word of prayer, please?
SPEAKER_01:Father God, we just come to you in the name of Yeshua. And Lord, we just thank you for this time that we're in, Lord. Lord, I just lift up everyone listening. Yeah, that you would speak to them, Abba, that you would encounter them, Lord. As the light bulb goes off to to seek out what is what is this covenant alignment that we're talking about today. That Lord, you would just throw another log on the fire, that you would stoke the fire, Abba God, the embers of their heart to be curious about what is what does it mean to be in alignment covenantly with you, Lord. And so there's many aspects of that, Lord. We're just talking about one thing here today, but we just ask, Abba, that you would be glorified, that you would strengthen your people, oh God, that you would offer fresh faith in our lives, that you would breathe on us, Holy Spirit. Lord, you're Holy Spirit, you're the air that we breathe. We just ask for a fresh breath in your people, Lord. That they would be awakened to what you're doing in the earth and how you want to prepare your bride without spot, wrinkle, or brunt blemish for this upcoming season and this upcoming year. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
SPEAKER_00:Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, folks. We love you. And if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, please feel free to drop us a line at life around the fire at gmail.com. That's our email address. Or you can type in Life Around the Fire and look us up on the web. We would love to hear from you. In the meantime, God bless you. Adios, amigos.