"Light Or The Smoke" | Episode #98 | Builder of All Things | Author’s Cut: Chapter Eight w/ Richie Breaux

Welcome to the Builder of All Things Podcast—where we go beyond the pages of the book and explore into the Author’s Cut! 🔥 Join Richie Breaux and Ray Bisnar as they break down each chapter in micro-episodes, giving you the behind-the-scenes insights, deeper wisdom, and real-life applications—just like a Director’s Cut for a book. 

Episode 5 | Light or the Smoke? (Chapter 8)
In this part of Chapter 8: Facing the Mirror, we explore the unsettling reality of thinking we’re walking in light when, in truth, we’re surrounded by smoke—a fog that blinds us from seeing clearly. Using scripture, real-life imagery, and historical references, we unpack what it means to have “light” that’s actually darkness—and how dangerous that can be.

You’ll discover:
* Why this was the hardest and deepest chapter to write
* The scripture in Matthew that warns about light that is actually darkness—and how deep that darkness can be
* The military tactic of the smoke screen and how it mirrors spiritual vulnerability
* How fog and smoke distort our vision even when the light is on
* The connection between spiritual “smoke” and hidden fires in our lives—and how to trace it back to its source

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re truly on the right path or just lost in a false sense of clarity, this episode will challenge and inspire you to clear the smoke and walk in true light.

📖 From Chapter 8: Facing the Mirror in the book.🙏 May our eyes be healthy and our vision clear.

#LightOfTheSmoke #FacingTheMirror #Episode5 #Chapter8 #Faith #Leadership #SpiritualClarity #PersonalGrowth

Chapters

• 0:17 From Storms to Smoke
• 0:36 Why Chapter Eight Hit Hard
• 1:06 The Mirror of Your Challenges
• 2:27 If Light Is Darkness
• 3:21 Driving at Night in Fog
• 4:00 The Smokescreen Lesson from War
• 5:01 Open Game to the Enemy
• 6:56 Healthy Eyes, Unhealthy Eyes
• 7:31 Revelation’s Smoke and the Sun
• 8:05 Two House Fires, One Signal
• 8:34 Reverse-Engineering the Fire

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

We're in kind of like the thick of it, right? Yeah. Kind of like the end of the main course-ish. Yes. Yep, starting off with the storms. Um sm uh storms, snakes, and now we're here in the smoke. In the smoke. Tell me about the smoke, bro.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

Yeah, you know, this chapter eight was the hardest to write. And I think I mean it was, I don't want to say hard meaning like I felt like it could have been its own book. You know, like I just there was just so much stuff that was God was pouring into my heart. I was experiencing, I was learning, I was just, I guess, revel revelations that were coming just of what I was discovering about the smoke was just like mind-blowing. And so in the book, in the chapter, it is really practical, kind of identify what it is, what category it is with battling adversity, very important, but it's the mirror of your challenges. It's the one where you got to look at yourself versus outside trying to solve things. You're kind of looking in, and when you do that, man, it can get deep, you know, just looking at things beyond the surface of things and really being honest with yourself. So just the revelation in the process of you know, seeking God and trying to understand what God was revealing, and it was just like I it was like endless, man. It was like so deep of like it was beyond just business ownership challenge solving, it was to the level of recognizing the depth of our salvation. And is it really even there? I mean, it was just it's a deep subject. So I'm excited to to get behind the scenes of the stuff you won't even find in the book. But the book is very important because it is from a business owner speaking to you too, and how important it is to recognize when this is kind of derailing you, right? And and then how to get back on course. There is a scripture that I'll start with, and then we'll reference this throughout this author's cut. Is it's in Matthew. Basically, it talks about if your eyes are healthy or if they're unhealthy, you know, and so if the light in you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? And that really spoke to me. It basically says, if what you believe is right is actually wrong, how deep is that wrong? Because you don't even know it's wrong.

SPEAKER_00: 2:48

Oh, come on, you see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01: 2:50

And so that really spoke to me because if you're walking down a path where you think you're going the right way, but it's a false sense of light, how deep is that darkness? It's like that's scary because it means you don't know. It's one thing to know and make a decision. I know this is not the right path, but I'm going. But to not know and think you're going on the right path, yeah, it's you know what I'm saying? That's dangerous. So I wanted the Lord to really speak into that business, life, husband, personally, like, what is this? What's what let's unpack that, God? Like, what is that? And so, you know, what visually what I think of, and I I this is what I wrote in the book, just to give some, but it driving down the road at night, right? You got your headlights, you can see, but what happens when there's a fog? You know what I mean? And I've been in those situations uh that you're trying to conquer the the darkness with light, so boom, you can see. You turn on the light, you're good, right? But what if there's fog on when you're driving at night?

SPEAKER_00: 3:43

So hazy.

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

Yeah, the light doesn't do doesn't do anything. And so, you know, I it was just a visual that may help me understand like you don't really know where you're going if you have fog in front of your windshield, right? You gotta kind of tap into another GPS or trying to figure out like where am I actually going. So, you know, there's a there's a historically there's a term called the smoke screen. Yeah, yeah. And I I'll just kind of share into that. And so in Germany, it's a battle of Normandy, you know, against the British, where the smoke screen really took, you know, surface of like a military tactic. And they would actually, you know, you see the movies like the the army military dudes coming into a room that throw a little grenade that shoots smoke and then they come in, right? Yeah. But see what happened was the these tanks they wanted to hide themselves coming in for a military approach to attack the British. And so they put out these smoke bombs and you couldn't see the tanks. But where the from the vantage point of where the British were standing, they were like, Oh, enemies coming. Yeah, yeah, like, oh, I know exactly where they're at, you know. Like, what's that smoke? And so it backfired on them, you know, and and the enemy or I don't know who was the enemy or who was, you know, the offense or defense, but British military was able to succeed that battle because the smoke screen gave off where the German tanks were. And so they defeated them. And so that made me think of like us personally, man, when we're when we are going down a path that are are that is blocked by the fog or the smoke, let's say, or the smoke screen. We we feel like we're being, you know, we're going down the right path, but actually we've opened ourselves and our vulnerability to the enemy, you know, and we don't even realize it. And that's what it's like, oh, like you're walking in the smoke down the wrong path. You think it's the right path, but you're open game. Like the enemy's thinking, man, you're open game. I can just attack you like crazy and you don't even know like where you're at. And so what I was recognizing is that, okay, what is this smoke? Like, how does it happen in real life? Like, what can cause us to think we're in this light, yeah, right? And walking and thinking we're correct path, but we're actually derailed in the wrong path, and we're just open game for the enemy to attack us, and we don't even know it, you know? And so, like, what is that? Now I'm like super interested, and that's what really opened up the can of worms, man. I'm like, okay, I don't want to be this guy. Yeah, like I don't want to be this guy because there's like there's a lot of pastors right now, Ray. Like they're they're they're leading churches, they're leading with messages, they're everything looks good on the surface, sure, right? Yeah, you know, and and and I gotta be honest with myself, okay. If I'm if I'm if I'm pushing, I'm doing what I'm doing with this book, am I doing all this stuff, trying to press some push a message of the Lord? It could look like light, but it could be how if that light in you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? It could be a false sense of you know, projection. And so I was like, what is that?

SPEAKER_00: 6:38

Yeah, you know what? I just got uh small kind chills because it's I mean to to to speak about or or to push something that you think is true and it you know could potentially be false. That's that's scary, super scary because you know I don't want to be in that position. I don't think anyone wants to be in that position.

SPEAKER_01: 6:56

No, man, and it's um so I I prayed really hard and spent a lot of time in this chapter to unpack to really know okay, what is this? Like what what's happening to people? What's happened to me? What is this thing? And I and I don't want to be in it. Yeah, I don't I want a true sense, I want my my eyes to be healthy, like the scripture Matthew says, not unhealthy. Unhealthy eyes means what you have a hard time seeing.

SPEAKER_00: 7:25

Yeah, yeah, it does me.

SPEAKER_01: 7:27

Right? And so unhealthy eyes, and so that's where the smoke comes in. There's another scripture in Revelation that why I even call it smoke now was that you know, God sent there's a furnace that He sent and set fire and it let loose the smoke out, and the smoke was so powerful that it got in front of the sun and you couldn't see, yeah, you know, and so that imagery just kind of made me feel like okay, there's a a fire that started in the furnace, smoke rose and got in front of the sun and blocked all the light, yeah, and nobody could see. And so that that made me think of that process of like, okay, I've been through two house fires. I understand that you know, there has to be something that starts a fire.

SPEAKER_00: 8:10

For sure.

SPEAKER_01: 8:10

And if there's a fire that starts, what always comes from the fire? Smoke. And smoke, if you have a house fire up in the sky, you see tons of smoke. It's an indicator that you're fire. It's a flag saying there's a fire. And so if smoke, now I'm thinking, okay, if something's smoking me, smoke screening me, where's that fire? What is the fire? Where did I start it? So now I'm like thinking practically, right? I'm thinking, yeah, okay, let's unpack like where are these little fires coming from that could start these things? And so now it's like reverse engineering. I'm looking, you know, from the smoke, trying to look back and deep and dig and try to find, okay, what is going on here in this smoke? So that's where this all started birthing from, right? It was just like, okay, I don't want to be this guy. There's an issue, right? I don't want to be this guy, and God's giving me this vision, uh, don't want to say vision, but of uh imagery of smoke kind of representing the blocking of light and then like a fire. So I just started digging that way to kind of figure out like what this thing is.