Ep. 35 - Childlike Faith Could Be The Answer

What happens when childlike faith breaks through the noise of our complicated adult lives? In this episode we don't look at gear or tactics or brands or any of that. This is a heartfelt conversation where we talk about the real things in life. We witness the power of simplicity as Jase shares how his toddler's prayer about Jesus dying on the cross brought him to tears. It's these unexpected moments that reassure us—maybe we're not failing at this parenting thing after all.

The contrast between massive VBS programs hosting 500+ children and tiny country churches with just nine kids reveals a powerful truth: size doesn't matter when it comes to spiritual impact. Both are doing exactly the same work of introducing children to Jesus, some of whom may have never heard His name before. In a culture where biblical literacy is rapidly declining (as evidenced by a young man who didn't recognize the name "Moses"), these programs serve as crucial touch-points for faith formation.

Our conversation takes unexpected turns through the countryside, examining how farming challenges and skyrocketing land values are changing rural communities. With agricultural land now selling for as much as $40,000 per acre in our area, farmers face impossible choices between continuing their generational legacy or cashing out. These economic realities are reshaping landscapes and wildlife habitats forever.

At the heart of our discussion lies a simple but profound acronym: J.O.Y. (Jesus Or Yourself). In a world designed to steal our contentment through fear-based news and endless drama, choosing Jesus over ourselves remains our daily battle. We reflect on how social media, political division, and constant busyness crowd out the presence of God, while admiring how figures like Phil Robertson maintained simplicity of faith despite widespread fame.

What if the solution to our complicated lives isn't more complexity but less? What if knowing Jesus intimately is enough? Join us as we explore how breaking faith down to its essentials—loving God and loving people—might be exactly what our distracted souls need most. After all "You'll never drift closer to God... the path of least resistance seldom gets you to a good place."

Thanks for joining us on The Bowtreader Podcast. Leave a comment to let us know where you are listening from as well as any topics that you would like to hear us cover. Be sure to like the episode and subscribe to follow along. 

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Transcript

VBS Stories and Childlike Faith

Speaker 1 1:19

Let's go, wait, wait for it. Listen, there's no dub in here this morning. So, so dub, dub is. Oh yeah, see, that's not, that's not the same, not the same. Dub is we've got VBS going on this week, so he's he's volunteering at VBS this week, Do you know?

Speaker 2 1:40

how many kids are at that? Vbs Kids? I think 550.

Speaker 1 1:42

hearing at VBS this week. Do you know how many kids read that VBS Kids? I think 550.

Speaker 2 1:47

Yes, they were over 500 kids.

Speaker 1 1:49

Yeah, and there was like 240-something adults. Yeah, so we're a little under 800 people total, I think. But yeah, that's pretty wild man. It's like the biggest outreach that our church has every year is VBS. Y'all's is all week. It's all week long, yeah.

Speaker 3 2:12

Yeah, it starts.

Speaker 4 2:13

Sunday Sunday night. It'll go through Wednesday night, yeah.

Speaker 1 2:18

Yeah, so they do VBS in the morning from whatever 8 or 8.30 or something like that, until lunch, and then they do a music camp that runs. After lunch they give the kids lunch and then they do the music camp for a couple hours or whatever. So yeah, I've heard some pretty cool stories from that.

Speaker 3 2:43

It's such a great program. I mean. Growing up I felt like the parents sent you to every VBS in town to get you out of the house yeah. But even just volunteering at ours, I feel like I get more out of it than the kids probably do Absolutely, man, I mean it's just crazy that childlike faith yeah, it'll open your eyes.

Speaker 3 3:08

I got an example, yesterday, pull that mic over closer to you. Yesterday it was raining, so we I mean, as a forester, there ain't much I can do. So I was at the home office cranking out some reports and stuff like that that I've just haven't sat down long enough to do. And so we had lunch at the house and, um, joseph, my, my technician, was there and uh, obviously Tara and the two kids, and we asked, uh, we asked James to pray and James, I mean, he's two, he'll be three at the end of july yeah, and he prayed and like tara and I are like I'm I'm bawling, like I'm crying, like the fact that I have like almost a three-year-old praying, like what did he say?

Speaker 1 3:55

did he say something about you?

Speaker 3 3:56

no, he, he said he like was thankful for jesus dying on the cross and like I mean it was one of those things like it, just it shook me oh yeah, it shook me to the core and I was like last night tara and I were talking and I was just like man, you like do all these things, and like you don't think anything's sticking and like you get that god gives you glances, you get that glimpse. You're like man.

Speaker 3 4:25

Alright, this is like stay the course everything's okay, like the 14,000 times you threaten to spank them or doesn't sleep or this and that, like yeah, that was. That was one of those moments I was like, wow, alright, cool, god, I appreciate that I needed that.

Speaker 4 4:42

Maybe we're not screwing it up golly.

Speaker 3 4:47

Yeah, that was that's awesome, that was pretty cool moment um yeah, man yeah, vbs is one of those things like I feel like that environment creates, creates that um, that confidence, and they know who their their god, god is, and all those things.

Speaker 4 5:05

It's good too, because it does bring a lot of our church together with a focus, so a lot of people get to be together and even meet for the first time as they serve together. It's a really cool church family ministry that gets to take place so you get really get to spend time with people that normally you may not get to spend a ton of time with sure, yeah, yeah, pretty cool.

Building Community Through Service

Speaker 1 5:34

Yeah, yeah, there's nothing like serving together. I mean, there's there's nothing. There's nothing that, um, that replaces that. There's nothing that replaces that. There's nothing that builds community like that does. And so to see, like you said, to see the church come together and rally behind doing something like that is huge. That's right. And people don't realize. It's not that people don't realize it, it's not really. It's an unintended benefit of the spiritual growth that comes for the entire congregation through doing something like that Right.

Speaker 1 6:11

The goal is to serve these kids and to give them an opportunity to understand that there's more to life than going to school every day or being out for summer break.

Speaker 1 6:26

Yeah, or the world hyper-focuses on you, or wanting to go to the water park or whatever's going on, and some of them that are there, they don't know what their next meal's going to look like. So we've got to realize that going to look like, you know. I mean, so we, we gotta, we gotta realize that that, you know, we talk all the time about how, um, america is the best country in the world, and all this kind of stuff. Well, there, I mean, there's still poverty in america, right, there's still, there's still very bad situations in america, and, um, you know, so we don't need to ignore that fact either.

Speaker 2 7:04

Um, so, um, all right. So Tate this week is at his second Bible school. Yeah, the first one he went to I think they had a total of nine kids is a little small church up in portal. Yeah, and uh, I want to give a shout out to Emma Yates who worked really hard to put that together. But you know what? It's? A small, struggling church and I felt like that they did a really good job. He was excited to go every night and you know that's how they build, that's how they start building in the community.

Speaker 2 7:37

The second one is in Rocky Fort and there's probably 30, 35 kids there. You know just a country church. But it's a drastic difference to see 540 kids and another one, nine, and guess what?

Speaker 1 7:51

They're both doing the same thing, absolutely, absolutely doing the exact same thing. I mean, you can't. I think something else that we'll do is we kind of gauge our. We gauge how well we're doing based on how many show up, and I don't think that that's the best.

Speaker 2 8:10

Well, it's not a total reflection of how it goes, but I mean, that's a pretty dang good outreach.

Speaker 1 8:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:20

Just to get them there. Some of them may have never heard, know, heard the story of jesus christ, right, yeah? And you? You never know what kind of fire you may be lighting right there absolutely yeah, so that's funny that you say that.

Speaker 1 8:35

So the other day I don't watch tv, I just I don't. I watch sports on tv, I watch Duck Dynasty or something like that. When that show was on, that was the theme song, that was the soundtrack for my kid's life. It was like the ZZ Top opener to the show or whatever.

Speaker 1 8:57

But we're in a different season of life, right? We talk about that a lot amongst ourselves, about being in different seasons. And Jace is in the season of little kids and you're in the season of getting ready to send your boys out. I know Tate's got a little while, but it won't be long, and you know that. And, brandon, that's where you're at and that's kind of where I'm at right now. So I find myself awake at night waiting on people to come home, and it's fine. Everybody knows what time they need to be home by. But my daughter's 20, and she's in a relationship with a guy who seems to be. I think he's okay.

Speaker 3 9:42

I don't know.

Speaker 1 9:43

I've made it clear to him that I don't think prison is that bad that's absolutely my. My words were I, I have, I have found the ability to be content anywhere yeah and I don't think prison would be that bad so that wasn't a threat it was just just making a statement.

Speaker 1 10:02

So, anyway, that's a long way around to get to this point of so I, I, I found myself, you know, looking for something to watch the other day and I turned this show on and, um, um, the dad on the show it was like this reality show, I don't even remember the name of it the dad on the show, was he um? Got water pumping somewhere. He was like doing farm work, or whatever. Was he um got water pumping somewhere? He was like doing farm work, or whatever, and he got water pumping, he said. He said I feel like moses and his son, who was in his 20s, says who the heck is, moses, you know, and I'm like what just happened you know.

Speaker 1 10:39

So you saying that there's kids that are coming that have never heard the story man, that's, I guarantee you. There's going to be some that are there that have never. They don't, they have no idea who Jesus is, they have no idea what? You know, that there is a creator that made all this. You know, because that's just not. If you think about things from a public school standpoint, that's not what's taught. You know, um, it's, it's, you know. We're, we're taught, we're teaching our children that that, um, you know that there was a evolutionary thing that took place, and you know whether it was a big bang that caused all of it or whatever. You know. I don't know exactly what theories they're teaching them anymore, um, but I I do know that they don't call evolution a theory anymore. They just call it evolution, you know. So I don't know where that change took place, but anyway, so yeah, I think.

Speaker 4 11:35

And I think that it's the same thing as, like people that tell stories that are half-truths the more they tell them, the more they become true and they believe it themselves, like this actually happened when it didn't. I think it's the same thing with a lot of the evolution stuff and all. You tell it long enough and eventually you think like all right, this is the truth, you know, it's no longer a theory, this is fact and so it's it's.

Speaker 4 12:03

I think it's like that you know, because I think we all know people who the more they tell a story, the more they believe it, the more they believe it. Yeah you know, and it may or may not have happened that way. No, that's true. After telling it a hundred times, it's the truth, absolutely.

Speaker 1 12:20

Man, that's wild.

Different Church Sizes, Same Mission

Speaker 4 12:21

You believe a lie long enough and it'll become a truth, I guess so yeah, or at least in your head, it'll become the truth.

Speaker 1 12:28

Absolutely Right. So that points to that idea of people having their version of truth.

Speaker 4 12:37

Man, that drives me crazy when somebody says that yeah, that's logically ignorant.

Speaker 1 12:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When somebody tells me well, that's your version of truth, and I'm like hang on, hang on what. There is only one version of truth. I mean, it's either true or it's not. Yeah, but yeah, it drives me up the wall.

Speaker 4 13:00

That's a way of normalizing behavior, so nobody gets their feelings hurt.

Speaker 1 13:08

People can get their feelings hurt. I mean, you know what?

Speaker 2 13:11

We're scared of that today.

Speaker 1 13:12

What hurting somebody's feelings?

Speaker 2 13:13

We're scared yes, my mama is not scared to hurt my feelings. No, sir.

Speaker 1 13:18

No.

Speaker 2 13:19

And you know what, looking back at it now, at 59 years old, I'm glad she wasn't. Yeah, because her version of the truth and my version of the truth were not the same, and I've come to realize that I didn't have a version of the truth, I had an opinion, yeah.

Speaker 1 13:35

That's a better way to put it.

Speaker 2 13:36

You had an opinion, but the truth was the truth.

Speaker 1 13:39

Yeah, yeah, no, listen, I'll tell y'all like I told my, my class on this past Sunday and I said this and I thought that this was common knowledge and but when I told them, you know, they were like, man, I've never heard that before and they, you know, laughing or whatever, and I was like what's the big deal? There's three things you need in life you need caffeine, nicotine and a mom and a mama. That's mean you got them three things, buddy, you can get somewhere and I guarantee you I had the mama that was.

Speaker 2 14:14

That was uh, yeah you know, not near enough kids get whooped with a fly swat or a piece of hot wheel racetrack anymore. They just don't.

Speaker 3 14:27

They don't have to go pick their own switch anymore.

Speaker 4 14:31

That's what my grandma used to do. She made me go get my own switch.

Speaker 2 14:34

Not many people are going to know what a piece of hot wheel racetrack is.

Speaker 3 14:37

You remember those things oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 14:40

They were about three foot long and they had a little tongue.

Speaker 3 14:41

You just stuck. Yeah, that was exactly what you're talking about. They were about three foot long and they had a little tongue that you stuck them together.

Speaker 2 14:46

Oh yeah, they pieced in.

Speaker 1 14:46

Yeah, that was good stuff and it was a good whipping material too. Yeah, man, yeah, yeah, I don't think we didn't have that. We grew up poor so we didn't have that. But we had wood spoons. Wood spoons worked. So Mama had Boat paddle. I'm kidding double hander. Mama had this thing that she would use, um that was cut out of wood. That, um, she would use to like pull the the um the oven grate out. You know, it had like a little hook cut into it. Well, that thing dubbed as a paddle too. Yeah, and buddy, she can get that thing moving. Yeah, I'll never forget the day that I moved out of the way. We had stools in our kitchen and if we did wrong we knew all right, meet me in the kitchen. That means go to the stool and, yeah, assume the position, right, well, I moved one day and she hit the stool and broke that little thing. That was not a good that was not a good situation.

Speaker 1 15:43

That was not a good situation. So my mom she's sweet, I'm telling you I've never questioned if she loved me or not. There's never been a point in my life where I question if she loved me or not. I don't know exactly what she did when she was in the military. I know she wasn't like an actual drill sergeant, but she was something. The military. I know she wasn't like an actual drill sergeant, but she was. She was something of that effect, um and um. So she's, she's tough. Yeah, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 1 16:14

I remember I remember being 15 or 16 years old and I said something I shouldn't have said and I don't remember what it was, um, but I remember the next thing I saw was a flash and I was on my back and it was mama it put me there thankfully it was into a bed and maybe that's why she did it, but, buddy, she put me on my back, I mean like that, and when I was 16, so when I was 17 years old, you know, like you talked about some of these kids, you know, it's only about sports and what I get to go play and all this kind of stuff, that's all I care. I well, I tell you about it. I it was, it was fishing and it was football, that was it. That's all I wanted to do.

Speaker 1 16:57

If I wasn't, if it wasn't football season or you know, or we weren't practicing for football or something, I'd make sure I got all my school work done when I was at school. And when I got home I hit the door, I walked inside, got a fishing pole and I was right out, right back out the door, you know. Or I'd walk in and make you know like three sandwiches and eat them and then I'd be back out the door.

Speaker 1 17:18

But um, so when she did that, you know I wasn't like some kind of little kid but man, she took me out.

Speaker 3 17:27

I'll never forget it. I will never forget that. Yes, the humble experiences always are something that's sticking. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 17:34

So I might've told y'all this before, but I was watching an interview with Bo Jackson and Bo was talking about his mama, cause he was raised by his mama. Yeah, and Bo said you know, I was 18 years old the last time my mama gave me a whooping. And the guy doing the interviews kind of looked puzzled. He said Bo, you were a big old boy at 18. How did your mama give you a whooping? He says she had a belt in one hand and a .38 pistol in the other one and she said run if you want to. He said and I stood right there and took that whooping.

Speaker 3 18:11

Yeah, that's built different.

Speaker 1 18:17

Good night man. Wow, that's awesome, that'll do it.

Speaker 4 18:24

Heck yeah.

Speaker 1 18:25

That'll do it. Heck, yeah, good grief. Yeah, bo jackson man. That was one of my favorite athletes big time bow hunter even, even still. Um, but some, some of the stuff, yeah, some of the stuff he did on the football field and the baseball field was just incredible.

Speaker 2 18:42

I didn't realize. When he was in college he was recruited or I mean recruited by a major league baseball team. They flew down and picked him up on a jet and took him up for a visit, which was illegal at the time and that caused him to have to sit out a year of his college baseball career.

Speaker 2 19:07

So, when his career was over, that team drafted him number one and he said nope, because you did that to me without letting me know that was illegal, I ain't playing. And that's why he went to the USFL first. I mean, he was the number one draft choice out of college in baseball and he told them he is not coming because y'all treated me like that, didn't?

Speaker 1 19:28

he wind up playing for the Royals or something like that.

Speaker 4 19:33

He was ridiculous, his arm was.

Speaker 2 19:35

Holy cow, I watch those videos on reels sometimes. He ran to the right field wall, picked up a ball and threw a BB.

Speaker 1 19:44

To home plate. Yeah, I mean over 300 feet.

Speaker 4 19:48

I'd like to know the velocity when he threw it.

Speaker 2 19:52

It's funny you say that because he was playing left field and it was a little blooper that the guy on first didn't think he was going to get to.

Speaker 4 19:59

He threw the guy out at first.

Speaker 2 20:01

He threw back behind him.

Speaker 4 20:02

That ball had to be going 110.

Speaker 2 20:04

they said, it's just it's common.

Speaker 4 20:07

I mean, I've never seen, I've seen good arms. You know, each row had a great arm, some cunha's got a good arm, cunha, but bo jackson's arm it was different just like he was different.

Speaker 2 20:19

But it was different, I mean it's crazy, yeah have you ever seen the video of him and pat die in uh by amita? Hunting ducks oh yeah, he's a big. He's a big archer. Yeah, bo jackson was a. I mean, that's what he that's how he deer hunted was archery. He had a shop set up in his house oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 20:38

yeah, we were over in alabama um, it's been a couple years ago now and he was building a new house and where we were going hunting, we drove right by it every day.

Speaker 4 20:51

So it was pretty cool, I'm not going to say where it was. It was probably small.

Evolution, Truth, and Changing Narratives

Speaker 1 20:54

Yeah, I'm sure it was small it wasn't very small, but yeah, so he's still affiliated with Hoyt in some way.

Speaker 2 21:03

And that's who we were hunting with was the hoyt guys.

Speaker 1 21:06

So pretty cool stuff, very cool, but anyway. So we were talking about food plots before we turned the machine on over here, yeah we're all, jace, you're, you're, you're definitely in the middle of this because you're doing, you know, land management stuff for people and everything so yeah it's.

Speaker 3 21:23

It's kind of wet right now. Um, we we've had we went like 60 days without rain. Then we get a gully washer. I just if you put seed in the ground, it washed it away and uh, then we had like a little lull period where you could have replanted and uh, most of us didn't because our fields were wet, and uh, then we just got rain the last two days a lot of rain a lot of rain and so, yeah, fields are still wet.

Speaker 3 21:52

But I know it's. I hate. I'd hate to be a farmer. That's all I gotta say, is it? It's tough. You think you got it figured out seed, seed in the ground fertilizer line, the whole nine, and you stick it in the ground and Mother Nature takes it away.

Speaker 1 22:09

Nine inches of rain real quick.

Speaker 3 22:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:11

Well, now, around us, the peanut farmers are the ones catching it, the guys that planted that corn are.

Speaker 3 22:16

Oh yeah, corn's booming, holy cow, I mean, it's already tasseled, there's ears, it's unreal.

Speaker 2 22:20

Yeah, it is already tasseled. There's ears, it's unreal.

Speaker 1 22:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:22

The growth rate that corn had. I mean it had to get that rain, just perfectly, absolutely perfect.

Speaker 3 22:27

Yeah, but I was curious to see how it responded to that 60-day lull of like zero rain. There was some corn that was on pivot, I mean it was tasseled out in. I mean like three weeks ago, like it was just nutseled out in. I mean like three weeks ago, like it was just nuts. I mean six foot already. I'm like oh yeah.

Speaker 4 22:49

Are people planting corn? Earlier now it seems like they're planting corn.

Speaker 3 22:53

Yeah, they're not doing the wait till Easter planting.

Speaker 1 22:59

Corn's never been kind of a wait till Easter thing. Cotton definitely is. Corn can really handle cold really good Corn is. I mean. It's a tough plant. It's in the grass family. It can handle a lot as far as heat and cold tolerance. It just doesn't do good without water.

Speaker 3 23:20

If it doesn't have water, it ain't growing. So that was what I was interested to see how it responded when we had that 60 days is a long time for corn.

Speaker 1 23:29

When you're looking at something that's you know I don't know what the varieties are now, but let's just call it a 150 day when you're looking at something like that and you don't give it water for 60 days, for a third of its growing period, that can that can really be a problem so we've got more corn around us than we've ever had and I talked to a farmer the other day and he said they went to corn because cotton and peanut pricing the bottom it's just falling out of it.

Speaker 2 24:07

He said well, really, the bottom's falling out of everything I was gonna say he felt like he could get more money out of the corn I hope he can but I mean the, the amount of peanuts and cotton that we used to have is just right around us there and hope you like it it's we got corn, I felt like I'm riding through iowa or somewhere. Yeah, there, and hope you like it out there, we got corn. I feel like I'm riding through Iowa or somewhere.

Speaker 1 24:25

Yeah, there is a lot of corn out there. Yeah, but I mean, when you look at corn prices that are, you know, in the $3 range $3.40, I think, is what one of my farming friends told me, that they booked some of theirs for. I think it's what one of my farming friends told me that they booked some of theirs for. I mean, man, you got to make a bumper crop to make any money, but cotton's worse. I mean, when you're selling cotton for 65 cents a pound, you know, and you know that you know you got a thousand bucks an acre minimum to get that, to carry that crop through to harvest. You know, I mean, do some math real quick about how many pounds per acre you need to pick, right, I mean, it's, it's a it's, it's a challenge.

Speaker 2 25:20

So I also uh, talking to a buddy of mine, Mr Ryan Brannan. Portal Georgia. Shout out to Ryan. Cotton prices are the same now as they were in like the 20s and 30s. Cotton has not gone up at all.

Speaker 1 25:39

It's fluctuated throughout the years, like in the early 2000s. It got up over a dollar a pound. Well, no, in the early 2000s it got up over a dollar a pound. Well no, in the early 2000s it was really low. The last cotton I sold, I sold it for 15 cents a pound. I'll never forget I went to the cotton gin in Brooklyn. Dominic Strazzo was running the cotton gin at the time. He called me and said hey, we got your totals done, come by whenever you want to, or whatever. And I went by there and picked up my check for the cotton and then left there and carried it to the bank. And anyway he asked me. We talked for a minute or whatever, and he said how much do you think you're going to grow next year? I said cotton. He said yeah. I said, mr Dominick, you won't see me up here again. That ain't happening, buddy. There's no way, because back then I had somebody come in to harvest it and that was like $30 an acre, which now. There's no way.

Speaker 1 26:44

They're doing it for that now, not with paying you know close to a million dollars for a dang cotton picker. You know, I mean, they're probably charging $100 an acre to do custom harvesting at this point, but that's what I paid back then was $30 an acre, you know. So the expenses were a lot more reasonable, but not 15 cent a pound reasonable.

Speaker 2 27:06

You know there was no way so, all right, jace, I got a question for you. Okay, what we got, because we have so much corn and peanuts around us, it kills our dust, it kills it. I mean, you can grow millet brown top, whatever you want to do, and about the time dove season comes in, they cut the. All your doves are gone. Okay, now you get a few more doves back, you entice them to come back. That's right. And then, about the time you get ready to shoot them again, now they're pulling peanuts Pulling peanuts.

Speaker 2 27:38

Now here goes our doves again. Can we help ourselves by planting something different, like I'm really going to thinking about planting some pearl millet, I mean, cause that's different it is. I mean, it's not a peanut, it's not a corn, it's something that they like Pro so yeah, press is really really good.

Speaker 3 27:57

Um, how big is your?

Speaker 2 27:59

like small, small it's small, but when the doves get there, I mean we had a couple pretty good shoots with just three or four of them.

Speaker 3 28:06

You say small, like five acres, small. No, it was smaller than that, is it yeah?

Speaker 2 28:11

We're in a flyway where the doves roost and then they fly to the cornfield. And we were able to cut them off and they found what we had last year was brown top and we had a pretty dang good shoot.

Speaker 3 28:27

Heck, yeah. Yeah, it's tough when you're battling um, battling against the the farms, because, like you're saying, I mean you got hundreds of acres of corn, hundreds of acres of peanuts, or I say hundreds, it's probably it's thousands of acres of that um. So yeah, you're battling. I mean it'd be like going to super walmart or going to iga. I mean they're gonna, they're gonna go where all the food's at um. But uh, your best option on that side is is kind of diversifying. But if, if the brown top worked, you probably want to do like a 50 50 on the proso brown top and probably just do strips of of both, because they will mature at different times too. So it'll it'll extend your shelf life of your field as well. You'll be able to hunt it throughout the season instead of just well.

Speaker 2 29:12

That's one reason I like brown top because we can cut it early, shoot over it and once we get that rain on it, boom it sprouts right back and by the time the first frost gets here, it's got another head on it again yeah, so that's a really good option, um.

Speaker 3 29:25

But yeah, your best bet on that is stick with the pro. So I've I've had great results with pro, so I normally do it on field edges on most farms. I manage um just just to have another seed head for the quail and the turkeys to eat on um, but the dove absolutely crush it too so what happened to all the dove shoots?

Speaker 2 29:44

where are they at?

Speaker 1 29:45

I don't know, we don't. I mean used to be, you know, years ago. You could find a dove shoot every weekend. You know one of your buddies would be having one or something and you could go to it.

Speaker 3 29:56

I mean it's just like we're talking about. I mean it's expensive to operate just a farm, so a lot of these guys don't have an extra 50 acres just to set aside for a dove field. I mean a lot of it's that in my mind, I think. I mean I've got some clients of mine. I mean their property is set aside just for recreation so I mean that's it. So they want to have a social hunt and have their dove fields and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 30:26

Well, you have an advantage, because the very best dove hunts I have ever been on were clear cuts. Oh, yeah, where they've gone in and really thinned some timber, and what is it? I don't. Why are them doves and why are they attracted to that?

Speaker 3 30:41

there's just so many, so many things that come back from that. That, uh, I mean one is just honestly bare dirt and having some gravel to chew on. I mean, we got a lot of dirt roads but there's not a lot of gravel and stuff for them to chew on. So it's, it's a combination of a lot of things they've got there there's cover.

Speaker 3 31:01

So a clear cut's ugly as sin, but you, you got cover, you got food and they can roost on the edge of it and feel protected. So I mean there's a hundred different things that they like, but yeah, clear cut's good for literally anything, I mean any critter's going to be in and around. A clear cut Can't go wrong with that.

Speaker 1 31:26

Yeah, which means coyotes are going to be there, yeah right, uh, yeah, I had, uh, this turkey season.

Farming Challenges and Land Development

Speaker 3 31:33

Um was calling a turkey up, uh, on a clear-cut edge and uh, I saw some movement out of the left corner of my eye.

Speaker 3 31:42

Turkey's on the right hand side and, uh, I've had this happen twice, um, twice, but the coyotes were actually like chasing each other. They were like I don't know if they're, I don't know what they were doing, they're playing or whatever, but the coyote rut, yeah, then they were. I mean, in my head I'm like I guess they're just, yeah, rutting or. But well, them two didn't quite make it out of the clear cut. I was like man, I got a gobbling turkey, like I let these guys go or not? Nah, nah, they gone.

Speaker 1 32:17

Good choice.

Speaker 2 32:19

Coyote is probably, in my mind, one of the most misunderstood. Is that the right word? So there's a guy that I follow on facebook and he fishes and he only fishes at tabby island, so he must live out there or something. But there's a coyote that keeps coming up behind one of the restaurants and they see him and he was talking on tabby yeah, on tabby and he was.

Speaker 2 32:44

And he was talking about trying to get rid of him because he's skinny. Oh my goodness, the people that came out of the woodwork. Oh, leave him alone. It's just a. They think they're cute and it's a coyote, until their little fluffy gets gone or their cat gets gone. If you look at some of these places in Atlanta, they have a huge coyote population. Again nobody hunts them.

Speaker 1 33:10

Yeah, and they got plenty of food.

Speaker 2 33:12

Oh yeah, so they've exploded, yeah, and they don't understand the damage that the coyote does to your turkey population. I mean you might have let that gobbler go that time, but how many? Did you save?

Speaker 3 33:24

Yeah, for sure, yeah, no, no, it's. It's pretty crazy, um there's, I mean, and I'm I'm 34, so I'm not that old, but like just a spring chicken well, I'm just thinking like growing up like I you wouldn't see a kayak.

Speaker 3 33:38

Like growing up deer hunting, like you didn't hear, you didn't see. I think about like armadillos, like when I was was younger, like we had a farm in Cordeo. Like we had armadillos in Cordeo, but like where I'm from, in Marietta, like there weren't armadillos up there. There are armadillos all the way in Tennessee now.

Speaker 3 33:55

So like you've got this weird, like you got critters moving, uh, and they're in different areas than than where they've historically have been. I mean, you think about, if you look past colonization, like when Indians or Native Americans were here, there was fire readily available on the landscape. The landscape was broke up, there were farms, but they were kind of just micro farms, so they weren't these huge large acreage areas, but you had huge swaths of grassland, you had bison and elk and you had mountain lions Even here, that was something.

Speaker 2 34:38

That was something.

Speaker 3 34:40

You had that down here in South Georgia but your predators were in some areas. He had there's bears. I mean he's even bears in um vidalia. Um, I got some clients in vidalia. They got 350 pound bear showing up on the trail camera.

Speaker 1 34:59

So vidalia would be part of the central region still right still.

Speaker 3 35:04

Yeah, so those bear probably coming from that, the macon uh corridor area down the uh uh mogi um, they're probably coming. Um, yeah, I guess it would be there's uh. And then you got the yeah, okoni, that's kind of in between. Uh, I guess is that dublin that coming yeah, yeah okoni comes.

Speaker 3 35:26

Yeah, so they're they're probably coming down that corridor. Uh, and then we hadn't even talked about it, but the hogs, like I mean the hogs have always. I mean that that was a brought in mainly from settlement, but like, and they've just exploded too, and that's mainly because of the large ag component we have down here, um, and trying to stop them. It's just it ain't happening like they they breed and they just reproduce so fast?

Speaker 3 35:55

um, yeah, it's. It's an interesting dynamic dynamics when you start looking at like how how the land, the landscape is changing but also the critters are are changing as well and adapting and and coming and going um. But yeah, I was, I guess, talking about like apex predators, like well, coyotes are backfilling what bears and lions were, were doing, um, that there's a void. So it's like they're backfilling what void there is because there is no predator besides us for a long period of time. So it's just interesting kind of looking at it from that standpoint when we were young, john.

Speaker 2 36:41

I mean we never saw a coyote, never saw an armadillo, never saw any of that stuff. Growing up in Bullitt County you never saw a turkey there, never saw an armadillo, never saw any of that stuff growing up in Bullitt.

Speaker 3 36:47

County.

Speaker 2 36:48

You never saw a turkey Very, very few deer. But you look at what was in the news this week and how they are developing so much property putting houses on. Thank goodness the commission voted not to approve of 141 home neighborhoods somewhere down around Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 37:11

And either 95 or 59-home neighborhood like out on 119. I mean, they're popping up like daisies.

Speaker 2 37:19

Where are all those critters going? You know we're pushing them around.

Speaker 3 37:23

Oh yeah, we're pushing them around, absolutely.

Speaker 2 37:25

I mean they can't stay where they're at because if you ride out by the golf course, there's a brand-new neighborhood. I promise you. There is 100 houses in that little subdivision and every one of them are identical. Now they may paint them different, but every house looks exactly the same from the outside, front and back. Where are these people coming?

Speaker 3 37:54

from Everywhere.

Speaker 1 37:58

Yeah, you're in the real estate area too, so what is that looking like?

Speaker 3 38:02

I actually have one of those houses under contract right now with a buyer. It's nuts, it is nuts. I mean I've got a few first-time homebuyers that are looking. I've got parents that are buying houses for their college and that Statesboro is kind of one of those spots Like we don't. We got kind of in a little bubble from a real estate standpoint. Like I've got friends in Atlanta and my mom's a real estate agent in Atlanta and, um, there's, there's a lot of ebbs and flows, but when you're in an area like Statesboro or any kind of college town and you have industry in proximity, it's just like it's an explosion. And then I mean, if you look at any university in the state of Georgia Statesboro or Georgia Southern, it's got the most ground around it for growth. Athens is hemmed up, georgia Tech, like that's when are they going to go?

Speaker 1 39:00

They ain't going nowhere.

Speaker 3 39:01

Georgia State. Same thing, I hadn't really thought about it that way. So you look at where you've got the ability to grow well states. Where's about the only university that I I can see in the state that really has room to grow and has industry? So like you got like lagrange college and stuff like that, like that are in cities and whatever, but they don't really have that much industry.

Speaker 1 39:24

The hyundai plant kind of kicked a lot of that off yeah, yeah, and you got you know a university like um ABAC, but their offering is not as diverse as what Georgia Southern offers, right?

Speaker 3 39:36

so in my mind that's. That's kind of the driving force behind that. But yeah, you asking, like, who are the buyers? I mean it's a mixed bag, I mean it's an absolute mixed bag. And then, like, anytime you've got industry coming in, you've got people looking for secondary homes or properties and stuff like that. So that's a whole other market of, hey, we want 50 to 100 to 200 acres to be able to go recreate on on the weekends or have a secondary cabin. So that drives that market as well. So anything under 200 acres around here, I mean it's affordable for folks that are coming from out of town. But us as locals it's not as affordable anymore because everyone's getting priced out.

Speaker 2 40:24

Speaking of getting priced out, we got our tax assessment last week and they our value of our house and property went up 95 500 now if y'all want to buy my house and property for what they've got it assessed at. I will sell, sell it to you today, but that's. I read an article that it's been years ago. There was a new car manufactured that came in down around the Grange somewhere there's a big auto manufacturer there and it was in a Georgia trends magazine or something.

Speaker 2 41:01

I was reading it and they said the number one reason they chose that area was because of the recreation opportunities for their employees.

Speaker 3 41:12

The lake was there. There's a lot of room for that. Yeah, it's interesting. We're definitely at a. I mean, I've lived in Statesboro.

Speaker 3 41:22

June 1st will be well, I guess we're past June 1st man, it would be 10 years for me, which is just nuts. Um, and just in that 10 year span, like it's nuts, I mean, I was blessed enough, I bought. I bought my house in woodlawn terrace, right in the middle of town, well-established neighborhood. I bought the house for I think 190 000 and 16. I mean the house is doubled plus. Um, just in that short span, I mean. So it's just crazy to see, like just within a 10, 10 year stamp, like, like we're talking about the amount of neighborhoods that have gone up. I mean it, it's, it's gangbusters over here for sure. But, like you're saying, where are the critters going? They're eating on a lot of fertilized yards right now.

Speaker 2 42:17

Pansies and daisies.

Speaker 3 42:19

It's interesting because that neighborhood you're talking about, literally on the backside of that neighborhood, you've got an ag field, yep, literally on the backside of that neighborhood you got an ag field, yep. And then like so I mean, it's kind of we've got this hybrid of like urbanization but we got some stronghold farmers and timber guys that are holding on to their larger land bases. So really what's going to happen is, if you have larger land holdings for recreation on the fringe of all these areas, you're just going to be a petting zoo, I mean, you're going to have so many critters. So it'll be interesting to see, kind of, how it all shakes out. But yeah, habitat is being lost. There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 1 43:04

Well, my dad's been saying for years and you know, when you're younger, you always listen to your dad and you're kind of like, yeah, okay, whatever, dad. But he's been saying, he's been saying two things for years that have come true. Um, the first thing that he said well, not, not the first thing that he said that I thought was crazy. But one of the things that I really remember, I keyed in on, was that he said the day was coming when a college education was going to be worthless. And I feel like we've gotten there, yeah, we're about there. He, he said. He said first, what was going to happen was you're going to have to have a college education to do anything, whether it was driving a trash truck or being an engineer or whatever, you were going to have to have a college degree to do it, because we weren't teaching kids how to do anything in high school, and there are some areas where stuff is still being taught in high school that is not, you know, completely useless, but by and large it's pretty useless. And then he said that a college degree was going to become worthless. And, man, he hit that nail on the head, I mean like a prophet or something. And then the other thing that he said was Bullitt County was going to be the bedroom for Chatham County and Bryan County and doggone, if that wasn't the truth. I mean it's like we can go anywhere, we can drive anywhere five miles from this location right now and you're either going to see a bunch of houses being built or you're going to see a zoning sign on the side of the road in a field, and I mean so we started out our conversation talking about farmers and kind of what they're doing, about farmers and kind of what they're doing, and we see a lot more corn being planted, because they're trying to figure out. What do I do to try to eke out? You know, a living right now, um, and they don't see it in peanuts and they don't see it in cotton, even though they're sitting there holding, you know, a million dollars in equipment to support growing peanuts and harvesting peanuts and growing cotton and harvesting cotton.

Speaker 1 45:07

That's always the tough part to me is this farmer has got all this equipment that you know, it's not a, it's not about. Well, you got to grow peanuts to pay for your peanut picker. Well, no, you just have to pay for the peanut picker. The bank doesn't care what you grow. You know they don't care how you, they don't care how you pay for it, they just want you to pay the note. Yeah, right, that that's the obligation there. So the idea that you got to grow peanuts because you have a peanut picker is is silly.

Speaker 1 45:40

But at the same time, if you don't own a combine, you know how in the world you're going to grow corn and soybeans. You can't go out there and pick it with a cotton picker, you know. So I mean it's and and when and when. We've got farms that have that have put so much emphasis on a singular crop being cotton. There, I mean, there are farms that their best equipment is built for cotton, you know. And it's really hard for them to go in and say, hey, we need to diversify this year. Well, if they got to buy a combine I mean you're talking about 200 grand, you know that's. That is a you get.

Speaker 1 46:24

When you get into, when you get into areas like this in any business, I don't care what it is when you get into a spot in any business where you're operating on reduced margins, which is what they're doing it's really hard to swing and miss right. You've got to swing. That's just the way business is. You've got to swing, you're up at the plate, you, you got to swing. That's just the way business is. You got to swing, you're up at the plate, you got to swing. You know, and there's no such thing as as a ball in in business. Whatever that pitch is, you got to swing at it and a miss when, when you're in in that situation is really tough. So then what do you do? You wind up selling land.

Speaker 3 47:07

Yep, yeah, it's a lot easier to just put a for sale sign and and well, you start by cutting timber. Yeah you cut all your timber.

Speaker 1 47:12

You start by liquidating. You cut all assets cut all assets.

Speaker 3 47:16

um, you obviously you're do a hunting lease or something like that to generate a little bit revenue. But yeah, and then at that point it's like, well crap, bob down the road just sold his for 15 an acre, for 40 an acre, for 40 an acre.

Speaker 1 47:32

There's some right down here.

Speaker 2 47:33

We looked at that the other day. There's some right down here 40,000 an acre for farmland.

Speaker 1 47:38

How does that farmer say, nah, I think we need to keep farming it.

Speaker 1 47:42

You know, at some point. At some point, at some point we have to say, and I'm facing the same thing right now, okay, I'm looking at the same situation right now because I own some land that is in a. You and I have talked about this, jace, because of where it is, there's no telling what we could get for it. Yeah, you know, and I'm facing the same issue. You are, wes. I got that same notice from the county about what my new assessed value is. It would make your head spin if I told you what it was, and so that's what my taxes are going to be based on. So I mean, at what point does that farmer or that family that has owned this real estate for a couple generations, at what point do they say you know, hey, we might not ever see this again. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you may not ever see the land again. But at what point do you say we may never see this kind of market again, you know? And? And cash out on it, it's, it's.

Speaker 3 48:53

It's a super tough decision, because then you think about okay, well, if I hold, is the next generation going to hold, or are they just going to fold?

Speaker 1 49:03

and when they fold, is it going to be for 40 percent less? Yeah?

Speaker 3 49:07

but I, you look at real estate across the board like there's really never and you never want to say never, but there's really never been a time where real estate has not decreased in value, especially in an environment like this. Hold on, hold on.

Speaker 1 49:23

You weren't here, but in 2008. Well, for sure, it had a major decrease in value.

Speaker 3 49:28

I wasn't here, but in 2008, it had a major decrease in value.

Speaker 1 49:30

I wasn't here but it don't matter where you were. No.

Speaker 3 49:34

I was in Atlanta where my dad builds custom homes. He went from 300 homes a year to zero for three years.

Speaker 1 49:40

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 49:42

No, we were in the thick of it, so not saying that. But you've got to look at real estate. It's not a year-to-year thing.

Speaker 1 49:49

Real estate is a long game.

Speaker 3 49:51

That's why a mortgage is 30 years standard. So it's the long game. But talking about I mean, these are conversations I've got with clients all the time of like this is like standard. It's like a brother, sister, like a couple siblings. They've got an estate. They're like one of them's like I want to keep it together. Then you got the two brothers and sisters and they're like, well, we'd love to keep it together, but it really doesn't make sense. It's like we live in Atlanta or we live in Charlotte and we get to see it one time a year, like, why don't we just cash out? Well then. So then you get these 300 acre parcels get cut down to 100 or they get turned into neighborhoods and that legacy play is no longer there. It's tough. I mean, yeah, it'd be really hard to turn down 40,000 an acre when you're paying a tax bill on it, paying land tax on it, and you're not utilizing it, it's not producing anything for you, or you're just scraping by as a farmer.

Speaker 3 51:03

I mean you're making it, but you're barely making it. I don't know. It's a super tough conversation to have. And then on the farming side, it's a subsidized market and any time you subsidize anything it just ruins it. I hate it, man.

Speaker 1 51:22

That is the reason I got out of farming was because I realized that I needed to.

Speaker 3 51:29

I was going to depend on getting a check from the government every year. It's terrible.

Speaker 1 51:34

Yep.

Speaker 3 51:35

Absolutely terrible.

Finding Joy Amidst Life's Challenges

Speaker 1 51:37

It made me sick to think about that. I'll never forget talking to my dad about it one time. And you know we all have these conversations with our dads when we're going out into the world. And you know we're going to have these same conversations with our sons and stuff. And I'll never forget my dad saying you know, son, I don't care, I don't care what you do, I don't care. You know what your goals are, or anything like that. He said but you need to realize if you're going to start a family, you've got to provide for them. Right. And he said I don't want you to be in a in a position where you're depending on something else or somebody else. You need to be able to provide for your family. So make smart choices, don't try to live outside your means. Just a conversation like that, right.

Speaker 1 52:24

And so I remember sitting with my dad back when I was farming and going through stuff and I was showing him where our revenue was coming from and he was shocked when I showed him how much revenue came from support prices on commodities and I said you know what? That is right. And he said that's welfare. I said well, well, I wasn't going to say that. I said but yeah, I mean kinda, it kinda is so and and, and I don't look at other farmers and be like man, why are you doing this? This is ridiculous. I mean, it's just, it is, it's, it's how our, it's how the system runs and you know, I don't know, it's a tangled web dude. That's all I can tell you. That's all I can tell you.

Speaker 1 53:17

So all this stuff we've talked about this morning, it feels like we've had this doom and gloom conversation about things where we've been called to live with joy. Right, I mean, that's, that's what we're called to. We're, we're, we should be joyful, we should be, we should um, not be, not be these, um, we shouldn't be pessimists, we shouldn't be, um, um, we shouldn't be ignorant optimists either, but we should be joyful in any situation. We should find contentment in any situation that we find ourselves in. And so my daughter she's doing VBS this week, but her boyfriend that I've talked about a little bit, his church is doing a camp this week. So he's there and it's camp like where the kids come and they stay, they have cabins and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 54:12

So she's been going over there in the afternoons and they did a devotion time yesterday and the pastor was talking about joy and he used it as an acronym, where he said we have the choice to choose joy, and we can look at joy itself the word as an acronym Jesus or yourself. So which one are we going to choose? Are we going to choose Jesus or are we going to choose ourselves? So I thought that was really cool. I wanted to talk about that a little bit and I'll share this too. Y'all know one of my absolute favorite people, one of my favorite senators, who has ever graced the halls of Congress, is John Kennedy.

Speaker 4 54:59

Oh, he is great.

Speaker 1 55:01

I love him. And he said recently. He said you know, I get up in the mornings and I say, jesus, I want to live for you today. I want to do whatever you want me to do today, he said. But then, by about 10 o'clock in the morning, I just want to slap the hell out of somebody.

Speaker 4 55:20

That's exactly what he said, oh man I love it.

Speaker 1 55:26

He's got the best one-liners out of anybody in Congress. Man, he does, oh my gosh. Now there are others that I really like. I like Ron Johnson. I think he's a great guy for a Yankee is I think he's fiscally conservative and wants the best for our nation and for our nation's people and everything. But back to that idea. How do we get to that place where we say I'm going to choose joy, right, because if we can do that, if we can live every day with saying, because if we can do that, if we can live every day with saying we're not going to let these circumstances affect our lives, you know, it's going to be a game changer for us, at least inside our minds, right? I mean, yeah, we may not always be able to change our circumstance or our situation, but we don't have to let it ruin us. So what do you guys think?

Speaker 2 56:31

We all got kids. And do you know how mad it makes me to see my ratchet with a 916 socket on it laying out there in the rain because somebody fixed something and they left my tools out there. But then I stop and go. You know what? One day this won't be laying out anymore. I'm going to miss that. So there's a lot of times and a lot of situations that I reflect on that. And you got to be joyful.

Speaker 1 57:04

But you still go out there with a belt and a 38, right that ain't?

Speaker 2 57:06

quite that bad. But you still go out there with a belt and a .38, right, that ain't quite that bad, but you know what? I got to be glad that he took the time and he knew how to do it.

Speaker 4 57:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2 57:14

And he did it. He just didn't finish the drill.

Speaker 1 57:17

Finish the drill, that's right.

Speaker 2 57:19

And we talk about that. But you know your wife gets mad because there's clothes all over the floor and stuff. Hey, they're good kids, they're not in trouble, they're not calling us from the jail. You know we're going to miss that one day.

Speaker 1 57:33

Yeah, we are.

Speaker 2 57:34

So we have to learn to be joyful in all those situations, even though you might want to slap the hell out of somebody. And I think one of our major issues in this country is people don't know how to derive joy out of a situation because it's so negative. Everything you see is negative. You know this used to be pride month. Well, it's not anymore, according to our president Right. But there was a big article yesterday where Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's daughter come out as gay. Why do I care? Why is that news? Why are they putting that in front of your face Instead of saying, hey, this is Veterans Month. Now let's support our veterans. We got to get inundated with who's gay and who's not gay, and why, is that news is that selling?

Speaker 2 58:37

is that what people are buying?

Speaker 4 58:40

people like controversy, people like drama, and so that's what they put out there. I mean, you know, bait hill, tim m McGraw two big names their kid comes out as gay.

Speaker 3 58:55

Well, now half the country's split on.

Speaker 4 58:56

Do we support them or do we not? Yeah, I mean, it's all. It's all. The two things I think that keep people tuning into the news are fear and drama. I mean, just those are the two things. And I don't care if you watch Fox, cnn, msnbc, it's all the same crap. Man, If we can keep you in fear, you'll keep tuning in. Or if we can keep you some drama stirred up, you'll keep tuning in. And then you get where it's like who do you even believe? Because I mean, personally, I don't believe anything that comes from MSNBC or CNN, I mean for sure.

Speaker 4 59:31

But even on the other side, like I'm just a, I'm just a very big skeptic when it comes to anything that brings money and power. I think it corrupts at the highest level, regardless of if you're a Democrat or Republican. I think that, and y'all can think I'm crazy. If you want to, you probably do anyway, but I think that and y'all can think I'm crazy if you want to.

Speaker 4 59:51

You probably do anyway, but I think that's why Elon Musk got out. I think he has found so much money that is being wasted. But when they started getting into it, it was fixing to bring everybody down. It didn't matter if you were Democrat or Republican, because let me tell you, it ain't just Democrat, democratic congressmen that are going in without money and coming out loaded.

Speaker 1 1:00:13

Right.

Speaker 4 1:00:14

And so they're all benefiting from it. And if we can keep things stirred up, you know, from a news standpoint, then people are going to keep tuning in. That's going to give us more revenue. That's going to give us more advertising. That's going to give us more advertising. That's going to give us more money. So we're just going to say whatever our viewers want to hear and we're going to slam the other side so that we can keep the pot stirred. And that's why, you know, people tune in every night and they sit there. And you got people that just sit there and watch Fox news for 24 hours a day and and it's the same, thing, that would drive me crazy, man, I can't do it.

Speaker 2 1:00:55

You know um yesterday Biden's press secretary, whatever her name was she decided she's not a Republican, I'm a Democrat anymore. Yeah, I'm not Democrat anymore. I just seen too much stuff. But then on fox news you have people like ainsley earhart who, I believe, tries to keep the joy. Yeah, she's, she's just different in that and she talks about her faith all the time. And, um, I feel like these news agencies are. Their job is to take your joy away.

The Simplicity of Faith and Jesus

Speaker 4 1:01:32

Yeah, well, again, if they can keep you in fear, you're going to keep tuning in, because what if this happens, what if that happens? And that way, you keep looking because, oh my gosh, I got to know You're looking for answers.

Speaker 3 1:01:51

They want to just keep you on the edge of your seat.

Speaker 4 1:01:51

So know, because looking for answers like they want to just keep you on your edge of your seat, so you're looking for answers from them, not anyone else exactly and and you look at it too with the press secretary for biden with her step and the whole reason she did that is to write a book about what's really going on?

Speaker 4 1:02:09

and people are so stupid that they look at jake tapper and they look at kiera whatever her name is and I'm like, do you not see through this that's, do you not? She was one of the biggest players in the cover-up for joe biden and now she's writing a book about it. I mean, it is greed at the highest level and you talking about, like taking your joy. How miserable would it be to have to live in lies every day to try to get what you want, because greed has control of your life so much. And yet they live with you know, and Scripture talks about this it's as though they have holes in their pockets. They'll never fill them enough, and so the cycle just continues over and over.

Speaker 4 1:03:06

And some people are that way, whether they're in you know, whatever business, but man, greed will take your joy. There's so many things that will take the joy of life from you. I really think the simplicity of joy is the intimacy of a relationship with Christ and you know, if we focus on that, I really think that's the source of joy. I've been thinking a lot about lately, of you hear this saying all the time and if we focus on that, I really think that's the source of joy I've been thinking a lot about lately of you hear this saying all the time, like such and such lives in my mind for free or lives in your mind for free?

Speaker 4 1:03:43

Rent free, yeah, rent free. And I've been thinking about it not in that way, but thinking about it from a standpoint of what am I wasting energy thinking about? Like, what am I wasting time and energy thinking about? That doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 1:03:58

That's just taking away not just joy, but just stamina, energy, vitality, ability, all of these things, just brain capacity, brain capacity. And what do I spend time? Just wasted mental, emotional, just to drain. And I've really tried to evaluate that because I think a lot of that's the stuff that wears us out. It takes our joy, I think, every now and then people.

Speaker 4 1:04:34

One of the big things now is like to um, minimalize, like your you know, get rid of all the stuff you don't need, you know, and get, get your you know, the organization of your closet or your kitchen and get rid of this. If you don't use it a certain amount of times a year, get throw it out and dah, dah, dah dah. But I think we need to look at our lives that way too and go. Is this really that important to take up this much space either in my mind or in my life, or is that something that needs to be removed? And because I mean there's a lot of stuff I think about during the day that shouldn't take space in my mind, Thinking about things that happened a year or two years ago that you know now, how do I handle that?

Speaker 4 1:05:38

Can I let that go? Can I move on from that without letting it occupy that space in my mind, or do I just keep going back to these things and worrying about it, back to these things, and and worrying about it, and, and there's so many things I think that we let take our mental, emotional, spiritual and, eventually, physical life, you know, and and it just drains us because we spend so much time on things that don't really matter, you know. So I think that's one of the biggest challenges and, you know, it starts with the things we see, the things we hear. Everything, like you said, is doom and gloom, you know, but it's hard.

Speaker 4 1:06:34

It's hard when we're inundated with more information than we've ever been before, to keep that perspective you know, it's like everything's tugging at us to take our eyes off of Christ and to put them on something else. And it can be good things, man, but it's like gosh, it's. It's a fight. It really is a fight, and I think about Paul saying at the end of his life I fought the good fight. You know, because it is a fight. Um, I've been reading through first Peter, we've been going through a series on first Peter at the church, and he talks about like, arm yourself. You know, arm yourself, arm yourself with what it takes to live for God. And it's like this is not something that comes easy. It is a battle and I think sometimes we get lost and we get lulled into thinking it's just going to come to us and it doesn't.

Speaker 4 1:07:33

Like we can just drift into it. Yeah, and you're never going to drift closer to God.

Speaker 1 1:07:37

Yeah. It just doesn't happen, that lazy river doesn't lead to where he's at.

Speaker 4 1:07:45

The path of least resistance seldom gets you to a good place.

Speaker 3 1:07:49

That lazy river.

Speaker 4 1:07:50

You need to be swimming upstream to get where the Lord is yeah, you probably want to get out of it anyway, because somebody peed in it.

Speaker 3 1:07:57

Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, I don't do water parks? No nor I.

Speaker 1 1:08:03

I'd much rather go jump in the river.

Speaker 4 1:08:05

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:08:07

And yes, I know sharks live in the river. That's okay, I'll take my chances.

Speaker 4 1:08:10

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:08:13

Good grief.

Speaker 4 1:08:16

In some ways, I feel like we've just lost the simplicity of our faith. It's like we've lost the simplicity of just knowing Jesus, and that's a place I've been at a lot lately too. It's like I just want to know him. I don't need all the other stuff, I just want to know him, and I think that's the simplicity of it and that's where the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, those things. And so those are fruits that, at least in the abundance, god wants us to have. Them I can't produce.

Speaker 1 1:09:07

Well, that's the point. Yes, Right. And it's like, when we look at the fruit of the Spirit, it's not something that we're producing, it's just something that is a product of the Spirit in our life.

Speaker 4 1:09:23

Yeah, and I think about it too. People will say like well, you've got the fruit of gentleness or you've got the fruit of joy, but like the spirit is all those things?

Speaker 1 1:09:36

yeah, I was gonna say that's a package deal, that's not like a spiritual gift thing like I have the spiritual gift of criticizing people. Yeah I have.

Speaker 4 1:09:43

I don't think that's a spiritual gift, but and so, so you look at it, it's no like if the Spirit's operating in you. All these things are manifesting in your life, and we know how the fruit is produced is produced by abiding in Jesus. And you know, if we abide in him, then he'll produce much fruit in our life. But apart from him, we can do nothing. Apart from him, we're left with our flesh and our ability, which doesn't do much. We know what our ability earns. The wages of what we can earn is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And so, man, simplicity is something we've really lost in just knowing Jesus.

Speaker 1 1:10:34

Well, and it is a simple thing, that he's called us to Love God, love people. That's it. If we will take everything, every situation that we're facing and every decision that we need to make, and lay it against those two things as a litmus test, if I make this decision to do this, is that representing that I love God and that I love people It'll change. It'll change how you make a decision. You know it's not I mean, it's not that hard. We make it so complicated. We make our own lives so complicated because we we base our decisions, we base, we base what we're gonna do or where we're gonna live, or or whatever, off of the wrong information yeah you know, and it is simple, and a lot of the stuff we think we have to have we don't.

Speaker 4 1:11:32

And so, for example, I was at a baseball tournament my son was playing in and it was over the weekend. And, yes, I do go to my son's baseball games on Sunday and if you don't like that, again, I have an email, brandon, at idontgiveacrapcom, so you're welcome to send it to that. But I'm going to be there with my kid and if I'm dependent upon the church to disciple my son, then I'm in the wrong thought process anyway. So we're at the tournament. Well, the director of the program asked me if I'd start doing a devotion on Sundays. I'm like, yeah, so after the game on Sunday, get everybody together. And I just shared what had been on my heart is that passage Some people trust in chariots, some horses. We trust in the name of the Lord, our God.

Speaker 4 1:12:23

I shared it five minutes Two young guys that I actually helped coach with more of a mentor to them as they're growing as coaches come up to me One of them literally would get to games like not late to the game starting but to our call time to be at the field. He would get there late every time because he's out partying and he's trying to just get there right. He's out partying and he's trying to just get there Right. The other one, I mean honestly I love them, but there's they. They've lost his ball in high weeds when it comes to spiritual things. One of them comes up to me literally with tears in his eyes and he's like I want to talk to you more about this. Like you know, that helped me connect some dots.

Speaker 4 1:13:10

Well then the other one told me two other times, like man, that really meant a lot to me and so that weekend kind of planted a seed. The next time we were together. We're on the phone and we're we're going to talk about like the next day and playing for the game and all this stuff. Well, we spend 25 minutes just talking about the gospel and laying it out there and they're like this is like stuff we've never heard. Like one of them had grown up in a catholic school.

Speaker 4 1:13:45

Then he went and played baseball at a southern baptist school and so he was like I went from the catholic school to, all of a sudden I got a dude at like this in my face and he's like stop doing that you know, and like um, so he was like I don't, he's just confused and so, but he was like man, this is connecting so many dots and I say that, say like that was just shared on the side of baseball field, you know, and simple, right, and and yet god uses it in ways that and I couldn't make that happen.

Speaker 4 1:14:25

And the simplicity of it is is cool and you know, I was thinking about, with the, you talking about west, the numbers of 935 and 540, and then next week we'll have a bunch, there'll be a bunch of youngins at that bbs and we'll know how many there were. But the thing is like it doesn't matter how many people are present if we're void of his presence, like it doesn't matter if he's not there. Nothing happens of eternal value and that simplicity of that of have I created space for the presence of god right, yeah, that, okay.

Speaker 1 1:15:10

I'm glad you said that, because he's going to be there, right? We don't go somewhere and take the Holy Spirit with us. He's there already, right? That's part of what we believe about God is that he's omnipresent, he's everywhere, right, but we'll create things. Let's just look at it from our lives. We'll create such a packed schedule that we don't leave space for the holy spirit to work. Yep, you know, I, I, I put it like this we're always we. We practice something every day, like you'll. You'll see, a doctor is practicing medicine and or a lawyer is practicing law, or whatever like that. So those two things, it makes sense for us to view it as a practice. Well, every one of us is practicing something every day. We're either practicing letting the Holy Spirit have his way with our life, or we're practicing holding the Holy Spirit back. We're doing one of those two things every single day.

Speaker 4 1:16:13

Well, and he's a person, right, he's not a it, he's not a thing.

Speaker 4 1:16:18

He is a person who is grieved, you know, who has all of the personality traits that we would have. And I say he's a person, he's God, but it's not like he's a person, he's God, but it's not like he's a thing, it's not like he's electricity, that is a thing that just shows up and there's power, like he is God among us now. Right, if God, the Father, is in heaven and Jesus is seated at his right hand, then who's with us right now? And, like you said, like we've got to make room for him, we can crowd him out with just busyness. We can crowd him out with our own plans, we can crowd him out with you know all these other things. And sometimes I think, even in church, we're like okay, holy Spirit, we got a place for you over here in the corner and if we need you we'll call on you. But we got this. And I think that can be a challenge for all of us is we can get so good at doing Christianity that it's not even Christianity anymore.

Speaker 1 1:17:29

Yeah, oh man, and the truth is that pushes people away from the church.

Speaker 4 1:17:35

Well, and why would we want them there if the presence of God isn't?

Speaker 3 1:17:41

there.

Speaker 4 1:17:42

Because all that's going to do is leave them more disillusioned than they were when they walked in. Yeah, if what we read in Scripture isn't happening in the church and they read scripture for the first time, well, this is apples and oranges. Why is this not lining up Like? And it's not that we're going to be perfect, and I think we can be transparent about that and not even really talking about behavior? I'm talking more about the presence of God, which is what should separate God's people from the world. More than anything is God's presence working among us. But if people come in and we're like, you know, this is what we believe and this is who God is, and he's real and he's active and he's alive, and they come in and all it is is, you know, is if they went to another gathering that put on a program, and if that's all it is, then heck, I can do that without being with the body of believers, you know and I think it's just simplifying it to the presence of god like am.

Speaker 4 1:18:55

Am I personally in an intimate relationship with god, and are we, as god's people, making room for him in our lives, corporately so?

Speaker 1 1:19:08

you know, um so 10 days ago or so, phil Robertson graduated to glory, and so they've been you know, it's been in the news a little bit and the family has been putting a lot of stuff out and they do a podcast and I was listening to it. I was listening to one yesterday while I was working and, by the way, way, that's why we don't do a video with our podcast. We've thought about it, we've actually even tried and then I sit and I think and I'm like I don't want somebody sitting for an hour and a half or two hours watching a video of us talking. Yeah, that's like that.

Speaker 4 1:19:46

That is, that is a productivity killer that I just can't live with, even though, like like you guys, are incredible looking, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19:54

Handsome. You know we're all put together. We get up here early in the morning, you know. Yeah, I mean, but yeah, so anyway, they're talking about his life and everything. And they were talking about how he was. His whole life was about sharing the gospel because of what Jesus did for him, the change that it made in his life, and everything. And Jace was telling a story yesterday on the podcast. Jace is one of his sons.

Speaker 1 1:20:25

He was telling a story on the podcast yesterday about how they can remember um hunting on public land and um, you would be close enough to another group that you could hear them talking and he said their conversation and our conversation was so different. Yeah, you know, they're over there telling stories and um and laughing and cutting up and and you know you would hear cussing and stuff like that going on. And we're over here and we've got somebody that we don't know in the blind with us and Phil sitting here telling them the gospel and then you know saying, keep your face down, Don't look up, Don't look up, Our boys cut them and then they kill birds and then he'd go right back to telling them the gospel again and um, you know it. Just it was woven into who he was, and you know we look at somebody like Phil. You know he referred to himself as a low-tech man in a high-tech world.

Speaker 4 1:21:20

He didn't have a cell phone.

Speaker 1 1:21:23

Simplicity man. He has no idea the impact he had on social media. Absolutely not Right. Social media Absolutely not Right. I mean, there's untold millions of people that heard the story of the gospel because of him and he did it somehow while living an extremely private life.

Speaker 2 1:21:44

You know about halfway through the Duck Dynasty era. Do you remember how the show used to sign off?

Speaker 1 1:21:52

with the prayer every night. Yeah, the table.

Speaker 2 1:21:55

All I'm sitting at the table with the prayer Yep Sure did Yep, Absolutely.

Speaker 3 1:21:58

I think I mean just Phil Robertson in general, the unashamed podcast you're referring to, like just pure gold and they, they talk nothing.

Speaker 3 1:22:08

I mean they talk about hunting just like we're doing, but they are preaching the gospel at every corner of that and when Phil was still on it and doing well, like just hearing him talk and I mean us as men we're looking towards, obviously, a father, an earthly father or a heavenly father, but he was just a man's man, a guy that any of us could look up to and just knowing the, the hard life that he lived and and how, the, how Christ changed his life, I mean that's just something that we can all look at and, um, I think it's just the Lord put him in a place and gave him a platform and he used it to the nth degree, and I think that's something us, as Christ followers and men of God, whatever platforms we have putting, God first.

Speaker 1 1:23:04

What are?

Speaker 3 1:23:05

we doing with it? Because you look at someone like Phil that took it to the nth degree. Like you said, he didn't really know the, the, the social media side, or he didn't know the, the podcast he was listening to. He's not counting the millions of people that are listening to it, but all he knows is he's keeping the main thing, the main thing, and I think that's important for us to to look at and and to emulate as well. Yeah, keeping it simple.

Speaker 2 1:23:30

Keep it simple. Have you ever seen the very, very first videos he ever did?

Speaker 3 1:23:37

Yeah, oh, my goodness, they're pretty. That's Doug Killian Killers. I'm talking about killers.

Speaker 2 1:23:44

They would go out in the swamp and they would spend the night in the blind, him and Coco. So an hour before daylight, coco would get in the boat and go run the shadnets while phil cooked breakfast right there, and then they'd meet back up and just kill ducks. I mean, I don't know how they did it without getting over the limit.

Speaker 3 1:24:05

I don't either.

Speaker 2 1:24:06

It was there was no instructional part of it, it was just just out there, it's just banging ducks. I mean old, sweet 16 shotguns, just killing ducks. And one more thing, brandon, as a baseball high school umpire, would you please have that devotion before the game with the parents? They're the ones that need it. Yes.

Speaker 4 1:24:34

Oh no, and I know I think about that a lot. That's a tough, tough deal and as a coach I try to handle those situations well, as in, you know, going to talk to an umpire versus yelling across the field, you know, because nobody's perfect and there are going to be things that we disagree on. In fact, the last tournament we were at there was a play at home plate. The catcher tags our guy literally on his rear end.

Speaker 4 1:25:12

He's about 6'2" so his look like they're on the plate and so I walked in. I remember the umpire's name. His name was Matthew, a young guy. I let the inning in, I said Matthew. I said you sure Like are you sure? And kind of just messing with him a little bit and he was like he got him and they were thinking like I was going to appeal to the guy in the field and I'm like I can't appeal that, that's not his call.

Speaker 4 1:25:42

No, that's not what I want. And the guy comes up, the other guy, and you know I can understand this, but umpires, like I feel like a lot of them are already on edge. Oh, sure they are Because they're used to getting yelled at and used to the argument on everything. And so the other, the field umpire, walks up and he goes. I got him out, coach, and I'm like I wasn't even going to ask you.

Speaker 4 1:26:12

And I was like I don't even think that's your call, like I'm not one of those coaches like you're, you're 90 feet away from this. How can you see it better than he did? And so I just was like what did you see, man? He's like I just thought I saw him, he had, he tagged him before his hands got to the plate. And what am I gonna say to that?

Baseball, Umpiring, and Christian Witness

Speaker 4 1:26:27

like the only things that really aggravate me are when someone doesn't know the rules or they're just lazy those are the two things that drive me crazy, and but there's judgment calls and it's just like life, you're gonna get some things wrong and that's part of it, and so, um, yeah, but I, I sometimes I'm at games and I like I don't know why these guys do this, and I've been guilty too of not look, a baseball field is where I'm at my worst, probably because of the competitive nature of it, of the competitive nature of it. And so for these guys that I'm coaching with to come to me and, literally on the phone, tell me that I'm and this blows me away, cause I'm like y'all ain't been around- very many good people Cause they said you are probably our favorite person we've ever been around and I'm like that's a pretty high compliment and I'm like do y'all see me?

Speaker 3 1:27:40

like, are you sure?

Speaker 4 1:27:41

you talking about me, and the thing about it, though, is like, with the world the way it is today, it doesn't take much to separate. The bar is not real high, y'all. I mean, you know what I'm saying, like it's not real high, and so, but I do understand, like, what you're saying, and maybe the devotion needs to happen before you know, yeah, and so one thing as an umpire, I hear very little that comes out of the stands.

Speaker 4 1:28:12

Yeah, I mean, I don't listen to that. Yeah, you could. I don't listen to that at all.

Speaker 2 1:28:15

Yeah, and I absolutely invite a coach to come and talk to me, but as they're on their way out there, the first question I ask you is what's your question?

Speaker 4 1:28:27

Yes.

Speaker 2 1:28:27

You know, I don't want to hear that. I thought it was outside or I thought it was blue. Could you get help? I think he missed the tag, sure.

Speaker 4 1:28:36

Yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 1:28:39

So it's all about. And you asked my wife. She told me the other day. She said I have never seen you study anything like you study these rule books, yeah.

Speaker 4 1:28:55

As an umpire if you walk out and ask me a question and I can quote rule book verbiage to you, yep, now you're like oh, okay and you know and and the the challenging thing that I don't know how you guys do it which, if you just call high school or something, I can understand it, but wherever you go and whatever age group you're calling, has a different set of rules.

Speaker 1 1:29:14

Yeah, you and I have talked about that before. I've got 12U next week.

Speaker 2 1:29:20

It's like the state championships or something here in Statesboro and they haven't gotten me a copy of the rules yet. Now I can quote you in FHS rules but, there's just certain little things that they do, you know, can they steal, can they lead? I don't know.

Speaker 4 1:29:35

You don't know it yet Let me ask you this question In high school can you enter a batter without, or can you let someone go to the plate and hit without entering them into the game?

Speaker 2 1:29:48

Yes, that's called an unannounced substitution. Okay, so if it's a legal substitution, then you know, let's say, john's team sent a batter to the plate to bat and then you caught it and said, hey, okay, that's just an unannounced substitution. We're going to write it down, coach, he's substituting it.

Speaker 4 1:30:10

So, yes, you can do that All right, because that was a situation that came up. That's totally a rabbit trail as long as it's a legal substitution.

Speaker 2 1:30:19

Yeah, If it's a batting out of order situation.

Speaker 4 1:30:21

Yeah, that's a totally different deal.

Speaker 2 1:30:24

But if he comes to bat and he is a legal batter it's just an unreported substitution.

Speaker 4 1:30:27

I got you Just an unreported substitution. I got you Cool. Well, I didn't mean to go down that rabbit trail, but it was a situation that came up Good fun fact though.

Speaker 2 1:30:34

You talk about. I've got 12 of you this week. Then next Thursday we have a camp in Augusta that you must attend to be able to call in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 1:30:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:30:48

Then when I leave there Thursday night and drive to Woodstock and I have a three-day ncaa softball camp. Now you're talking about rule differences. Yes, you're watching the college world series softball world series like that. There was some controversy last night.

Speaker 2 1:31:05

Holy cow yeah it was something yeah, it was a game one, two one, and there was a play at second base and it's all about obstruction, obstruction. You can't obstruct the base, you can't do this. And the umpire called the girl out and they reviewed it and the higher-ups said no, she's safe because it was obstruction.

Speaker 2 1:31:27

And you've got half the world saying no, it wasn't, and half the world saying yes, it was. And they've got half the world saying no, it wasn't, half the world saying yes it was. And they're mad at the umpires, but the umpires are calling it the way the rules are written and people don't understand the rules committee is made up of six people. Five of them are college coaches.

Speaker 4 1:31:42

Yeah, one of them's an umpire yeah, he has no vote yeah, but you know it's, so it's another funny situation um, we had it was an umpire and it was a bang-bang play and I really don't argue judgment calls because a lot of it's pointless. And so I walk out between innings and I'm actually going over to Coach First Base and I walked by him and I was like I called his name, I don't remember now. I said how close was it and he goes. Man was like I called his name, I don't remember. Now. I said how close was it and he goes. Man, he goes. I'll be honest with you, it could have gone either way he goes. I was going to make half the people in this park mad one way or the other. He said because it was that close and I was like, okay, and you know. So, just talking to him, the only time that I get really aggravated is if I try to do it the right way. Like we had a guy this kid was just balking on every pitch.

Speaker 1 1:32:36

I mean, it was obviously a balk.

Speaker 4 1:32:38

And so after the inning I went and picked up the bat from home plate and I didn't look at him. I didn't say I didn't, I just said, hey, I think he's balking about every pitch and I was going to turn around and walk away and he goes. He's not balking coach, and he keeps chirping at me as I'm walking away.

Speaker 4 1:32:54

And then I turned around and this is where I'm the worst. Right, he goes coach, another word. And I'm like I haven't even hardly said anything. He said another word and you're out of here. And I was like, hey, I got a truck. If you want to throw me out, I'll out. I'll be glad to go home, you know, and so. But those are the kind of things where you try not to show somebody up but then like, handle it the right way to, you know, and if people knew how hard some umpires work yes to be good at the craft.

Speaker 2 1:33:27

We have a whole website that's put out by a guy in atlanta and he does a podcade, a podcast, but he also has video series and going into the playoffs. One of the videos they did was an hour long and it was about how to keep coaches in the game.

Speaker 4 1:33:43

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:33:44

How to handle those situations. That's right, you don't want to throw that coach out. Once you've thrown him out now he's got to sit out the next game too.

Speaker 4 1:33:49

That's right. During the playoffs.

Speaker 2 1:33:51

Yeah, how do we keep those coaches in the game?

Speaker 4 1:33:56

Yeah, and that's a great thing, but yeah, so I guess we digressed into baseball. But it is good, though I mean, and to think about all right, how am I representing Christ everywhere? And you know, I tell our church a lot like you see, the best 40 minutes of my life after this is downhill. So because it is challenging, you know, to consistently let him be seen in you. When the world's throwing all kind of stuff at you, you know, whether it's at a baseball field or Walmart or Lowe's or driving down the road, you know.

Speaker 1 1:34:37

Lowe's will get you, especially when you're trying to return something.

Speaker 4 1:34:43

Man, I've heard that's rough. You said that about you know telling somebody that prison ain't all that bad you know, and that's what I tell them at the gate when I go into the Lowe's lumberyard. Hey prison ain't that bad.

Speaker 4 1:34:58

You need to get somebody to come help me. So every time I go back there I'm like I look at my watch and I'm like, well, here goes two hours, yeah, and literally yesterday I had to go pick something up and it was at least an hour, hour and a half, and I'm just going to pick up something I ordered, and so sorry to those employees.

Speaker 1 1:35:20

Jesus loves you too.

Speaker 4 1:35:21

Yeah, they do that's tough, but do better.

Speaker 2 1:35:26

Do better, for sure.

Speaker 1 1:35:28

Oh man, All right. Well, good stuff.