Lasting Impact
Welcome to "Lasting Impact," the podcast that dives deep into the stories and insights of extraordinary individuals who are leaving an indelible mark on the world. Here, we'll explore the transformative power of their actions and innovations in the realms of business, ministry, and community. Our guests are the change-makers, the visionaries, and the unsung heroes whose unwavering dedication and passion have not only made an impact but a lasting one. Prepare to be inspired, informed, and empowered as we explore the stories behind the lasting impact these remarkable individuals are creating.
Lasting Impact
What if your greatest breakthrough looked like failure?
Gabe George, son of Pastor Willie George, spent years chasing purpose in the shadow of ministry success. From unexpected church leadership to planting a church in L.A., he believed achievement would bring clarity. Instead, it led to burnout, surrender—and ultimately, freedom.
In this vulnerable conversation, Gabe shares how letting go of control became the beginning of real identity. If you've ever wrestled with validation, calling, or feeling like you're not enough, this episode will meet you right where you are.
The older I get, the less I know, the less sure I am about those things that used to really concern me. And now I feel he's leading me, he has this figured out.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Lasting Impact Podcast. I'm your host, mark Marroquin. Join me as I sit down with remarkable individuals making a meaningful difference in business and ministry. We'll explore their stories, challenges and successes, all with the goal of encouraging you to go out and make a lasting impact. If you love what you hear, don't forget to rate, review and share. Welcome to Lasting Impact, gabe George. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2:And I'm honored to have you. For those listening that may not know you, tell us a little about yourself.
Speaker 1:Well, 46 years old, I am a son, I am a brother, married for 25 years. We just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last week, or something close to that. I have two kids. I say kids loosely. They're 22 and about to be 21. They're both at Oral Roberts University, down the street from our house, which is great. So technically I'm an empty nester, but it doesn't always feel like that. I'm an empty nester four days a week, and so it's good practice. And yeah, I've lived in Tulsa most of my life, a couple of stints away. I was in Dallas for a year in the early 2000s and in Los Angeles for three years, and I love living in Tulsa, living in big cities. It's kind of nice to be able to park in front of the place you want to go into for free. So I like it here.
Speaker 1:Easy to get around and it's home. Yeah. And so I'm in ministry. I've been in ministry most of my life. Yeah. In various capacities, yep, and so I don't see that changing anytime soon. Yeah, and yeah. Yeah, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I'm so glad to have you here. No pressure on this, but you're one of the most funniest. Your humor is awesome. Thank you. When you speak at our church or at an event that I'm at, you really know how to deliver very meaningful message. And then you dabble in your humor and sometimes it's dry and there's been times where it's kind of animated, but it's something I look forward to all the time, or every time, just to lay a little groundwork here.
Speaker 2:Your dad is Pastor Willie George. He's the founding pastor of Church on the Move here in Tulsa, oklahoma. He was Gospel Bill, which was a big deal. Started a TV show for children delivering God's word, god's message. He's started Drag Alts USA, the Christmas Train, lincoln Christian School, where I know you send your kids and I send my kids currently, and Rocker W.
Speaker 2:He has got a ranch now and I think that's just the stuff that me, as an outsider, know about. I'm sure there's more obviously so to lay that foundation of this Titan. This pioneer is your dad and don't want to make the podcast about that, but that's just obviously a big part of who you are With. That said, did you always know that you'd be in ministry? It's the family business.
Speaker 1:No, and this is true for my brother as well. I can't speak to his deep knowings, but neither of us really felt like we would be in ministry. I don't know if we thought too far ahead on that. There was such a distinction in those days late 80s, early 90s, even late 90s of just teenage guys and men and men dressed like men and acted like men and we were just boys is what it felt like. And so the people who were in ministry were three-piece suits and just serious people. It's like man of God stuff.
Speaker 1:So, you didn't sit around thinking about how you were going to get into ministry. It felt like if we were going to get into ministry it had to be some sort of significant God-appeared moment and then, little by little, that's where we end up, and it was step by step. We didn't begin in any kind of ministry capacity, it was just grunt work, laying sod and collating curriculum and doing all the stuff that no one else wanted to do. And my dad would make us do that in the summers and it was often a form of punishment that we would have to go and do manual labor.
Speaker 1:And he taught us how to work and he didn't give anything to us, and so we worked hard at the church. I was a designer, was my first stint graphic designer for years at the church. I built my brother into that. It's interesting, my brother's two and a half years older than me and I ended up following a lot of his trajectory, and I would say that's probably what Witt did the most is, even though I wouldn't have said I want to go where he goes, I'm going to follow him and everything he does. In fact I would have probably said the opposite, but he did lay groundwork and I didn't realize it, but that's what he did, because the bridge between, I guess, the younger generation and those adults I spoke of began to be filled by I would. My brother would be the first one, I would imagine, to have bridged the gap. And so he was a designer and I was a designer, and after several years he jumped into youth ministry.
Speaker 1:And he was in worship a little bit, but more of a guitar player, more of a rock star, a rock star worship guy, if that exists. He was making it exist. Yeah, he was doing it. And then my first ministry stint was 2006 in Frisco, texas. Went down there to plant a church with Blaine Bartell. Yeah. Wasn't there very long. It wasn't an ideal situation. Came back to Tulsa and oversaw the children's ministry. So honestly it just felt like ministry was. It was like the next right thing to do is the best way I could describe it, stepping into it.
Speaker 1:There, there were moments, for sure, that felt like, you know, mountaintop with God, moments. It's like this is what I'm supposed to do and and God is calling me you could sense something, I'll say. You could just sense something in your heart that God was doing something, and it always felt big, it always felt exciting and it always felt imminent that something massive was maybe about to happen. And it never did. It was always just take another step and keep moving. And so I had some moments that felt strong with God, but I just kept taking the next step and I never thought I would speak. I didn't really think about it. I didn't think too deeply about where am I going, at least as far as an intentional plan or strategy. I just felt like I was on a ride and who knows where it's going to go.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I got into it gradually. I love that.
Speaker 2:I do have a question and this could be odd. I don't know if it's odd or not, but so let's take ministry aside could have a trade which is design, like it was graphic design, is that right? Yeah um, so I I think that I always thought that was cool about you and your brother. Just like you're, you're, you could be in the arts as well. Like you, have an eye for design, or is that, did you?
Speaker 2:oh well, I know you've, I know there's been jokes that you drew as a kid and we they. Those were always like for the punchline stuff but. I didn't know if that was like. Was that a true gift? I would.
Speaker 1:I would like to know about a good artist, okay went, was a really good artist and so often we would sit in the room and draw together and I would draw and we'd draw, you know, michael jordan and bo jackson and and Mike Tyson and that sort of stuff, just pictures out of Sports Illustrated. And I would look at Witt's drawings and then I would throw mine away because his were just better, he was just better at it and he was. He was better. Witt was definitely more creative in lots of ways and had creative ideas and all that I got into design I was doing. I started working at the church whenever I wanted to marry my wife and I dropped out of college to save money and so I was working in the partner services area and it was just the worst. And so after six months or so I asked my dad if he would mind if I switched over to design and just started to learn, and so, just out of survival, I switched and then I definitely have a creative Ben to a degree. I don't think you get around me and think man, he's so creative.
Speaker 1:To me design was problem solving. I could certainly see the aesthetic of it and design we were good designers, yeah, but I it's funny I never would have necessarily said. You know what? I'm a designer through and through. It was just again. It was like the next thing to do and I had a knack for it. I still design. Every once in a while it comes in handy, um, but I I wouldn't say, you know, I think that's probably why I designed for six years.
Speaker 1:I think that's probably why I took the next step into the beginnings of ministries, because I knew there was something more. I knew I didn't want to go and commit myself to working in a design firm designing for clients and people that I didn't maybe necessarily believe in what it was they were doing, or just menial tasks, corporate work. I didn't want to do that. And I'd been working for the church for so long and design to me it seemed like an eternity and I designed everything there was to design and I just I got bored with it. I, I needed something to fight. Yeah, and that's kind of how I'm wired up. It's like I need something to do. Yeah, and we had solved the problem and then it was time to move on and the moving on was definitely more ministerial. Yeah, but it was very small, a very small start. Sure, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, well, you, you recently, um, and you have a rich history, of course, of being at the church and and all the department you you've served.
Speaker 1:you had a long history, every one of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have a long history of um get a huge stint there of running the children's department at our church and you oversaw that, so obviously that's big and heavy. I want to specifically talk about your time in LA. Yeah, you recently spoke at our Brotherhood Breakfast and we always love having you man so cool to have you and always glad that you say yes to that invitation.
Speaker 2:Always glad that you say yes to that invitation. But I want to talk about your. You brought up going to LA, and so there was a time in your life that you and your family were called to go plant a church in Los.
Speaker 3:Angeles. Yeah, I mean, I don't think most people know what church planting is and it just like you know what.
Speaker 2:I want to start going into some of that stuff because you started basing some stuff off of that move. You know I want to start. I want to start with this. You said something similar. You said something similar. You went there to plant something and you ended up killing something or something inside you that God was leading to. But let's start back with and you don't have to spend forever on this what is church planting Like? If someone's listening and they're saying like, what does he mean to go out? And is it the same thing to start a church?
Speaker 1:or plant a church. Yeah, you're founding a church, and so there are even terms within that. So parachuting means that you fly into a place that you don't know anyone, you didn't live there, you don't live there, you don't have a huge group of people there, you just feel a connection to a city and that's where you go. That's what we did. So my wife is from Southern California, but she's from Palm Desert, so she's 100 miles east of LA, somewhere around there, and so we had family out there, but not, in effect, anything that we did in Los Angeles. I just felt like I was supposed to be in north of LA. It's the easiest way. I mean through a lot of prayer.
Speaker 1:It was where I felt like I was supposed to go. I had stepped well, I had stepped out of the church in 2014 and really stepping out is a gracious term. I was asked by my dad to leave Now. It was just the tension of there's something else, there's wanting to fight, something new, and I knew that at the church there was nothing around me that I felt a conviction about.
Speaker 1:We were over the children's department, did that for seven years. I love that. It was a very special thing. It's very noble work, which always sort of helped stave off those inner longings because you were doing good things and at the time my kids were young. I think when we went to LA, my daughter was a seventh grader, my son was a fifth grader, so he had come up through all of our work. It was really special to be over the children's department while my kids were of the age to be affected by it.
Speaker 1:And then it came time to go and I knew I had been wrestling for really two years this would have been 2012, 2014, just wrestling with what it was, what's next and how I had lived my life up to that point as a follower of Christ, but not really a personal relationship, not that I didn't believe, but I didn't know his voice very well. I didn't have the confidence to ask. I asked for things here and there, but I wouldn't sit and go. God told me this. That was my dad. God told me this. God told me that and I felt like, well, I don't know what that's like, god doesn't talk to me that way. And so I had just always done the next right thing. Well, la was the first time I was determined to hear the voice of God and, in fact, because I had experienced a tension in my departure from Church on the Move, it was God. I don't want to go do what I want to do. I don't even know what that would be and I'm not going to go out there and try to just talk to people and see what they think I should do. I am determined to hear from you, because there's no point to trying to figure this out on my own. It's your way or nothing. And so, in that I didn't hear a voice. I actually requested to hear an audible voice, which doesn't happen often, because I needed the confidence. Like Lord, I need to know it's you. Well, I had a leading in my heart that grew and the leading in my heart was to plant a church, and it was north of LA. Now, that was also something that I would have chosen.
Speaker 1:My wife eventually, during our transitional period in May of 2014, asked me if you could go anywhere, where would you go? I was very hesitant to ask because, again, I felt like who cares where I want to go? This isn't about me, it's about where God wants me. But I eventually answered the question. If I could choose, I would go to California. I always wanted to live in California, always. I love the weather. It was a place I was drawn to since I was a kid. We went and visited LA when I was, I think, five and I just there was something about California and something about Los Angeles, honestly, and I always loved cities. I love big cities. I like the energy, the excitement, my family and vacation. We never went to big cities.
Speaker 1:We go to the mountains and and and to remote areas, and my parents are from West Texas, so they never wanted to go to a city, and in those days you'd have to navigate the city via Atlas. Yeah, so it's probably wise that they do it, uh, but I always wanted to go where the excitement was Love that, and so you know, I, I, I felt led to go to north of LA.
Speaker 1:I did not know exactly what north of LA meant First time we went out there just to explore. It was devastating, honestly, because I mean, it's a jungle, truly, and it and nothing is normal, nothing is familiar, there's no place you go and it's like this feels like home. It just feels like a war zone of sorts, wow, and I had kids. And.
Speaker 1:I'm like where are we going to live? I had a budget. My budget would have got us all murdered, and so I'm like I've got to double that if we're going to survive. And then there's the financial tension, tension and there to start a church, which I knew church, but I knew mega church. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I knew a church whenever I had the capacity to have a payroll yeah, that's right and a budget and people, not just me and so we went out there and explored. We ended up landing in this little town called San Marino. It sounds quaint, it's a neat little town, but it's all. It's LA County, it's south of Pasadena, it's all um it. It it's, it's a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a lot, and so we go out there, find a place to live, and then the the church planting. There's a lot of behind the scenes structure that we had help, some help with, but then you've got to. You've got to build a church, and what that looks like at first is you have to find people that want to help you. Well, looking back, it would have been a lot smarter to go to a town that had a lot of Christians and if they are out there, I didn't find too many of them and so we had to slowly but surely develop people and relationships.
Speaker 1:You know, the biggest thing I would say is there's not a lot of trust. La is a use you town, and so people have a dream. They're all out there, they all got a dream, and people are looking for other people to help facilitate their dream, and so in order to build the church and to build a team, you've got to convince people that you're not there to just take from them, and so it was just a lot of meeting with people, coffees, meals, people in our house, serving, serving, serving, serving, and you do that till you develop, I think we had to have 35 people to, which is a tiny number, and this was the.
Speaker 1:this was the, the, the hardest part at the time, Churchill and the move, I don't know. 8,000, 10,000 people. Yeah, you go out there and it's like we need 35 people, which sounds so pitiful, and to me it sounded so pitiful, Until you get out there and you know no one and you think 35 is a miracle of.
Speaker 2:God yeah.
Speaker 1:Just to get anyone on your side. Yeah, and we got there. It Just to get anyone on your side. And we got there. It took a while, but we got there. And then you have to find a building, and our building was four times the budget. Everything was harder, everything.
Speaker 1:And when I felt like and I still say this God called me out there, I believe it wholeheartedly, but not for the reasons that I thought I had always looked for a place to belong here and I had a place to belong, but I didn't feel like I belonged. There were just little things and really it's just life. I'm a younger brother. My brother is the senior pastor of the church. I didn't feel like it was not at all a competition for who would get that one. I didn't know that either of us would have it. I honestly thought my dad would preach until the day he died or until Jesus came back to get us, which seemed like it made more sense. And so we you know, whit and I never talked about who do you think it will be, and I didn't ever think, well, maybe the church will be passed to me one day. I just didn't. I did what was asked of me to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But there were things in me that I just couldn't settle and I didn't know what it was. Honestly. It's meaning, it's purpose, it's finding that fit where everything it's like the tuning fork in your soul where you're doing something that's like this, is it Sort of the Disney fairy tale ending? And I didn't get that. I didn't feel like I had that, and my problem back then was I thought that that's what I needed. I thought that's what I was looking for. So I was looking for things to satisfy me.
Speaker 1:Where would I love to be? What would I love? What's missing? Maybe if I live in a climate that in January doesn't look like misery. Maybe if everything's green and beautiful, the beauty, the beach and all that. Maybe an exciting town, maybe a meaningful purpose?
Speaker 1:I mean, to me there was no higher calling than to be a pastor, which is probably why I never assumed I would do it. And then, whenever I felt like God was calling me to LA, I thought, well, god has big plans, you know, and I wasn't one to just be narcissistic about it. I was hopeful but at the same time, internally, I doubted deeply, just in myself. You know I, who am I to do this? You know just but thinking God will do it and thinking I'll become like my dad. That's what I thought. I thought I'll now's the time where I finally become like him.
Speaker 1:And you said it he did a lot of things, uh, started a lot of things, pioneered a lot of things, and so you feel small, as a son a lot and you're trying to figure out where you fit and what you're to do and where's your impact. And so to me, la represented an answer to all those questions. And then I got out there and I realized we were there for three years and I realized that that it was crushing me the weight and the burden of the church, of the financial responsibility, the slowness of the growth. I felt like we had grace with people and that we had relationships and it meant the world to us, honestly, those people, but we didn't have numerical grace where it's just like it exploded. We were doing well and it's a hard part of the world to plant a church in, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't silence the voices of criticism in your mind, Right? And so we went out there and I realized something had to give. After three years I was like I can't keep doing this, Not like this. And it wasn't good for my kids. My daughter was a freshman and they were doing online school because the schools were tricky and the private schools were more money than Harvard, and so there was no way to do that and I didn't want that for them. I didn't want them to not have a life. Their life was the church and I knew that wasn't great. We're a close family but I still this isn't it, this can't be.
Speaker 1:And after three years I really felt strongly that we were supposed to come back here, and I had a conversation with my brother. It was so meaningful that it kind of was the seed that developed that. So we ended up back here. I moved back here 2018 in August and I turned 40 a few days after we got back. I didn't realize I never thought about age, I never thought about being 40. I never thought about a midlife crisis. I was like who cares.
Speaker 1:But coming back and being here and turning 40, and all of it hitting at once, the death of a dream, it was mourning, yeah, and it was very rattling to my soul because I felt like, when I got back, one I don't know what I'm doing here. I know I'm doing this for my kids, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I had a job at the church. I worked at the church, but even that we were just sort of exploring and I was just like what am I doing? And I felt too old to have the time to do something great, which is funny. It's like I'm 40 years old and now I'm done. You just feel old all of a sudden and that life is for young men and I just felt small, I felt in a sense pitied and I just just little things in me. Just like I said this morning, it was the death of my dream and only recently honestly, the last maybe three months, six months do I realize that's exactly why God brought me out there to kill something in me that needed to die, so that I could live that feeling of where do I fit? Where do I belong? I've got to go find it. I've got to figure it out. I don't fit here. I'm not like them.
Speaker 1:Something about me is different. I'm a middle child, you know, and all the, all the the wonderful things that go with that. And so there were, there were, and then, you know, everyone seems to have a place. I have two younger sisters and so it was a little bit different with them, but but it was like the, the inheritance of the church went to my brother and I don't. I don't know where I fit in the world that I was born into. Yeah, and it's this ecosystem and you just don't know. It's like I want to fit, but at the same time I don't want anything handed to me. I don't want to be, I don't want it to be made for me to fit. And so it was God's grace to me to to take me to a place and show me that the thing that I thought I wanted, that would make me happy, didn't make me happy and he broke me gently. Honestly, it wasn't a devastating thing, but it just brought me to the end of my rope internally and I knew all right, I'm kind of like a two, I kind of like a, like a two-year-old you, you pick up and he's squirming and he's throwing a fit and you hold him and he doesn't want to be held, and so he just rides until he stops and then he just is exhausted and maybe even falls asleep on your shoulder. That was what was happening to me.
Speaker 1:I, I, I was writing until finally I just gave up and then it was God, I'll do whatever you want me to do, and I meant it. I didn't have a list of requirements, and it's amazing because that's when things began to change, or I would say, come alive, and it was true lordship. And you could say lordship because it's like, well, that's when I began to really say you are lord, like whatever you want. But really to me, what it was, it was dependency as a son, it was like Lord, father, father, you are the only one who can help me and I'm dependent upon that and I trust that you'll take care of me and I trust that you know what's best for me. And I can't figure this out on my own.
Speaker 1:And that's when God LA was the beginning of him cutting the cord with me and my dad not relationally, but just my dad's voice was so significant in my life. I knew God through my dad, if I'm honest. And then that having a moment where God turned my head from my dad to him, and so then the next thing was like well, let's deal with this. In you, this, this honestly a little bit of an outlaw, a little bit of a rebel. Yeah, that's what la is. Yeah, it attracts rebels. It's like there's something out there that's magnetic and it calls you I no doubt yeah, and so you know that needed to die.
Speaker 1:And when it died, that's when things really began to come alive and contentment became possible and and greater sense of purpose. Because you know, what I do today is so far from what I thought I would do, and and, and I even now this is sort of I'm still stepping, but I'm okay with it because I trust God, because I've been, I've been out there in the wilderness where no one really wants to go, and he found me out there, he called me out of it and he's the one that brought me out. And so now it's very easy to just say wherever you want me to go and whatever you want me to do, and that's where purpose really becomes real, because he's the one that put it there.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think your dad would I appreciate you sharing the vulnerability. Vulnerability. There's a lot there that we could unpack um. You know, I think of your dad, like you know. Obviously I know him and he may know me he's probably seen me before but like intimidating guy probably not purpose, but he's like a powerful man. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, just doesn't mean he's not a loving man Like I. I've been going to your church for almost 25 years and, like many people's story, I like God brought me to Tulsa to be at that church. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he was the like, I was sitting under him and he was teaching me. Anyway, it's, he's a powerful man and I think that would be hard when you started talking about your dad, like listening to his voice, Like it would be hard to have that you would want to please a man like that. I would want to please Pastor George, just like, naturally. I respect him so much and I'm just like I can imagine being a son and he's your employer and like you want to please, yeah, yeah, dude, yeah.
Speaker 1:But he's also definitive yeah, so he's a. This is where we're going. Yeah, he doesn't know everything, but he knows something, yeah, and you always feel like he knows, yeah, he knows more than I do, and so the stuff with he's my dad, I want to please him, has got to be in there. But it's also like well, if he says I shouldn't and I do it, then I'm just in defiance of God, because he and God are on the same page same page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would always want to be as so as you're describing. Like I would, I would have a. Well, who am I to have my an original thought, I think. I think that's where I would stand. A lot is. I mean, I feel it at work when I'm talking to my boss, who is like awesome at what he does. I'm not facing anything that he hasn't faced times 100. Sure, the weight that he carries, the what he, the relationships that he has, the, the production that he's done, like it would be hard for me to have an original thought for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, like he would just know it all yeah and so I don't know if that's an intimidate, Like so, when, but I do have a voice right.
Speaker 2:I do have a voice and and I'm loved here and. But there is that like I probably hold back and I've talked to him about before. We're close friends, Like he's one of my very best friends, we go to church together and his kids go to the same school as mine, and so we're very close, have been for a lot of years and I know that there's been times where I'm talking, I'm like, well, I could easily be like, ah, don't want to bother you about that, and I could just really just shut my own self down and to be like well, I know you can't relate to this, but this and this and that it's just like man, no one ever said that yeah, like I'm the one saying that, but I wanted to.
Speaker 2:When you start talking about your dad, I started thinking about my son, jack, when he was in little league. Um, so he was probably, I mean young, young, I don't know second grade, third grade, fourth grade, something real, really, really young. And he's playing baseball and he actually had potential to be a good little ball player. I think he had great height, hand-eye coordination and calm. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, he would get to bat and he'd always he, he got to. He didn't always do this, but he got to the point where he would look back at me and then go to a pitch yeah. And I'd be like hey focus. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Focus on the ball. And then, and then I could see that, like man, he's more focused on me and he is on the game and it's like, well, I don't want to leave, I don't want to, like not be here to watch him, because he's my son and I want to watch him and but I am making him nervous, I am something. And so I talked to him after the game. There's something there. I remember talking to him over the game and I'm like, hey, you just kind of kept looking back at me, bud, and like you don't like what?
Speaker 2:like I just want to make you happy yeah and I was like, bro, I'm happy, like I enjoy watching you play baseball. You're a great little baseball player and you're doing a good job. Focus out there. I'm like, oh, I'm not, but I think he saw me with so much confidence in baseball yeah, or whatever he was doing, you know, yeah, get on the ball, do this, do that like oak, choke up on the bat. Whatever I was saying, yeah, it was enough to be like dude knows what he's talking about yeah, dad knows, so here I am in my you know, I think if he, if his little heart, could speak out loud, we're good.
Speaker 2:right like this is good, is this a good move? I'm so I don't want to take a full swing, but I don't want to strike out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm too nervous to make a mistake and I don't want to put you in that. But, as you were like, like I'm somehow some way unintentionally to my little guy he wants to please me, he knows I probably know things and there's this little trap that he's fallen into and you know, I hated that for him and I worked on trying to get him out of that. And I think when you're unsettled or where you can be surrounded I'm surrounded by some dudes that do really well at what they do Really well on both sides in ministry and in business and it can put me into a spot of like what am I doing here?
Speaker 2:Do I really need to speak up in this meeting? What could I add? I'm going to start a podcast. What's there for me to talk about it with you? Because yours is amazing and I'm just getting started. Yeah.
Speaker 2:What? I don't even think we should be in a conversation together. So I think a non-purpose trap and just like the thoughts and the hearing, like at any time you could tell me hey, I was getting phone calls saying you're making wrong moves, you're doing the wrong things, pump the brakes as soon as possible. But you just chose to be in rebellion, like if those aren't. That's not what happened and you really are following God. It's just that internal.
Speaker 2:This is the trick of the devil, bro, is that there is. He finds this perfect spot for you to be where I'm doing right things. I am a believer. I am talking with God. There is relationship there, but he's got me twisted up in some insecurities. I am talking with God, there is relationship there, but he's got me twisted up in some insecurities that I'm letting him put a little handcuff on me. I'm letting him put a little bit of a chain on me, but I'm not doing anything wrong. Like it's where someone would like people I'm in men's ministry but like who are great guys? They're not in some deep sin where, like it's very easy to see. This is the problem, right, guys, you're, you know you're, you're bound. We need to get you free. This is our direction we're headed. Yeah, man, so much of it is internal, like you're great father, you're doing great things, noble things that you said multiple times, like in your message. But there is, it's that internal twisted up where someone's not free. It's somehow someway.
Speaker 1:You said it and it's true because we're made this way, I believe, especially well, we're all made this way. But young men, boys, yeah, you look back at your dad and you say, am I doing a good job? And the reality of that dependency like, am I doing it right? Am I doing it right? We were made to be this way and our earthly dad is to be a picture of our heavenly father, so, just as a dad, that's why I would say the most important thing you could ever do for your kids is to not put obstacles in the path of your kids getting to God. As a man, that you are representing God far more than you realize, because a kid won't, and a son sees God the way he sees you, and so we're hardwired to look back and go am I good? And so then, as dads, what we want to do is we want to try to create this independence in our young men. You know it's like grow up and be a man, you know, and be dependent and be self-dependent in some sense.
Speaker 1:But we're not actually made to be that, we're made to be entirely dependent, so that sitting in the batter's box and looking back, that's what you and I have to be doing today. It's that, how am I doing? Except it's not back, it's up, it's got. How am I help me? I am dependent on you and we don't stop being dependent. But the tension is we start becoming a bit independent and trying to figure out things for ourselves. And we look at God and we know he's the one that gave us purpose and we know he's the one that knows what we're supposed to do and we sort of mentally ascend to that. But we really are. We're more prone to look at other men and say, am I doing it right?
Speaker 2:Am I doing?
Speaker 1:it right? Or look at something, an example social media, whatever, just other people in our field or area. Am I doing it right? And so there's a? There's a value deficit in men, because the only place that's filled is with God. It's not with your work or success or any of that. It's God, and so you can have men doing great work, but we're prone to look back and go. Am I doing it right? Am.
Speaker 2:I doing it right.
Speaker 1:Am I holding the bat right, because that's how we were made. And so men struggle, not just because we obviously struggle and not just because it's all hidden sin and darkness, right, but it is an identity crisis. And so we have to resolve that, because it doesn't matter what we're doing, no matter how great our work is or even how great our impact is, if we are internally unsettled and we feel like man, it's just something's off, I don't feel like I belong, something's not right. We will search until we find it, and it doesn't mean that we'll upset everything, but internally we will be upset and it just messes up your life.
Speaker 1:And so the great gift is when, for me, it was that my dream died and that my expectation not just my dream, my dream honestly wasn't I'm going to go be a pastor in Los Angeles. It was just that I have value and see, it's proved, because now I'm a pastor in LA and God wants to do great things through me and that would give me value. But when that had to die and I came back and I felt like my value was gone, then all I had was just me and God, and that was what was required.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's the death, it's the cross, and then resurrection comes when you can say I have no more roots to take, there's no more path here, it's done, so that's. You know. I say this a lot, but rock bottom is a beautiful place. If you don't waste it, yeah and so, but that's it. In that spot, it's time to start looking back, going hey, heavenly father, how am I doing? Because only there can he say I love you and you have value, and it be so true that you begin to believe it. But it's not because of who you are or what you do out here. It's to him, and that's unchanging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love this and I love, like you mentioned a lot, like everybody wants to matter, like you want to matter. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But matter to who. Right, like you really drove that home on Last Man's Brotherhood Breakfast message and I love that. And going back to the questions, I just talked about my son batting, and I just think about my career. I've had so many moments in my career like going back to a manager and say this is how that appointment went. I said this and then they said that, and then I said this, and then they said that, and then I said this and they said that. And then what would you? What would you have said? And they're like kind of guessing. Well, I think did you say that? You know, like they're not in there, so they and it's like there was only so much they could probably train me on until you're like in that game or until you asking over asking. And here's where I'm going with this In those moments where, like, I'm getting twisted up and I'm not getting these answers, I'm just asking the wrong person. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I really was asking the wrong person. Yes, that earthly authority was giving me certain value and just kind of helping me. But really, if I would have looked to God and this is my word for me now when I want to like walk down a hallway and it's limited here. I'm limited for my sons, my boss is limited for me. It's got to come to a point where I'm leaving an appointment and asking God, my Heavenly Father, the all-knowing creator, you're the master builder, you're the most brilliant mind. I need to be asking you how did that go?
Speaker 1:Yeah, where's you're looking for?
Speaker 2:affirmation I'm looking for affirmation, not just information. Yeah, not just information. Yeah, not just like. Oh, you forgot to talk to him about that certain loan program. Duh, no, I'm like man, was I good? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did I represent you well and they might say yes, yeah, but then that fills you up for all of about 0.5 seconds. Yeah, truly, I mean it's like good, but then you still feel the void because it's a value question.
Speaker 2:It's a value question.
Speaker 1:Do I matter? Am I worth something? And so we try to figure it out in our work and see the way it works. Is, instead of your work, producing value, knowing that you have value so that you can then work.
Speaker 1:That's the flipping I would say will change your life because, then you're not looking around at the people who are above you saying you're the one that has the key to the happiness of my soul yeah, when you say like in the message and you might have said it here's a second ago in the message you were like.
Speaker 2:I always felt like I was standing up eating, eating. You know, yeah, eating standing up eating standing up? Yeah, you have a place, that you do have a place. Yeah, and I love how you pointed that out. You're like, well, do I belong? But I do have a place where I do belong here. But I'm questioning, I didn't know it, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're feeling that unsettled, speak to the person who, because those aren't things that are made up. That is so real. That is very real. I know what that feels like. I know you have a lot of freedom right now. I just want you to speak to the man or the person who is feeling that exact same way, and what would you say to them?
Speaker 1:The tricky thing for me was that things were real, that I had fed to the point where they became so real that they had to be reconciled. I had a question of value and purpose. That was legitimate, no matter who you are. It's legitimate. I had a place. It's the path that I was on. I don't look back and think, gosh, I wish I hadn't done that.
Speaker 1:It changed so many things in us. I could never say I wish it was different, but I needed to come to the end of some things that had become very real to me, things I had fed about what I required and what I would thrive in and what I don't thrive in. I mean, I had said so many times that you know just just how I felt about Oklahoma and Tulsa and why I loved other things and other places, and I'd said it so much that it just became true to me. And what needed to, what needed to die, was my putting my hand on the wheel and saying I'm going to steer this car where I want it to go, where I have determined is the right direction. And the reality is I didn't know the right direction.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of the beginning, is where you would say I don't honestly know what's best for me and you say, well, who does? And a lot of people go to other people to answer that question and the reason is it makes sense because other people talk back in a way that you like. We even put it out on Facebook. Who out here in the digital world knows what I should do next, in some sense? And we like feedback and we want people to try to help us and there's nothing wrong with that sort of it's best whenever you kind of have you get your direction from the one that knows.
Speaker 1:And so people are intimidated by asking God because they're not convinced they'll know his voice and they're not convinced they'll come away with the right thing. And even if they do, how do I prove that it's a tricky thing to follow the voice of God if you haven't done it before. And so you really have to get to a point where you are willing to be still and ask the right question long enough until you have an answer that you're sure of, because you can go chase and you can go run and try to figure it out. But there's no guarantee once you get there that's going to be the right place, because you've probably arrived there on your own. And that's what has changed for me now where I work with my dad out at our ranch. We have a hunting ranch.
Speaker 1:I didn't grow up hunting and I wasn't really a great outdoorsman. I am not a great outdoorsman, but I love this place. I love the work that we do out there. I never would have guessed it. And yet all the time it just strikes me how special it is that I get to do what I do and I get to do it with my dad. Things.
Speaker 1:I always wanted before, and now God has given back to me in a time when I can freely enjoy it without the fear of am I doing it right, dad? Am I doing it right? Am I making you happy? Is this the way you would do it? And so I can be the man I'm called to be, and we're there with and for each other. It's unbelievably special to me. It's something I could have never created, predicted, figured out on my own. I travel and I speak. I have relationships with lots of pastors. My work will always be in ministry. I don't have a job necessarily. I mean, I'm a teaching pastor at Church on the Move, but my role within the church is different than it's ever been. I never could have predicted this and, honestly, I honestly, where am I going? I have some thoughts, but I I don't hold that tightly.
Speaker 1:I hold it like water yeah it just kind of pours over my hand because I know I can't I don't know god knows, god does know, and I think that you're.
Speaker 2:You are in a season from where I sit, you're in a season that is giving a good example that you can be somewhat elusive and still be solid at the same time, Wherever it's like. Hey, you're and I'm not like. We're so used to traditional stuff. You and I grew up, you know, just like a traditional pastor looks like this. A traditional nine to five looks like this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, when you look in the minute, and those are all good things, those, that stuff shouldn't never go away. Like I don't want a pastor that I won't know if he'll show up anytime soon. Yeah, like, please, yeah, I don't want a pastor that I won't know if he'll show up anytime soon. Yeah, it seems important. Yeah, like, tell me that you're with us, right, right. But we also live in a day and age that other voices are coming in too. It's like maybe that pastor wants some rest because he doesn't want to speak a million times in a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that he wants to raise up other leaders and that they have a voice and they're smart and so it's just work. You know, I never thought I'd hire someone that just didn't sit right outside my office from nine to five like, oh, remote worker, and you work this many hours and may have someone else that works somewhere else. Like it's so unconventional now but it's all becoming kind of a little bit of a can be healthy norm and when, if you can relate that to like you're getting speaking engagements, that is God needs you doing that. We can be quick to forget too. Like, well, where do you like and you have been saying it I'm quick to ask God about me, me, me, and I'm very little asking like, where do you need me the most? Where do you need? Me.
Speaker 2:Where do you want to plant me or move me around? And if you have the heart of an evangelist or whatever and he needs you, like, oh man, I need your voice over here in such and such state, and then in a quarter, in the next quarter, I need you over here, Like you're saying God needs people to say yes to those type of positions. Yeah, that say that can say yes to. Like yeah. I can move around, I can be shifty. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And also be very present for my dad and what he's trying, what he is building here and he needs really good I'm doing it with him. There's always a difference between doing something like with somebody and doing it for somebody. Yeah, you know, when you get to where like well, we're doing this together, I mean it puts you that's, that's just a. That's a different conversation and we're I'm doing this with you and we're doing this together is different. Like you do this for me. This is my place, this is where I'll stay. This is man. So that's really good. I have a million notes and I know we won't get to them all.
Speaker 2:We've talked really a lot of this stuff just leads to surrender and then a place of surrender leads you. It's going to force you to a place of trust. Love the analogy you gave just a little bit ago of a father I'm going to call it a father holding on to that toddler. That is squirmy and doesn't want to be held, but you know it needs to be held. You know that needs to be held and you know, like, well, it's just a matter of time You're going to surrender to this grip and rest.
Speaker 2:Man, what a great picture of God, a loving father holding onto a child. I'm like. I know you're unsettled right now, but what you are doing is you are abiding, you are staying close to me you really are and when you're doing that, I can hold you and rock you to sleep. And now you're at a total place of peace and surrender and it's just a lot more easier to move that little toddler around. Okay, now we'll put you in your baby seat, or now we'll. You know, let's sit down, you can move that person. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You can move that and I think that's a great picture that you just described like you were and are a son. But in that season you were off doing something, wild man, you were serving god and you were leading your family. There was this wrestle inside and this tension inside, but god had you the entire time and it was his design. If we believe that because, well, I'm going to believe that because you said, I truly believe I was called out there Then this is how good God is. It's by his design to walk you through something. Because if he because he couldn't have done it in Tulsa, maybe he could have but just wouldn't have done it with you.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's many things in my life, bro, that like, like my, I have a wonderful relationship with kirby anderson. He's just been such a mentor, father to me, spiritual father, just great mentor in my life, yeah, like every friday together, like five years straight spending time with him. Well, man, I sought him out for like nutrition stuff. You know god was just speaking to me about nutrition and come to find out God had so much deeper stuff for me to work out with Kirby in private sessions with him, deep mentorship, if he would have said I need you to call this person because we need to discuss your childhood, your wounded child. Let's talk about your parents. I'm like man, I'm just trying to learn more about vegetables and working out and yeah I hear that's a guy I should talk to.
Speaker 2:That's all you know and that, but I didn't know what was going to be revealed. And same thing. It's like you're still. I love your story because it's a great example of still walking with God and it may not be leading you somewhere, but like this he was gentle with you. That was really cool that you said that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, because God, if you really want to be close with God, you're going to come to a broken season and you're going to be there's going to be the death of something inside of us if we really want to draw closer to him. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's better than you think he is. Yeah, and he's, he's. He's certainly more present and and he's more willing to not just assist, not just really not assist at all. That's the trick is that we want him to assist. It's like this is what I want to do and this is where I want to go, and will you assist me with that? And the reality is he's. You know, you've heard it, he's Lord or he's nothing. And so you realize, through a series of failures, things that just don't go the way you want, didn't end up the way you thought it would, that sort of thing, and you realize that that something's missing and I don't know exactly how to figure it out. Pray that you get to that point quick, yeah, and most of the time we try to avoid that place like the plague no one wants to hit rock bottom.
Speaker 1:We do everything we can to avoid, you don't we can to avoid it.
Speaker 1:You don't ever want to lose your job, you don't ever want to be without income, you don't ever want to get a health diagnosis that isn't favorable. I mean, of course, no one wants these things, but we're stubborn people and we don't like to listen quickly and easily. And usually it's those things and God doesn't put them on us, but he certainly will work with them, because it's in those times that we're usually willing to say all right, lord, here I am. And it's in those moments, whenever we finally open our hand, that he's able to then lead. And then it's up to us are we going to step?
Speaker 1:And usually, where he asks us to step, it just looks different, and different is scary, because different is uncertain, and he's asking us to step away from a thing or towards a thing, and we think, no, I wouldn't like that. And that's the challenge of the day we live in in this country where so much of it is look inside, what do you want? And if you can figure out what you truly want and who you truly are, that's when you'll be happy. And it's completely a lie.
Speaker 2:Because you don't know.
Speaker 1:And it's a moving target and it's nauseating. And so the Lord knows, but you have to be willing to say I will go where you say go, and a lot of people will sing that in a church service, but when it comes to time to actually do it, it's it's a different story. And so we want to grip our life, and then we want god to assist us to get to that point, and so surrender is the beginning, and of course it is yeah of course it is I mean it's the gospel, it's the cross, it's the resurrection that it was always going to be this.
Speaker 1:We've just tried to do our best to find a way to have our life, and God too, but it just doesn't work very well. And so the trick is and you know, there are people listening and they're in trying spots, challenging spaces, and it feels in some sense like the end of the world or it's scary, because you don't know what tomorrow brings. Well, god will always meet you right there, always, and he's way more present and he will lead you. And the great thing about it is, if you could just get through that discomfort of opening your hand, you'll quickly find, very quickly, that the peace on the other side of that is exactly what you've been looking for. And then it isn't so much about what do I do or how do I leave a lasting impact.
Speaker 1:Well you don't, he does through you. So if you just stop trying to squeeze your life to get the most out of it and just relax and open your hand and let him do it Because he's the only one that knows how to truly do that in a way that that isn't, isn't, doesn't amount to nothing. It will be what it's supposed to be, and then the pressure's off you and then you can just go. All right, God, where do you want to go? And it's an adventure. It's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Life's supposed to be fun, which means it's uncertain, but it means you've got to have faith and trust.
Speaker 2:I love how you talk. Yeah.
Speaker 2:A lot of stuff we talked about could be very heavy, and that's not necessarily God's design. He wants us to have a great time. I want to end with a couple of things, and I think you just described a deeper level of lordship. But I love how you talked about doing noble things being a better husband, being a better father, being a better employee and employer. Those are good, and I think a lot of men land there because those are good things, man. Those are very noble. I love how you said that there. Because those are good things, man. Those are very noble. I love how you said that, but we do most of us need a deeper level of lordship and I think you could continue on with that.
Speaker 2:I think you described a lot of it right there, that asking, seeking, knocking of. I mean I want that deeper level of lordship. That just sounds right.
Speaker 1:I mean I want that deeper level of lordship. That just sounds right. So you say it lordship. Most people like you're drawn to it internally because if you're a Christ follower your spirit longs for it. But the reality is it's not just lordship in that I have to be better at obeying. Most people feel like that. I would think pretty much everyone feels like that like it's some sense deep down there like I'm not good because I don't do what I'm supposed to do all the time. I'm not perfect. Well, it's more about dependency, because life is hard and it puts burdens on you that are too heavy to carry often, and in those moments we usually feel overwhelmed and that's when we try to do more, do better. I mean the list you said those things of nobility be a better husband, a better father, a better employer or employee, whatever it is. It's like it's hard to be a better at least what that standard would be in each of those categories.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's life's pursuit. I got to keep all the categories up. I got to be a good provider. I got to be a protector. I got to be romantic. I got to be a dad who's always present. I got to run the company or be the kind of guy who could.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's tough to do all that stuff, and the burden on men is heavy because men try to carry it themselves. It's too heavy for you, and so the reality is not just lordship. Lordship is dependency. I'm dependent. So then, if you stop trying to carry all this yourself and you let God shoulder the load, that's where you start to see things happening, where you're like I can't look at all that has been accomplished and yet there's an ease and a grace on your life where you're able to move and it seems simple to you. But God makes things work out for your good because you're moving in the direction he's called you, because he's the one shouldering the load.
Speaker 1:So being a provider is what most men feel. I mean, like if I could just provide. Well, to be dependent, you know you feel your family coming to you with all those burdens. Well, what if you did the same with the Lord? Lord, I have a need, I have a burden. It's come to me. My wife is bringing me more need. My kids are bringing me more need I bring that to you? I don't carry it because I can immediately tell it's too heavy for me, it's frustrating me, it's making me anxious and angry, I'm tense. So instead of carrying it even for a second, I'm going to go somewhere quiet and I'm going to give it to you.
Speaker 1:You're my provider. Will you make a way for me to make this end meet? I don't know how to do it, but you do and I trust you with that. And let God be faithful, see, whenever he does that it doesn't make you level up as a man, it makes you level up as a son.
Speaker 1:You're as dependent, and then you learn how to consistently be dependent. So that's just proximity. That's what Jesus said I'm divine, you're the branch, you're dependent. So the proximity changes your life changes. So then, the goal being how can I be more aware of who he is every day? If I can do that, that's whenever I start to thrive. Not just be great, you're going to kill yourself. Just be a good son, be dependent and let God be great through you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, that's awesome bro. I hate to start shutting this down because you're starting to cook. It's good. Well, the podcast is Lasting Impact. What does Lasting Impact mean to you?
Speaker 1:To me to complete the assignment he's given me. I don't know what it is. There's some parts of it I can see and I mean that's a thing. I'm 46. And you feel like I should know everything. The older I get, the less I know, the less sure I am about those things that used to really concern me. And now I feel he's leading me, he has this figured out. I'm going to stay close and, god willing, do what it is that he put me here to do Whatever that is, whether it's great or small, and that's been a hard fought lesson to come from greatness and just go. What does greatness look like to me? To be known, so everyone knows my name, so that my followers are plentiful, so that I am viewed as the man. What is it? And it's just like I don't know. None of that's within my control, nor do I really care. I just want to finish my assignment. Want to finish my assignment and that's all.
Speaker 1:I mean it's Christian cliche, but it's absolute truth. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest. So if it's small or big as far as people are concerned, I don't know. I've gotten to the point where I really don't care and I just I'd rather live in peace and step one day at a time and go where he wants me to go. It's an adventure and it's exciting, and let it be that. So that's to me. What impact is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's awesome. This is Gabe George and he's making a lasting impact.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:If you liked today's conversation and want to hear more, hit that subscribe button. Don't forget to leave a review and share your thoughts. Your feedback keeps the impact going.