Entrepreneur, Author, and Faith Walker, with Eric Stelter

In this episode, Eric Stelter from Bozeman, Montana shares his journey with God and moments of radical obedience along the way that will inspire you to "say yes" to God’s nudges in your life.  Eric challenges us to become aware of our own Christian culture especially in America and respectfully understand others and their different perspectives. He also encourages us to live in such a way that we don't work "for God" but "with God."  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back everybody to the Mission to Mobilize Podcast. This is Jay, your host here, and today our guest is Eric Stelter. Eric lives in the country outside Bozeman, Montana. He is a business owner, he's writing a book, he's a father, he is a husband, and he's a follower of Jesus. Eric, welcome to the podcast today.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Hey, thanks so much for having me. It's been fun to get to know you a little bit uh through our friend Jim. And um, I'm excited to talk to you with you today. It's good.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah, it just amazes me as I network with people and bring people on this podcast, just to hear the variety, the tapestry of these different stories of people out there listening to the Lord and trying to seek his kingdom um wherever they go. And you are definitely one doing that. So tell us just a little bit more to begin with here, Eric, just about your life currently, um, kind of where God has you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Yeah, I I have always been involved in a lot of stuff. And uh I, you know, I've probably bit spent my whole life in this tension of between being a high achiever and being defined by my achievement, and uh also trying to pursue a different way, which is following God and doing what he says. And the two sometimes are parallel and sometimes are in opposition, and sometimes I run off and done what I thought was my idea of success, or even even kingdom calling, and then uh which has frustrated both of us, I think. And then at other times I feel like I'm really doing things uh at the leading of the Lord, and and that's how I want to live every day, um, doing sort of like Jesus said, I do what the Father has for me to do, right? And um that I find that that's even though I know that's really an imperative in my life and and a calling on my life, it's hard to do day in and day out when there's opportunities that come your way, or you ask about something and it does God doesn't really respond. And so I I find right right now I'm in this really unique situation for me where a lot of things have been kind of shut down in my life, a lot of opportunities, a lot of things that I thought I might do. And I have a lot of quiet. I like I say I live out in the country, I spend time with horses and doing chores, spend time hunting, and um, and then I spend time riding. And um that's that's a huge blessing. Um I'm I am definitely riding um at God's leading, not my own. Um, and so I'm struggling to do that, to do justice to that, to do it right and well. I'm learning every day. It's reformatting who I am as a person. So it's a it's an intense process, but part of the process is quiet and a little bit of loneliness and um a little bit of solitude. Like, you know, I'm I'm used to being in the middle of things. This earlier this year, I was running a uh very intense manufacturing company with employees all over and all kinds of problems, and my I was quite busy, and now I'm in a very different season, and uh it's easy along for you know your phone buzzing all the time and and uh being needed all the time. But I I look and say that I'm doing what God has for me to do, and He has his purposes even in the silence, and He I feel like it's a little bit like I'm uh fasting in a different way, fasting from attention, fasting from constant busyness, fasting from significance in the short run, um, in search of you know obedience and where God will lead with it, which I don't know. It's a great unknown. I'm not it's not quite like Abraham heading off to who knows where, but it's a little bit like that. It's in that um I'm I've positioned myself to say I'm gonna do what God has for me to do. And I don't know what what that is, but I'll be obedient to go, I'll be obedient to take the next step and um and see where it goes. So I'm in the middle of that adventure.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, I I think it's as I'm listening to you and thinking about the fact that you're writing this book right now, it feels like it's like you've done a lot of different things before and had a lot of experiences. And God is now having you in a time where you're um you're pondering, you're reflecting on those things. He's given you quiet space, you can you can write those down so that they can be a blessing to other people, even as he's preparing you for whatever's next in your life, in addition. Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, I think that's that's as close as I can get to an assessment of what I'm doing. Yeah, that's that's good. And and um, you know, like anything, I think how we hold it is critical. And um I I think I've I've at times held it as uh what's happening to me, I feel you know, isolated and unimportant and because the stimulation is gone. And then I have to remind myself, hey, this is circumstances of God's making and God's calling, and I'm being obedient and he's after something, and then it then it becomes kind of doesn't become fearful. It it usually takes me to go through that cycle, though. I don't do it automatically, I've got to like preach to myself basically of what I would tell somebody else. Like, no, this is a blessing, this is an opportunity, this is uh, you know, who knows where this is gonna go. And what one of the things I did before as I started to write the book is the Holy Spirit told me, you should talk to your friends who written a book. And then when I when I first heard that, I thought, well, I can only think of one or two people. But over time, as I interviewed everyone I could think of, it kept the lips kept growing. And I've now interviewed 12 different writers, and then ended up helping one of my friends with his book a bit, just just finishing that now. And what struck me is a number of them said the process of writing a book is worth it, and that means that it's one person that starts a book and it's another person that finishes it, and there's something happens to you in the process, and I really found that to be true for me. I'm I'm writing a book, I I am not a scholarly person, but I'm writing a book that's pretty heavily into theology and and a bunch of other stuff. But um the the title of the book is God can't do that, and it's really reflecting on years of encountering uh scholarly believers who didn't really believe in what's in the Bible, but believed in some other version. And I've seen it in two institutionalized church, I've seen it in Presbyterian meetings, I've seen it in from the pulpit, and it's always felt like a fight. And then when I moved to Montana, we joined a church and I I had a very miraculous period of time, about two and a half, almost three years ago now, where I died and I was dead for 22 minutes and uh came back to life with a zero percent chance of that, and then had a series of miracles, I think six in all is as I count them, that led to me being made alive and healed and uh no brain damn, no brain damage, like it just astonishing in the unbelieving surgeon. The first his first words to me were, yeah, this is a total miracle. There's no reason you should be alive. First thing he said to me, now we're friends, but that's how that's how it started. And he he did not have faith at the time. I think we might be changing that right now. But um, anyway, so so but so right after that, I I was talking to our pastor of our little local church where we go, and he says, Yeah, I'm a cessationist, which I don't know if you know what that means. Some people do and don't, but a cessationist believes that the gifts of the spirit, as outlined in the Bible, have largely ceased uh at the end of the apostolic age, or sort of after that Bible was written, now we have scripture, we don't need anything else. And it specifically teaches that healing, hearing from God, um, visions, all those things have now, which are all through the New Testament, are now suddenly demonic or falsified. And so um, so he says that, and I'm thinking, I I spent months and months, you know, grousing at God like I've been wrestling with this mindset for years, and now I'm in this new church, which my wife loves, and the pastor's association is like I was just mad. But but after about a year and a half of being mad, I prayed properly. Took me a while to get there, and said, Lord, what what okay, we're going to this church. You didn't seem to be calling us anywhere else. Like, what do you want me to know? What do you want me to do? And which I think are very profitable questions with God. And he said to me, Oh, that's easy. And he had, I I, as I groused, he never answered. When I when I prayed, what do you want me to know? What do you want me to do? He said, That's easy. Receive their argument, listen to it, get to know it, and then write a book about it. And write a book refuting it, actually, is what he said. And so to me, what's interesting in that is that that I've been fighting in my mind against this mindset for decades as being a believer, but I never did anything scholarly to understand what they were saying and why and what they were basing it on. And I always just thought I knew and it was dumb, which isn't a productive way to engage with somebody you disagree with. Uh so it was God's leading was really great and and has uh thrown me into, I think I've read six or seven theology books and kind of understand the the mindset where it comes from. Um been able to kind of diagnose it a little bit and um and and try for a productive way forward. And one of the things that it's interesting about writing a book about fellow believers is I start to see something in the American church. And I think it's critical for for those of us who are in the church or around the church to to recognize the water we're swimming in. And and that uh Chris Ballaton of Bethel Church would say, um, we all we we we speak and we listen with an accent, but if it's ours, we don't know what it is because we think it's normal, which is a way of saying, we're you're you you and I are swimming in water that we don't see or we don't think is anything abnormal. But the reality is the American church is somewhat abnormal. We don't we don't see it very accurately when we're in it. And so one of the ways that I've that I've seen the American Church, and it affected me in this thought around around theology, was was that the American Church has become uh a whole lot about winning and being right, and even using a lot of dialogue like that, like winning souls and whatever. And um, and there's a political ramification to that, and there's uh being justified um in our actions and our beliefs and whatnot, and it's not not really healthy, and it doesn't really jibe with like I would say more pure biblical Christianity at all. But it is the water we're swimming in is winning, and so when if I I've seen in on every side of arguments, if I'm right, then somebody must be wrong. And so as soon as I think that, I think, well, I've got to spend a lot of energy showing how wrong they are because that will justify that I'm right. And um, and I found myself at first thinking that was that's what my book was gonna be like, and I thought, and I felt really a lot of caution about the Holy Spirit of no, this is more of coming alongside and reading together and um walking through stuff, and it really changed the tone and tenor of my book, allowed me to bring humor in and um allowed me to like face some pretty tough stuff head on. Like one of one of the tough things is to is I've I read one of the books by John MacArthur called Strange Fire, where he where he talks about a lot of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the charismatic church, and pretty much says that they're all demonic or or fake. And um now this is John MacArthur whose uh theology statements in other directions I've listened to for years and weighed very heavily. And here I'm having to say, hey, this dude's wrong. And so it doesn't help full to make him wrong and to objectify him. And I think that's a unique challenge because I can't really, because I see other things that he says is right. It's just John MacArthur, smart as he is, and all of that, is a human being with a bent himself and his own reasons for saying that. It doesn't, and so we can come alongside that and say these things are not supported by scripture that you're saying. We only have scripture, and that's all we need. That's not supported by scripture. So you got a logical fallacy going, and I'm gonna lovingly point it out and bring bring people along. So it's hard to do, it's a hard thing to write for your first book, I gotta say. And I, you know, I I'm I've never been fearful of any arena I go into to to go for the top and start at the top, and I'm I've kind of done it again here. So it's a little it's a little rough, but um I'm learning a lot in the process, I'm growing a lot. If I don't if I do it only for that purpose, maybe that's it. Or if I sell books and influence people, that's great too. But I I don't I'm not really in charge of what happens. I'm just trying to do my best.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Sure. Well, I I think as I listen to you, you know, to to spend the amount of time and energy that you are you're taking on this, obviously it it reflects um deep convictions that you have. And you mentioned being in in settings where people were um different, opposed to some of the the Holy Spirit Christianity, I guess you can call it, um, that you're walking in. Um and I think for the sake of our listeners, you know, as we think about this, uh this this might sound like a little bit different direction than some of our podcasts have gone, but so much of what is required to be effective missionally is not just um you know signing up for a cause. Um it's it's it's walking with the person of of God at a deep level. And and I'm sure you would agree with that, Eric. And I I want to ask you as you think about, you know, to the point where you've come today, where now you're writing this book, as you look back on your life, what did that look like? How did God uh begin to move in your life in such a way that you didn't have just this kind of theological um you know perspective on the Holy Spirit, but it became experiential and lived out daily. Tell us a little bit about that journey.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Yeah, well, I um I had I've never really, since I was an early believer, I never doubted that God spoke because uh very early in my faith journey is the one time I've heard the audible voice of God, and it that the that night changed my life radically. And I'll get to that in a second. But one of the things I want to say in answer to what you said is that that um a key thing about living missionally in is I I've I've been in a lot of churches where they wouldn't say it exactly overtly. So we came up in the Presbyterian church and and um because it was the church at the university where I went to where I got saved into, but um their their I wouldn't say at the time was overt, but I would say covertly their theology was roughly the miracle is you got saved, and so now you have to go do a good job and manage that well. And that's profoundly not the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's way better news than that, and so um, and so it's been a struggle to kind of break out of that teaching, and and I never fit well in it because very early on I was a very new believer. I had I had given intellectual assent to Christ. I I had I had seen that the Christians in my fraternity in college had something I didn't have. I knew it was true, but I also wanted to go do what I wanted to do. And I was I was uh pretty successful in business uh when I was young, but I was also uh I raced sailboats and I literally sailed, I literally would work four days a week, four and a half days, and then fly to Los Angeles or Miami or Texas or somewhere and race all weekend and come home just in time to go to work again on Monday. And I did this for for a few years, and I was had kind of risen in the ranks and become kind of uh pretty pretty successful internationally at sailing, won major championships and whatnot. But but along that journey, um, I had also realized that um I was successful at sailing, but I was relationally a jerk and selfish. And I that I the only solution was Jesus. I knew it. And one day on a beach, I think I was in Jamaica or the Bahamas somewhere, I was just literally, I was probably hung over, I don't remember, but I was literally like, this this sailing thing is empty. It's I'm racing against the same guys in different cities every weekend. If I continue with this, I'm gonna be an alcoholic like my dad. Uh and I and I'm my relationships are terrible. I'm not the person I want to be, and I need to say yes to Christ. And so I I was I was literally for three months on the road, living out of my car and on boats in the Caribbean and Florida and Texas and Los Angeles. Um, had quit my job and just was really going for sailing, one number of major regattas in that time frame. And but I came back, I went back to Washington State where my mom was living, and stayed with her for a while. And I was had run into this girl that I had dated and broken up with a few times. And we ended up seeing each other at a party and we had a conversation. It was, it was, it was important to me to tell her that um it wasn't her fault that we'd broken up, even though I had said mean things to her and blamed it on her. It was really that I was a selfish jerk and I was decided I needed Jesus, and I didn't know what that would meant, but I'm going forward in a new direction. Um we had we had dated and broken up. We always had fun, we always liked each other a lot, um, but we had a hard time talking about real things, and so this is we kind of had a real conversation for once, and so we decided, well, let's just go to dinner. So we went to dinner a couple nights later, and she was going to Europe with some guy, and I was starting to be a Christian, which I didn't know what the heck that meant. And I dropped, we had a nice time, sent her on her way, dropped her off. I thought I'd probably maybe never see her again. And um, I went home, I read my Bible, I went to sleep, and in my room, I heard a voice, audible voice, say, get up, get out of bed, go ask Kay to marry you. And I just freaked out. I thought, what the heck is that? Like, you know, I had regular coffee. I don't know what I don't know, I don't know what that is, but that was weird. Okay, I'll go back to sleep. I can't handle that. Happened again. So then I'm thinking, okay, I had I remember the two books, the two parts of the Bible I remember reading is sort of the beginning of the Bible, um, maybe through Genesis and Exodus, but I so I remember reading about uh Gideon and him being visited by an angel in this unlikely conversation. And I thought, yeah, maybe, but I'm like, this is crazy. Why would God talk to me? I barely, you know, I don't know. So I went back to sleep and it happened a third time. So now I woke up, I'm completely freaked out, and I just said, I this was my thinking at the time. I don't, I don't, it doesn't really make sense to me now, but. I thought, oh, I know how to solve this. If it's God, he can do it again. And if he does it again, heck, I'm going to go do it just to show him. You know, he doesn't know who he's messing with or whatever. Like, I'll show you. And I kind of thought, well, that's that'll put an end to all this. And I went to sleep. And uh right as it was getting light out, it was in May, early, early morning in in Washington in May, beautiful morning, and um it happened again. And so then I thought, well, that's it. I got up and I got dressed and jumped in my car and drove to her house and knocked on the window and freaked her out completely. What I didn't know was right at the moment I knocked on the window, she was having a dream. And in the dream, she and me and her brother were both there. And I was sitting on a couch and I turned to her a certain way, and she had the thought, oh my gosh, Eric's gonna ask me to marry him. And that's right when I knocked on the window. And she thought, What are you doing here? And you know, oh, you know, my dog wanted to come visit you or something. I said, I don't remember, but we can we go inside. We went inside, I sat on the couch, and I literally, in the same pose, in the same turn, said, actually, I came to ask if he would marry me. And so uh she freaked out. I freaked out, but we've now been married for 35 years. Wow, changed our life. We decided to uh try to follow Christ together. She she had been away from the church. Um and um so it was just a that was a wild thing. So I never I I that's the only experience I've ever had with hearing God's voice voice audibly, but it's kind of a perspective changer because you know, the there I was, even though I was not living a perfect lifestyle, uh, you know, I fell many times, various directions, willfulness and and pride and all sorts of stuff for years and years and years. But but the love of God was God loving this very imperfect person enough to intervene and change the course of his life in a way that God intended, right? That's what he did for me. And so I would just in the Presbyterian church, I would be bewildered because I I know that I was I was sort of commanded to respect authority and and the people in charge, but they would say things that showed that they had very little to no operative faith. And that was really a struggle. Um, men I looked up to, um, you know, with positions and titles and and accreditation and degrees, and um so I don't I really argue directly, but I I just something didn't sit right with me in all of that. And um and I feel like now God's trying so I've I've been kind of like the ordinary guy who doesn't know any better and is just stupidly believes in prayer and believes what the Bible says, and that's sort of been my take on myself, and um yeah, so now I think God's trying to reconcile a lot of that somehow.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Sure. So that that uh kind of encounter where you were uh ended up proposing and marrying your wife was a bit of a a start on the journey, and then you've mentioned you know you're since the journey with the Holy Spirit um and the struggle in churches and so forth. Um but as you've gone in your life, would you say, even though you maybe are not hearing the audible voice of God, you're hearing that that inner voice of the Holy Spirit speak to you and just talk to our listeners a little bit about how you've been able to grow and just the confidence to know that this isn't just last night's pizza, but it's really the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's a that has been a journey, a lifelong journey. And I have encountered, especially coming out of the Presbyterian Church and living in Seattle for many years, um, you know, a lot of the believers that I was friends with were pretty heavily skeptical of God speaking, of manifestations of the Holy Spirit, of um, and and mostly I would say people were skeptical because it was very subtly taught um to them to be skeptical in the church, was also obviously taught in in the world to be skeptical or even to make fun of that. So no one wants to be looked like a fool. And then um, and then operationally, like I think a lot of people, since it wasn't taught like how to hear it or how to discern it, um there's no confidence for a lot of people in even when they were hearing from God. So it would became much easier for people to say, oh, God doesn't speak to me. And um, you know, I find that that also is a very convenient way of absolving yourself of responsibility, especially if he's asking you to do something that's risky or scary. So um, but I so I could never, I never had an out. I could never say God doesn't speak to me because he spoke to me. So that's off the table. And then so my life's been a journey of discovering how he speaks and then training my mind to hear him and to expect to hear him. And one of the differences I found between myself and other people was uh I did expect to hear him. And so when I'm counseling somebody who says, I don't hear from God, I say, well, first of all, you need to get into the word and read it and read the parts of the word that tell you that God will never leave you or forsake you, or that God will, that God speaks, or that the Holy Spirit is a counselor, which means a counselor gives direction. How does the counselor give direction? Does he slap you? You know, does he does he punch you when you go the wrong way, or does he guide you with, hey, go there, but not there, step here, but not there? Obviously, he guides you by his voice. Jesus said, My sheep know my voice. My, you know, like so you there's all this scripture that you can, and I'm barely scratching the surface, but there's a bunch of scripture, but go read it for yourself, find it. Uh, the Bible says, um the the it's a glory of keep of the glory of God to hide a matter and a glory of kings to search out a matter, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

I love that verse.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Like, get get curious, take responsibility for finding out, and then expect that God will speak. And so, what does expect mean? Expect doesn't mean I'm gonna sit on the couch, fold my arms, watch TV, and if God wants me to do otherwise, he'll tell me, he'll yell at me. You know, no, that's not what expect mean. Expect means to live in joyful expectation. When I'm getting ready to leave and something goes on a cloudy day, take your sunglasses. I think that might be God, that might be the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna take my sunglasses and see, you know, and that's happened to me countless times when all of a sudden I need them an hour down the road or whatever. And so that that joyful expectation, it it it leads to the very next point, which is when you hear something, you have to ruthlessly obey it. Because often I found that when I obey, I don't have any experience that it was God until after I obey. And then something happens. And I'm like, oh my goodness, what if I didn't do that? And so, you know, I have I have hundreds of stories of of little things in obedience that I've done that reinforce my idea that God speaks. And if we think, well, I'm not gonna practice that, I'm not gonna try, but when it's time to my job or my marriage, God will speak. No, the Bible says he who is faithful and little is faithful in much. And so you have got to practice in the little ways so that you will actually take the risk in the big ways when it comes along. Then that that's just obvious in in our spiritual life. And some of the little ways I will explain, like they're just so they're just so funny. I remember one time I was living in Washington and I went out for a run, and I was going up to my house, and there's a steep hill. And the steep hill is right above a coffee shop where we have Bible study on Friday mornings. We had Bible study. And um, so I'm walking up that steep portion of the hill, and I hear I look down, and there's an old Mercedes, a diesel Mercedes. Uh turned out it was one of the guys that worked at the coffee shop named Joel. But I look down, the hood's up, and the Holy Spirit says, You should go fix that car. And I think, I'm wearing running shorts, like I have no tools, like what do you talk? Like, that's crazy. No, I'm going home. I just finished my run, walking up the hill, and then I hear this is got this is a line that God uses with me over and over and over. He's had to, where he says, Well, you do what I say or you don't. So I'm like, Oh no, you know, I've got to go do it now. So I as I walk back down the hill to this car, I just prayed in faith, Lord, uh, you gotta help me to be successful. So show me what's wrong with the car so I can fix it. And an 80s diesel Mercedes has the like the maximum amount of hoses and wires everywhere because of all the smog stuff, right? It was just like a jumble. And um, he is looking at says it won't start. And I'm like, okay, Lord, and I look, I look in the back of the compartment and I see a wire that's off the terminal, and I go back there and I reach and I put it on. I go, try that, and the car starts. And that guy looked at me like I was a freaking angel myself, you know. And um, well, he's a barista at that coffee shop, he stands 10 feet away while we have bidding Bible study and prayer and tears and all kinds of stuff, week in and week out. And then uh it turns out that he maybe a few months after that was gonna move to New York uh to pursue something. I don't know. But we we took an offering. He was in in our Bible study, and we gave the guy several thousand dollars. So I don't know what happened to him. I know I was faithful in the two things God showed me to do, to take an offering and to fix his car. But and I know, and I also know sort of rationally that he had to look at us differently because I told him, I said I I was cool as God told me to fix your car, so I did. And he and he's like, whatever, like I don't what's that? But his car did start, so he has like this concrete flag in the ground, right? And that and that's a little bit what like practicing faithfulness in little things is like. I I could have easily ignored that and walked up the hill, it would have been totally rational. I had no tools, I have no hope of fixing that car. But then when I did, I'm like, oh then that actually changed my relationship with with Joel because you know, I would often say things to him uh when I get my coffee from him, and you know, on Friday mornings when I'd go there, um, I would say things like what God was doing or something like that. And because I I was now convinced God's working in his life because he used me to just go fix his car rather than have it towed in the shop and all that stuff. Um, but I don't what became if if Jill showed up tomorrow and said, Oh yeah, I've been a sold-out believer, I'm a pastor now, I would not be surprised, but I don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yeah, I I just want to comment on that, Eric. You know, as I'm as I'm listening to you share that story, um, you know, something that comes to me is is in the book of Acts, they I've heard it said it's the the three W's, I think John Wembry used to teach that word, works, and wonders. And all of it really needs to be guided by the Holy Spirit. But it's like the Holy Spirit leads you to do a work, some type of service for this guy. Um the result is a wonder because you know his car starts, and then as you're sharing other things about God's how God is leading you and so forth, the word has softer soil than in his heart. Okay. And that's really or he's or if he overhears your Bible study. And that's really a remote just like a very um remarked difference, very a very strong difference than what you would see if if you know you're doing this Bible study and you just go and hand him a track and say you need to believe Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

You know, which is what a lot of times people think of or or follow any, I mean there's countless techniques, you know. Any technique.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Yeah, any technique, which I I do teach techniques at times when I when I teach people, because I want them to be able to have something they could pull from if they need to, because I believe God can use techniques, but what God doesn't want us to do is to force techniques, and what he wants us to do is to follow him, and if there's a certain way of presenting something he wants to bring out in a moment, he can bring it back. But I I love your story for that reason because people can ask this question well, how how does someone who's living you know in a very non-Christian environment, you know, they don't have any credit for this, ever change their mind? And and most of us know that generally speaking, to just give somebody some printed material or to say something, you know, Christianese to them isn't gonna do much. Um, we don't want to doubt the power of the word, but usually it's it's kind of like the seed falling on rocky or or uh hard hard ground, you know, the birds just eating.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Well, yeah, and you you bring up attention that I've seen often and in and struggle with myself, um, and I've seen it in my believing friends and in churches I've gone to, and and that is that do we do things for God? Um, do we say, oh, there's a the church is doing this thing, I'm gonna I'm gonna do that for God. It's gonna show that our church does stuff for the community, therefore people will think we're okay. I'm not saying that that's bad, but I guess I'm saying artwork it should not be thought of as for God. I think it needs to be thought of. I want to do the things that the Father is doing or that the Father prompts me to do. The the the diff the delineating thought that I'm trying to have is is it stuff I come up with that's gonna make me feel or look or certain way, or even we think can help the kingdom win, versus the stuff that God has me for me to do in obedience with no guarantee of success or fruitfulness, but I do it out of obedience and let God decide. I would posit that the second way is how we're meant to live, and the first way is a danger and a snare. And I've I've been in churches where there's a lot of good ideas of good things to do, but they're not arrived at of the Holy Spirit, they're arrived at by the flesh, and I don't I don't expect God to bless those. Um, and so and I and I and I have that problem in me, you know, me calculating what would be good for God. I do it all the time. God, if you did this and that, that would be good, and I could do this part of it, I'd look like a good guy, and you would shine, and this person would come to Jesus, and the Lord's like, yeah, no, go do this over here, you know. And so that I I think that's a very real risk. Um, you know, you're in in your podcast, you're talking about being on mission in various places, contexts, whatever. Um, I think for the listener and and for you and for me, like we ought to be careful to be on uh God's mission, not our mission, right? And and and to be open to what he has for us to do, even if it doesn't meet our needs in terms of what we think is right or would build us up or would look holy to somebody. Um, you know, uh Jesus basically spent his three years of ministry being a front, an affront to what the religious thinking was over and over and over again, and did stuff with earthly means, not not holy means. You know, he spit and made mud and just just everything about Jesus was was offensive to it, some sometimes even offends us when we don't even see all of that. And so like we got to remember that, and like God's way is a little bit not our way. Um and that's attention for all of us. I think it's a struggle for all of us to do the things that God has for us to do, not what we come up with. And I the fruit of that is like is is can be mind-blowing. And one example I will give is early on we were married, um, the church we were married, the Presbyterian church, the youth pastor was the I I actually prayed, who should marry us, isn't like some of the pastors at the church. But God gave me this idea like, no, there's a there's a pastor there that's very different. So I literally I went over to the church and I went to the secretary and I said, Hey, I was praying, there's a pastor here that's very different than the other pastors, like not wearing a suit or whatever. She goes, Oh, you mean James B. And he was the youth pastor, and I literally go to meet him and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you know, or the other guys are wearing a coat and tie, he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt. And I'm like, Oh yeah, this is my guy, you know. And um so we ended up doing marriage counseling and he married us, and he said, Gosh, you guys would you guys would love this trip we have with the kids down to Tijuana, Mexico to build housing for the poor. And so uh we went on this trip and it was the most disorganized mess of from, I mean, it was just so frustrating. Like we spent a day and a half laying in a sandpile watching a pickup truck drive by with bags of cement, only to find out that those people had sand, but I mean had no sand, but they had cement, and we had no cement, but we had sand. And so, like, we just wasted two days, you know, it was this kind of disorganization. And um, and I was just praying, like, gosh, do I say anything? This is so infuriating. And the Lord's like, no, why don't you see if you can fix it? So that little comment uh was 25 years for me uh of investing in growing this ministry, of building housing for the poor in the slums of Tijuana. So I I we formed a nonprofit, we bought land, we built the staging area, we did a lot of work at the orphanage we staged out of. Um, I was the board chair for that nonprofit for I don't know, 15, 20 years. Um and it uh raised up kind of a young guy that um that I I mentored, started mentoring when he was in high school. Now he's in his 30s with two kids, but he runs the whole thing. Very weird, there's two sites, there's an after-school program, they're sending kids to college. Like uh most of the people who get a house built uh get saved sort of organically out of the process. It's like it's this beautiful ministry. Um and and by my flesh, I was mad the whole time the first time I went there. I was like, ah, this thing, what a what a chocolate mess. But by the Lord's urging, um I was able to contribute and help, and and there's been a lot of fruit out of that. Oh, something like almost better be closing in on 3,000 homes built for families.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

That's a city, that's a city's worth of people, probably 15,000 people housed, all using high school kids and doing stuff God's way. Um, spent a decade where there was a lot of cartel activity, um, keeping the pastors from voting about shutting it down because it just probably felt very dangerous to be there. Um, there were shootings going on blocks away from our house sites, but we had the protection and never had any altercation or violence towards us, um partially because the Holy Spirit, partially because um the women in the community would not stand for that because we were actually helping the community. So it's kind of wild, but not of my making, not of my choosing. I I, you know, didn't want to do that. I was ready to quit a hundred times, but the Lord just led me through, and um that's been a very, very fruitful thing that I can claim no credit for.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Well, I love how how you saw something that wasn't efficient in your mind, the way God wired you, you know, as you prayed into that and pondered it, God leads you to a solution. And the solution to that is not only more efficient structure and more needs met in the natural, but also salvation and uh, you know, the way that all was designed. That's that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Yeah, I think I don't I mean, I don't think my my first reactions were that noble. They were more frustration, and I don't want anything to do with it. But yeah, I think God that's what you said is kind of what God intended and worked out in me over time, but it was a struggle for me to obey, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Yeah, um, I want to ask you too, you know, you've done a lot of different things, nonprofit, business stuff, um, you know, leadership in churches, so forth. Um, I wonder if you have a story where you saw someone come to salvation and um and just share a little bit of your part in that, how God used you, um, you know, in whatever way. And I'm just, I don't know, I just have a sense to ask you that.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Yeah, I would um yeah, that I that's interesting because the I've I've been with a lot of friends who are really um oriented in the apostolic, like to go and save and reach people. And I always felt like I was sort of a B-level Christian because I think my my call has always been to mature believers, the people who are already believing, but to get into actual belief and walking out faith and all that. So it hasn't never been my focus. I mean, obviously, if somebody needs saving that's around me and and I feel called, God moving it, I do it. But um, you know, probably my favorite salvation story was the easiest one. Was that there's when I first started working construction, I started helping a guy doing remodels. And so I was just he and I working day in and day out side by side. And um I was a new pretty new believer back then, but I I just never said much, if anything, about faith. But one day we're working and he said to me, Hey, you and your wife are really different from anyone else I've ever met. I said, uh-huh. And and I said, and he goes, Why is that? I said, Oh, I know why, but you don't want to know. He goes, No, no, no, I really, I really want to know. I said, Well, that's because of Jesus. We we follow Jesus and we we believe in him and we have uh you know belief in God and uh that changes everything. And he said, Okay, and um kind of shrugged, and I'm I didn't really know what he thought of it when he said that, but within a few months, he was a believer and and ready to get baptized, and uh prophetically there was a woman in our youth ministry, and I I saw her one day, and I just the Lord blows like she's for bread, and I came back and said, Hey, you got to come help us with our with our construction project down in Mexico, and uh he said, Okay, I said, by the way, you're in trouble. He goes, What do you mean? I go, you'll find out later. And he did marry that gal.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Wow. But you had enough wisdom to not tell him that.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

No, give him, I just said you're in trouble and let him worry about what that meant. But um he but you know that so that's that's when God's at work and you're just sort of showing up, it can be that easy. Um, I've had a number of people in my life where it's a long slog of me saying little things in conversations, and so it's not a really a tidy story, but they end up, you know, it's what God's doing in them, and so they end up in faith. Um and then, you know, and I've had a number of people who uh I really saw the possibility, a witness to them, and you know, today they're not walking with God and they're not in faith. And um, you know, I don't like those stories, but they're there too. And, you know, in all of them, my job is to do what God chose me to do, and not to, I'm I'm not a success or a failure based on the outcome. I'm a success or failure on obedience. There's a very different filter. Um, and I have to remind myself of that all the time. I just have to do what's in front of me to do. One of the craziest things that happened was I grew up, my dad was a very brilliant nuclear uh engineer. And my mom was a wonderful, brilliant lady of her own right. And um, when I got saved, the Lord gave me the promise that my parents would get saved. And I just thought that's impossible. My mom's doing tarot cards and astrology, and my dad's an alcoholic, you know, in a cult. And um both my parents got saved before they died. And um, you know, huge stories with both of them, but that literally you would my mind could not conceive of, and I I honestly think I thought my mom was tougher because she was sort of able and wealthy and and so brilliant and um and a good person. That's a hard place for God in a way, you know. Um and then, but she did see my dad get saved before he died, and which was which was a huge miracle. And I felt like the Lord saying that's gonna lead your mom to faith. And then she had a tough time with with some illness stuff, and and we started spending a lot of time with her and caring for her. And it she just asked to get baptized one day. And I said, Well, that you have faith in Jesus. She's like, Oh yeah, that's this is great. And I just the the tarot cards and the astrology were all gone, and she had nothing but joy the rest of her days. It's wild. The ones who know you closest might be the toughest judges. And so like if you're not really walking the walk, which I don't know how how well do I walk the walk? I don't know. I'm some days I feel great, other days I think what a failure. And I think anybody who knows me might judge it harshly. So when they get saved, that's always good.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Yeah, you know, Eric, I would like you, I'd like to transition here to prayer. And I'd like you to pray for our listeners into some of these points you're making. I mean, I feel like there's listeners here hearing this and are are maybe almost begrudgingly thought, well, I guess I'll listen to this podcast, see if I can get something out of it. Um, and because they're because they're measuring themselves in this way of of uh of success, even just through this lens of what even Christian church defines successful or not. And so I yeah, pray as you as you lead, but if you specifically pray into that, that would be wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Yeah, I can do that. So, gracious Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this time. We thank you for uh Jay and his ministry and and the things you've shown him to do and his willingness to do them and his and having the opportunity to do them. And thank you for him taking the risk and getting set up with all that it takes to do a podcast and invite people on, knuckleheads like me that he doesn't know, who knows what we're gonna say. Um, but Lord, we we are doing this for the listener and we we pray for the people listening right now. And I my first prayer is that they would recognize the water that they're swimming in, that they would pull back and see objectively the the accent that they're hearing with, the accent that they're speaking with that they may not have noticed until now. Um, in the American church, there's things like winning, and there's things like um, you know, uh abundance being an indicator of of faithfulness. And um, Lord, you have different measures and different means and different ways of thinking about the kingdom. And so we pray for them to receive um a kingdom perspective about what we're in the middle of um at this date and time in in America. And Lord, I do pray for the listener, for Jay, and for me, Lord, that for our measure of quote-unquote success to shift and to become all about being obedient to you, Lord. Um, Chris Ballaton said to me one time that his whole life and ministry could be summed up in one sentence that God wanted to show what he could do with a knucklehead if that guy was just obedient. And Lord, I believe that's the story of your gospel. I think that's in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And I think that's the story you're wanting to write in in each of us today, Lord, if we would be obedient and do the things that you show us to do and to shift our life, to have our eyes on you and our ear attuned to you to see what you could do with a knucklehead who is obedient, Lord. I pray for that in the listener. I pray for that in Jay and in me today. And we thank you, Lord, this can be accomplished by the blood of Jesus that has been poured out for us and the work of the Holy Spirit that will guide and minister us, minister to us day by day, moment by moment. If we'll expect it, look for it, and act on it when we hear it. And I pray for all of that in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Okay, as you're listening to this podcast right now, I want you to just pause. Heard a lot said here from Eric. He's got a remarkable story, it's a lot to digest, and um we don't need to digest it all at once, but what we are asking right now is Holy Spirit that you would bring to mind each one listener, what it is that you want to say to them. And Lord, we do pray for Eric here as he's writing this book, reflecting on his experiences and all that he's he's seen you do over the years. Lord, we just ask for your wisdom and your blessings, even as you're listening to this podcast. I just invite you to just agree with me in prayer. Lord, that you're gonna use this book to touch lives, not to prove people are wrong, but to invite them into more of a deeper walk with you, to glorify yourself, to allow you to be fully God in people's lives. So we do ask for each one listening and all those that they will impact for the grace and the wisdom and the power to know how to walk out their Christian lives, bear witness to what you're doing, so that the body of Christ may mature in the fullness of all you have. Right, thank you, Eric, for coming on today. We look forward to hearing the update on all he does.

SPEAKER_02 55:38

Thanks, it's been fun talking with you and getting to know you, Jay. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

Mission to Mobilize is a nonprofit organization that trains, mobilizes, and coaches disciples of Jesus Christ to live life on mission. To sew financially into the work we're doing at Mission to Mobilize, visit our website at mission to mobilize.com slash partner.