Episode 3 — Hank Parker: Pressure, Identity & the Stories Leaders Never Tell

In this powerful conversation, Hank Parker opens up about the pressures leaders carry, the hidden weight of expectations, and how easily identity can get tangled in performance. This is not the side of Hank you see on TV or in the outdoor world. This is the honest, unfiltered version—the man behind the accomplishments, the trophies, and the public persona.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to keep it together, stay strong, or perform your way into acceptance…this conversation is going to hit home. We talk about calling, identity, regret, pressure, leadership, fatherhood, and what happens when the spotlight fades and you’re left with the real you.

This episode is a gift to pastors, Christian leaders, and anyone navigating the tension between external success and internal peace.

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:10

I am a big deal. I am truly, honestly a big deal. You're a big deal. Everybody's a big deal. How big a deal are we? We're big a deal enough that Jesus Christ came to this earth and took our sins and took it to the cross. You don't think you're a big deal? You're a big deal. And he loved you. He loved every one of us. And that's what makes me a big deal. That's what makes you a big deal. Because the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord left glory to come down and die for us. Talking about love? Talking about a big deal? I'm a big deal. You are a big deal. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

You know, it's uh man, uh like sitting here today is wild for me. You know, just to just to be real honest with you. I understand to keep a straight face looking at me.

SPEAKER_06 1:00

You know, God had a sense of humor when he created me.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Um it it is it is wild, you know. I've I'll I'll say I appreciate you being here. And um a few I'll tell I'll tell this we get going a few months ago. You know, we go to the same, we go to the same church. Amen. And I didn't know I didn't know that at the time, and I had come to your campus to to speak. And um and and and and man, I walked in and I'm hanging out and I'm I'm ready to go. And I turn around and look, and there you're standing, right? And and you know, you're just you're just one of those people like there's no mistaking. It wasn't like, hey, is that maybe, is that maybe this guy? I knew exactly who you were. Well, I turned white as a ghost, and I looked at my wife and I was like, I'm about to pass out. She goes, What is wrong with you? I said, Hank Parker just walked in the room, and she said, Who is Hank Parker? I love her. I love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

Who is that?

SPEAKER_03 1:55

And I looked at her like, did I marry the right woman to know Hank Park? Oh my goodness. But but um, man, that was um that was that was kind of crazy to get to get to meet you. And then then a couple weeks later, through the Outdoor Dream Foundation, we got to spend some time together fishing with my with uh one of my sons, Carson, and that was a blast to be on your boat. So man, you being here today is such a blessing to me. And um I I work with a lot of pastors, spend time with pastors, spend time with Christian leaders, and what I want to do with this podcast, the whole reason I'm doing this, and the whole reason you're here, is that we can be able to help tell stories of people that God has used through the ups and downs of their life to be able to really show what it means to have a rooted, clear identity in Jesus. And that message is one thing for the audience, for the church, for church members. It's a whole nother thing for pastors and men in leadership. The pressures that they face. So you being here today to tell your story, uh, man, I'm I I couldn't be I couldn't be more excited. And uh man, so so so welcome, welcome here. Good to be here. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_06 3:11

And I will tell you this if you really listen to my story, you'll see the power of the gospel. You'll see the power of the gospel. Changes people, changes lives.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

It's a wild, it means it's a wild story, I've heard. It is a wild story.

SPEAKER_06 3:28

I mean, just a wild story.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Just to know, and and kind of from the outside looking in, um, you know, a lot of us knew uh knew you either as teenagers or or young men, and and you had big roles in our life back then from a distance, and there was so much of that, you know, that at the time, no nobody really knew the history of Hank Parker, because God was still working in so many of those ways. But but there is a resume, you know, and a two-time Bassmaster classic champion, world champion. Um, and then the bit I guess the biggest thing is you are the first angler in history to ever win the Grand Slam. Like every event Bassmaster had to offer, every event BASS had to offer, you were you were able to win. That that's that's quite an accomplishment.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Did you ever dream you'd get to be sitting here with me one day?

SPEAKER_06 4:21

I I can't believe it. I keep pinching myself, you know. It's so awesome. I have made the big time. I made your podcast.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

How awesome is that. Well, you and the nine other people and my mom are gonna be excited to see it. That's great. Uh Bill, I love it. Oh man, that's that's good. Hey, you're you're family man, and always you always have been. It's one of the first things I I remember um is about you and anytime you were out there telling hunting stories, it was surrounding family every time. And um let's talk a little bit about your family. I want you to tell us about tell us about your kids and grandkids. You got a pile of them, right? Tell us a little bit about your kids and grandkids.

SPEAKER_06 5:03

Uh I started out with my five children and uh with my first wife, and uh then I met my love of my life today, Martha, and uh she had three children, and so they're all my children. So we uh we have eight children collectively, and 20 grandkids, and one great-grand. Is that not awesome?

SPEAKER_03 5:26

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 5:26

20 grandkids. Man, that's that is the reward you get for not killing your kids.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

That's an incredible.

SPEAKER_06 5:34

Oh, yeah. It's all worth it. Hang in there. Hang in there on the back side, you get grandkids, and they love you so much, and you can just spoil them rotten and send them home. You don't have to deal with anything. You just get all that love and attention. It's so special.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Oh my gosh. That's that's good. So we just celebrated Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_06 5:53

How was that? Oh, it was awesome. I had uh Boone and Cade and uh Hank Jr.'s boys came down and uh they think I hung the moon, you know. So and I think they hung the moon. So collectively we just have wonderful fellowship. It was great.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Man, that's so that's so good. That's so good. Uh I I wanna I I wanna over the past year, right? There have been two really kind of big, big things that have come out um that you've been a part of. Um one is, you know, Del Dale Jr. Dale Junior's podcast, uh Dirty Mo, and then the other is the is the Earnhardt documentary that uh Amazon Prime did, which, you know, you you carry that whole thing on your show, the whole first part of that thing, you know, they're they're sitting talking to you. Um you I mean you really knew him in a way that now people are being able to see, and that story's being told in a way that's been really, really special. If you if you haven't seen the moment, I mean, I'm not talking to you, the audience, if you hadn't seen the moment where you're telling Dale Jr. that his dad loved him. I mean, I'm a grown man and I've got tears running down my face just watching that moment. Like not everybody gets that, and you were able to give that to him. So that was that was really special. So being here, I want to hear your story. I want us to take time to hear about, you know, Hank, not your view on somebody else's life, um, but but but your life. Because I I mean, uh as you say, as you started this thing out by saying, I'm a really big deal because Jesus said so, that's accurate. I want to hear, I want to hear that story. So so tell me, Hank, where'd you where'd you grow up? What part of the country did you grow up in?

SPEAKER_06 7:36

I'm made in North Carolina. My dad was from McCrae, Georgia, and he served in World War II. And uh he he was deployed overseas, fought in uh World War II, hand-to-hand combat, some brutal stuff that my dad faced, and uh he came back to finish his military career in North Carolina, met my mom, and they got married and stayed in my mom's little hometown, Maiden, North Carolina. So I I grew up in Maiden and uh had wonderful parents, uh, my dad Mo and my mom, Virginia, and uh it was it was good times in the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Mm-hmm. What was that? What was that like growing up? How many brothers and sisters did you have?

SPEAKER_06 8:17

My older brother David, and then uh 11 years younger than myself was my little sister Janine. So uh it was my older brother David who had the influence in my life. Uh and uh of course I idolized him being older, and of course he taught me everything good and bad, mostly bad, but it was part of uh sibling rivalry.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Well, uh absolutely, absolutely. Now, uh what was what was the home life like for you?

SPEAKER_06 8:47

It was wonderful. My dad was just an awesome guy, and I idolized my dad. And um, he had two jobs. He fabricated sheet metal in the daytime, then he worked on TVs at night. And uh my dad was a super good guy, and he just had this uh giving personality, and he could really show, he never really told me he loved me, but he demonstrated it through the way he would make you feel and treat you, and of course I sit up on his lap. Now I'm only like three years old when all this starts. And my brother, uh left-handed, and he loved baseball, so it started out with throwing a whiffle ball out in the yard with my dad, and uh then later on a baseball, and it kind of became a routine. Uh when my dad would come home from work from fabricating his sheet metal, uh he would uh go out in the yard with my brother and I and throw the baseball. Now, I didn't really care that much about baseball. Uh, I mean it was okay, and I was a kid, so I I guess I liked it, but the the cool part was hanging out with my dad. And uh then if it on Saturdays, if it were spring or summer, we'd go fishing and have all day with your dad. And uh then if it were fall or winter, we'd go hunting. And may have just a highlight to be with your dad. And my dad had one vice. Uh, he liked to drink a cold beer uh between his jobs, and so when he would come home from fabricating, we'd go out in the yard and throw the baseball, he'd get him a big uh black label of beer. And uh uh that beer led to multiple cold beers, and probably that started when I was about three years old, and probably about the time I was about nine or ten years old. Uh that alcohol had grown from uh black label to imperial whiskey, and uh my dad was controlled by it, and uh the world would call him an alcoholic, uh, some people would describe him as a drunk, but uh it started out as it always does, you know. It started out uh a problem, not really a crisis, but a problem. Um, my dad, Mo, uh he's got a drinking problem. So we need to deal with that. Well, a lot of people tried to help him with that. And my dad realized he really did have a problem, and he didn't like it. He he didn't like being controlled by alcohol. So he made up his mind that he was going to he was gonna quit drinking. He did that every Monday morning for about three or four years. And uh then come Friday, he'd fall off the wagon and be drunk the whole weekend. So there was no more throwing the baseball in the yard. There was no more hunting and fishing on on Saturdays, all that came to an end. And uh my dad's had a different personality when he was drinking, and you never knew what that was. Sometimes he'd be real friendly and real happy, and everything's going good, and sometimes he would be very abusive, and sometimes he would be violent. So it was just a chaotic home life, and it got worse, as it always does, you know. Sin will take you a lot further than you mean to go, and that's control on my dad. And um, he tried so hard to quit, he really did. He was so sincere in that, and um truthfully, his addiction was much stronger than his willpower. He could not overcome it within himself, he could not overcome it. So my grandfather, uh, who was a great guy, and uh he loved my dad, uh, my mom's dad, and uh he wanted to help him, so he would save up money and send my dad to rehabilitation centers where people are trained to help you overcome your addiction. And uh my dad would go and stay for an extended period of times, and he'd come home and when he'd come home, he looked just like he did when he left. And it wouldn't be but just a few days, he'd fall off the wagon, he'd be drunk again. So nothing worked. I remember the last time that uh my grandfather sent my dad to a rehab, it was a it was a place that they had a lot of confidence in. It had good reviews, and and they really had high hopes that uh this is gonna be the one, this is gonna be the place, and this is gonna be the doctor or the therapist or the person that's gonna turn my dad's life around. And uh he came home, and uh very disappointing uh to everyone is no time he's drunk again. So my grandfather made the statement once, he said, I'm gonna tell you something about Mo Parker, he's impossible. He's gonna live a drunk, he's gonna die a drunk, he's totally impossible. I'm done. I'm through with Mo Parker. And uh it wasn't long my mom followed suit, you know. But I'll steal this from uh Steve Gaines, the pastor at Bellevue uh Baptist in Memphis. Uh Steve Gaines, uh he had a book, Morning Devotion, uh Morning Mana. Morning Manna. And I read that devotion a lot, and uh, and in one of his devotions, uh, he said, you take the word impossible and you put a H in front of it, it becomes impossible. All the therapists and all the people that are trained to help uh overcome addictions, it didn't work with my dad. But my dad ended up uh a man came by our house after my mom and dad were separated. He came by our house and uh he asked my dad where would he spend eternity? And that thought bothered him. And I heard my dad say later that uh he drank uh uh uh he had already drank about a half, a fifth of liquor, he drank another, finished that one and drank drank part of another one. He couldn't get drunk enough to pass out and get that thought off his mind. And so the next morning uh it was Sunday, we didn't have a car, my dad didn't have a driver's license, we were pathetically poor uh because my dad spent everything he had on on alcohol. And uh so he called that same man asked for a ride to church. He left our house about 10 30 uh in the morning, one Sunday morning, I drunk, and he came home uh that afternoon about 1 30 or 2 o'clock. Totally changed, 180 degrees.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 15:11

Now I didn't know what that meant. He totally called me since then I got saved. Had no earthly idea what that meant. Uh but he looked different. He looked, he had a different countenance. He had he I don't say he had a glow about him, but he had a he had a smile that seemed to be genuine. Like he knew that God had done a work in his life and that he had victory. And he had gone to all these rehab uh places for the purpose of sobriety. That was that was the whole motive. And these people were trained, but they couldn't help him. He couldn't help himself. His addiction had control of him, but he went to the altar and asked Jesus Christ to come in his heart and be his savior and was a new person. Sobriety was not his objective. Salvation was his objective because he he didn't want to spend eternity in hell. And when he was asked that question, Mo, if you died today, do you know where you'd spend eternity? He knew where he'd spend eternity. And he didn't want to go there. So he went to church for the purpose of salvation. That that was his motive. Man, he got saved. And uh he sobriety was just uh one of the many benefits of salvation. How old were you at that time, Hank? I was um 16 or 17.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

And and what what was different about him after that?

SPEAKER_06 16:44

Oh, everything was different. My mom ended up coming home. My mom and dad had separated. My mom comes home, and uh the whole time I lived with my dad, and the whole time I lived there, we had uh cigarettes and liquor. And that was all in our house. There wasn't no food, so I would steal, you know, I'd go out and I'd break in drink machines, and we had cigarette machines in the old days. I'd break in those cigarette machines. That was a lot more money, and drink machines got a dime, but they're saying good cigarette machines, you got a quarter. So uh I was a thief, and uh uh and everything changed. Uh all of a sudden my mom and dad's got a happy home. My dad's got two jobs, we got a car, uh, the grass is mowed, there's food in the house, it's a different atmosphere. Uh, and my dad's talking to me about Jesus. But I'll circle the wagons and go back to how alcohol destroyed my life, and how alcohol destroyed our home, and how alcohol caused total chaos and uh uh within our our home. It changed everything. And uh my dad's dependence and my dad's attitude while he was consuming alcohol just changed our whole life. And so now uh Jesus goes in and rearranges everything, and now things are completely different. But I always find it strange. If you watch a documentary on television about a pedophile or some horrible, that to me, that is the most horrible thing I can think of. And if you watch a lot of these pedophiles, their parents were. They become what their parents were. And here I hated alcohol. I saw it destroy my life, and now when my mom leaves, I'm staying home with my dad. What am I doing? I'm drinking alcohol, I'm smoking pot, I'm breaking in drink machine. I'm just as bad as my dad, I'm in the same pit. I'm in the same pit. I jumped right in head first, knowing all the all the fallout of what all this means, and yet I'm so blinded, I jump right in that same pit. So I'm probably worse than my dad ever was. And you know, everybody says, Well, you had a rough child life. Yep, I'm a victim. I love that. People are victims. I well, I was a victim. I I'm a I'm a victim. Feel sorry for me. Have pity on me. Yeah, God's gonna give me a hall path. I'm allowed to sin and break all the rules with no penalties. Because it was tough for you. Because I'm a victim and I I suffered, and I'm I grew up in a bad environment. What do you expect, you know? And so I can play that card. Yeah, yeah. And then I did. I did.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

It's easy, it's easy for us, for anybody, to become the thing that you hate the most.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

And then you get there, and just like the one that went before you, whoever that was, whatever that influence was, mom, dad, grand, whatever that was, just like the one before you, you don't know the way out. You don't know the way out.

SPEAKER_06 19:45

Yeah. It it is a pattern that uh you just seem to fall in. You do what comes natural. And what natural is is uh is bad. That's our nature. And that was mine. And I was worse than most. Uh I was probably uh I was probably the chief. Paul said he was the chief of all sinners. I think I ran into a really close race with He didn't know HP, he said. He didn't know, he didn't know, but I was uh I was uh deeply scarred beyond, you know. People say, well, you got to go through and unfold, and it's like an onion, you gotta peel the layers off, and you've got to have counseling, and you've got to heal from all the things and the trauma that you went through to get down to the basis to be able to solve your issues and solve your problems. And if you start looking at my layers, one, my mom had uh brothers and sisters, uh, two brothers and five sisters. I had cousins, and we all lived in general proximity of one another. And uh my cousins had everything. They had bicycles, they had BB guns, they had bow and arrows, they had rook mini bikes, they had swimming pools, they had everything. We didn't have anything. Uh there were times at Christmas, my brother and I got nothing, zero. And uh so I resented that deep, deep, deep resentment. Why do they have everything and we have nothing? Why? And you know, kids, kids are are are are are jealous to begin with, you know what I mean? And so to be in that environment where you you see that your cousins are on a much higher pedestal. Uh and and you're, you know, we had the Hermans, we had the Abernathy's, we had the Lloyd's, we had the McCrees, and our our community regarded them as great people. And then here we are, the Parkers, and we're trash. And that wasn't a secret. That that was something that maybe wasn't said to my face very often, but you could you knew that that's who you were, and that became your identity. And uh you don't know how to deal with that. And so as time went on. I just kept getting worse and worse and worse, more and more and more layers of resentment, more and more layers of sin and hate. Man, I hated people. I hated it because you had it and I didn't. And I'd steal it from you and have no absolute no remorse for doing it because I deserved it because I'm a victim. And why do you have it and I don't have it? So if you got it, I'm gonna take it. Man, I'd steal it in a heartbeat. And that was my attitude. And my attitude is who I really am, and that's who I really was. And so my dad got saved. He could see who I was. You know, there's some people you can fool and some people you can't fool. And it's hard to fool the people that are closest to you.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

He's looking in a mirror.

SPEAKER_06 22:47

Yeah. They they know you. And so my dad would come to me, and man, he'd start telling me about Jesus. And I was so happy for my dad. I was so proud of him. But yet I didn't want that for me. My dad went to church on Monday night visitation. He went to on uh Tuesday night men gathering, on Wednesday night prayer meeting, on Sunday, Lord have mercy. He got saved, say he got time for all this stuff. I mean, I don't want that for me. Yeah. And uh besides I've got a lot to prove. I got a lot to prove. I'm injured, I'm bruised. I um I was a dyslexic when I was a kid. So I couldn't read. And uh I remember the embarrassment of getting called out. Uh I was in the second grade, and uh my school teacher, Miss May, she wanted all of us kids to go up to the chalkboard and write dog on the chalkboard. And we had gone over cat and dog and Jane and Puff and all the little second grade reading, and of course I couldn't read any of it at all. And uh no one recognized that at all. Uh and I just didn't understand why I saw things backwards. Dyslexia, obviously, is when you see things backwards. And uh I didn't understand that. I just thought I was the dumbest guy in in the room. And uh so she had us go write dog on the chalkboard. Well, I wrote it backwards, which is the way I saw it. And if you write dog backwards, it's God. And she thought I was being sacrilegious, and uh boy, it offended her. And I can understand that. Sure. And so she gave me one more chance. She said, You go up there and write dog on that chalkboard, or I'm gonna beat you half to death. Back then they could do that. Oh, yeah. Back in them days they carried boat paddles, man. I mean, they could whip you right in front of the whole class. I caught the tail end of that when I was a kid. She bent me over a chair in front of the whole class because I wrote dog. Yeah, that's the way I saw it. And I remember standing there, uh, Josh, just as I I can remember it pretty vivid. I I stood there and almost wet my pants, uh, concentrating. I wanted so bad to write dog. And man, I was really trying to concentrate to get it right. And I wrote it like I thought. I wrote it backwards. And boy, she lived up to her end of the bargain. She bit me over a chair. It was so embarrassing. The pain made me cry. And uh, but the embarrassment lived on, and uh everybody made fun of me. And so I made up my mind at that point uh in my life I'd never be embarrassed again. So if I ever from grade two all the way up to grade 11, if I was called on to read out loud in class, I would just revolt and cut up to the fact that sent me to the principal's office because I didn't want to show my hand to the other kids that I couldn't read. And uh so I covered that up. So now my whole life I got all these layers of resentment. I've got all this this anxiety uh uh of uh of failure. And now I'm uh I'm I'm in school and I'm the dumbest guy in the whole school. I can't read. And as time went on, by 10th and 11th grade, they start posting your grades in the hallway when you take a test. You know. All these kids are upset because they made a 75. I I'd make a 25. If it was a multiple choice, you know, I had four.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

You literally couldn't see the words on the book.

SPEAKER_06 26:32

Oh no, I had no clue. It was absolutely looking like a blank sheet of paper. I couldn't read. I could not read. And uh so and as you advance in years uh in in grades in school, it's more demanding and depending on reading. You know, all your assignments were were written out. So, in order to do what you were told to do, you had to read it to get the instructions to be able to take the test or whatever. I couldn't do that. And uh no one knew that. My mom did, and my mom lost patience with me. My mom, she took a lot of prescription drugs, stayed in bed a lot. And I hate saying bad things about my mom. I love my mom, but she would get so frustrated with me. And no one recognized I had a problem. Uh, they just thought that I didn't apply myself, or I didn't concentrate, or I wasn't trying. And so my mom would read something to me, and I know she's gonna ask me to read it back, and so I'm under so much pressure, and I see it all backwards, and I can't read it. I could have rehearsed it and some short things I did, but when she would read a paragraph and then ask me to read it back, I couldn't remember it all, and so I couldn't do it. And my mom would say to me, How can you be so stupid? I just read that to you, never recognizing that I wasn't able to see it the way she saw it. I'm seeing it all backwards. So as a result, I never learned how to read. So I I left school, and when my mom came back home, uh she was a very strict disciplinarian, my mom, and she really believed in education. She she she put a lot of value on education. And so um when um when she came back, she said, You're going back to school. So I went back to school. Didn't want to, but I went back to school. And uh when it was discovered that I couldn't read and I was in the 11th grade, uh man, I couldn't handle it. It was just too much. How'd that come out?

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Was it was it was it a teacher?

SPEAKER_06 28:44

I think posting all these grades, and then I had a I had a teacher that recognized that um that I couldn't, and it kind of got out all over school. So man, I was so embarrassed I just quit. Well now my mom thought that's the end of the world. No education, no hope. You're you're done for.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

Yeah, and uh she was already disappointed.

SPEAKER_06 29:04

Very disappointed.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

And now you double down on it. Yeah, and it's it's uh it's complete a complete loss.

SPEAKER_06 29:10

Yeah, and my mom to get to to go back and and kind of justify how she felt. My mom really wanted my brother, my sister, and myself to do well. Uh she wanted us to be prepared for life. She wanted us to get a good education, and in her mind, that was preparation for life, as it is with a lot of parents, and it is very, very important. I don't I don't uh down education, and and I think it's very, very important, and I wish I would have been in a position that I could have read and that I could have advanced uh, you know, academically. It it just didn't work out. Uh it wasn't the hand that was dealt me, and so my mom uh she tried so hard with my brother and sister, and they were both very academically inclined. My brother and my sister smart as whips, and uh man that they were academically inclined, had no dyslexia, and uh they prospered. And my mom, uh, if if my brother or my sister would come home at the end of a semester with a B, they were in big trouble. Because my mom knew with any effort whatsoever they would have made straight A's. I mean, okay. So they'd be in trouble. If I came home at the end of a semester with a B, she'd beat me half to death because she knew I cheated. You learned hard for that B. Man, I I cheated. Within doubt, look about. You know, that was my philosophy. So I haven't ever heard that. Within doubt, look about it. Oh, yeah, man. Hank Parker. Within doubt, look about what the way Eddie Duncan get over there. He was smart, you know. He sat beside me. I got a lot of info from Eddie on the tip. But uh when I quit school, my mom uh she thought it was the end of the world. Yeah, it's over. You're done. You're gonna live under a bridge all your life, you have no hope. My dad had a different attitude. My dad, he said, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. Life's gonna be tough. Life's gonna be tough. But I'm gonna tell you something. If you get your life right with Jesus, and that's all my dad cared about, the whole time my dad had been saved, uh all he did was try to set strategies to have the right moment to deliver the gospel for me and my brother because we were both lost, and he knew it. And my dad's number one burden was for to lead his boys to the Lord. That we would not go to hell, that we would go to heaven with him someday. And my dad was so burdened for us. I mean, it was so incredibly obvious. He he he was so burdened that he went overboard a lot. He just went, and I tell people this all the time: mood is important. Uh create a uh an environment that's conducive to communicating to share the gospel. I tell people all the time fishing is a wonderful thing. Uh almost all of my children uh we create an environment that was conducive to being able to communicate. They're excited about being outdoors, the smell of the air, God's creation, being there, but you communicate, and it's not pressure. You know, we're driving our kids to school, we got five minutes. Don't do drugs, don't hang out with this person, don't listen to dirty jokes. Do boom, boom, boom. And we try to drill it in our head. Well, they're a million miles away. They're thinking about this test, or they're thinking about I can't wait to see my friend, or whatever. Or they will rush to get their toothbrush, their teeth brushed, and you were blowing the horn to get out to go to school. The environment is wrong, it's not conducive to communicating. So I tell people go fishing. You go sit on a riverbank. I don't care if you don't have a boat, go to the pond, go to a creek. It doesn't matter. Just create an environment and talk and listen to your children communicate. My dad was so desperate to get us saved that he would try to force feed at wrong times. His intentions were wonderful. His motive was perfect, but his methodology sometimes would uh create a lot of resentment, hassle, trouble, fall on deaf ears. I ain't got time for this, I'm in a hurry, I gotta meet this, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

So it was it was like pressure and like because he sees the clock ticking, yeah, and he sees how you're living and he he's genuinely can and he should have been concerned. He was but he but there you're you're saying, man, if you can get your kids in a place to where you you have the pressures of life and this world set aside, I mean, get in get on the riverbank, get in a boat, spend some time fishing, spend some time in the outdoors, just talking, talking to your kids.

SPEAKER_06 34:06

It's so important. People say, Well, my kids like to play baseball, so I I spend time with them. Well, when you go take them to baseball, they're with their coach, they're in the dugout, they're with their buddies. Right. Yeah, you don't have that one-on-one time. So I don't care what this sport is, if it's hula hoof, if it's shooting marbles, I don't care what it is, as long as it's one-on-one. Right. But but not sharing with a football team, a baseball team, a soccer team, do something that's one on if it's bird watching, I don't care what it is. Just get in that environment that's something that is thrilling to them and create an atmosphere where you can communicate.

SPEAKER_03 34:42

My um, when we were when we were young boys, my dad, and I didn't I didn't notice till years later. I didn't notice till years later. Um, but my dad bought a 14-foot tri-hull bass boat. All right. And we fixed that thing up, man, and and and listen, man, we grew up, we grew up, I don't want to say we were destitute and poor, but we didn't have money for a bass boat. My dad figured it out, right? And he wasn't the kind of guy to do that. He was a frugal man, like, but he figured that bass boat out. And he he had a cousin that had drowned in the water when he was real young. And so he was always afraid of water. So he'd get on the boat, and the life jacket went on. And that's before they had these cool life jackets they got now. Like life jackets would go on, big arms when dad's out there. And and years later, I remember talking to my mom about that boat. And that boat, that boat's still at the house. A few years ago, I did a little bit of work on it. We still have but my mom said, you know, your dad bought that boat because he said there'd be a lot of things that would try to pull the boys away from the house. And he wanted a place to always be able to spend time with them. And they could always do it on it. And man, did we?

SPEAKER_04 35:56

That's wisdom.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

Listen, it it it was uh it was it was huge for me. Now, my now my boys, uh, my son uh DJ, uh he could care less about fishing. I've taken him hunting, I put him in front of deer, and he's like, he does, he could care less. He loves old cars. So uh man, I get that time with him turning wrenches on a 1980 Chevrolet pickup truck. And you know, that that's kind of to your point, Hank.

SPEAKER_06 36:23

That is, that's exactly where I'm going. Yeah. Spend time with the kid kids. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

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SPEAKER_06 37:13

So when I quit school, again, my mom thought, end of the world. And my dad, he said, let me see, I'm not gonna sugarcoat him, it's gonna be tough. But I'm gonna tell you something. If you get your life right with Jesus, it'll take care of itself. And for whatever reason, I'd kind of shut him out. But that resonated a little bit. I thought, I get my life right, but Jesus ain't got anything to do with my education. And I I don't know where it's coming from. But it it is something about the gospel. It stays with you. And it's something about a Christian person that is sincere. It stays with you. And my dad, my dad thought that my brother and I both were uh we're just letting it run off our backs like water off a duck's back. And you want to do that, but you can't do it. Gospel doesn't return void. It stakes out a place in your heart and drives the peg in, and it's there even though you don't want it to be there. And so uh at this time, I just broke it off with my dad. I'm not I'm not listening to it anymore. Um my dad would point out, I used to tell him I was okay, and he said, tell me why you're okay. Well, I'm beginning to be a better guy. I've quit breaking in drink machines, cigarette machines, I've quit stealing, I've quit smoking pot, I've quit drinking liquor. I'm uh I'm gonna become a professional fisherman, and I'm turning into a good guy. He said, son, what's that got to do with salvation? What's that got to do with Jesus? Well, I'm a good guy. I'm turning into a good guy. I think Jesus be proud of me. I'm a victim of where I've come from, I've made great progress. And he said, Well, son, Ephesians 2.8-9 says, For by grace are you saved through faith. That not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. You can't get good enough. You can't earn. If you could have earned your salvation, Jesus wouldn't have to die for you. You can't get good enough. Don't you see that? Well, I saw it, but I didn't want to see it. You know, I'm I'm right in the middle of Hell's theme song. Uh I'm in the second verse. I did it my way. It was about me. It wasn't about Jesus, it was about me. So I didn't want to hear that. So I kind of broke it off with my dad. And uh I I would answer a question every once in a while. He would ask me, he said, um, are you happy? Do you have peace? When you go to bed at night, just you and the Lord, do you have peace in your heart deep down? And I'd lie. I'd lie like a dog. I'd say, Oh man, yeah, I got peace. No, I didn't have peace.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

You didn't have peace.

SPEAKER_06 40:03

I didn't have it. And so I I ran. And so I cut it off on my dad. I'd answer those questions, but I would not let him go into the Bible and start giving me scriptures. And uh so I just I ran and I ran. But he never gave up. He never gave up. I'd be somewhere now at this time I've moved on and I've starting to fish. I'd be somewhere at five o'clock in the morning, uh putting on my sock, getting ready to go fishing. I thought, what is in my sock? A gospel track. God's simple plan of salvation. He put them in my underwear, my rain suit, my tackle box, my sock. Anywhere I could find a gospel track.

SPEAKER_04 40:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:41

God's simple plan of salvation. You must be born again. The whole Romans road for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, for there's none righteous, no, not one. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. You can't get away from that. But I couldn't get away from that.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

There might be people watching, they don't have any idea what a gospel track is. Right? So a gospel track is a little two-page booklet. Two-page booklet, right? And and I can remember being a kid and walking into public restrooms, and them things would be stacked up on the euro. Still find them from time to time. And it basically was just a message of, hey, turn your life. It was straightforward. Yeah, straightforward. And it had all kinds of designs and all that.

SPEAKER_06 41:25

Whatever kept your attention.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

Yeah, and you could, in fact, when I was a kid at the church, on a on you could pick them up, like they had a Rolodex of these things in the lobby, and you could pick them up, you could be out here passing them out. So your dad was grabbing them at the church, and he's shoving them in everything you own.

SPEAKER_06 41:40

Yeah. And the one he really wanted me, and it just walked you down and it showed you that there is none. Uh uh, Romans 3.10, uh, there's none righteous. Uh Romans 3.23 for all have sinned, and then Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. It connected all the dots. Here you are. You're trying to offer to me that you're okay. Here's why you're not okay, because God said you weren't. God goes back and he goes all the way down from Adam and shows our sin nature as humans. And but he didn't quit on us. He turned over to Romans 6.23 and tells us what the wages of sin is, but he gave us a way out through the cross. And so it pointed it all out. So that was the most important. Now he would put a few uh attractions, the fires of hate. It scared the crap out of me.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

But then as a little kid, I'd be like, I don't want to go there at all.

SPEAKER_06 42:41

Yeah. And I'm telling you, there are a lot of preachers, and I heard a guy, uh Esther Sperkle, who I met personally, did a uh a movie back in the day uh called The Burning Hell. And I heard somebody uh talking about how ridiculous that movie was. But I'm gonna promise you this there's gonna be people in heaven that if it weren't for that movie, would not be there. So hell is not something that we shouldn't talk about. And being scared of going to hell is not bad because that's what motivated me to salvation. Same. Uh I didn't want to go to hell. Yeah. And uh I know it's real. And Jesus talks about hell and separation from God and uh the pit. I hate snakes. Yeah. Where the worm and the snake is good.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

Oh, and I don't want to be there. I'll tell you that. I was a I was real young in those days, and I grew up independent fundamental Baptist. And so that movie came out, that movie, The Burning Hell, came out, and they would show it in churches. And then so and then back then, churches didn't have like a projector or things like that. So to get that a movie shown in the church in the 80s was a big deal. So they were showing this movie in churches. Well, my mom would take us around to show us this movie. Well, you know, my young Son Carson. So a few months ago. My fishing buddy. Your fishing buddy. A few months ago. Yeah, I'll show a picture right here of them together. But a few months ago, I was telling Carson about this movie of the burning, the burning hell. And he he says, No way, Dad. They made that and showed it in because he can't imagine telling that movie in the jock. He grew up in a church plant. You know, he grew up with a rock band on stage, right? So so I we go to YouTube. We found it on YouTube, and I showed him the movie, and it scared me again. I think it's intense, but you can imagine a little like families and people watching that. And it just brings the reality. And I'm I'm not endorsing that that might be the way you want to go now, but it doesn't change the fact that you're exactly right. Hell's something we should be afraid of, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 44:48

I don't I don't I don't apologize for the burning hell, and I don't think that uh it's primitive today when you look at AI and with all the graphic opportunities we have with computers and digital editing. And I mean, but it's primitive in comparison to uh uh to what the capabilities of doing today, you know, you think of Star Wars and Jurassic Park and all the graphics that they weren't able to do those sorts of things, so it's it's pretty uh uh pretty unique uh and very it was enough to scare me, I can tell you that. But the message has not changed. Not at all. And so for for that movie, Esther Sperkle, I knew him personally, and he'd come to our church and preached several times. He was the producer of that um of that movie. And uh they also made one on heaven. Uh three years after the burning hell came out, he did one on heaven, but uh didn't have the effect on uh on uh salvation like the burning hell, the fear of hell is uh and so my dad knew that he would give me tracks. Uh but the one that he really anchored on that he built his foundation on was God's simple plan of salvation, and it connected all the dots and it made it so convicting. You would tell yourself that I'm okay, that I'm really a pretty good guy, that I'm getting better. Being a victim, I was justified in my all my iniquities, and uh now I have seen the light and I've picked myself up by my bootstraps, and I'm becoming a much better person. I'm becoming a productive citizen. A person Jesus would have been proud of. Yep, that's right. I'm turning into a pretty darn good guy. I'm gonna be okay. But then you read God's simple plan and it goes right down the Romans road, tells you why you're not okay. It tells you that you're a failure. It tells you that you have no hope. It tells you, just like my dad, when he had gone through, made up his mind, he tried everything within every fiber of his body of overcoming alcohol, but he couldn't do it. He was a failure. But God could do it. And I saw that. And I'm sitting there looking, and no matter how hard I try, I still have filthy thoughts. No matter how hard I try, I still lie. No matter how hard I try, so I honestly know within myself I can't clean myself up. I can't be not because I'm judging myself against my buddies, my cousins, my friends, because face to face I'm reading God's word. And I see the hole in myself. I see the hole in my philosophy. I see, but I don't want to admit that, but I see that. And so my dad never gave up, even though I wouldn't talk to him. He didn't have the opportunity. He'd send men from his church to come tell me about Jesus. If I saw him before they got into the house, I'd go out the back door and go down through the woods. If they made it in the house before I discovered they were there, I'd go out my bedroom window and down through the woods. I could not stand the gospel. Could not stand the gospel. Like a really ugly person that I was looking into a mirror. I didn't want to see myself. I didn't want to deal with that. And as long as it wasn't in my mind, man, I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm I'm doing what I want to do, I'm good. But when you put that gospel out there, then all of a sudden I see a part of me that I don't like. Well, I don't want to not like me. I'm my favorite person. You know? I'm special. And I'm gonna prove to the world I'm a high school dropout. I have no hope. I gotta prove to the world that I can overcome that. I got to prove to the world that I'm smart. I gotta prove to the world that I can be successful. I gotta prove to the world. And most of all, I gotta prove to me that I'm the man. And I'm gonna overcome all the adversity. Everything that I've ever gone through in my life, I'm gonna show the world, buddy, I'm somebody. And that's my that's my task. That's my carrot out in front of me. That's that's the race I'm running. And boy, I ain't got time to start sharing my life with Jesus. And I don't have time to be like my dad. And uh so little did I know I was in this same pit he was in. I was destined to completely, absolutely fail. And uh I love Joby Martin down at uh 1122 in Jacksonville, Florida. Um I listened to him quite often. I think he's an awesome pastor. And uh they they uh are preaching a series of man up and admit, you know, that's uh that is the first step to to salvation is repentance. Admit you're a failure. And in Jesus, failure is not final. Failure is not final. And I look at it like a football player, you know, a football game. Oh McCaffee that plays for the 49ers, uh Christian McCaffrey.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

Christian McCaffrey, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:26

McCaffrey. He's awesome. Uh but you watch him, there'll be a lot of times they'll catch him behind the line of scrimmage and tackle him. Totally fail. That whole play was a failure. He was a failure. But then keep watching. As the game goes on, there'll be some time he'll break through the front line, burst by the linebackers, and make a 60-yard, you know, gain. Life's like that. You know, you can fail and fail and fail, but failure is not final. And every day the Bible talks about put on the arm of God, die to self daily, pick up your cross daily, and uh the opportunities that you have as a Christian, forgiveness, man, it is a life, but I didn't see that. And I could see this dramatic change in my dad. You know, I often think about what the children of Israel were thinking when they were suppressed to the point that the Egyptians were coming, they were on the shoreline of the Red Sea. They had no hope. It was over. They're fixing to be slaughtered. And God opened the Red Sea and gave them and allowed them to pass through on solid ground and get on the other side of the Red Sea. And then when the Egyptians, their enemies came to slaughter them, he let the water go back and he drowned the Egyptians. They saw that, yet they go out in the wilderness and they sin. Well, I think, how stupid can they be? I watched a drunk with no hope who repeatedly reached out to rehabilitation centers where professional people couldn't help him. The world had no solution for his problem. But in one stroke of the master's hand, my dad's a new creation, and it is so incredibly obvious that you can't hide from it. And I watched that. So I'm just as rebellious as the Egyptian, the Israelites that watched the Egyptians be destroyed by God to protect them. They've witnessed this miracle, and yet they went back out and rebelled. That's me. That's exactly I witnessed this miracle, but I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to see it. I wanted to do my thing. And so that's what I did. And I kept on running. And my dad, he went with a group of men to White City, Kansas to build some youth homes for a church up there over the 4th of July holidays. So a whole group from his church went. And my dad had been saved. He got saved in 1970, and this was 1975. So he had been saved for five years. Witnessing me and my brother nonstop. Now that I won't talk to him, he's putting gospel tracts in my socks. He has never given up. And but he sees that he's made no progress. We're just as evil, we're just as disobedient, we're just as lost as we were when he began. And he's frustrated. He sees my brother's got a motorcycle and he's flying up down the highways. Um you read in the obituary column every day about motorcycle accidents that took people's lives. So he knows my brother is just on one banana pill, one slip. And not only would he be dead, he'd be in hell. And my dad knows that. And then I got a bass boat, the motor's gigantic on this little bitty bass boat, and I'm flying up and down the lakes. Well, that's a that is just a time bomb. And so he knows I'm just one, and he he's running out of patience. He's thinking, oh, oh, my boys are gonna die and they're gonna go to hell. So he's in White City, Kansas, and he and his pastor are best buddies. They had become really great friends after my dad got saved. And so they're rooming together. And the pastor asked my dad that night, they they recognized my dad was he was in a different mood. And he he was deeply in deep in thought, and he just wasn't himself.

SPEAKER_05 54:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 54:43

And so his pastor asked him, he said, Mo, what's wrong? Be honest with me, what's wrong? He said, Pastor, it's my boys. My boys, David and Hank. They're lost. And they're one slip from banana peel going to hell. And I just can't bear the thought of my boys going to hell. And he said, Well, Mo, we just have to pray. We have to pray with God to break their heart. And the last thing my dad said to his pastor before they turned out the lights at night was, Pastor, I'd gladly give my life for my boys to be saved. And so they finished their work, and the pastor flew back home because he had to preach. And my dad and five men got in a van, started home, and somewhere around Louisville, Kentucky, they had a wreck. Five men were fine. One man was dead. It was my dad. And I really believe, and I don't talk about this often, but I really believe God took him up on his offer. I think my dad meant that. And um, God, knowing all things, that's what it took for me. You know, you can be cocky, you can be arrogant, uh, you can be self-assured, but something about death is sobering. Something about the finality of death. And my dad, whom I loved, was the first person that I ever deeply loved and was connected to that died. My dad was special to me. Uh man, I love my dad. Even though we were at odds over the gospel, man, I love my dad. So now I'm in church, and uh I'm I'm sitting there at my dad's funeral, and I'm pretty sober. I'm not quite so arrogant. And uh, as I listened to the same scriptures that was on that God's simple plan, uh the same scriptures my dad had walked through over and over and over again. And uh now I'm thinking that maybe I can't get saved. I have blasphemed, I've wadded those gospel tracts up, I've ran from my dad's friends trying to share the gospel, I've shut my dad off, ugly. Uh I've gone too far. And uh then 2 Peter 3, 9. Uh, for the Lord is not slack as some count slackness, but is long suffering, not willing that any should perish, but all come to repentance. I'm thinking, any and all, maybe I can get saved. That's me. And then he comes to that Matthew 16, 26. That's the most sobering scripture for a lost person that I know. What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lost his soul? Or what would a man give in exchange for his soul? And my dad used to say to me when I was prioritizing, gonna prove to the world that I was somebody to be a professional angler and one day be a world champion bass anger. My dad would say to me, son, what would it profit you if you won every bass tournament in the world and died and went to hell? And the reality of that in my dad's funeral sobered me up enough to reason within myself, what are you doing? What are you running from? You've witnessed your dad, you've seen him come out of that pit, you've seen him find contentment and peace, you've seen happiness in complete despair, 180 degrees. You've watched that. Now here you are, you're a liar, you're miserable, and yet you're too proud. I was way too proud to accept Jesus. What in the world did I have to be proud of? A high school dropout with nothing, no vocation, no education, I had nothing. But I was too proud. And so all of a sudden, Matthew 6, 26. Matthew 16, 26. What will it profit a man if he gained the whole world? What if you win every bass tournament? What have you done? You're gonna die and go to hell. Man, the reality of that sobered me to the point that I said, Lord, I don't know how you can love me. And I don't even know why you would care for me. But if you have me, Lord, I live for you. I give you my life. I'm sick of running, I'm sick of lying. I want what my dad's got. I want what my dad had while he was alive, and I want what my dad's got right now.

SPEAKER_03 59:25

This is taking place at the funeral. At the funeral.

SPEAKER_06 59:28

This is going through my heart. It's going through my mind. What you gonna do with Jesus? Are you sick of running? Are you sick of lying? So the pastor asked for a show of hands. He said, I'm not gonna call, have an altar call. But if you really in your heart repent and ask Jesus to come into your heart, I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand. I think I raised both my hands. And I didn't really know what I was in for. I knew I didn't want to go to hell. I knew I believed that Jesus died on the cross. I believe I believed that he rose again on the third day, and I believed he was in heaven, and I believe he was alive, and I believe he was still in the miracle business because I had seen him and been a part of it. And I was sick of Hank Parker. I was sick of the victim. I was sick of all the things I were. And I'm not throwing off or second-guessing any psychologists that feel like you need to peel the layers of the onion to get to the cause of the problem and deal with them one-on-one. I didn't have to do any of that. I got complete peace. My dad used to ask me in your heart, are you do you have peace when it's just you and Jesus? Man, I didn't know what it was. I'd lie that I had it, but I didn't have it. But for the first time in my life, now I know what peace is. I know what forgiveness is. I know what a clean slate is. I know that all my failures weren't final. I know that I've got a second chance. I know people say, well, I've been pardoned. A pardon would have done me no good whatsoever. A pardon wouldn't help me at all. My past sins, because I sinned again and again and again and again and again. Man, I was redeemed. God redeemed my soul and my life changed. I had no, I didn't even buckle my seatbelt because I didn't know what I was in for. But I found myself wanting to go to church. I found myself wanting to hear the gospel. I found myself completely different than I was just a week before. My priorities changed. Now, did I make a mess? Oh my goodness alive. Uh I look back, oh my goodness. Uh, the way I witnessed to people, the way I would try to defend God. I didn't argument, you know, because oh my goodness alive. Somebody take God's name in vain. You're not gonna cuss my God. God needed me to defend him. And I think how shallow. And but it was truly innocent. It really was. And uh God's grace is so incredibly sufficient that even total ignorance he he he overlooks.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

Man, the the thought of of you days after your father tells his friend that I would gladly give my life for my boys. And then and and listen, I'm not over here saying that's how I don't I I don't know how to pack that away with my theology, and I don't need to. Here's what I know Jesus is gracious and loving and kind, and to meet you in that place on on the heels of your dad's changed heart is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

unknown 1:03:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:02

Yeah, that's that long suffering, not willing that any should perish. My brother and I both got saved at my dad's funeral. Our lives changed, our home changed, everything changed. You know, my great-grandfather was a drunk. My grandfather was a drunk, my dad was a drunk. I've got four boys, my brother's got one. We don't have any more drunks. He's a chain breaker, he's a he's a way maker. He's uh he's he's capable of taking a piece of trash, the Parker's, their trash, and recycling. I'm glad that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords chose to come to this earth to pick up trash like me and recycle. And it it's amazing what uh God can do and has done. And that that's my whole story. That's that's that's my priority in my life is to not peel back that onion for therapy, but to show the world. You know, so many times people will do something and someone else will get the credit for what someone else did. And that's so wrong, but it happens all the time. People say, boy, old Hank Parker. He's he's a world champion, he's a Hall of Famer, he's done this, he's done that. Let me tell you something. Hank Parker's a high school dropout. Hank Parker is a piece of trash. Hank Parker is a confused kid with a lot of anxiety and with a lot of hostility and a lot of just major confusion within his little pea brain. But God. So you look at the the championships, you look at the Hall of Fame. Had it not been for God, if you read my profile, if you let an FBI analyst read my school records and my profile, he'll say, that guy is a candidate to be a serial killer. He'll definitely be in prison. That's my identity in the world by the world's standards. But God. But God. My dad had been in that pit, and he told me, he said, son, you get your life right with Jesus, and it'll take care of itself. I don't know how. I don't know how. But look where I am in life. Look at where I am financially, look at what I have, look at what I don't deserve any of that. I didn't do anything to earn that. I don't understand how God took care of me, but my dad said, fifth grade education, my dad. Son, I can't explain it to you, but I promise you, if you get like your life right with Jesus, it'll take care of itself. Now I realize all these material things are rust and dust. Victory is that peace that God gives you in your heart. Whether you're driving a 40 year old car or whether you're driving a Ferrari, peace is what We're after. Happiness, contentment. That's what we're afraid. Whether you're a billionaire or a pumper, we're after that peace. I got that peace. That makes me rich.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

Life has totally changed.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:16

All this other stuff is rust and dust. It ain't a big deal. I tell people all the time, they say, walk in my office as you did a couple of weeks ago, and you look at these trophies, wow, wow, wow, wow. It's all rust and dust. Rust and dust. You know, I'd like to have putting on my my tombstone. People say, What would you like inscribed on your tombstone? I'd like to put it up there and say, Hank Parker, two-time world champion, Hall of Famer, first Grand Slam winner. All these things that the world says I've accomplished. And at the bottom of that, it says, in spite of all of those distractions, he lived to share the gospel. That'd be so awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

Wouldn't it though? Yeah. I I remember when I was at the house, you said something that kind of hit me. You're like, man, all these trophies, one day, they're gonna be in a cracker barrel somewhere. They ain't gonna make them nothing. Well, what good are they? Hank, man, let's uh let's take let's take a little break. Um and and then uh we'll we'll keep we'll keep moving forward. But gosh, what a what a story, what a beautiful story.

unknown 1:07:24

Man.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:24

Today's episode is brought to you in partnership with Studio 101 Media. Partnering with them has allowed me to come in and be able to focus on the things that I do well, which is to tell stories. And it allows them to focus on the things that they do well, which is great audio, great video, and putting that together for me in a way that really illuminates the message that I care about. If you're interested in upping your audio video game for your podcast, give these guys a call. Check them out at studio101media.com. Oh man, I haven't I haven't always drank coffee, but um I'll be I'll be totally honest. Anytime I did drink coffee, I'd have to put you know a bunch of sugar and current or something. I like hot chocolate, but give me the straight coffee. Every time I would see a grown man order black coffee, I was jealous. And I was like, that seems so manly, you know. Give me a black coffee and a and a you know, a chainsaw to cut my steak with, you know, whatever. That's just what it felt like. You need to really get in the book of Hankelonians. Uh huh.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:33

Hankalonium says, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's black coffee.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:38

Well, my buddy, my buddy Toby Dix. My buddy Toby Dix, I was at I was at breakfast with him and he ordered black coffee, and I was like, that's so awesome, man. I wish I could drink it. He said, he looked at me and he said, You can. You can do it. Just get past what you are missing and think about what you have. And I said, Oh man. So I started just tasting the coffee, and it wasn't but a few weeks, and now every morning when I wake, my eyes open up, I'm thinking about two things. Sitting with the Lord. First, I'm thinking about going to the bathroom. Then I'm thinking about sitting with the Lord and drinking black coffee, and I love it. So I gotta credit my buddy Toby. So I'll tell you what he told me, Hank. You can. The door is open.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:23

Let me just tell Toby, just for his sake, you can do the same with vinegar. Vinegar's wonderful. Just look what it does for pickles. So forget about the pickle and just think about the value of that vinegar and just step on it, and you will learn to bypass all the other thoughts. Focus on the value of vinegar.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:46

Get you a cup of that, brother. There you go. There you go. So you you mentioned earlier, you said that there was an age you decided you were going to be a professional bass fisherman. What motivated you? Where'd you, I mean, where did that come from?

SPEAKER_06 1:10:03

I got uh I got I was always just fascinated with fishing. And I think I learned I know why fishermen lie. As a kid, the experience is just so much greater than the truth. The truth doesn't do justice to the the little fish I caught. He was like Moby Dick, man. This thing was just a ferocious fighting. And that's the way it seemed, and so to say, I caught a brim, he was this long. It's just so anticlimatic. So it makes you, and that's where I was with fishing. I've just always just loved it, man, beyond belief. So when uh bass fishing came along, and I I learned, I don't remember, my aunt may have given me a Bassmaster magazine, and I read about uh Bill Dance and all these guys making a living fishing, and I thought, God, it's the coolest thing I've ever heard in my life. I remember the first Bassmaster Classic, 1971. My dad called me in the room and we watched that thing. They were on Lake Mead, and Bobby Murray won the thing, and it was just bigger than life. And that was a secret ambition for me. I thought, man, would I die to do that? And so I got in a little bass club, and I was successful over grown men, and I'm still 15 years old. Yeah, 16 years old. And uh I moved over to a bigger bass club with some pro fishermen in it. Some Jerry Ryan, who was a great guy, passed away about a year and a half ago, was just an awesome guy. He and I traveled together for some years on the bass circuit, but those guys were successful, and they were not winning necessarily, but making the money, qualifying to go to the bass classic, and just golly bum how well I'm beating them on a regular basis. And uh so I had another guy that uh he wasn't in our bass club, but he was a professional fisherman and he was he was doing pretty good. And uh uh one day he and I were quail hunting, and he said, Why are you not fishing professionally? Man, you beat all these guys. You're so you I'm making the money out, and you can wear me out. You wear me out every time we go, you wear me out when you go by yourself. You should be fishing professionally, and I think that is the one time that the secret dream that I had that no one knew about really came to life, and I thought, man, I'm gonna do that. And um, of course, I had no money, and uh I was in a weird marital situation where my in-laws had money, but uh my parents had no money, and so my wife she got some dividends and uh was able to afford us to to live at a standard that we could have never lived had it been my income, but it would have been crossing the line to go to her parents or to her and ask for money uh to pay entry fees to go fishing. That would not have gone well.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:26

So I went to Northwestern Bank and made North Carolina a banker named Steve Sims. For whatever reason, he had confidence that I would be honest and pay him back. I had nothing to collateralize. I mean, I had no collateral at all. And uh just on my word, he gave me a 90-day note uh for $10,000, which was a lot of money in uh 1976. And so I borrowed $10,000 on a 90-day note and went fishing in 1976. Yep. Oh my goodness. Is that business plan?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:00

So you you jumped in. Did you have a boat? Did you buy a boat? What were I mean how what was that process like to become a professional?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:07

I had already uh taken the nest deep lunge and I had a boat, and uh uh this will be interesting for those uh listening or viewers that uh that fish today, and I have a Ranger boat today that the retail price of that boat's about 120 grand. Uh my first ranger was a TR3 with a 115 Mercury. Um had a two-blade brass prop that was before stainless steel props, had a 12-volt electric foot control troll motor, had two Hummingbird depth binders, a Super 60 on the console, super 30 on the bow, and uh had an Everglaze drive-on trailer, and uh I bought it Piedmont Bait and Tackle in Lincoln, North Carolina, $2,190. $2,900. That was my first. No, I'm wrong. $2,390. Okay. That's what that boat was. Okay, $2,390. I bought my first boat. So I had that boat. And so when I started fishing, uh, and I had a lure company out of Charlotte, uh, Butch Harris Lure Company, the year before come to me and uh furnished me with a boat and paid my entry fee to go fish a tournament in Santa Cooper. And so my first BASS tournament was actually in 1975, which is the same year I got saved. Uh uh, and I uh I didn't do well in that tournament, but it was the best tournament I ever fished because I realized I was not prepared. Uh, that those guys had a lot more knowledge and I had to go home and do a lot of homework to get ready. So for the rest of the year of 1975 and uh early on in 76, I did nothing but prepare to to get better and be more versatile and go fishing on the circuit.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:59

What year did you first win the classic?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:03

Uh I won the classic in 1979. I was 26 years old, and um I had only been fishing bass. I started out after I was successful with national bass and American bass, I got some awards, I got some, I won some boats, and I was able to rig a new boat, and uh I had uh I put 175 at that time. Mercury kept making a more horsepower every year. Well, they moved up to 175 horsepower called a black max. I had to, I had a so I bought a new boat and and and put a 175 on it. So bass, B A S S put a horsepower limit of 150. So my boat was not legal to fish bass. So I didn't fish bass the first two years. Uh 76 and 77, uh, I fished National Bass, American Bass, and United Bass, which were competitive circuits that no longer exist, but at the time they were a pretty big deal. And um I was successful. And I became angler of the year. And uh but I always finished second. I never won a tournament uh until 1978. Yep, 1978. I had uh I'd finished second like five or six times. I'd been right there. And then in 1978, I believe, I won three in a row. I won Clarkshill. Uh we went from there and fished a Lou Chirilders Memorial Tournament on um on uh Lake Norman, North Carolina. I won that one. And then we went from there to uh Kentucky Lake uh up in Kentucky, and I won that three in a row, boom, boom, boom. And I won big fish in all those. So I won six boats, like in uh back in those days, first place was like $5,000. Now, you know, it's like $150, but it was $5,000 and a ranger boat and uh or an Astroglass boat or um Procraft boat or uh a skeeter boat or whatever, Hirsch boat. There were a lot of different boats that we won. But uh I won that first tournament in July of uh of 1978 and I won three in a row. And I won six boats.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:27

What do you let me ask you this question? What do you think it was that really catapulted you towards winning so quickly, other than obviously the Lord's doing some things in you and giving you a gift? But what are what are some of those simple things, or maybe maybe not simple, that you think put you in the place to win like you were winning?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:45

Well, I think the great greatest motivator is poverty, and I think borrowing a $10,000 note uh with no collateral, that's definitely motivation. But I had something that it's hard to explain, and people think that guy is a lunatic, and I I guess I am. But I would go out some mornings and I'd be going across the lake, and I tried to hide from my partner, but every once in a while my partners would look at me, you know, is he crying? Man, I wanted to win so bad. I had this determination to the point that sometimes my emotions would get to the point I'd literally cry going across the lake. I'd be I'd be so intense, I'd be so determined that I I'd actually cry. Man, I I just I had a drive that was not really normal. I had a drive and a determination and a willingness to work harder or to try harder. I and I really don't know where that came from, to be honest. Uh I I don't know. I think all of that is uh is just what God gave me uh to win.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:04

Yeah, and that little boy in the trailer park looking at his cousins with the BB guns and and the bicycles, you're going, ain't gonna ain't gonna happen again. It won't happen to my kids. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:15

Yeah. I I I really people ask me often in the fishing world, what was it that set you apart? What was it that gave you I mean, I was very accomplished early on. Beyond most, not all, Roland Martin was incredible. Roland was just mind-boggling how successful he was, and then Rick Klun came along and he was just super successful. So it wasn't that I was the best, but I was one of the best, and I came from nowhere quickly with no background. I was not a guide at Santee like Roland. I had not spent five years in preparation like Rick. I I came from nowhere. How did that happen? I don't really know. I really don't know. I just was so determined, and um I worked hard. I worked harder than most anybody. Probably Roland worked just as hard as I did. And and I would say Clun and Larry Nixon, there were there were others that worked hard, but no one worked any harder than I did.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:23

You were hustling.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:24

I mean, I did and I'd get airsick, man. I I from the time I was a kid, I'd get car sick, but I'd get airsick, but yet every tournament I would go to that I could, I would charter uh a private plane and fly the lake and mark my maps, and I'd get deathly sick every time I'd have to have a barf bag sitting in my lap. But I did it. And and I just I I just wanted to to be the best that I could be, and I wanted to win. So I don't know where it came from, but it was uh it was a determination like nothing else, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:58

So it's 1975, your dad's funeral. God changes your life in a moment. And at that time, you were already married with children. How many children were? Hank Jr. was about nine months old when my dad died. And even though God's changing your life, it wasn't it wasn't all r rainbows and unicorns uh from that point.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:24

No, I uh boy, you're talking about mistakes and you're talking about priorities out of balance, and you're talking about uh uh uh just living out of sync with where I needed to be. You know, I I I was ignoring my family, I was traveling, it was all about Hank Parker, it was all about being famous, it was all about the notoriety, man. I was I was loving it, and uh I I had my priorities all wiped out.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:01

What what was the result of that for your family? For your wife, for your for your well, it was it was it was Hank Jr., but there were more kids on the world.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:09

Yeah, before I was through with my fishing career, and before I went through the divorce, I uh I had four more kids and uh a set of twins, Bill and Ben, then I had Lucy, and then we had Timmy. So I had Hank Jr., Bill and Ben, Lucy and Timmy. Had one one girl, and uh she's beautiful. But uh it was uh it all looked good on the surface. And to me, every time I was home, we'd go to church on Wednesday nights, we'd go to church on Sunday nights, we go to church Sunday mornings, and uh uh it it all looked good. And we say the blessing before we ate. Oh, that was uh absolute regiment, you know. And uh but I didn't have an altar in my home. I didn't prioritize the Lord, and uh I included him in my plans. Hey Lord, this is what I'm gonna do. You with me? Yeah and and uh that that was kind of but I didn't realize all that at the time. I I just realized that hey man, you're an absentee dad, you're an absentee husband, and uh there is friction had started to rise up in our marriage, and I recognized my wife's discontentment, and uh uh I recognized my need. You know, moms do a great job with kids when they're small, but when they my boys, when they got older, they wanted to race go-karts, they wanted to go fishing, they wanted to go hunting, they wanted to spend time with dad, but dad didn't have time because dad had a tournament in and you follow Oklahoma, uh, and and dad's got to go. And and and when I didn't have a tournament, well, I'd love to be here with you boys, but I got to go to Chicago, the big Chicago boat shows all next week, and I gotta be there. And uh and I'd love to go with you, but uh we got it we got an outdoor show in Louisiana and I gotta be there, and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And so I was juggling a lot of balls. At that time, I had started my television show, which I started, excuse me. I started in '84. We started airing in '85. And uh now I'm fishing tournaments wide open. Now I got a television, now I got 13 sponsors that I got to satisfy. I got to be on the road, I got to meet with producers, man. I got it going on. And uh lots of things are happening. I got non-addemnant sponsors, I got I got Kelly Springfield tires, I got AC Delco, I've got RubberMade, I've got all these sponsors that are outside of the fishing industry, expectation goodie, headache powders. Man, I got it going on. And uh man, I'm I'm pulled in all directions. Well, my priority is all about me. I never stop to consider, I never say, Lord, help me sort this out, help me do what I need to do to be fair and honest, help me exalt. No, no, no, man. Hey, Lord, I'm doing this. Bless this, bless this, bless this, bless this. And I never stopped to pray and ask for direction. I just ran the path that was least resistance that I thought was better for me. And uh, we went through a really tough time with my daughter. She was born with hyaline membrane, and uh, she was in natal intensive care for months and months and months, and touch and go, whether she would live. Uh, and I was right in the middle of my career. I could not miss a tournament. So I would stay and I'd sit in the hospital and I was there with my wife, and I uh but when it was time to go, and I'm I'm gonna tell you, my first wife was very supportive of me. Uh, she really wanted me to do well, and uh she understood, and she was very supportive uh in a lot of ways. Yeah and uh so but I think that created I think if anything, it showed me kind of who I was. Showed me that I'd kind of prioritize me over everything. And had I stayed home with my daughter, it I would have never been successful. I would have never made it. It would have been a turning point in my life to go in the opposite direction. I would have probably never made a comeback. So I I don't even know how to process it all as I look back, but I can tell you I saw for myself. I saw my greed, I saw my selfishness. Uh and I never displayed that. I never, you know, that goes back to you have to peel back the onion to pull that out. That that is something that I just kind of hid within myself, but I knew it. And then my son, uh Hank Jr., asked me to stay home one day. I was going to the a boat show in Chicago, and he asked me to stay home and I couldn't. And I left. And all the way to the airport, I realized man, that's so wrong. That's so wrong. But I had made a commitment they had uh exp uh published that I was gonna be there and expected me to be there, so wasn't any getting out of it in my eyes. Now that I look back, even if it would have cost me my career, I should have stayed home with Hank Jr., he needed me. And I pledged at that time, boy, if I ever got to the point that I was able to do it financially, I'm gonna I'm gonna retire from fishing. So then in 1989, I was 36 years old. I had my best year that year. I won um the Missouri Invitational, I'd won a couple of different tournaments, and uh I won uh Super Bass. I'd won several things, and then uh I won the classic for the second time, and I retired, peak of my career, to go home and save my marriage. I knew my marriage was in trouble and to um to raise my kids. Well, it was wonderful with my kids, but I couldn't save my marriage. It gone too far, and uh uh it takes two, regardless of what anybody thinks or says, to reconcile, it takes both parties. And um I just couldn't do it. I could not make up for the damage that I had done. And uh I I take a lot of that responsibility. And it goes back that failure is not final. If you you look at that, uh people say, Well, boy, don't you regret ever getting no man? I got my kids. Uh don't you regret no? No, I don't regret anything. Uh uh there there's no need to regret where there's forgiveness. And uh I I look back and would you have done this? Oh, yeah, there's lots of things I would have done different. Well, why even think about that? That's in the past. You can't draw that back and fix God's out of plan. God's got a plan in my life, and I see it clearly now, but I see the mistakes and I see the selfishness, and I see a lot of things which I repented from. And when I went through the divorce, I was madly, madly, madly in love with my wife. And I was very much in love with my family, and I was I loved the closeness and and what we had as a family. It was very special. And I thought, man, I have failed, and my life is a failure. And when I went through the divorce one, I got to the point I didn't want to live. I couldn't face it. And uh it it, you know, I just didn't want to wake up. I I just would love to have died. And um the the probably the biggest battle that I had for probably 10 or 11 months going through that divorce was to not put a pistol in my mouth. Man, I didn't want to live. And uh I couldn't deal with it. And I felt like God let me down. And and and I just blamed everybody but me. I blame my wife, I blame circumstances, I blame uh people she had in her life, I blamed God, and um man, I was angry.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:17

I was angry. So you you kind of come to this pinnacle of your career, things are going great, business, Hank Parker, all that is blowing and going, and and you're losing the things that are really most important to you, the things that are at home. Like, tell us, like, if you're a a lot of Christian leaders end up with pressures in life, and they've got decisions to make about how they're gonna manage that pressure, how they're gonna lead a church, how they're gonna lead a company, how they're gonna lead a business, what do they do with their family? How does a guy young in his career, when he's feeling that pressure, how does he manage that, Hank? What would you tell him?

SPEAKER_06 1:32:04

I never really, Josh, I never really had a long-term plan. I never really uh thought about what I'm gonna do tomorrow until tomorrow I got there. I didn't analyze what was going on until it had already happened pretty much. And and that's kind of my MO even still today. Um I just took it a day at a time and and uh I got into this hole and to the world. I mean, I was really doing well to the world. I was a big winner, but in my heart I was the biggest loser that ever lived. Man, I lost everything that was important. Nothing nothing else mattered. I I've lost my family. I could care less about all these acclimates and praises and dollar bills. Man, it didn't mean nothing. It meant absolutely nothing. I could care less. When I went through my divorce, I didn't even get a settlement. I left everything. Whatever was mine, I left it all because I wasn't strong enough to fight. I didn't fight for what was rightfully mine. I didn't do anything. I my fight was not to put a pistol in my mouth. And uh I remember the days that I got the divorce papers, I hit the bottom. That was as far as I can go. Now I hadn't prayed, and probably hadn't prayed in a year. I was mad at God. He shouldn't have let this happen. And I thed, I gave, I was faithful in church when I was home. Uh, I started uh along with Jimmy Houston, we started an organization called Focus, Fellowship of Christian Anglers. We had prayer meetings, I was witnessing, I was doing everything that God required of me as a Christian from a legalistic viewpoint. And uh so I'm I'm I'm on the bottom. So I get those divorce papers, I'm in my office in Denver, North Carolina, and I read those papers, and in my heart, I'm going home to an apartment where I've got guns. The day's the day I've had it. I'm I don't want to go no more, Father. I'm I'm done. Now I didn't admit that, but I knew that in my heart. I knew I'm I'm going home, and I'm scared of myself. At this point, I'm afraid that this is it. You're gonna follow through with it. I'm on I'm tired of playing the game. I'm out of here. So I was walking out my office and I had a bunch of trophies. I had all my classic trophies and and uh different events that I had won, and and I'm looking at those trophies for the last time, and um, they're on a wall. And at the bottom of that trophy case is a picture of my kids. And I looked, and I didn't only look at the picture, I looked into their eyes, and I saw my kids. And I fell on the floor in my office, and I said, God, you're gonna have to give me something that I don't have. I don't have it, I don't even know how to pray. I'm so mad at you, and uh I don't even know where to start. And as it was as if Jesus walked in my office and knelt down beside me and put his arm around me and said, I've been waiting on you. I've been waiting on you. I love you. You're trying to carry what you can't carry. I'm here. Tell me what's on your heart. And man, I just cried out to the Lord. And he gave me a piece that it's hard for me to explain. And um, not that I didn't go through painful days after that, but I never went through the out of control pain with no answer. I had an answer, and it was Jesus, more of Jesus, more of Jesus. And I got this peace. And uh man, when I finalized the divorce, I got the green light from God. I I never got that for a long time. I tried to reconcile, tried to reconcile, and tried to reconcile. And uh when I realized she didn't want to reconcile, she didn't want any part of me. And when I when I swallowed that pill, I realized God's with me through all this, and everything changed.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:28

What a lot of people may or may not know, I mean, your wife had made her own decisions about what kind of life she wanted, where she was going, what she was gonna do. And that that didn't include you.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:45

It it I look back and she was so good. And we were kids when we she was 18, I was 19 when we got married. And it was just all the interruptions of the world and other people that intervened, and you leave that door open. An absentee husband cannot fill the role. Can't do it. So you you've got to work within the boundaries of principles, not to do any of that. And had I built the altar in my home, and people say, What are you talking about? Well, it had I sincerely held her hand and sat down and prayed and asked for direction, and she and I together heard from the Lord and figured out how to maneuver uh this career, how to maneuver her life and my life, how to be fulfilled and how to be in the will of God. Had we done that, things would have been different. But we didn't do that, and that's all on me. People say, Well, you shouldn't take the blame because she made no, no, no, no. I don't know what would have happened had I fulfilled my end of the bargain, had I fulfilled my spiritual responsibilities. And so, of course, that didn't come to me uh in the middle of the battle.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:15

It was afterwards when I'm sitting there looking in the mirror and I'm thinking, God, I can't believe she did this, I can't believe this happened, I can't believe it. And God simply said, It's your fault. You're looking at the one that's responsible. Had you done, had you followed, had you read your Bible, had you established Bible reading in your home, had you prayed with her about your career, had you shared with her the burdens that you had, you held all that inside. She never knew you cared. She never saw that part because you never revealed that. You never sat down to take the time and let me orchestrate your life. You were the leader. You didn't give, you, you, you didn't die to self. You led and you asked me to bless your mess. You didn't ask me for direction. You told me what you were going to do and then asked me to bless it. And it didn't fit with your responsibility. You didn't live up to what you needed to for me to bless you. But I didn't see that for a long time. And then I thought, well, I've I have no testimony now because I'm a failure because I failed at marriage. So my testimony's gone. My kids are all gonna go astray. I'm I've blown it, man. I I've blown it. And uh I I lived with that for a while, and uh then here comes Martha.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:44

Well, hey, before we get to Martha, okay, let let's let's let's settle in on the realities for a second. Because you had catapulted to the top of the world. I mean, you you named all those sponsors. Anybody who was anybody was using all that stuff um through those years, through through the through the late 80s. Like that, I mean, you you're you're talking the brands of my childhood.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:07

Yeah, and I had the premier brands of the whole industry, no doubt about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:10

You had money, you had fame, you had all that. Plus, your your wife, in her own way, had plenty of resources. You guys are living the kind of life that everybody dreams of having. And you get there, and it's not enough. And you realize that the things that are most important are slipping away, and you end up losing all of that, losing your wife. She she she moves in a direct in a in a in a in a different direction, and now the kids are in the balance. And and here here's the reality that hit me. As far as financially, it was gone. Everything was gone. You lost everything. Family, money, everything. It what was that moment like, Hank, when you had to make a decision about what you were gonna do?

SPEAKER_06 1:41:05

I had business people that worked for me that kept things going, or the whole ship would have definitely sunk, but I didn't really care. Uh the biggest lie, I think, that I bit into was if you have fame and fortune, you'll have happiness. The more money you make, the more successful you are financially, the more notoriety you gain, uh, the happier you're gonna be. That's the biggest lie the devil's ever told. Some of the most miserable people that I know are are billionaires. Uh I've got a lot of wealthy friends, and the vast majority of them are not very content. Uh it is something inside of them that they have their identity becomes their money and their success. And it drives them, and there's no end to it. There's no end. Everybody that's got millions wants more. Everybody that's got billions wants more. And it's a drive that is you can never achieve. You're you're you're after something that doesn't exist. And it's miserable. Some of the happiest people I know who live uh in poor housing uh uh and strive to get a bigger or better boat and can't afford to go on this hunt or that hunt or this fishing trip, but they have peace and they can have contentment. Well, here I am, I got everything, and I'm miserable. And and all of a sudden, I don't care. You take it, you can have it. I I don't care. Man, I've lost my family, I've lost my wife. I don't care. You can have my bank account. Uh my wife, uh, my ex-wife's lawyer calls me and says, here's the new deal. She and I had already made a deal, here's what's gonna happen. And I said, No, we have an agreement. He said, No, you shut up and listen to me. Uh, here's the new deal. And you have your lawyer call me. I said, Well, I don't have a lawyer. And he laughed and hung up. I never got a lawyer. I never tried to get anything. I just took my clothes and left, and that was the end of it. And uh it's crazy how poor I was. It's crazy how broke I was. I had a race team at that time, I was two and a half million dollars in debt, I had no way to pay it. I had all this stuff going on. And man, it was just a mess. It was an unfixable mess. So, what are you gonna do? I don't know what I'm gonna do. I have no idea. And I don't know, and maybe it's not a fair comparison or illustration, but I I read the book of Ruth and how a Boaz had pity and told his workers to leave Ruth and Naomi a handful on purpose. And I think God did that to me. All of a sudden, I got all this debt that I can't pay. Jay Walter Thompson was the we had the Marine Corps for a sponsor, and Congress had ruled that uh uh they couldn't sponsor a race car. They could buy advertisement but not sponsor. So they couldn't pay us. They owed me two and a half million dollars that they couldn't pay. Well, that's gonna break me. I'm I'm gone. Uh my fishing business is in a mess because for nine months I've been in the twilight zone. I hadn't been able to run my business. But my business partners had stepped in and took over and was doing things that were not uh not their responsibility, but yet they had enough compassion and and concern for me that um they stepped into a role that wasn't their lane, but they did to help me. And so all this big mess, and I'm in this cloud and I'm in this mess, and I don't have a clue. I get phone calls uh from people that want to do this and want to do that, and money starts coming in here and money starts coming in there. Jay Walter Thompson, the advertising agent for the Marine Corps, calls me and says, Hey, we've worked out uh and we've looked at your delivery, looked at Hank Parker uh Jr. at how many uh uh laps he's led, how many uh exposures the Marine Corps got on TV. So we can pay based on CPM delivery, and hey, we're gonna be able to make you whole. We're gonna pay you the whole two and a half million dollars we owe you. And so, man, I I was all of a sudden I'm made whole again. And I went from being deep in the red to in the black, and I didn't do anything. I did nothing to deserve any of that. And it was like God rescued me from my foolishness, God rescued me from my neglect, and everything in my life began to change. And and I'll tell you, Josh, when I got saved, it was the right time for fundamental independent Baptists to prosper because the Southern Baptists had gone way overboard with liberal theology.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:14

Is the Bible true? Is Jesus really good? Yeah, all that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:18

But then it seems like the independents went too far. They got into all this legalistic stuff. Women shouldn't wear pants, men should never have hair touching their collar, no facial hair, you you shouldn't Only one Bible to read. Yeah, yeah, on and on and on. And just uh they made it so legalistic that it took the joy. They actually actually put you back in shackles, the freedom of salvation and so I was smothered with all that, and I couldn't live up to those convictions that were kind of the legal law. So I was in a mess with all of that, and that was part of the division in my home and my my family to begin with, my wife. But uh I realized when I was in my floor in my office, knowing that I had been angry with God, and the Holy Spirit was right there with me, comforting me. I I realized who God is. And I realized for the first time that true love and how much he loved me, and he was not the God of the legalistic points of view. He was not the He was not the demander of your behavior, He loved you. And so from that point on, for the first 20 years of my saved life, I I served God out of duty. It was my responsibility. Under the legal uh points of view of uh of churches that I were involved with. You need to do this, you need to do that, it's your reasonable service. You gotta do this, you gotta feel this way, you gotta act this way. And it wasn't really me. And then when I had that experience in my office, I realized how much God loved me. So the last 20 years of my life, I've served God out of love. I know who he is, and he's so incredibly awesome, he's so forgiving. And it's like Joe B. Martin's message failure's not final. Failure's not final. And you can pick yourself up and turn your life over to God, or you can continue to run your own life and make a mess. You got options.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:43

Failure is a moment, not a person.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:48

You know, I've I've been I've been through my own version of collapse and um I mean just down the road from here. Um I I was on stage and uh nearly passed out and got to the point in my life that I literally, Hank, as a pastor, as a church, as a as a leader of a church, I couldn't stand up in front of people and preach without without passing out or feeling like I was gonna pass out. I didn't know it, Hank, but I was having a PTSD attack. And those started happening as a result of a lot of stuff. And I parachuted out of ministry, and I've been there at the side of my bed, staring at a snub-nosed 38, thinking, I just want to feel the cold steel rub against my temple. It'll make me feel better. Wow. That was that was the comfort that I had. And it and all all intents and purposes when it comes to success, we had that. Our church had grown very quickly. We were well known for everything we were doing. You know, in fact, we'd we'd done great work here and and and the Then to see all that went away so quickly, and I felt like my identity was gone with it. Yeah. But in those moments, like your moment in your office, it was like it was like that moment with Jacob in the scriptures when he's wrestling with God. Now you gotta say it right. You know, if you're down here, he was wrestling with God, right? But there comes this moment where they've wrestled all night long, and God says to him, Let me go. The sun's coming up. And Jacob says, I won't let you go until you bless me. And God looks back at him and says, What is your name? And what it helps me understand is that Jacob was already blessed. And he didn't know it. Kind of like Dorothy and The Good Witch, where she says, You've always had the shoes on. You've always known. You could have always gone home. And for me, I thought my relationship with God, he loved everybody else, but not me. Because if he really loved me, he wouldn't have put me in a situation to make me lose everything. And then when I fell out of it, been there. He says to me, in a very similar way he did to you, look in the mirror. And I had to come to terms with that I was much more interested in the things he gave me than I was him. And when it was all gone, I didn't have anything to live for. And just like Jacob, I in in those probably 10 months, that went on for about 10 months with me. In those 10 months, I think God was reestablishing my identity and who I am. And that's why I'm passionate now about, I mean, it's where this sign on the wall comes from. That mission, that your life's mission starts in your heart. God has planted that seed in you. He has given you a gifting. He has given you a blessing. And he's asking you to leverage that blessing for his kingdom and his way and his purposes. If along the way we gather up bass boats and side by sides, well, that just means the Lord just shining even a little bit brighter on us those particular days. But and and and big deer, right? And bigger than these, as you told me when we got started. A lot of work goes into big deer. And Hank, from for me, over a period of time, I had to build a new confidence. And that confidence was given to me by the grace of God. And that's where I was most destitute when I couldn't sustain my life on my own. So that's your story. That office was that moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:02

That catapulted you into a new kind of life. You retire from fishing, you come home, you're taking care of your, you literally come home to rescue what was left of your family. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:17

Well, you know, again, no long-term plans, no vision. And God just kind of took me by the hand when I thought it was over. I thought I'll never be in love again. I'll never have a person, a person that I am joined together with. All that's gone. I don't have a testimony. And my life's going to be dramatically different. And I'm going to be labeled as a failure. And that was kind of the identity that I took on. But God said, no, no, no, no, no, no. And here comes Martha. Martha was the wife of a friend of mine. And uh he got colon cancer and was going through a terrible battle with cancer. Buddy King. He was a great athlete, good-looking guy, just great fisherman. And um a lot like me. Yeah, a lot like you. Just almost identical. And uh he got colon cancer. And so I would call him to cheer him up. And uh he was uh he would I would end up getting being on the other end of the phone. I'd be the one that'd been blessed. He had just such a wonderful attitude, and he bragged about Martha all the time. Well, I didn't know Martha. And she came to Charlotte a couple years after he died, after I was gone through my separation, and and I met with Martha to go out to dinner one night and uh basically get her advice on how I can save my marriage. And uh so I I told her I was not romantically interested at all. And uh she felt the same way that she really wanted to go out dinner with uh with a man to um to get her girlfriends off her back because Buddy had been dead for a couple of years and she had not dated one person, so they felt like so it was a perfect match. She just was trying to get her girlfriends off her back, and and um I was trying to find a solution to how I can save my marriage. So at the end of our dinner date, uh she said, There's two sides to every story. I've heard your side, I've not heard your wife's side. But if you're honest in what you told me, you don't have a marriage to save. And uh, well, that was not what I wanted to hear at all. And so I kind of left with a little chip, but there was something about Martha that was different. And so when the divorce finalized and I was found myself single, I thought, you know, I I'd really like to know her. You know, it was all about trying to find solutions to my marriage, all about me. I'd so she had just finished uh flight school, gonna be a flight attendant, and they had stationed her in Chicago. So I flew to Chicago for the weekend and we met. And it it was magic. Uh and uh boy, it was instant uh love and and and just she was exactly what God had for me. And and it took me more time to get that than it did her.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:32

Uh she felt the connection right away. But we uh and and she I was wounded. I was deeply wounded, and uh uh she she nurtured me and she put up with a lot, and uh she based our marriage from the very beginning as God's will. This is what God wants for her, and so she was determined uh to give sacrificially to strengthen that marriage because she knew that's where God wanted her. And it's so incredible, she's such an incredible lady. She's she has her own identity in the Lord. She doesn't need me to be her source of entertainment, she doesn't need me to be her source of security. All that's fine, and all that works out, but she doesn't need that, she's self-aligned. That girl reads her Bible, that girl is so deep uh in theology, she's far beyond spiritually than myself, but she's my biggest supporter. And uh man, what a marriage we have and how awesome it is. And uh we have that altar in our home today uh that I should have had in my first home. And I don't lift Martha to a level to downgrade my first wife. Had I done my part, maybe things would have been quite a bit different. So, but in comparison, our home is our priorities. Both Martha and I together when we pray, is let us lead our grandchildren. Let us show them by the way we live that we love Jesus. Let us take every opportunity that we have to sow that seed to assure that someday they'll make a decision for Jesus Christ. That's our priority. That is, we wear it on our sleeve. We it it is if if I were to call her right now and I'd say, hey, babe, what is our top priority in our life? To make sure that we leave a uh a legacy for our children to know Jesus and to leave a legacy for our grandchildren and to take every moment we have to instill into them uh the value of a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so powerful, it's so awesome. You know, I go off and I speak, and the first thing she wants to know, how did it go? Uh did you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit? How many people got saved? What's going on? And she shares in that, and you can just sense the joy that she has for success, and she prays for that. And uh uh it it's so awesome. We have just an incredible marriage. Now it didn't all just fall right into place, there were struggles, and uh, the Bible says that uh the two of you become one flesh, so half of you have to die and half of her have to die. So we we had our struggles as all couples do. But uh after about 15 years, we've been married for 25 years now. After about 15 years of all those struggles and me having to die halfway and her having to die halfway, we have really come together as one, and it's a very special, special.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:08

She is she is special. I've had a chance to spend some time with her, and um man, she, you know, my wife was in here a little bit earlier, and you were telling me how how how much better she is than me, and you were right, and I'd say the same thing right back at you. Miss Martha is a special, special lady, special, beautiful lady.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:27

But how do you take, Josh? How do you take a mess? I mean a total, absolute mess, before I ever got saved, and put that mess on the right track, and then jump off the track and put that mess back together, and then go through a marriage and blow it and make such a mess, and to make a financial mess to be so deep that there is no way out. And then God brings you through all that and puts me where I am, how in the world. And so it's so important for me to say, every time I go someplace, I say, let me establish this for you. I don't want to take credit for where I am, had it not been for Jesus Christ, not just for my salvation, not just to give me peace out of a failed marriage, not to just put me back on track financially, not just to bring Martha in my life and give me a new beginning, not just to give me 20 grandkids. Take that whole picture from the time this kid could not read. When I was 17 years old, I quit school and could not read. I could not read. And several years later, I'm reading a contract that I got from NBC on television. And my sister comes in and says, What are you doing? I said, I'm looking at this contract. She said, You want me to read that to you? I said, No. I can read it. She said, You can read that? And I said, Yeah. And I'm reading that contract, and it's full of all this buller plate legal stuff. And she said, When'd you learn how to read? I don't know. I can't tell you right now. I don't know when I learned how to read. I've read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation twice. I've read the Old Testament, I mean the New Testament probably a dozen times or more. Where did I learn how to do that? I don't know. How did I learn how? I don't know. Mo Parker. I don't know how, son, but if you get your life right with Jesus, it'll take care of itself.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 2:02:56

I don't know how he knew that. He'd been in the pit. He knew what it was to be in total despair. He knew when helplessness was, and he knew where his help came from. He knew who his savior was. And I guess he felt like if he did it for my dad, he could do it for me. And so here I was in the pit in the bottom of nothingness, to a Hall of Famer. To a guy that literally millions of people know my name. Why? Why? Because Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. I sang when I was five years old. Nothing that I ever did merits where I am today. Nothing that I ever thought, I never even dreamt as big as where my life is. But I can tell you this the value that I have is the contentment and the peace and the relationship that I have with my Savior. It's okay. It's okay. If we lose it all tomorrow, it's okay. It's okay. If America falls, our country's in a mess, but my hope's not in America. My hope's in Jesus. It doesn't matter what happens, it's okay. It's okay. Because Jesus loves me.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:19

Man, Hank, for the past 25 years, you've been building something new. I mean, with your boys, you've been Hank Parker magazine, you Hank Parker Outdoors, um, Hank Parker. What how many how what are the different names of the shows? I'm I'm getting mixed up in my mind. I'm putting two of them together. On the water, all three. On the water, you got them all. You got every water you can imagine. But but um I I remember just watching you with your boys. That that's the picture of you that I that I look back and I see. Like if I if I'm looking as a fan, what I see is a father with his sons and his kids. And that's been so influential to me. And and listen, man, I I know how God's using you. And I I'm I know that the message that he has tattooed across your story is his story. And you're you're doing wild game dinners, you're you're you're sharing the gospel. Hundreds, thousands of people are coming to Jesus. And why is that? All because some uneducated fishermen. I was thinking about this interview this week, and I was thinking about Jesus' best friends were uneducated fishermen. And I was thinking about you and how you I mean you know you have a gift to tell stories. You have a gift of looking at people and making them feel like they're the only person in the room. And you leveraging that gift, Hank, it's just it's a beautiful thing to watch. I I really um I but before I do this, I I wanna I wanna I want to ask one more thing. You you I remember you telling me about when you were embarrassed that you were a high school dropout, and you were telling me about being on stage one night, sharing your testimony. I want you to share that because I think I think it sets up perfectly um how how how I'd how I'd like for us to kind of end our time together.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:40

Well, and I think that it reflects the difference between perception from a human perspective and uh in God's uh perspective. I uh I'm a headliner. Uh I'm a I'm a Hall of Famer, I'm a world champion, and so I'm I'm someone worthy uh in the eyes of a lot of outdoorsmen outdoorsmen to come and hear my story. So I have responsibility to to live up to their expectations. So they're coming to see this refined uh professional that has been super successful and to hear my story. Well, my story is that I started from nothing and became a world famous bass fisherman, and I got saved along the way, and uh I can give Jesus uh credit for my salvation, and my kids got saved. And that's kind of the hollow, shallow story of my testimony, and so I'm telling about all how many things I've accomplished to work my way into saying what has God has done in my life, and the Holy Spirit right in the middle of it. And I got a business partner there that um that I had just put together an agreement where we became partners that thinks that I have a college degree and I have a marketing degree that I'm a whiz at marketing. I I know it, and I am very qualified.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:24

Yeah, yeah. And in the room was a seminary president. Oh, yeah. Southern Baptist life. Yeah, in the room.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:30

Yeah. So here I am. Man, I'm somebody. And so I'm in the middle of my testimony, and the Holy Spirit says, tell them you're a high school dropout.

unknown 2:08:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:43

What? Tell them you're a high school dropout. No, God, I'm I I can't do that. No, tell them you're a high school dropout. I don't want to do that. Tell them you're a high school dropout. So I might train a thought picking up on the next uh topic and going forward. I'm just spinning my wheels and I'm drawing a blank, and the Holy Spirit said, tell them you're a high school dropout. So I stopped right in the middle. And I learned really firsthand what humility means in front of a crowd. Uh yeah. I said, let me let me back up, guys. I I'm telling this story, but I didn't tell the whole story. I need to go back and and start at the beginning. Uh I was 17 years old, I quit school. I'm a high school dropout. So what may appear that I am, I'm not. And the success that I had that may reflect on who I am, it's not true. God picked me up by my bootstraps and he saved my soul. But he also gave me a spiritual blessing to live the life I've led. I'm taking credit for what God has done. Things turned around. My testimony became more powerful. People would come up to me that said, Man, your transparency has opened a door for me. I'm a high school dropout. Uh, or I've got things that I'm hiding. And God has used that. And the more I take that ownership and the more humble I become and have become to bear the humility of complete human failure and give it to God and see how He has taken that failure and turned it into victory. It's Him. It's Him. Him possible, not impossible. And I I I think that's amazing. And I want to circle the wagons and tell one story. That, and I I know you're that same person. I know you're that same dad. I see it when Carson looks at you, and more importantly, I see it when you look at Carson. That you love him so much that some days you're driving down the road and you start thinking about him, you just swell up, man. You swell up on how appreciative you are for him and how much you love him. As a dad, I do that often. I'll drive down the road and I think about my kids, and man, I just swell up. I mean, tears run down my face, and how much I love my kids. If I were to petition God and say, Lord, give me a son. Man, I got four. I got they're incredible. Hank Jr., my oldest son. Man, I don't deserve him. Golly bum, I don't deserve him. He is such a spiritual guy. He is such a wonderful son. Has been a wonderful son, my firstborn. We've had this. Incredible relationship. We're in Dallas, Texas. He's racing. And he's he's got a a pretty good car, not not a not a winning car. We didn't have the budget. And uh I'm I'm I'm working trying to help secure sponsorship for the race team. And so I'm across town and I'm talking with uh Dick Dicky's clothing company about sponsoring our race car. And when I come back to the Texas Motor Speedway, uh they're practicing. They had a morning practice session, and uh the guys from Dickies they wanted to go and see Mark Martin and Dill Earnhardt and Daryl Waltrup and all the cup guys. So I don't have passes to get them in that garage. So I've got to go and and stand in line at the NASCAR uh uh uh ticket counter to try and get passes for these guys from Dickies. And I'm standing in line. And Will Lynn, who was a great friend of mine that um uh a part of the flying aces for Dell Earnhardt, Will Lynn comes up and sees me standing in line. He said, What are you doing? I said, I'm trying to get some uh some tickets for these guys from Dickies to come in on the cup garage. And he said he looked at me and I could tell something was wrong. He said, Well, how's your boy? I said, uh we we got a pretty good car, and I I think he'll qualify. I I don't think we'll set on the pole, but I think there's a really good chance we'll qualify in the top 20. And he looked at me with that deer in the headlight look and he said, Have you been inside? I said, No, I've been across town meeting with Dickies. He said, Hank, he's had a horrible crash. He's had a terrific crash. My heart stopped. So I go to the infield care center, and uh, it's chaos. They had water seeping out of the third turn, and I remember Mike Skinner being in there with a broke leg just screaming to the top of his lungs, and it was just driver after driver because of this water seeping out, and these guys getting hurt so bad. And uh, so it was chaos. And finally I got a little intern who had no emotion, who could had no bedside manners whatsoever. And um, Hank Jr. was running a 78 car at that race. And uh I told him, I said, I I need to check on my son. He said, Who's your son? I said, Hank Parker Jr. He said, No, no, who what car number? What car number? And so very coldly he just turned a page of his little uh uh tablet and started to read. Yeah, 78 car at uh 1057 uh made hard contact with the ins uh uh outside wall in turn three uh was unconscious. Uh we worked on him for 17 minutes. He never regained consciousness. Blood gas and vitals were declining, airlifted by helicopter to Parkland Hospital. And I said, He's not gonna die, is he? He said, Oh, probably. He's probably already dead. Man, I just died. I mean, I died. So with all that race traffic and getting out of there, it took me two hours to get to Parkland Hospital. And I cried and begged God all the way, please don't take my boy, Lord. Don't take my boy, take me, but don't take my boy. Don't let my boy die, Lord. Please, God, don't let my boy die. And I pulled up into the parking lot, and um, he's in the trauma center of intensive care at Parkland Hospital. And when I got out of the car, the Holy Spirit said, I gave you my boy. I know how you feel. I gave you my boy. You spit in his face. You put a crown of thorns on him and you crucified him. And I'm broken. I have no nothing left to say. And I walk in the hospital and I say, My son Hank Parker Jr. driving the number 78 race cars out of Christ. He said, He's getting a CAT scan. I said, A CAT scan? They said, Yeah, they're checking his brain to see if he's got bleeding in the brain. I said, He's conscious? Oh yeah, he's been conscious. He he he he regained consciousness about five minutes after he arrived. His blood gases are stable, his vitals are all good. I walked in. Hey Dad. My son said, Hey Dad. God is good.

SPEAKER_03 2:16:52

What a story.

SPEAKER_06 2:16:53

He's here today. He's gave me grandsons and grand-granddaughters that are awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:16:59

You know that you said in that office that day, the overwhelming feeling of love and grace is what met you there, and that's what met you there to met us all. And that love and grace will carry us through life and death. I mean, we're all gonna die one day. It'll carry us through. Like that's this that's the thread of confidence that we can have, and our identity is rooted in that thing. It will it's it's more valuable than two and a half million dollars, it's more valuable than a race team, it's more valuable than all the accolades you and I together have had. And when we push in all in on Jesus, like it really redefines our identity grounded in him that'll carry us. Hank, I wanna I want to do two things. Um I I've got you a couple of gifts. Um nothing, nothing, nothing major.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:03

Six point buck.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:04

Yeah, that one's special to me. But yeah, yeah. Um nothing major, but I I want to give this to you, and I remember sitting sitting at your house with Miss, you like you like my bag. I do.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:22

I think that's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:23

I can't say that I did this.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:25

Uh I know you picked that out yourself, there's no doubt.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:28

Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:28

Uh Hank And the paper that's at the top that that reflects your taste.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:33

It looks a lot like me, doesn't it? Um Hank, um you said to me, and you said it again today, that your priorities um really were your have been, your kids and grandkids, that legacy of Jesus in the same way, maybe in a maybe in not such a uh uh a difficult or legalistic way that you experience early, but now sharing that love with them so that all of them come to know come to know Jesus. This gift is given to you in light of that goal. I I want you to open it.

SPEAKER_06 2:19:09

All right. I can't wait to open it. The box has come. Oh man, a lot.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:26

So this is a very this is a Bible, but it's not just any Bible. If you open it up and you flip through it, you will see it's an interleaved Bible. Yeah, you gotta turn it the right way. That's important. That's a different kind of dyslexia, bro. That's upside down. Is that how you conquered it? You have to read it upside down? Yeah. Um, Hank, when you when you flip through it, you will see every other page is blank. Now, one of my mentors and a man who's been so influential in my life is a man by the name of Dr. Gary Hollingsworth. Dr. Hollingsworth was the president. Beautiful Bible. It's beautiful. It's leather, it's bound, it's it's got a little strap here for you to write around it. But Dr. Hollinsworth every year will take a Bible and read through it. And as he reads through it, he'll make notes. And as he makes those notes at the end of the year, he will give that Bible to one of his grandkids. This is your gift to fill it in with all the Hank Parker stories of Jesus that you have. Wow. And give it to your friends.

SPEAKER_06 2:20:47

That is so great. That is awesome. Thank you so much. That's and I like it's big. I used to think when I first got saved, we had a couple of old saints that had bad vision. So the bigger the Bibles, that was before they did extra large print and smaller Bibles. The bigger Bibles had larger print, so I thought, man, I give me a big Bible like that, I'll be as spiritual as they are. It didn't work.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:10

I remember being little, we'd go, the preachers would sign them.

SPEAKER_06 2:21:15

I've got uh Esther Sperkle signature in a Bible I've got that did the burning hell. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:21

That is special. Um here here is um here's the second thing I want to give you. All right. Now, now before um before I give you this, before I give you this, Hank, I want I want you to get your head in a place where you're ready to watch it. Okay. Being on a stage, accolades come a lot. How many times has somebody pulled you aside and said, Man, you were such a fill in the blank? You hear that for so long, it becomes just another comment. And if you're anything like me, I mean, every time I preach, if I listen to all that, you know, it's like, man, you're you know, Billy Graham's not here anymore. There's a spot, you know, like you can you can feel it. I mean, if you start believing all those things. But in it is something true. And it really is people recognizing the blessing that God has put in you. I want you to watch this, and I want you you don't know any of these people. I want you to hear it. There are a lot of men my same age. You got influence in their life. But today, I want you to take it in and receive it. It's not just words, but it reflects how you have leveraged Jesus over the years. Let's make sure it's turned up. And hit play and you can watch it.

SPEAKER_07 2:23:09

What can I say about Hank Parker? Well, I'll tell you. If there was anybody that I wanted to be like, have everything that he had, bought everything that he promoted, that was me. You promoted Schwacker Broadheads, I bought Schwacker Broadheads. You wore Massiok, I wore Massiok. I loved Hank Parker 3D and I loved what you stood for. Uh just seemed like you were a great family man, and um I wanted to be just like you. Uh so man, thanks for uh being one of my biggest heroes. I appreciate you and I love what you stand for.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:55

Hank Parker. Hey man, my name's Chad. I'm part of the Heart the Mission team. I'm also a pastor up here in Rock Hill, South Carolina, but man, you've been in my life a long time and we've never even met. But here's what I want you to know. I I respect you so much, and you've made a big difference in my life. One, I'm an outdoorsman. I love great content on social media, on TV, man. I've been watching you fish and hunt and take your boys out. I even shoot swecker broadheads because of an episode where you and Billy were hunting, and I watched those broadheads perform and decided that was what I needed. But here's what I want you to know. Um, two people who I know and greatly respect as men, like real men, men of God, men who hunt and men who take responsibility, men who aren't passive, they tell me that you're the real deal. See, my brother Chris met you at the Cactus Jack. He's hunted one time in his whole life, and that was at the Cactus Jack. So, first off, uh that's a very big thing I'm jealous of. But he met you there. You guys talked about Jesus, you talked about world missions, you talked about raising sons to follow Jesus. Um my friend Craig was a cameraman for you. He was part of the church that I used to pastor in Louisiana, and and Craig was one of the cameramen that you loved the most. And he tells me about the conversations that you guys had and how you're the real deal. And so I just want you to know, man, TV, everybody sees that. But I see you, Hank Parker. I see you're the real deal. And uh, man, I hope our paths cross soon. I appreciate you. God bless you. Men of God make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:29

What's up, Hank? Hey, Brian Ken here. Um, just want to say thank you for what you've meant to me in my life. Uh, as I look back on my childhood, so many of uh my greatest memories with my father were on the water. Uh but besides the time on the water, is usually uh after Sunday church, coming home and watching wrestling, and uh and you and other guys uh on TV. And specifically, uh, you know, after Sunday dinner, you know, when when you came home, there was just a little something different. I remember uh watching you with my dad, and you'd often had your kids with you. There was just a character, uh, there was something about you that I know meant something to my dad. Um my dad and I didn't have the greatest relationship uh through my childhood and adult years, um, but we connected over you. And specifically, I could see how you impacted my dad and how you loved the kids, how you loved fishing, but you did it all the right way. Like you you had a great attitude about it, you know, you just kind of uh you know were a great example of Jesus. And so um when I look back on those days, those memories with my father, um I I remember times thinking about man, I this Hank guy, I like him. And I want to be like him when I grow up. Hope that encourages your brother. I'm so grateful for you and uh for how you touch so many people. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 2:27:13

Hank Parker. Uh, we've never met, but you're my brother in Christ. And I just want to say thank you for following your calling uh to serve and love the Lord and to um love the outdoors and challenge other men um to do the same. I grew up in a home that um men did not follow the Lord, and they weren't outdoorsmen, and that became a passion uh for me, the outdoors and the Lord, and I got to tune in and watch you and watch your passion for um for hunting and and fishing, and with that you reach men uh for Christ, and I'm so thankful you played a part in my life, even though we never met. But we are brothers in Christ, and you played a small part in my love for the outdoors, and I'm encouraging other men, my son in particular and my daughters, to love the Lord and to love the outdoors. Thank you for all that you do. Carry on, brother.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:18

Wow.

unknown 2:28:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:23

Well hard to hard to express. My um I went to church Sunday, and last Sunday there was a lady there that said, My daughter watches your show. And um we recorded her, and I want you to see it. So she brought it Sunday and I saw it for the first time. And this is the cutest little girl, she's about three years old, and she's in bed, and she's watching Hank Parker Outdoor Magazine, and her mama walks in with a video camera running and says, What are you watching? She said, Hank, what's he doing? Fishing. Why are you watching Hank? He's a kudos man.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:24

Hank, for me and hundreds of thousands like me, thank you. What you've uh put on display um was Jesus in the mess, in the mountaintop, and in the valley, and I believe he's still writing your story. And my blessing to you is I get to keep watching it and knowing that as you are out here proclaiming the gospel that God is using it for his glory, for his kingdom, amen. Thank you, Hank. I love you, my brother.

SPEAKER_06 2:30:01

I will close with if you think that I'm anything, acknowledge the fact that he's the chief recycler. He can take a piece of trash, something that has no value, no worth whatsoever, and he can turn it into something useful. And I thank God that he elected me for the opportunity to show off and to show that he can take the lowest of the lows and do something with it. And I'm thankful and I realize who I am and where I came from, and I pray that God will never let me ever escape from who I am and where I came from. Amen. Thank you, my brother, for the privilege.

SPEAKER_03 2:30:51

Amen.