Episode 12 | Our Story: Faith, Calling & Marriage

We usually sit down with someone else and ask the questions. This time we turned the mic around.

This is the episode where we slow down — no guest, no headlines — and talk about our own lives: Florida roots, the churches and schools that shaped us, how we met at Crown College, what it looked like to say yes to ministry, and what God has done in the years since.

It’s personal. Some of it is hard. A lot of it is grateful. If you’ve ever wondered who’s behind Cultural Connections, or you’re wrestling with whether God really has a purpose for your life, we made this one for you.

God has a purpose for you. We mean that. Find it and live it.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:54 Florida & providence
4:10 Gulf Coast & youth group
6:32 Christian school
8:35 Salvation & discipleship
10:16 Hard places
12:17 A picture of home
14:49 Praying at 13 & meeting
17:20 Surrender to ministry
20:40 Back to Florida
22:13 Pay it forward
25:14 Through the fire
27:45 Called to preach
34:09 Crown & Sadie Hawkins
37:00 Family & fulfillment
42:43 Send-off

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Transcript

0:25

Welcome back to Cultural Connections. Thank you for tuning in. I thought maybe we should just pull off of the uh the information highway for maybe one episode. We've had some really uh astounding conversations with some amazing Christians. Uh I was listening to our conversation with uh Ray Kelly recently today. It just posted uh this morning, and uh man, what a fascinating life. Um we talked to we talked of joy and talked about grief, and Brian was on the show and talk about talking about how he came to Christ. And so uh maybe for our viewers, it might be helpful just to um maybe hear our story about maybe where we're from. We can just um kind of hit some high points on our lives, how God brought us together and and how God's really blessed in in our relationship and moving forward together. So um, where are you from? Well, I am from Fort Myers, Florida, so that's really just south of where our studio is located, right here in Englewood. So I grew up in Fort Myers, it's considered Southwest Florida. Um, I lived there the almost entirety of my life um pre-going to college, and then I managed to find you in Knoxville, Tennessee. I did. And so that kind of worked out well. My my pastor, um his brother was the founder of Crown College, where we both attended, but also he was the pastor of the Christian school where you went to school. So that's how how our our really our path began to cross was between the two Sexton brothers. Thinking of another connection uh earlier, you went to Emmanuel Baptist Church School right off of 41 in Fort Myers, uh, started by Pastor Dick Riley. Uh, but I think it was in the uh late 70s, maybe early 80s, um, my pastor, Clarence Sexton, um, had accepted Christ. He went to the University of Tennessee, then he went to um Tennessee Temple University, was working for Dr. Lee Robertson, and he used to come to Florida to see his brother, who was a brick mason, um, who would later say he knew he was being called to preach when he woke up one day and said he didn't want to lay bricks anymore, and he had an insatiable desire for fried chicken. That's how he knew he was going to be a preacher. But he comes to uh Pastor Sexton comes to Emmanuel Baptist Church and preaches. His brother, who is unsaved, is in this, is in the audience, and he preaches from John chapter 1. Um, when Andrew brought his own brother Philip, he brought him to Jesus Christ and he accepted Christ. Um later, years later, they found that recording when they were remodeling the sound room. So God was, wow, I mean, God brought us together years before maybe we were even born, in a sense of God working in my pastor's heart and life, and then Pastor Tom Sexton uh accepts Christ, works at Tennessee Temple for a couple of years, and then says he's going to go back. He told a story about um as a teenager, I think one of their friends had died in a car accident, if I remember the details, and he and his friends were lost and looking for some hope and answers, and they went to a church in Cape Coral, and they looked like unsaved people. And one of the church members looks at their pastor in their presence and says, Are we going to allow this Riffraff to attend here? And it it bore bore a desire in his heart later to start a church in his hometown. And and I've even heard him say, some people told him not to do it. But he felt God was leading him to do it. And so what what would have been the first year of Gulf Coast Baptist Church? Oh, I'd have to do the math in my head. Um, let's see. 88, 89. I was I was in third grade when we started attending. It was their first year anniversary. So I would have been about eight years old. Oh you're gonna make it. No, no, no, no, no, don't do the math. Okay. Okay. So it'd have been about it probably was about 1988. I could be wrong on my my math, but somewhere around there. So he starts Gulf Coast Baptist Church. You're in a public school, and and you've said your mom's looking and and saying, I don't like the direction my children's spiritual life is going. So she makes, I think, at about at the same time, maybe two decisions. Number one, my kids need to be in a Christian school, and number two, they need to be in a youth group. Yeah. So those those two decisions came a little bit later. Um, so the first decision that my mom had had made was I have to get my kids into a church that has a good youth group. Um we were attending uh wonderful pastor, Pastor Joe Palfrey, he's with the Lord now. Um very, very dedicated, faithful man. But the church was it was just older. We were the only kids in the church. Um my grandmother was a church pianist, so it was always a special time to go to church knowing my grandmother would be there. Um but it it my really my older siblings were really starting to kind of take a wrong path. And that's when my mom had decided I have to find a church with a youth group. And my aunt said, Well, I heard there is a church starting in Cape Coral, it's just it just started, and I hear that they already have a really good youth group. And so that was Golf Coast Baptist Church. And so we we showed up and it happened to be their first year anniversary, and the rest is history. God just really changed our family's life through the ministry of Gulf Coast Baptist Church and Pastor Tom Sexton, and and I always I I always feel like I can't talk about how God worked in my life without bringing up my youth pastor and his wife, and that's Tim and Mandy Hawkins. Brother Tim is with the Lord now. Um, but they were such a great influence in our lives. So then fast forward a few more years um my mom had decided that okay, we need not only youth here, but we need to get these, you know, I need to get my kids in a Christian school. Um at that point, um, my two older siblings had already graduated. Um so it was my older brother and myself, and then my younger sister. So she made a way for us to go to Christian school, and that Christian school was Emmanuel Baptist Church, um, where the places where my pastor got saved when his brother came and preached. So just lots of connections there in Fort Myers and Cape Coral. Yeah. I remember uh I was a freshman in college. I was in uh the composition class of Mrs. Jane Dalton. If Miss Mrs. Dalton, if you're watching, I'm still fairly terrified by your class. But uh we were we had to write a piece on Christian education, and um I had the privilege to go to a Christian school. I went to a large school. We had like 300 in our school. We had it, we even had a gym. We played on asphalt. Southwest Florida, you're playing on asphalt. Volleyball, basketball, the whole no, we had a gym. Like not a wood floor, they have one now, but um anyway, uh on this paper I remember writing a Christian education is a great option for families that can afford it. And I'll never forget, I get that paper back from Mrs. Dalton, and it's circled in in red ink, and she writes, No, no family can afford it. If you had an opportunity to have a Christian education, someone sacrificed for you. Um, it's kind of off topic, but um a lot of Christian schools today, and and no doubt we we would access uh grant money through like Florida Step Up for Students or or other scholarships. And those those have been a net positive for Christian schools. But uh what we noticed in New Smyrna was the less sacrifice, the less buy-in. Um, if it doesn't cost a family to put their kid in a school with the scholarship, it's easy to take the scholarship like a like a mill ticket and go down. If you get frustrated, you can go down to this. But your your mom, my parents, they were sacrificing to to provide a Christian education option for us. Where where do you think your your life? I know where my life would be, or I think I know where my life would be. What where do you think you'd be without let's separate it? There's the Christian school and there's the youth group. What can can you weight the impact uh one had more than the other, maybe? Hard question. That's a hard question. I don't know that I could weight it one way or the other. I I will say that um my church is where I found salvation, but my Christian school was where I found discipleship. Um that's where I've I really learned the ins and outs of scripture. Um I don't think I don't think I could separate them, but God was working through both of those things. Yeah. We've had uh Dr. Jim Shetler on the show. Uh kind of a name drop, I know, but you you were going through a small little Christian school in a shoebox, uh if I can use that term, uh watching videos from Pensacola Um Christian Academy, but you're learning the Bible through the through the Bible doctrines teaching of Dr. Jim Shetler. So when we moved to California, we shared an office building with Dr. Shetler. It was just a surreal moment that the guy that the Lord had used to teach you, as you said, doctrine we were working with. It's interesting because, like if if anybody's watching never familiar with like a what we refer to as a video school, um you feel like you know them, right? But they don't know you. And so the moment that you like get into their presence, it's like, wow, it's a superstar. They're real. I think we told Dr. Shetler that when he was here that day, that he was just like, like in my eyes, like a superstar. But yeah, and I was I joke with him then and I joke with him on the episode that if my doctrine is wrong, it's Dr. Shetler's fault because he taught it to me on the Atheka video. But um just it was just a great time for both. Um I it both of those places for me were like was like as as the scripture calls it, a bomb and gilead. Um so I I I grew up in in a home that was not a not a Christian home per se. We we attended church with my mom, um, but it certainly wasn't a Christian home. There was there was um lots of abuse in our home and things that were just not the way a Christian family should be. And so God really worked in both of those places really to change to change my life. I was reminded of something last week. Um I preached a funeral for a friend that passed away. He was almost 95 years old, uh, was um a colonel in the army, uh decorated war hero. Um his service was at a national cemetery, which is always just incredibly impactful, uh, with the uh 21 Gun salute and the presentation of the flag, and it's just a special place. But all of his family members came up to me, and I was his pastor probably for four years. You'll never know, they say, what what you meant to our dad. Um he talked about you like he was never the same when you left. Um the reason I bring that up is to set up a question. I don't think sometimes we as pastors or Christian leaders understand sometimes what we're providing for people. I think one of my jobs as a pastor, I know this might sound strange, but I'm creating memories in people's lives. Uh, when I look at events that we have here at Calvary, I'm not thinking about this is just a calendar filler, this is an opportunity for people to make memories. Like uh vacation Bible school's coming up, June 7th, 8th, and 9th here at Calvary. Um and even the craft that we designed, I said to our team, I think we can create something that these kids have, it's in their their parents like China Cabinet for the next 25 years, creating memories. So, what what was Gulf Coast Baptist, what was um Emmanuel Baptist Church School, what were they providing for you more than just learning of Christ, as the Colonel's family's saying, you meant more to our dad than you could ever imagine. What were they providing for you that that was just far beyond just the here's what the Bible says, here's how you're supposed to live your life, here's where you need to go to school. What providing a sense of what uh escape? Um, I I think you could call it that. Um I I I often say I saw I saw in the people's life that were influencing me what I wanted in my life. I I wanted a Christian home that looked like that. I wanted to raise children that acted like that. Um I wanted a a home where um there was peace, where it was it felt safe, like it was a place that you could come to in order to find safety as home should be. Um so they were providing for me maybe a paradigm, if I could say that, a paradigm of what could be if Christ is the center. Um so it was, I remember even as a young teenager, so important to me that I find the person that God had for me. And that was a big emphasis. Make sure, you know, if because I that's where kind of saw where where my home life went awry. You marry someone that does not believe God's word like the way you do, life's not gonna be it's not gonna be good. And so it was so very important to me to find exactly who God had created just for me. And that was something that was instilled in my life at both the Christian school and the church that that there is somebody that God has created for you. And you need to start praying for them. I remember as a 13-year-old, that's when I began praying for you. Um, that God would bring you into my life and that God would help you keep you from sin and that we would find each other. And um so to answer that question, I would say a paradigm. They they they presented a paradigm that I truly believed was achievable. And so they put so much into me to to believe and you have so much value and in Christ, not not because of who I am, but who Christ has saved me to be, that this can be true for me. And I guess I can just say I was foolish enough to believe it, right? If we could say it that way, that that Christ can really change you and change your future. Yeah. So amazing. As a 13-year-old, it was very important to me and from from then on that I would look at someone and and I had a purpose. Like I I only dated for marriage. So if you didn't meet the qualifications for someone that I'd be married to, then I'm not wasting my time in dating. And that saved me from a lot of heartache, that's for sure. Um, but it also saved me from making a wrong choice and and who to spend my life with. So I was very serious-minded. I think I probably scared you. You still scare me. No, when we first met, um you had one insatiable desire in your life. I want a Christian home. You weren't going to take it for granted. And and by the way, no one builds a Christian home by accident. Um, and that's like the raging passion of your heart. Um, I thought when I met you, like, I want to be the man who loves you the rest of your life. Um, and I I tried to do that. Um, but your desire for that was so real, um, and has has helped me become the person that the Lord really wanted me to be. So we met. Um we have to fast forward because we say we're we weren't gonna make this episode too awfully long, but uh we met. I it was my senior, I was going into my senior year of college. It would have been your junior year of college, and um, I guess full transparency, you would come you had just come out of a a little bit of a breakup. Um, and so I'm not going to say Mrs. Sexton told you that I could be a rebound, but but she might have said that. She may have said that. And I I was I was happy to miss the shot to give you a chance at a rebound, but um I I did like I know it's uh it's so cliche, I get that, it's so cliche, but how do you know when you meet the right person? And I just I knew. And honestly, I mean, for our listeners, I think it took me years to figure out you. I don't, I I think I'm still I hope I have my high school diploma in in my study of you. I don't know if I have my college degree yet, but it's taken me a long time to learn what I saw. But I when I saw it, I knew it and said to people within weeks, that's that's the one. Like, I want to marry her. And I think it was your desire for God. Um, one thing that really attracted me to you, and I think it's given you a strategic advantage in ministry, is some some women will, yeah, you're a preacher, I'll go along with that. Um I'll do the best I can to support you. I'm not going to discourage you. Um, I'll try to help you. You surrendered to marry the preacher. Um, how did that Proverbs 18, 1 says, through desire, a man, let me say a person, through desire, a person separates themselves. So it was the desire that separated you to a task, which meant the the verse ends, they seek and intermingle with all wisdom. Like there's if you're going to be Michael Jordan, there's just some things you can't do. There's things you can't eat. There's there's a way of life you adopt. So you surrendered to that. Um I was I was surrendering to that. Took me a long time to figure out, yeah, this is what God has for me. But you're surrendering to that ministry. When when was like how old were you when you said I I want to marry a preacher? Um, I surrendered to be in ministry when I was 13. Um, what exactly that looked like, I did not know, but I knew that I wanted to do what was done for me, and I wanted to do it for others. What I meant by that was um my youth pastor's wife had such a huge influence in my life, and I wanted to be that for someone else. I wanted to be that place where maybe someone who's hurting or or has a broken home could come to my home and find peace and influence and and find out for me there is a better way. So I would say at 13 is when I decided I'm gonna give my life to the ministry. Whatever that looks like, I'm not sure whether it's on the mission field or or here in a church in America, but it was going to be. We happened to be God ordained this moment. I I really needed to hear from my youth pastor at this moment. And we happened to kind of like start walking together to the auditorium. And I was I was contemplating really, what am I doing? Is this is this even gonna work? Like, do I need to stop all of this and just go do what I want to do, just go go live my life for myself. And my youth pastor, he said, he I I'm not gonna quote him verbatim, but he just summarized, said, God has a purpose for your life. I know he does, I can see it. And you have to rise above, just rise above. Do not allow all of this muck to take you and and pull you away, like a like a mudslide is is the way he was describing it. And God really solidified in that day that no, I do have a purpose. God has a purpose in my life, and I'm gonna fulfill it. So I would say both of those two days were when when I I had surrendered, but then I I just I'm not holding back anymore. And so that that was when I was 16. I don't think we ever thought we would live in Southwest Florida. No, um, we lived on the Atlantic side for 15 years and made New Smyrna home, and God just providentially brought us back confidently, knowing God brought us back to this place. But I was as you were talking earlier, I was thinking that infrastructure that helped you um, maybe with a few exceptions, but it's gone. I mean, the churches are still there, I understand that, but uh your pastor's retired, Pastor Tim's in heaven, a lot of those youth groups, the school is gone. Pastor Riley's in heaven. Um, and God brought me back to this place, brought you back to this place, and it it almost feels like God says, Um, okay, give and it shall be given to you, or uh pay it back, like your debtors to what what God did in your life and and now the Lord wants to do. He wants to do that all over again. I was I was preaching on Sunday, and I use the analogy of the Statue of Liberty, you know, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse. What amazing. The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. And I pointed out, uh, I'm even closer to the point right now I was pointing to then that there are homeless people that live right in the woods over here. Like pay it forward. Like there's so many people who hurt. And you, you chose in your life, you're gonna you were going to turn your pain inside out. Um so I had started a church, uh, Space Coast Baptist Church. We had started a Christian school, we were hair on fire busy. Um I think so it's 2013. I was 33 years old when we started the church. I'm not gonna say how old you are, but some of our listeners can probably do math based on what you said earlier. But you're incredibly younger than I am. Um so we we were working really, really hard, and I remember you came to me one day and you said, I want you to pray with me. I feel like God has something more for me. And listen, guys, I did not take that personally. That didn't mean I wasn't enough, it didn't mean the ministry wasn't enough, it didn't mean that you were discontent. Um, you were perfectly um happy and healthy in what God had given us to do, but you had a you had a burden and you said, I think I should go back to school. And I said, and to do what? You said, Well, I I want to be I want to become a counselor. Um and anyone that knows you knows you've always been a counselor. Um I think at first you said you just really needed the piece of paper, the credential, but I I think I think as it ended up you you learned a lot of a lot of skills. Um and kind of what brought you to to that point was some people God had brought to our church that um it's like it's like the disciples who encountered people with certain demonic spirits and they couldn't cast them out, and they were troubled by their inability. And how do how do we do this? Like we don't like we don't like how incapable we felt. And Jesus says, Well, you have to go to the next level. This kind of comes out by prayer and fasting. There's another level of Christian service that will enable you to help any person. Yeah, that's kind of where you were. That's that's exactly where I was. I think that's a great um illustration from scripture where I was that um I I I just I wasn't okay that I wasn't able to help. And I felt like I was not living up to my calling if I were not prepared enough to really help people who were broken. And um so I had this desire. I I I I need to learn more, I need to know more so I could help. And and through all of that, and I I I think I've said this maybe at the beginning, maybe one of our first um episodes, that God actually used my time in college really to heal parts of myself that I I didn't even realize needed healing. Um, so God used that as a growth area in my life. It's funny how we go through things thinking, oh, I'm gonna do this to help someone else, and God says, wait, you're actually the one that needs to be helped. Um, and so God did that in my life, which I am extremely grateful for. And I just feel like my whole life is nothing but paying it forward, just paying it forward that I owe a debt, and I just need to keep paying it forward. Yeah. I remember uh you were talking to a young lady. Um, I remember the circumstance. I don't remember the girl, I don't remember where we were, I just remember the story. Um, girl going through a really hard time, and you you tell her your story, and she says something back to you like, you? But you're so pretty. Like, you don't have to say that about yourself. I'll say it about you. But you're so pretty. I mean, I never would have thought. I just said to someone um last yesterday, who had kind of gone through a really hard time, and I said, one of my favorite little expressions in the Bible is when the three Hebrew children came out of the fiery furnace, uh, the the Bible writer makes note of the fact that the smell of the smoke wasn't on them. Meaning they went through a fire, and the fourth man, like the Son of God, met them in that place. All the fire did was ultimately set them free, and they didn't smell like the smoke. And I think when people meet you, that's what they see. They don't smell the smoke. And until you tell your story, people don't know. Like the facts are the facts. Like that's that's what God was doing. But it it's not about I don't think the story is about you. I don't think the story is about me. I don't think the story is about people. I think about the fourth man, if I could say to continue using your illustration. That I think that's actually really accurate. I mean, I was in the fire, and sometimes it's hard. Even I'll share my story sometimes, and maybe a a new detail will come out. And which is happened at Sunday at our house, and I just dropped a little, oh yeah, and when this happened, or this was the case, and jaw dropping. It and I think I forget sometimes too. But I think there's the smell of smoke is not there because the fourth man was in the fire protecting. And that's a that's a really great way to to summarize that. But God has done so much in my life. I feel like we've talked a lot about me. Maybe we shouldn't have doing it. No, I'm just I'm reveling in the I was gonna quote the great the great gospel trio, Rascal Flats. Um, that's a joke, by the way. Uh God bless the broken road that led me straight to you. So that's what God did. Like that's and that's what God does. He's in He's in that business. Did you have a question for me? Yeah, so maybe why don't you share with with our listeners how God called you into ministry? Maybe give us a little bit of background. Wow. So um I got saved at Team Camp when I was 14. Immediately got back home. Um, I, being from East Tennessee, had the thickest draw in the world. And um there was a retired minister of music from the First Baptist Church of Memphis, uh, Earl Holloway, that had retired to Knoxville. His daughter, Sarah, was singing at a patriotic event in Knoxville. She sang, I want to say she sang the national anthem, if I remember correctly. Pastor Sexton heard her sing, and he immediately goes up to her after the event and says, You have an incredible voice. I would like, do you teach voice or would you come teach at the college? And she says, if you like me, you'd love my daddy. So she said, You'd love my daddy. So Mr. Holloway actually retired twice from First Baptist Church and then Briarcrest Baptist Church from the Blind Side movie. I don't know why that matters, but see he he retires to Knoxville and becomes the choir director of the Temple Bat of the Crown College choir. He's teaching private voice lessons for $12.50 out of his living room. So I get saved. I start taking voice lessons. My qu my church, of about 300, I would say, didn't have a music director, and I was the last Mohican. So I was 14 years old with a southern draw, just learning how to sing. And I was leading worship, leading music. I mean, I was making orders of service, leading choir, moderating services, putting my foot in my mouth as a teenager. And then I started teaching, and I liked it, like really, really liked it. I thought this is great. And so I graduated high school and I was going to major in music. I was going to study under Mr. Holloway at Crown. And I I wanted to preach, like I was preaching. I I used to go when I was a teenager, I used to go on Sunday mornings. I was 18 years old. I went to the Knox County Detention Center. I was preaching in the prison. And I remember certain Sundays, I would show up by myself, 18 years old, and I would go behind five or six locked doors to go preach to a bunch of guys, sometimes federal inmates. Imagine that. I heard some somebody told me the story about preaching about Paul's escape from prison in Acts 16, like a jailbreak or something, and I thought, oh, that'd be a great sermon. Can you imagine how stupid I was? I preached on a jailbreak in a jail about God setting Paul and Silas free. But I wanted to, I wanted to be a preacher, and all the early influences of my life led me to think that if I wanted to do it, God couldn't be calling me to do it because my pastor was a Jonah. He was a Vietnam veteran and he ran from the call, and Tim Lee got his legs blown off in Vietnam and he wanted, he didn't want to preach. And then he steps on a landmine, and as he's laying there dying on the field, he says, If you'll if you'll let me preach, just let me live, I'll preach. But I wanted to preach. Like it was just, I saw Pastor Sexton. I just, there were so many things around me that just thank God for people that made ministry look attractive. Um there's way too many people that talk about the difficulties of ministry and discourage young men from wanting to do that. And I was running to it. And um I I was um I was in chapel one day. Pastor Sexton was talking about Psalm 37, verse 4, delight thyself in the Lord, he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. And he said, You can so you can be so close to God that you can want for your life what he wants for you. I had never heard that in my life, and it just changed my whole thinking. So it was the last week of my freshman year, Pastor Sexton again is preaching, and John 18, I believe it is, um Pilate asked Jesus a question, and Jesus says, To this, to this end was I born, for this cause came I end to the world that I might testify to the truth. And he says, Why were you born? is the question. And I I had this little orange piece of paper, and I don't I don't believe in audible voices and God writing things out in the alphabet suit, but I wrote on that paper, do you want me to preach? And it's like the Holy Spirit just said yes. So I left high school, I left college chapel. Brother Kaiser, who was my hero, was heading to class. I said, I have to talk to you. And he said, What do you need? I said, God's called me to be a preacher. And he cried and shouted, and we had a good time. And he said, You need to talk to your pastor immediately. So I did. Um, I surrendered to preach that Sunday. I preached that night. It was probably the longest first sermon in first sermon history. I preached about 40 minutes, and not a lot's changed since then, I don't guess. So, yeah, God, I felt God chose me. And I say that as humbly as I could possibly say it. I I think God set me apart. And I came to know that. Like I proved that call. It wasn't taken rashly or suddenly, but just through desire, God, God confirmed in my heart that's what I was supposed to do. And then what happens next? Well, so uh continued in my education and um did a lot of music um because of Mr. Holloway, um developed fairly quickly with his instruction and uh started singing a lot. Um Pastor Sexton favored me, so I had a ton of opportunities to sing. I traveled for a college, um I started leading music in college chapel, so by my senior year before you before you came back to school, um, took the job. It was temple, it was one of the largest churches in the United States at the time. Started leading music there, had some huge opportunities as a young man, music related. Um, so I was trying to preach and sing and do all those types of things, but I knew in my heart uh that I wanted to pastor and lead people. And then we met, and uh I met my ride or die. The rest was history. So, do you want to talk about how you met your yes? The ride or die, yeah. So uh you came back to school, and your friend from Southwest Florida, Lena, um Abdel Jabber Sammy Musa, also known as Lena Noble of the great Gainesville Baptist Temple or Church. And Brad, if you're watching, um, but you and Lena were talking and you asked me a question. Uh, what kind of person are you looking for? And you were trying to set me up with somebody at college, and you failed miserably. Or succeeded. No, I succeeded. I wasn't actually trying to set you up with somebody. I was just trying to decide if you were see if you were uh dating material. You just reeled the best way to find out is You just reeled me in. Just to say, what are you looking for? If I helped you find a girl, what who do you want me to find for you? So I just sat back and listened and thought, okay. I like what I like what he likes. I like what he's looking for. Um and so God just really it was I was telling one of our children the other day how quickly we were engaged from the time we started dating and then marriage. I said it doesn't always work that fast. So but it did for us. We started talking, um, and Crown had a Sadie Hawkins banquet, and he required uh the requirement was if a girl asks you, you have to say yes. So we had a friend, she worked in the mailroom, and she invited me, and I said yes, and you had invited somebody, Mrs. Dalton again, asked said you should invite so and so. Well, we get to Sadie Hawkins and he had to leave, and the the girl that invited me, she said, I know you like Marie. So you guys should just hang out from here on out. And so um we've I I don't know, like we just became best friends. I I still have in my files. Um we had lots of conversations, I think, before. People say the first year of marriage is hardest because you're learning how to communicate. I don't know. I feel like I feel like we talked about so many things. We even had on paper like um what we'd want our churches to be like, and uh things about rearing children, and I mean we talked about so many different things at that stage of our life, and um sometimes we make our plans and God laughs, but it has seemed to work out remarkably close to what we had God had put in our hearts at that time. I would agree to that. Yeah. And then together, I mean, we we began serving the Lord right out of college together. And um, I mean you were twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-four when you first started pastoring, and I was twenty-three. So now you know I'm a year younger than you. I have a couple advanced degrees, but the hardest earned were just the the school of hard knocks. We we learned a lot of lessons on our own, and God was always gracious to us. Uh, but we just we did, we jumped, jumped right into the fire, and God has been faithful. We have four children, and um, our oldest has graduated college. Does that make you feel old? A little. And uh our third graduates high school this weekend. So the youngest is a sophomore in high school now. Yeah, she'll be a sophomore this fall. Yeah, and then we our son is in college as well. So yeah, I I feel like um that God really just gave me everything that I desired. But honestly, I I feel like a very, very fulfilled person that if God were to take me home today, I would just I did everything that God called me to do. But the fact that we're both still here means that we both still have purposes to fulfill. Um, so just moving forward together and we can do more for God together than we can do apart. And so we're together. For sure. Do you have unfulfilled dreams? Uh, can you look back at the the younger Marie and say, um, God put that in my heart. He hasn't, and I don't need specifics, but he put something in my heart. I I know he put it there. It hasn't maybe fully come to fruition yet, but but I I believe. I can honestly say there's nothing. Yeah. I I I feel I feel completely fulfilled in this moment of my life. Just continue going forward, and like I said, just continue to pay forward um as I still feel indebted. Um, so just paying forward. Now, maybe some unfulfilled dream might look like a cruise over in the Mediterranean that's supposed to happen. But so next year is our 25th anniversary, and we're we're go big or go home. That's right. So we're not not staying home. I think someone's gonna take me on a Mediterranean cruise. I'm very much planning to take you on a Mediterranean cruise and to celebrate what God's done. So how are you paying it forward? You say you've said it a couple times. How do you think you're paying it forward? I pay forward by investing in the lives of those that God puts in my path, um, just as I was invested in. So I invest in them. Um and finding people who are searching for a better way, a better purpose. And and you said it, and I I both said it too, and and it's hard to ignore kind of the psychology and and what I'm hearing, is that we both needed to believe that we had a purpose. We had something bigger than ourselves that we were supposed to do. And when when Christians can get a hold of that, that God has a purpose for your life, you'll you'll naturally just, you know, I I gotta live right, I've got to do right, I have a purpose. And that one truth that if you can get a hold of will change, will change everything. You believed you had a purpose, I believed I had a purpose. And we work towards that purpose that God has for us. And that's so so huge in the Christian life. What is it that God has purpose for you? And it's not that's not just something for us, this is for every single Christian. Sure. That God has a purpose for your life, and you need to find it, and you need to give everything you have to fulfill that purpose. Yeah. My friend um sent me a book on my 40th birthday. You haven't had your 40th birthday yet. Um, it was called Halftime by Bob Buford, and Buford says that the first half of our life we search for success, the second half of our life we search for significance. I remember the day I woke up from my search for success, having incredibly flawed definitions of it. And I just, I'm so grateful for there's just a peace in my heart. Um, where God's brought me, what God has given me to do, is extremely significant. And it does not at all match what my definitions of success might have been years ago. But being fully content in Christ and being married to the greatest person in the world and four great kids, and the Lord let us build a house here. And um, I'm just I think at this moment I'm just grateful for what God is doing. And as you said, I I I told one of my kids the other day, Matthew 20 uh 11, 28, Jesus said, Um, Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. For I'm meek and lowly in heart, you shall find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. And I said to them, If your yoke is hard, it's not the yoke of Jesus. Now it doesn't mean easy. The opposite of heart is not easy. The opposite of heart is self-willed. Um, or the hard yoke is self-willed, self-empowered. But to to to give your life to the thing that God created you to do. Man, I just I just feel so blessed we get to do that. So I hope just uh the conversation about maybe learning us a little bit better might enlighten you as to uh where we're where we are and what God has put in our hearts and and maybe the road forward. And um, we have a I think a hunger for truth and uh kind of a curiosity for um God, psychology, where people are, how to make how to make things better. Um I'm all out of soap, so I'm gonna stop watching. Give us the last word. Um I I think I would just probably end it with what I was saying before. Just um the same that we say about ourselves is the same that's true of you, that God has a purpose for you. And I challenge you to find what that is and go fulfill it. Well, we'll see you next time on Cultural Connections, and uh, don't know exactly what the next conversation will be, but I know it'll be enlightening. But I'll have no one better to interview for the rest of our our show than you. So I'm not gonna be cheesy or anything, but thank you. Thanks for being on the show. We'll see you next time.