Fathers, Failures, and Finding Faithfulness w/ Dennis Reil

In this powerful continuation of his story, Dennis R. returns to Sacred & Strange to share the deeply human side of faith — where hope and heartbreak collide. From surviving cancer and discovering his calling to walking through the loss of both parents, Dennis opens up about what it means to trust God in the tension between grief and growth.

He shares how pain became his teacher, how boundaries became opportunities for healing, and how God turned brokenness into something whole. Through dreams, loss, and divine timing, Dennis reveals a faith that isn’t afraid of hard questions — one forged in honesty, humility, and relentless grace.

If you’ve ever wrestled with disappointment, distance, or the long road to redemption, this conversation will remind you: if it’s not good, it’s not over.

🎙️ Listen now on Sacred & Strange — where the holy and the human meet in the mystery of faith.

00:00 Welcome Back to Sacred and Strange

01:36 Dennis' Motto: Tears Over Cheers

02:18 The Impact of Youth Ministry

06:20 Dennis' Journey to Ministry School

10:50 A Dream and a Vision: The Call to Redding

16:42 Choosing Faith Over College

40:00 First Year Struggles and Revelations

49:05 The Rollercoaster of Life

49:43 Cherishing Hard Times

52:08 Ministry School and Personal Growth

53:12 Losing My Father

55:06 Grieving My Stepdad

01:02:16 Regret and Boundaries with My Mom

01:05:45 The Gift of Grief

01:14:11 Victim and Assailant: A Personal Revelation

01:32:11 Partnering with Your Season

01:35:48 Closing Thoughts and Prayer

Transcript

Jay Urena: Well, welcome back to Sacred and Strange. This week we got follow up part two with my good buddy Dennis. We we joined with him a few weeks ago and he was sharing some of his story about growing up and just having a wild family [00:01:00] life and surviving cancer twice and seeing God work in redeeming ways while also dealing with a lot of just a lot of disappointment and good stuff, bad stuff, all the above.

And we realized that we didn't have enough time to really cover his whole story. So we're following up now with a part two. Let's see if he can make us cry again. But Dennis if you listen to the last one, he's someone I really respect. I've seen him walk through a lot. He carries a ton of wisdom, carries a lot of grace, and really looking forward to this follow up man.

So welcome back. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah, thanks for having me again. Just to. Touch back on the whole make people cry. There's a little motto I always had on the worship team, and I would always say, we're not here for the cheers. We're here for the tears. 

Jay Urena: That's always the goal, right? Whether you're like pastor or like worship leader, musician or like your prayer team, your goal is who can I make cry?

This week? Because that's clearly when the Lord's moved. Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: How many alabaster jars, can I break this [00:02:00] Sunday? Or if 

Jay Urena: you're, in youth ministry, it's how many children can I break this week? 

Dennis Reil: Well, I think it's more so how much can I not cry at that point? 

Jay Urena: Oh yeah. That's also very true.

Dennis Reil: Yeah. I love youth ministry though. Probably one of my favorite times in the church volunteering. I had this perspective on it as I've gotten older and, the reason why I love the youth and the youth ministry so much is that, as pastors. It's really, difficult to walk people through so much trauma and, pain and especially when it comes to like family, redemption where both parties may not always wanna work things out or both parties would always see things the same way.

But prospectively if you can impact the youth at an early age where they can see how to let God in and mo and move in their life early, you almost prevent so much more family pain down the road because you've already set someone up to have a foundation for healthy family early. 

So it's almost like preventative, pain with 

Jay Urena: Preventative care.

Dennis Reil: Yeah. Get 'em [00:03:00] early and they'll be good for the rest of their life and, at least you can hope. It's also humbling because. Some of the youth that you would think would never turn around and they do years down the road, there's no credit to be taken for that.

You're like, I don't know how miracle only God, I'm not saying it didn't have hope, but if I was a gambling man I wouldn't put all my chips in that one. Yeah. So youth ies, it's so 

Jay Urena: rewarding. It, I think 'cause we actually did one year together in the same youth ministry we did. Yeah.

And I definitely remember there being nights. 'cause we used to, we did on Wednesday nights, it was like right in the middle of the week. And I remember getting home at that point I was a new dad and being like, I feel like I just dad a bunch of teenagers that aren't my own and I don't know if I can do this.

Dennis Reil: Starts que you start questioning your own self. Yeah. But it 

Jay Urena: is really [00:04:00] rewarding. 

Dennis Reil: Even the one thing I realized about youth is that they're really good BS meters, right? Oh, yeah. You can't just, you can't just come in, they'll call you out right 

Jay Urena: away 

Dennis Reil: and fake it. If you really wanna make impact, you have to be transparent and honest.

And they have so much respect. Even if you don't wanna be there, you're just like straight up with them. But like, all right, I can trust this guy. And I think it's because you don't know what the backgrounds are for these kids, right? You could be the only consistency and safety that they have.

And so if they know it's not a safe space or a trustworthy space walls are up, guards are up, yeah. And I think too much in the church, we try to force ourselves into areas of relationship that we haven't earned yet. Yeah, that's true. But we think, 'cause we have the tools and we've had the experience, we're entitled to it.

But it's a dangerous thing. It's like a savior complex. Like you don't even know that person yet. So you shouldn't force yourself into that area, get to know them, and. I know some of the kids, it took months for 'em to come around. Every small group was just that awkward [00:05:00] okay, you're not engaging, that's fine, but after being consistent and showing that you're not there to preach at them, but just to be there for 'em, once they let you in, it's like revolutionary.

Yeah, that was something I saw myself in youth ministry with my youth pastors. I don't remember many messages spoken, but I remember that they were always there, me and my wife at the time, girlfriend we would hang out a lot with the youth pastors and they would have these fun little things like if we were hanging out and we, outside of church, we were just like, oh man, I'm craving McDonald's or craving Carl's Jr.

It's so unique to our situation that for them it was like, whoever says, I'm craving whatever that place is. We're gonna go there. So the first one to say it when they're hungry, we're gonna go. So it would be this random little thing where we're watching Walking Dead. 'cause that's when it was coming out.

Jay Urena: We watch every, not to do with your youth group. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. We would watch to every week a new episode together, me and Erica and our youth pastors and, it'd be like eight, nine o'clock at night. They'd be like, oh man, I'm Kevin Carls Jr. It's like, all right, get in the [00:06:00] truck.

I'm going to Carls Jr. And it was just relationship, and I learned a lot from that. Something as small as that of just just build relationship, and yeah, through that you make impact, act first, preach later kind of thing. Yeah, so 

Jay Urena: youth ministry love it.

Well, since we're on the ministry kick, where we left off last time was, you had gone through that really intense second bout of cancer and coming out of that, getting ma way more involved with the church and having that crazy experience during worship and then that kind of leading into going into ministry school and stuff.

So why don't we kick off there as to what was really your why to go to, because you could have gone to seminary, you could have gone to just college, and moved on into ministry. That way you could have stayed home and just worked your way up. What was the why to get going specifically to a ministry school?

I think 

Speaker 7: kind California. 

Jay Urena: Yeah. In Red California, which is like just a really random, I love reading, I love the people of red. I really, [00:07:00] honestly, just for me, I miss. The people of that season and being in proximity together. But yeah, Redding, weird random town, man. The second. So Aaron and I met in Redding in 2011 and then, started dating, got married in 2013 in New York.

And then when we went back to Redding in 2015 for her to do the second year of that ministry school I remember the first time we pulled onto, I think it was Lake and we, there was like a McDonald's right there and we pulled up and there was no joke, at least 15 tents on the lawn of McDonald's. And I was like where am I?

Ministry time, baby. Yeah. Yeah. It was cool. There's some cool stories and things that happened Yeah. With that population in that town. But it was definitely, red [00:08:00] is a unique, it is a unique place. Everything's so 

Dennis Reil: compact because you have it all, you have great community, and you have the community that needs the outreach or support.

Yeah. Then you have the community that wants nothing to do with it. Yeah. 'cause it's a small area. Everybody's so close, they're rubbing shoulders. 

Jay Urena: Yeah. I think it's 90,000 people within I think it's like only 30 or 40 square miles or something. It's pretty small, 

Not very big. Yeah. Yeah, man.

Yeah. What was that, why, what led you to Redding? 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. It's, there's. There's a couple things that have happened up until we, I even came to that conclusion as to why. And back in high school when I, gave my heart fully to God I was like going at it hard.

Like I would read my Bible, do studies with the concordance till 3:00 AM I would have my Bible, my Google Docs music playing, and I was just all in. And I remember one specific prayer that I had that sometimes it doesn't feel like it's you. And then when you say it, you're like, oh no, I can't take that back.

Jay Urena: [00:09:00] Oh yeah, no, that was very well. 

Dennis Reil: So the first time I had that prayer happen, I was driving my Ford Ranger, 2000 nice side cab pickup, beautiful truck, I was driving it on the highway. I just dropped Eric off at our house and I was driving home and it was probably like 11 o'clock at night.

This was after we hung out with the youth and had church. And I remember praying, I said I want my life to be an example of such reckless faith. That other people can risk being faithful in just a little bit because they can see what being extreme can do. And so I remember saying that out loud and I had such an intensity behind the honesty of it.

And yet when I said it I was like, oh, that's dangerous. 

Jay Urena: Yeah. That was a dumb thing to put out, put 

Dennis Reil: out there. Yeah. I was like, should have just had it one of those God thoughts. Yeah. Not actual, asks and so that was like my perspective at the time. And I think this goes back I'm trying to remember the dates and times.

I remember [00:10:00] after, shortly after that I was having this really weird dream, right? And this was one of the first like encounters that I had without knowing really what it was. 'cause I grew up in a church that was fairly like conservative, I would say. We believed everything in the Bible and we believed in healing and prayer and Holy Spirit, but it felt more of a topic rather than an inner, an experiential person.

And so I was always pursuing like all of what was available to me within the confines of what I was being educated on. Holy Spirit is this concept. I wanna go after that. But how do you engage with a person if you don't actually have exposure to someone walking you through that?

It's a little bit more difficult. There's more I guess beliefs put before you, you have to undo. Yeah. And so this dream I had, it was like, it was Saturday morning and I remember in my head I was like, in the dream, I was hearing the song Holy by Jesus culture playing right. [00:11:00] If you haven't heard it, it's an incredible song.

One of the early albums, Deida culture, Wrecked my World in high school. They really set like this worship passion in me. So in this dream, I remember I was on this top left side of this big auditorium and I remember watching all these people down on the floor worshiping and on the stage this big stage was this like really bright white light that kind of consumed the whole thing.

There was no one on stage, but music was happening and everybody was worshiping and they were all on their knees just kinda like bow. And it was this song that was playing like Holy, holy. And I remember watching it and in this dream I had this craving of I wanna be like them. And for context, like I always struggled worshiping, like physically before, people raising hands, opening up my hands, being on my knees, stuff like that.

Like showing any kind of physical surrender. And it all stemmed from just being insecure to too full of myself to be honest. And in the stream I was craving [00:12:00] what they had and then all of a sudden the auditorium started filling up water. And I remember panicking because I'm like, these people are gonna drown.

But they didn't care. They weren't moving. They didn't even notice what was happening. And I remember this panic just started like quickening in me. 'Cause I was afraid of what was gonna happen. And then I wake up, and this is where things got really trippy, is that I woke up in my bed on my knees with my hands laid out before me in like the baby pose and.

The song, holy By Jesus culture was playing on my iPod. And I had that connected to my amplifier, my guitar amp, because that's how I would wake up for school. I would literally wake up to lasting did you have a crank 

Jay Urena: to 11? 

Dennis Reil: It was pretty loud. It would be like a Ven seven bowl, nice, full, my Valentine at that time, like I would wake up to those songs 'cause it would be loud and tense and I would wake up, but I don't set my alarm for the weekends.

I would sleep until 11:11 AM And what was odd is that my phone, my music was going off and it was that [00:13:00] particular song, I never said it, but I was in the same physical position that I saw these people worshiping in the dream. And that was trippy to me and I just brushed it off, like any, like I don't know what that was, but yeah, this happens 

Jay Urena: to me most Saturdays.

This is fine. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah, I was like, feel like normal, so I brushed it off. I was like, that was weird,

Jay Urena: was it going off at the normal time? You were waking up for Saturdays or it just was going off on its own? 

Dennis Reil: It was going off on its own right. So school, I would get up around 6:00 AM and so this was around like 10 9:00 AM on a Saturday, which I don't set my alarm there.

So that's where things got weird of like, why would that happen again? I brush it off at least. 

Jay Urena: At least the Lord waited till a normal waking time. Yeah. It wasn't like 

Dennis Reil: you respected my 

Jay Urena: 3:33 AM 

Dennis Reil: well probably still awake at 3:33 AM playing.

I was a avid gamer in high school. So that was like the first kind of weird experience that I had that I didn't understand the significance to it at the time. And a year [00:14:00] later it goes by and, we all go to this Jesus culture conference in Reding, California to watch them perform and we go to the Civic auditorium.

And this was the first time I had an actual like like a vision happen in real time without knowing what it was again. And when it happened, I brushed it off because I'm like, I didn't grow up in this culture. This is weird and strange, probably just seeing things. So I remember I was the last day of the conference, I was in the right top upper part of the Stadium Auditorium of the Civic Center.

And, Jesus culture was playing, I think the new songs of their new album. And I was, they were worshiping. I was watching and observing what was happening. I remember it was really strange because I saw everybody down in auditorium and it was like everyone was on fire, but it was a really soft, trickling flame.

But it was all level, like when you have a fire on a fireplace and everything's equally lit and the flame's just this fluid kind of movement. 

Jay Urena: Yeah. Do a little like dance thing. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. And it was gentle. Wasn't [00:15:00] aggressive. It wasn't. Yeah. And it was these weird colors of like bright reds and blues and greens and yellows, like all these really beautiful colors.

And again, I thought it was just weird. I'm like, well, maybe I'm just like hallucinating because the lights are gone off. I was like, did you do like a 

Jay Urena: lot of acid at some point that we didn't talk about? So this, all this stuff was normal for you. 

Dennis Reil: It could have been just the residual need.

Radiation therapy, if I'm being honest. Maybe I need to bring a gagger counter with me or something. So again, like we were driving home and I was sitting on it, but I brushed it off, this was like 2011. Thought it was odd. Yeah. Didn't think much of it. I didn't have anything to explain it.

And growing up, like I was, I think fairly, analytical, I would try to understand things in more concrete understanding and I couldn't understand it. And I rationalized it as I was just tired. I was saying things, it was, the lights just gonna bottle that and address it later. And as my senior year [00:16:00] approaches and I'm still just going after the scripture.

I'm going after the Bible and going after Jesus. I'm trying to chase that experience I had when I felt God's love being expressed to the congregation. I was going after that, like all out towards Jesus. And so my senior year comes around and, I was fairly good in school, I had a 4.2 GPA my senior year.

And I was pretty much guaranteed to go to any college in California, right? Like you graduate in the top 10% of your class and you get this gold star and that kind of gets you into college. And, so I was aiming towards that and I was thinking of certain things I wanted to do.

And halfway through my year I remember thinking like, I spent so much time trying to write my own script that I haven't even asked God what he wants me to do. And again, for the context growing up in the church that I did God directs every choice you make. Always let God dictate your world.

I didn't understand freedom of partnership at the time, and so I remember having this thought of like, all [00:17:00] right, I'm gonna just not take any college test. 'cause you have the SAT and the other one. And I'm like, I'm not gonna do that until I get direction. So my college counselor's Hey, we need to sign you up.

I was like, I'm not ready yet. We'll do it in the springtime. As time is going on, I'm just in a sit still moment. I was playing Call of Duty on the weekend I think it was modern Warfare too at the time. So I was playing Call of Duty and I was playing on a live game.

And, you can't pause live games when they're happening. Yeah. It's dinner's ready? All right, ma, I'm gonna wrap this up. No, pause it. I can't pause it. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. We 

Dennis Reil: turn it off. It's I can't just turn it off. I'm going, trying to rank up. So I remember I was playing Call of Duty in a live game online, and in my head I heard Ephesians 3 12, 4 12, 3 12, 4 12, right.

And I was like, well, that's a bit odd. That's a bit strange. 

Jay Urena: Yeah. Who's saying that in the mic? 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. I was like, this is this lobby that I'm 

Jay Urena: in. It's just the weirdest lobby ever, 

Dennis Reil: And in my head I was like, okay, i'm probably gonna open that up and [00:18:00] read it. I'll read that scripture when it's over, when this match is over. So I continue playing and it repeats itself and I'm like, okay, I'm definitely gonna read this when the match is over, when the match is over that decision. And then about the third or fourth time of me brushing it off, saying, I'll, I will get to it when I have the time to, in my head it was just like this loop that wouldn't stop.

And so I was like so annoyed. 'cause I knew it was supposed to be read. I know, God was saying something and I never read Ephesians. I never scanned through it, but I knew it was in the New Testament and I was like, all right, okay, I will get to it. But it became so obnoxious that I finally just, I left the game, which was in itself like surrender, right?

Jay Urena: Yeah. And so this is like the equivalent of the Lord yelling at you. The meatloaf is ready. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. It's about to burn. It's now or never. Yeah. Or take the chicken outta the freezer. Oh yeah. I'll be home in 15 [00:19:00] minutes. Take the chicken out for life. I leave the lobby, I put my co my controller to the side, and I open up the Bible.

I go through Ephesians and I remember when I was reading it, it basically was talking about how we're all meant for the body of Christ and we're all given gifts, and we're all assigned to edifying the body and making it whole. And just, being there with all your gifts to basically edify the church.

And by the church, it's the world. You go out there with your gifts and you love people and the part that stood out the most was four 12 because it talks about how we're all, to come to the full unity of Christ. And some are given gifts of pastors, teachers disciples, and, those, the gifts of assignment.

And in that moment, I felt God was calling me to the church, not to college, which is a radical thought when you're a senior with a 4.2 and you're also in a family that hasn't gone to college, and you're given this full ride, pretty much most scholarships would be covered and. I decided I'm not gonna go to [00:20:00] college.

I'm not gonna take those college tests. And to even be more reckless in my faith, I decided to fail two classes. I got an F in PE and English. 

Jay Urena: Man, why didn't I think of that excuse? I would've gotten outta so much trouble. Debt counsel. God told me to fail. Algebra. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. So my mom was very understanding and all my siblings just couldn't understand it.

Yeah, because again, the way we grew up is we grew up very poor and through hardship. So this is a gift they've been given to have a good life and gave them my reasoning and they just didn't understand it. And my counselor was furious because I was refusing to take these college tests that I needed in order to ha see where I would rank in my college classes if I needed to take entry level, whatever.

And even then I failed two classes to drop my GPA, which shockingly two Fs still brought me at a 3.8. Graduation level, which I was like, wow, I need to fail harder. So [00:21:00] the reason why I failed those classes is because I didn't feel it was right for me to collect this reward if I wasn't gonna use it.

And I knew that there could be this kid in my class that could be trying as hardest just to get into that percentage of graduates for a full ride to go to college because maybe their, his family or her family can't afford it. And so I remember it would be selfish of me to take this reward just to say I did it and not do anything with it.

So I'm not gonna go to college. I'm decided on that I'm gonna fail my two classes, drop my GPA, still graduate, but let someone else have that reward in place. So my counselor was a little conflicted. 'cause she didn't like it, but she understood it. And it's not like I was doing it without reason.

And graduation year comes around, I get out of high school. And then it's the year of I don't know what to do. God, I, God called me to 

Jay Urena: church. I have a question though. Looking back at doing that would you have done it that way [00:22:00] again, saying I'm gonna, I'm gonna essentially fail so someone else can succeed?

Dennis Reil: I would because it's, to me, it's not failure. I think success and failure isn't what we think it is. I've had the pleasure of living a really fulfilling life. And even though college is a beautiful thing, like for me, I knew it wasn't where I was called at the time and there was some struggle and there was some hardship, but for me, I fully trusted God where he was bringing me.

And I could always go back to college, even if I'm at the disadvantage of having to take entry courses or not having that scholarship. But for me it would've been still I would find it as like selfish if I did it just so I could do it, to have that safety security blanket and never use it.

Meanwhile, in a way, I am robbing someone of something that they're trying hard for, and if I know I'm not gonna do anything with it, [00:23:00] then it becomes this like collector mentality, right? Consumerism the, which is very much the American economy, which works in how our economy works, but sometimes we need to be less consuming or if that's even a word, we have to, I think it's consuming 

Jay Urena: maybe.

Dennis Reil: Yeah. We have to consume less sometimes if we know that there's no reason for it other than for us to have it and it's gonna rob someone else if they need it. And that was just the mentality I had. And maybe it's how we grew up too, as siblings of, we all struggle together, so we all struggle less, right?

So for me it's like I'm okay struggling a little bit 'cause I know who God is. I know how God can get me out of it, and I have full faith, I'll never, fully fail. So for me I would do it all over again without, without a doubt. I don't know if any such 

Jay Urena: a unique perspective, man I don't know a lot of, young men specifically who are so driven by [00:24:00] performance and success and, defining success based on your own personal merit.

I don't know a lot of young guys who would have that perspective. 

Dennis Reil: Ralph Faldo Emerson is probably one of my favorite philosophers and just men of God that I've read. And one of the quotes that he has that has always stuck out, stood out to me. And this was probably my junior year when I came across it.

It's somewhere along the lines of, if my life has brought just one person a little bit less suffering, then I succeeded. And for me, I saw that as like the goal of our faith and our walk is that it's not about us. It's about those around us. And if I can have my life means someone suffers a little bit less, then that's worth the life I'm living.

And I think with me, how I grew up and what I've experienced, that pain and hardship suffering, I can handle a little bit more because what I went through. And that same [00:25:00] experience of suffering. I find it the same as, if someone were to be like, oh, I have a fever, I have a cold, I'm sick, I feel like I'm dying.

I can't go to work prospectively. I could laugh at that, right? I, people wouldn't be mad if I judged on my standard of what I went through versus what they're going through, right? And it's oh you're suffering, you're dying. You have a cold, get over it. You have a headache. You need to be there at work.

You need to punch in. But there's also the perspective that I can use of, I've gone through so much more sickness, so much more suffering, so much more pain. Not to shame someone, but to actually edify them in their current pain, to let them know you can handle so much more if you just think less about your perspective and step into someone else's.

And it, it becomes [00:26:00] this switch from like guilt and shame to edification and support. And for me, like I believe my suffering through my experiences is a gift because the people who are suffering around me, I can actually be there to help 'em get through it without them experiencing it as if it is death, because I've experienced more death than them, if that makes sense.

There's the, yeah. Well, 

Jay Urena: I think what you're talking about is the difference between letting your pain define you and actually what I think victory really means, right? Is that you have come through the other side victorious. It doesn't define you like that experience doesn't define you in the sense of it's not still, it doesn't still have its claws in you, but because of that the transformative process of submitting that experience to the Lord means that it's created a level of empathy in you that's unique to what you've gone through.

So you actually can, sit [00:27:00] with people in their suffering and say, Hey, you're gonna get through this. I know where you're at. You're gonna get through it, it's gonna be okay. Yeah. Instead of well, I've, I like pulling that, like we talked about that second Trump card because you suddenly need to be edified in your pain rather than sit with someone else in theirs is I'm gonna pull this card and I'm gonna hang it over you.

You're just a punk. Get over it. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. It's that switch, right? Where, and maybe it's because I got married very early on and. And regardless if I was young or not, I think the perspective of marriage is like it's not about you. Yeah. Never will be. It's about how are you going to be there for someone else in the trust and the faith that they'll reciprocate that.

So if my life is about me, I will fail myself and then I will be alone in my failing. But if I have faith that God's always with me, then that means I can always live a life where I'm sacrificing for other people. Because if I'm [00:28:00] alone, I've got God, he's my support. I'll always have support and I'll always have God, I don't know who doesn't have God.

So I can be the Christlike example for others until they come face to face with Christ. And find that support for themselves to then live a life where they're helping others at the cost themselves. And I guess circling back to that long-winded question answer is that I would do it all over again.

Because again, I don't know what they have gone through. I don't know what experienced, what support they have, but at least this is one more thing that's going for them, that they may not have any other things that they're aware of, right? God's always gonna be there for 'em, but maybe they haven't permitted him permission to be fully involved.

And yet the same time, by me backing away from that and letting them have that reward, that's me being a gateway for God to move in their life, right? So sometimes us removing ourselves from our own lives allows God to [00:29:00] work through others indirectly. Which is kind of a, a. Hard perspective to have to understand it, but sometimes God will move with us not involved.

Jay Urena: I think that's how it usually works, right? Like I think of the whole part in is it Gideon where it talks about how the Lord put him on like a glove? Yeah. Yeah. And it's that whole idea of what 

Dennis Reil: reference 

Jay Urena: like a glove? Yeah. Just that whole idea of I'm going to or John the Baptist, right?

I must diminish so that he can become greater. It's the whole, when I actually get to surrender and bow out the Lord, it's this reciprocal relationship of submission where it's like I bow out. And it's not that he removes me from the situation, but that's actually the moment he gets to move through me.

And, that's really powerful. And I, to go back on what you comment about marriage like, I always tell [00:30:00] people that there's two experiences that will just bring all your selfishness to the surface, and it is marriage and having kids. And it will, because you will, without a doubt, repeatedly on a daily basis, be faced with circumstances and situations where you have to die to yourself to be successful in those relationships.

Dennis Reil: Yeah, many deaths, 

Jay Urena: many kinds of, yeah. But the reward of it though is beautiful because, it the purpose of it is supposed to be beautiful, at least, I don't wanna say everyone's experience of that is beautiful per se, but the way that's supposed to work is that person on the other side's.

Not your kids. Your kids are a whole other level of dying to self, but you do see the fruit of your life in them in a way that's different. But when you are giving your life that way to your spouse and they reciprocate, it's like death and resurrection [00:31:00] every day. It's like I get a different level of life every day.

And you grow 

Dennis Reil: so fast from it too. Oh yeah. When you stop thinking of self first and other first that again to side trail a little bit a as I've become more of a a trainer in, in different workspaces with younger kids one of the things that's been really stemmed from marriage is the higher standard is the standard set.

And I've adopted that as my framework for work culture because, and I give them the same example with marriage is that. One thing that used to happen a lot was like a bath towel being folded very specifically. Because my wife is very clean and organized, and it's impressive.

And I try to be, but I'm not quite there and I'm trying, dude I'm 

Jay Urena: like 13 years into this and I still fold them wrong. 

Dennis Reil: So you understand the pain of self-defeat. 

Jay Urena: It's gone, but it's gone now. I don't know if this is how it is for you, but it's gone now from she gets mad at me over folding them wrong to she just laughs and is [00:32:00] just give me the towels.

Just 

Dennis Reil: see. Erica's so just grateful that I'm trying, but again, my own insecurities. Early on, I would get so frustrated, and every now and again it'll creep up, but I know it's my issue. I'm having to rectify. And in the first few years I would get frustrated a lot because I would feel like everything I did was always wrong, right?

That's my own insecurity coming up. And I would try and communicate the things of it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be this from how I was perceiving it, and there was a switch that happened, and it comes to the, that statement, the higher standards of the standard set is that I was asking her to be less of herself so that I could be secure with where I was at without growing.

And in that one little thing of learning how to fold the towel, that one little victory, if I could do it in a way where she wouldn't have to feel like she had to correct it, not to correct me, but to have it how [00:33:00] she liked it so she could have peace, I began seeing things as an opportunity become better.

Something I wasn't good at because someone else had a gift I didn't have. 

Speaker 7: And 

Dennis Reil: so I started using this, that statement in the workplace too, to let these kids early understand what a healthy workplace can be and hopefully can set a foundation for relationships and marriage down the road of, and I would tell them like, you're gonna have things that you're good at that I'm not, and I'm gonna have things I'm good at that you're not.

But in this workplace, the higher standard is the standard set so that we can always try and be better by using other people's gifts and strengths to challenge us to be better. And when we make mistakes, we're not gonna shame it because as long as we hit that bare minimum that we signed up for that work policy, we're still gonna keep climbing it and raising it.

Yeah. But when we don't reach here, we're still here. And that's okay. We're going to make mistakes. We're not gonna be perfect, but we're always going to use each other to correct each other in healthy ways of growing. And that [00:34:00] perspective of the higher standards of standard set has revolutionized a lot of the relationships I've had in workplaces but particularly myself in marriage.

Because now I don't see it as much of a threat to my insecurities. I see it as, oh, okay. Like I'm regressing. I'm going backwards. I'm not trying to improve and grow anymore. So yeah, marriage will expose you for sure. 

Jay Urena: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. So I guess that kind of leads into the ministry school you had.

You did decide, I'm not going to college. Yeah. I don't wanna do that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to ministry school. Well we 

Dennis Reil: actually hadn't even decided ministry school at that point. Oh really? But I was called to church and I was like, okay, so I'll continue to show up to bible study. And the worship team, and I'll get a job.

I was just gonna be a local church involved person. And Erica, her senior year, she was figuring out what to do with college too. And she was like, Hey you should check out this school called BSSM, Bethel School. And I remember early on I was like, you just wanna go there.

'cause Jesus [00:35:00] culture's there. 'cause Kim Walker's there. I, because we were so into Jesus culture and Kim Walker and Chris Cala that I was like, you just wanna do that because that's where they're at, yeah. And she was like, well, I'm gonna go, so you should just look it up and check it out.

So I started looking into it and which was her way 

Jay Urena: of saying you're coming with me. We're doing this essentially. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. With or without you we're doing this. Yeah. I'm dragging you, whether you know it or not. I remember looking into the church and kind of what, bill Johnson would be preaching and Chris Valentin, I had no idea who they were.

I didn't know that they were, had any significance. Same world. I was like, okay, just these old dudes, preaching. And I remember that they started talking on the actual power of the Holy Spirit moving. They started talking about things as it feels real, and they started going over scripture that would just brush over.

And I was like, man, there's something here that I've never been exposed to. There's teachings here I've never heard framed or shaped this way, and there's something calling me there. [00:36:00] And so I started praying about it. If I had permission by God can I do this? And I was praying into it and I was just getting nothing back.

God wasn't talking to me and I was like, man, what the heck? Like I, it is been a year. I got no direction. I could maybe go to Hillsong in Australia. I could go to the ministry school in la there's BSSM in reading. And so I remember just feeling lost, like I was afraid to make the wrong choice.

And so over a couple weeks of praying and getting nothing back, I was like, well, maybe God is just trusting me to make a choice. I had this weird thought, maybe God's trusting me to make a choice 'cause he knows I'll choose a good or the right choice as if there's only one right choice to make. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna apply for BSSM.

And I remember I got I got the acceptance letter on my birthday of 2014. And then me and Erica, we had already planned to get married that summer and then we were gonna go to ministry school. So we got [00:37:00] married in the summer, and then by the next month or two we were in Redding. We literally show up in a U-Haul the day of Legisl.

And the next day school starts we just classic, right? Like it was just this wild time of like reckless abandonment, yeah. We're just gonna leave town, 2019 years old, we don't know what we're doing, but we're going after God, and so we went to Redding and, before the first class started, we had to have this book finished.

When heaven invade. How, 

Jay Urena: How long are you guys married 

Dennis Reil: at this point? We got married at the end of June, school started September or August. So three months. Three months. Yeah. We were just doing it and. You learn a lot first year of marriage when first year married, let alone you're going to a ministry school that's like spiritual aa where you're unpacking all your back, yeah. Especially that first 

Jay Urena: year where all they're doing is just it's basically a year of inner healing. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. 

Jay Urena: You're 

Dennis Reil: just being 

Jay Urena: ripped wide [00:38:00] open, 

Dennis Reil: spiritually, and so that's how we went forward with going with BSSM and when I was still unsure if that was even the right choice going up to it, and I was excited, but I was also afraid did I make a mistake?

Is this where God wants me to be? Did I ruin, these next few years? And as, as we were reading when Heaven invades Earth, that night before school started, 'cause I finished the book right before the day of, procrastinating. I remember the very last chapter, bill Johnson speaks on Ephesians three 12 all the way through the rest of the chapters.

And I remember sitting there reading it and I'm like, there's no freaking way that the very verse that God had in my head repeating, Ephesians three 12 through four 12, that gave me the thought to not go to college and to abandon post education and go after I'm being called to the church is the very passage of scripture that's being talked [00:39:00] about at the end of this book that's required before I even attend this ministry school.

That was like such a confirmation to me that I am where I'm supposed to be and that even though I made that choice, it, God also worked in me and with me to bring me here. Yeah. And it's that, complicated, free will and also predestination, right? We're predestined, but we're also have free will to choose.

And sometimes the stars align. And this was one of those I can't explain it other than this is where I'm meant to be. And I made the choice and God was with me in making it, even though he didn't give me any direction. And it was life changing because that gave me even more confidence to make reckless faith choices if I know God's calling me into something that you'll see it through.

And that if it's not good, it's not over. That's one of the things that they talk about at in reading a lot is if it's not good, it's not over. That's kinda how God works. And so have faith pushing, and the first year was rough, I will [00:40:00] admit. I came in thinking it was gonna be this, awesome fun.

Learn a lot and just grow and all, that's definitely the 

Jay Urena: experience of some people in that first year. 

Dennis Reil: Very much not for me, not by long cop, I suffered. Yeah, it was hard, I was working full time and then first year married and barely covering rent and food and yeah, man, at the same time, like unpacking a lot of your own self and trying to have patience for a human being you're living with that you've never done before.

And so it was a lot. And every day was a struggle. You feel like a failure of a husband 'cause you don't have money, and so it was a lot of pain. And, it was I remember one of, one of the worship days, probably two weeks in, barely two weeks in, I'm just there. And the way the school started is you're just having two weeks of just worship, that's all it is.

No speaking, no messages. It's just worship for four hours a day, five hours. And by first few days you're like, it was awesome. And then a few more days pass on and you're like, [00:41:00] okay, all right, what's next? 

Speaker 7: And then 

Dennis Reil: two weeks in, you're like. It sucks, 

From my perspective. Is anyone gonna 

Jay Urena: say something 

Dennis Reil: From my perspective, I wanted to learn, I wanted to grasp more theological studies and learn more, just about the Bible.

And I remember just worshiping, and I was praying to God. I'm like, Hey what's next? What's next for me? What do you want me to learn? And I remember he, he spoke to me during that worship set. He said, you know a lot about the book, but you don't really know the author. 

Jay Urena: That's fun.

Dennis Reil: That's, that feels 

Jay Urena: good. 

Dennis Reil: And it hurt, I'll admit, but it humbled me in a way that, I was so zealous for the Bible and the scriptures that I was overlooking the person who wrote it, that he's bigger than the Bible. And that's not to say the Bible isn't perfect or pure and complete, but 

Speaker 7: yeah, 

Dennis Reil: I wasn't fully pursuing it to get to him.

I just wanted to understand more about him [00:42:00] without actually talking with him at the table. 

Speaker 7: I was 

Dennis Reil: reading the biography, but the author's still alive, 

Speaker 7: right? Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: And so that was that was a kind of a reshape of, that ear for me onto like how I was to pursue that. And once I was able to surrender my own, self-motivated direction about halfway through the year we were having one of the, I think the healing conferences and, where we were sitting, we were sitting like in the middle of the auditorium.

And I remember it was before, class started. 'cause we would have the speaker for class before the conference in the evening. And so we had class, we were sitting in the middle of the auditorium and, 'cause that's what we were assigned for our our pastor group. And I was reading through Psalms and.

It really stuck out to me. 'cause there's a passage, I forgot where the, what the scripture is. I think I sent it to you, but you might be able to refresh me. But it talks about how his, he sets the foundations of the temple in the waters and his servants are a flaming [00:43:00] fire. And I remember when I read that, I looked up and everything came full circle.

Yeah. Back in 2010 or 11, I had this dream about being in this auditorium on the left side, watching these people being drowned by the water as they were worshiping, which I know now was God on the stage. And then a year later I have this vision of these people on fire, burning for God as they worship.

And I'm standing on the right side of the auditorium. And then as I'm sitting there in the middle of this civic center, I realized that the very place that I had that dream was the civic auditorium. And then a year later I'm at the Civic Auditorium not knowing this is where I would be from Ministry school, watching these people on fire for God.

And then here I am in 20 14, 20 15, seeing how God was laying these foundations for where I was to be well before I even cared [00:44:00] to ask him where to go. And it was this really bizarre moment where I'm like, how could I have seen what this civic auditorium would look like when I had that dream back in 2010?

And then a year later being in that very same space, having no understanding that this is where they have, the ministry school every day for first year attendees. And halfway into the school year, I finally realized that the very place I had the dream and the vision is the very place I'm here pursuing God.

'cause I finally decided to abandon it all. And it was probably one of the most profound encounters I had because it was like years of buildup. Without any connecting thread at all until God showed me. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: And here he is using scripture to confirm it because I'm I used to be so obsessed with being, like, understanding of the analytical and the logical, and the reasonable and the rational that, God was like, all right, I'll just use scripture to prove myself, which God will always prove himself in [00:45:00] scripture.

But being that, sophomore and that junior and the senior questioning these things, I like, ah, I was just a dream. Well, I was just, yeah. Being on, the fogger, 

Speaker 7: you always start to 

Jay Urena: see those threads though. It's always it's always humbling and cool, or at least in my experience, it's always so humbling and cool and so frustrating at the same time of I can see now.

I feel like Charlie Day in that meme with all the strings everywhere, it's like I can see now what you were doing. But did it have to be so like, difficult and frustrating? Yeah. You just couldn't, you just have told me and I always think of do you ever see the movie, the Page Master?

No, I have not. It's probably a little before your time, but old Man, it's a McCulley Culkin movie from like the, I dunno, early, mid nineties or something. But the whole point of it, he starts off as this really scared kid and he lives through a [00:46:00] bunch of different books. It's like Jekyll and Hyde and treasure Island and stuff like that.

And at the end of it, he meets this character called the Page Master, who's essentially the one who sent him on this journey. And he connect. He has this connect the dots moment where it's like all of a sudden, I see what you were doing. And 'cause the whole time he's gotta get to the exit and he can't get to the exit without going through this crazy thing where he is gotta face all his fears and he is gotta go through all this stuff.

And he says to him like, why didn't you just bring me here? I could have just I could have just gone and the page master says something to him along the lines of but where would you be if I brought you here just by turning the page for you? If I did this for you, you wouldn't have had to face all this.

You wouldn't have had to grow, you wouldn't have had to, essentially be transformed into who you were created to be. So it is like this tension sometimes I think of I just want you to do the thing. But I don't [00:47:00] wanna. I don't wanna be strung along or I don't wanna have to actually go through the process, like just do it.

Put me in the sleep chamber, like Captain America, juice me up and send me on my way.

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Jay Urena: And it's just not how he works. 

Dennis Reil: No. Not even close. And he is, explain to me how you've hacked the system. Yeah. Yeah, that's our man. Yeah. That kind of brings back to first year when we had one of our revival group days.

Once a week we would meet with our revival group, in our assigned rooms. And we were just having time of prayer, and I'm struggling, I'm hating life a little bit. I'm being transparent, not how it's supposed to turn out. And I'm just like sitting there I'm tired, I'm exhausted.

I'm not really praying, I'm just resting, just like, all right. Play the worship soundtrack, and let me just fake it for a minute. And I remember I had this encounter with Jesus, where, you know, here I was like [00:48:00] standing there and he was in front of me and he was in such a good mood.

He was so happy. And I was not. I'm just kinda like exhausted and I'm tired and I'm okay, what's going on? Hey Jesus, what's up? And he was, he had the audacity to bring up wasn't it so much fun? When you went through chemo and like when you went through cancer, when you went through this and it wasn't so much fun when you almost couldn't pay rent.

You didn't have money for tuition. It wasn't it fun when this happened and he was bringing up all these pain moments in my life that I had acceptance with. Still traumatic pain with the past. It's like you don't fully get over it without process. And I was like, what? What the heck?

What are you talking about? And he was like, oh, you are so stuck in thinking that there was an end when for me you didn't realize that this was like an actual journey where I was always [00:49:00] with you. Like you were never in harm's way. You were never like in danger. Like it's like the rollercoaster, like when you fall you feel like you're falling, but you're on a track that's being guiding you to the safe space.

Like you're never gonna fall off the cliff. Like this is all just adventure. And I was like, still took a while to process that out, and sometimes I forget that's the perspective and place I have to be with him of this is an adventure that he's with me in. And it's not that he causes it, but he's in control of our lives where he'll never lead us into a place of destruction.

Speaker 7: And 

Dennis Reil: if there's destruction around us, he will get us out. And for me, I think going through so much of what I went through, like I've come to cherish and value all those hard times because it's made me who I am today. It's made me stronger. It's given me that resolve and resilience. And for me there's almost something exciting about knowing that I can give to someone else who needs it.

It's like we all [00:50:00] crave to help people and to be good people. And looking back now, like I've been very fortunate to have gone through so many things that I have the tools to get people out of certain situations or at least give them guidance to, who God can be if they let 'em in. Yeah.

Like life doesn't have to be miserable, even if some, even if it sucks. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. '

Dennis Reil: cause life can suck sometimes a lot, but it doesn't have to be suffering. Like we can have the dichotomy of reality where things are hard and that's true, but what's the truth in the situation? At the end of the day, like what do I have, I can be grateful for and I, and bring some gratitude and perspective and the people around you and the people in your life.

People who are supporting you, the people who you can support. There's so many more things in our life that is worth celebrating than being fixated on a situation that causes pain and suffering. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. And if [00:51:00] 

Dennis Reil: you go through enough pain and suffering, you realize that it's actually not as bad as you think.

If you let got into redeem it and give you perspective on how this can be a tool and no longer like a, I don't know, like the thorn in your side. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: Pain doesn't have to be crippling. It can actually be enlightening and empowering, and so when Jesus was just having fun, bringing up all my trauma moments, like a real bro, like the audacity.

I know you're like, God, but yo, okay, let's go down a little bit here. Yeah. Jake, as the 

Jay Urena: youth would say you're a little out of pocket right now, man. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. Dude check yourself. 'cause I am not, I'm not about to backhand the son of God right now.

Jay Urena: And any like major traditionalists out there we're kidding man. Just relax. Yeah. I'm not gonna salt the son of God. That would be a bad plan anyway. But it'll work out for me. You, [00:52:00] this kind of leads us into, I think, you, you did your. Your school of ministry years. That's actually where we ended up meeting because after I had done my internship year, you did the following internship year.

And at that point I was on staff at that church. Yeah. And volunteering and stuff. And you know why? I remember watching you go through that year too and have major growth moments. Especially in just, leading in the youth and having to really, I think, step into some moments of uncomfortable leadership and standing your ground even that I think were really important for you.

And then set you up even for, 'cause I know after that season you've walked through some really hard things in just the last five, six years. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. Yeah. So I would say. The twenties. My twenties were definitely the worst decade I've gone through. Just throw it out there. [00:53:00] I had to really press into God in a lot of grief and pain.

So a year after my first year of ministry school I grew up not knowing my dad really well. So some backstory, perspective, my, my parents divorced and I was real young. And we started reconnecting in like 2012 to 13. That's when I got to meet him again for the first time.

And we touched back and forth a little bit. And then in 2015 he had a stroke. And then shortly after he was put in hospice and then he passed away shortly after that. So I didn't really get to know him very well. But, and you're in writing 

Jay Urena: while all that's going on, 

Dennis Reil: right. And I'm in writing all this is happening and.

I, it was this weird experience when we passed because it was painful, but I didn't really have a whole lot of like memories or emotion to justify why I felt so sad. [00:54:00] Like the grief was there, but I didn't have the memory of emotions or even memories at all to really justify that because that's how I would think.

It's not reasonable. Like he passed, but I don't know him. And were you almost like 

Jay Urena: grieving, were you almost grieving like even that grieving, like I'm grieving. Yeah. Could have even been. 

Dennis Reil: Exactly. So when I came to that and I addressed it, like I was having to grieve like the lost opportunities of what was before me because I didn't steward what I had at the time.

And so that, that was in itself like a hard season and. It gave me more gratitude for my stepfather at the time. 'cause he stepped into our lives when I was in like sixth grade and he really was like a father to me, and so it, it gave me this perspective of sonship, I need to go after sonship.

What does it actually look like to be a son and to be loved and to let someone who adopted you be a father to you, right? So I really started going after that [00:55:00] relationship with my stepdad. And, shortly after that, this would be in 2020, so a couple years after that his health was declining pretty rapidly.

And, in 2020 he was also passing away. And I remember, the family we all knew like, all right, he's Dr. Given him like 24 to 48 hours. Any hour now, any day now. I remember getting that message early in the morning. It was probably like five or 6:00 AM I was like, well, I got work.

And so my boss knows what's going on. My coworkers know what's going on. So I remember going are you 

Jay Urena: still in Redding at 

Dennis Reil: this point or are you in Seattle still? Yep. So this is all happening in Redding and I remember I was going into work, just like putting it aside.

I'm like, well, when it happens I'll address it and I'll process it, right? And it was the first time I had an experience where my body would not respond to what my mind was telling it to do. And I remember going up to the front door of the cafe to open up the door to go into work, and my hand was on the handle and I froze, [00:56:00] and I started shaking.

And I, I knew something was wrong in me, and I immediately turned around and I went to the car. Erica drove me and I told my boss, I'm like, I can't come into work. And he's dude, don't worry about it. Take your time. He wasn't even expecting me to come into work, but I'm like, well, until something happens, I'll process it then.

That was my rationale. And I remember I was in the car with Erica coming back home and, 'cause I'm about to lose my father really? And she said one thing that stuck out to me. She said, if he mattered, you should let him affect you. 

Speaker 7: And 

Dennis Reil: that was like permission to actually be in pain before the moment even happened, to begin a process before there was even death, and I remember he passed away three or four hours later and I broke. It was probably one of the most painful experiences I ever went through to lose an [00:57:00] actual father in my life, and. Through that grief, God was so present and so good. And I learned so much about him. And in that I actually learned that grief is a gift from God.

There's no grief in heaven. And so in our life it's one of those pains that we have that we can actually offer up to him. In a way, it is the alabaster jar. Like when the woman broke that jar for Jesus, it's because she knew he was dying and she was already grieving a loss of someone who hadn't yet passed.

And it had so value in that moment. It was beautiful and it was a perfume. And he valued that more than any other offering from those disciples or followers, yeah. And in this wrestling with grief, you try to bottle it, you try to suppress it, you try to mitigate it. I learned very quickly in this process that.

I need to let this grief be as painful and as significant and as intense as I can handle it, [00:58:00] because I know that God is going to be there and replace it with something beautiful not knowing. The grief in itself was beautiful. Yeah. And in this pursuing God in this moment because I needed him to be with me.

I came to the cross and I realized that honor and grief are different side of the same coin. And what that looks like is when someone who's worth when being honored shows up someplace, it disrupts the room. And that was one of the analogies we've learned at B ssm Yeah. At the ministry school, is that honorable people change the room and it, the focus goes onto them.

And you can see who has the most impact and influence because the room changes its perspective and behavior based on who has the most influence. And if that's true, then the absence of someone honorable has the same outcome. It's disruptive. And you look at the cross and when Jesus passed and he was absent of the present room, [00:59:00] heaven and earth all reacted and they all grieved because someone was worth the honor was absent.

And I recognized that in this process with losing my father, that this grief is actually recognition that someone honorable is gone. And it gave me a lot of appreciation and it gave me a lot of gratitude because there's a legacy there that I can sit with and learn what made this person so significant that it wrecked my life when they disappeared in the physical right.

And that, that happened in, in 2020 and it was,

Jay Urena: was that all during COVID too and stuff, or 

Dennis Reil: was it before? Yeah during COVID. Literally COVID happened gosh, he passed away on the 17th of March, so this was like, so it was like right there all at the same 

Jay Urena: time.

Dennis Reil: Yeah.

So all happening at the same time and it was a beautiful season despite the pain. And, our family really got close together because we understood the legacy of what he had and what [01:00:00] he did and how much he unified us and brought us together as a family that was very broken and dysfunctional without having a father figure even in our lives.

But for him to just be present, he didn't speak much, but he was always there. He was always giving, he was always present. He was always available. Yeah. And there was a lot of things that I learned from him that, I can take and become more of who he was, the legacy he left off. Yeah. And.

That grief, I came to value it as one of my prized offerings. Because if I, my 

Jay Urena: testimony to the power of presence like when you get around someone who, like you're saying like, he didn't even have to speak, but just him, there was something that brought people together, was something that, even brought healing just from consistency and presence.

Dennis Reil: Yeah. 

Yeah. It's reshaped what I guess masculinity looks like for me in some ways, right? We think masculinity looks like you have to be in charge and be seen and be powerful and be in control. Yeah. [01:01:00] And yet, here's my stepfather who could basically control the room just by speaking up when he never really spoke, yeah. Or just by being present, people behave more controlled, especially my siblings who are all chaotic during family reunions. Like his presence was enough and it really reshaped who I can become if I choose to. That, if I'm just available, that's enough. I don't have to be recognized.

I don't have to be, in front. I can actually be behind or I could just be there. And that's enough, and 

Speaker 7: yeah, 

Dennis Reil: That was one of the hard things that I learned that I'm grateful now having gone through it's, it is a gift and it's a painful one to receive, but again, letting God into the process.

And so shortly after that. I would say about, three years later was when my mom passed. I lose my birth father [01:02:00] in twenty fifteen, sixteen. And then I lose my stepdad, who was my actual father who raised me in 2020. And I lose my mom three years after that as I'm, 28 years old.

29. And that one I think was the hardest because, when my stepfather passed some things happened in our family and there was some hurt, I would say, without going into detail. Some choices made that was misunderstood, on her mom's part. We looked at certain actions as repeating behavior of how we grew up.

And as adults it's well, we don't have to take that anymore. Yeah. And so you start putting up boundaries. And I would ignore phone calls on purpose 'cause it's I just don't wanna talk to you, or I don't need to talk to you. It would be through texts, and in 23, very early on, me and my wife moved to Washington.

Didn't even tell my mom we were moving, and so a lot of just like you do no communication, right? This is my boundary. Yeah. We've tried talking to you and these [01:03:00] are your consequences. And I know when my mom passed, it was literally overnight, like phone call, Hey, mom's in the hospital.

And then within six hours she passed away. Wow. And it was like just a few days after her birthday. And I was like, man, I didn't even call her on her birthday. And here I am sitting of I just lost my mom. And then I really start walking back and regretting all these choices I made.

And what I came to learn was these boundaries I thought I was putting up weren't boundaries at all. It was actually punishment because she wasn't behaving how I wanted her to. And it's not to say that boundaries aren't needed necessary, but I was justifying punishment and I was disguising it as boundaries because I wasn't actually willing to do the internal work of what boundary would offer reconciliation if the boundary was met on her part.

I wasn't even willing to offer, a [01:04:00] bridge through the boundary, and I was actually just punishing her. And when she passed, I had to really address that. Even though choices were made, I made choices too. There was no innocent party in the situation. And I had to take full ownership of what I really am when I'm hurting and when I'm broken.

And I think many times we're afraid to look at ourselves as also guilty of being imperfect when we're hurt. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: But until we're given opportunities of power or pain, we don't really know who we are because when things are going right, they're great. We're performing perfectly. And I can't take those things back.

Like I lost three years of relationship with her and knowing I distanced myself, something, I can't trace back or walk back anymore. And maybe some people need to have boundaries up that are healthy, but I learned that how I was using boundaries was only [01:05:00] hurting both of us. 

Speaker 7: And 

Dennis Reil: so she passed.

I really had to go through a grieving process of myself. Not only did I lose her. But I chose to behave and act in a way that was punishing and not loving and not kind. Yeah. And redeeming and not edifying, 

Jay Urena: And it's like you lost a piece of yourself in it too. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah, it was probably the most depressing state I had ever been in because it's one thing to grieve someone who passed, but it's a lot harder to look at yourself in the mirror when, you know how, in my perspective, disgusting and unloving you are.

Like, how do you love yourself when you know that you're, you are I don't know, like vindicating towards another human being and through her death and through me processing. I really had to come to the perspective of she was just as flawed and per and imperfect as I am. And yet all she ever did was keep us all [01:06:00] together.

She always loved us. She always had holidays to celebrate. She always had, gifts for Christmas despite how poor we were. She always made f sure. We somehow had clothes, know, like she always did what she could with what she knew how to do. And she may not have had the tools to work on self-care.

And it's hard to do it when you have 10 kids. Yeah. Like 10 kids. You learn a little bit of grace and compassion, mercy. And I think the hard thing for me was I wasn't able to express gratitude for what she did well, right? 

And yet all I did was look at her failures and faults to the end. And only until she passed did I really have to come to that realization of was it worth it?

So that, that kind of became this new, like growth perspective I'm having even still today, right? Two years later. Is it worth it, right? To be upset at someone, to be angry at someone [01:07:00] and I get upset and frustrated all the time, so it's not like I've achieved that goal, but there's moments where I can be intentional sitting back and thinking, is it worth it to have this anger or to have this boundary of control over someone?

Or this disconnect of compassion. Am I even trying to see how they're receiving, seeing things? This might seem off, but I'm a big fan of watching the show. NATO and NATO Shippen, that's an anime perfect peak storytelling in my humble opinion. There's this one character, if y'all's haven't seen it.

His name is Hitachi. One of my favorite characters, and there's a quote that he has, and I only came across it because of TikTok. Like I've seen the show a couple times, but I've never remembered this quote. But how they wrote this character is this kind of like broken villain. He's not quite a villain.

He's like an anti-hero, but he's complex. [01:08:00] But in the quote he says, people judge me for the choices I made, not for the choices I had. 

Because he did some pretty terrible things in the show. And reading it outta the context of the show, but seeing it on paper is a lot different. 'cause I can disassociate the entertainment side from the weight of what I'm reading.

And that has been like, one of the things that's been sticking out a lot lately for me on just reshaping how I walk through life, is it's not about choices people make. What choices did they have before? That led them to that place, or that is in that place where they're at. And with losing my mom and losing my stepfather and losing my father, like all in my twenties, which is a really hard pill to swallow, it's really forced me to have this perspective of gratitude and appreciation for people.

Right? 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: Now, like you, you can't take [01:09:00] back things that are already passed. You can't, yeah. So those three years that I distanced myself from her just to punish her, right? I can't call her anymore. I can't check up on her. I can't be grateful in the natural. I know she's in heaven and she's probably better off than I ever will be right now.

And I know she has no ill will towards me. But there was that reality where I was grateful that she wasn't suffering and that there was this forgiveness on her end. But the hardest part was learning to forgive myself, I would say. Yeah. And that took a lot of Jesus work in me. Yeah.

Because when you can't love yourself and you feel like you're one of the worst human beings alive, because you're stuck in your own reality of who you are, how you behaved, and you're how you're acting, like it's hard to let God love you in that. Yeah. But at the same time it stems from being grateful, and despite choices that were made, I didn't choose to be grateful for what was good in that relationship.[01:10:00] 

Instead, I decided to put up a boundary and, well, I punished her and I disguise it as a boundary. I guess that would be the main point of how, that situation, evolved and what I had to learn from it. Yeah, that's like the learning points that I've had through grief and through loss.

Each one was very complex and very different from each other. But at the same time, yeah, I'm grateful. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely not. It's not enjoyable some many times to grow and to learn, but it's good. Oh, it's good, man. Yeah it's good, right? It's like going to the gym. Unless you're a masochist, it's not enjoyable, right?

Yeah. But it's good for you. And so I've come to learn like through all these hardships and pains in life. It can be enjoyable, but good. Doesn't look like enjoyable all the time. And when it sucks and it hurts and it doesn't feel hopeful, that's when you need God in [01:11:00] your situation more than ever.

So that you don't get consumed by the pain, but really you can actually learn the lessons in real time without having to go through the regret of missed opportunity. Yeah. That's good because it can be avoided. That's good. But it's hard to do it. It's not easy. But it makes you a better person and if anything, it helps you help others not go through the same cycle of pain.

And so that, that's where I'm at, is I don't want people to suffer in the way I suffered through grief and through parental loss or lo loss in general. Or even going through, hardships that you have no control over, right? Like relationships you can control. But when you go through things like cancer, you are at the mercy of what is, there's no changing it.

And so how can you have a perspective that doesn't consume you with pain and death? How can you actually be in control of your situation through perspective? And I think that's the biggest thing is perspective, right? We can choose [01:12:00] how we see things not to be veiled with a false sense of reality, but God can take what is true and he can replace it with truth.

It's true that I have cancer. It's true that my body's breaking. It's true. My, my mom passed away. It's true. My stepdad passed away. But the truth is that, I was able to have perspective of what's valuable through cancer. I have the perspective that my mom was a good mom who did her best to raise us, and I have the perspective that my stepfather left a legacy of what it looks like to be a man and to provide.

And so those perspectives are something that outweigh the situation pain that you can be in, yeah. If anything, 

Jay Urena: yeah. What's like the, just in like. Putting a bow on all this. What is the thing? 'cause like you, your experience of going all the way back really, you talked about your twenties being rough, but

Get cancer when you were like six, you had cancer again when you were [01:13:00] 13, you had started to take a decade. Yeah. You would have every Right. I think to be bitter, to be walking around with trauma, I know that there's tons of people out there who would walk around or are walking around, caring, that sort of thing that distrust or that expectation of bads coming, so even just practically speaking to those specific people who they, whether they've gone through that same measure of difficult circumstances or. Or just carrying around an idea in their hearts that's their experience and that's what's going to happen. Whether that has been or not.

What's just something like, what are you doing for yourself to not let yourself become that person? And what would you say to those people to give them that perspective shift that you're talking about? 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. This may not be easy to hear, [01:14:00] but I think it needs to be heard. And this kind of goes back to an experience I had in second year of ministry school.

When you go through something like that where you're unpacking a lot of trauma, you unintentionally adopt a victim mindset. Where you went through all this pain, you went through all this trauma, you went through all this, you went through that. I had this, I experienced this. It's a very much eye consuming perspective.

And I remember, again, during worship, it's where God loves to just hurt me in the best ways, in the best ways, right? He there was two moments that stand out the most, and each one has given me these keys to walk through, I think a victorious lifestyle, unintentionally. I remember one of these situations, Jesus was there and he was talking to me and he's you know that I don't convict people, right?

And I was like, what do you mean you don't convict people? He's I'm not going out there trying to convict and correct people, but what happens is that because I am perfect and holy, [01:15:00] when you are in my presence, the imperfections are exposed and that convicts you, and there's this sweet exchange where if we're willing to press into that, then there can be an exchange.

There can be a working happening on the inside that, conviction just means misalignment with truth. And so that, that really stood out a lot to me. That Jesus isn't in the business of correcting people. He's in the business of loving people. And when we're misaligned in his holiness, we get convicted.

And so that gave me a perspective of how much easier is it to press into him because he's not there trying to expose our brokenness or our imperfections or our sin. It just happens naturally. And he's 

Jay Urena: not gonna tell the prophet all the bad things I'm doing, so that snitch, he can call me out in front of the church.

Dennis Reil: He ain't no snitch. Well, sometimes it can be sin gets exposed. But the second thing that happened to me that. The most marking, I would [01:16:00] say into answering that question you had is, through that journey of unpacking your trauma. The, I went through this, I had this vision in my head during worship, and I saw two of me face to face in a room, and I was a third version of me.

So there was three of me, the Spider-Man, all pointing fingers. And I remember I was sitting there and I saw these two and I was mediating the two of them. 

And so one, one of me was the victim version of all I went through. And the second me was an assailant who assaulted me in my own trauma.

And so I had this perspective revelation in this kind of weird vision thing. And Holy Spirit was guiding me into this truth that you are both the victim and the assailant in your stories. 

And [01:17:00] you need to rectify that and learn to forgive each other. And that was something that I was never exposed to because growing up in the church on how we process trauma, it's always about us being victimized and what we had to go through.

But many times we don't realize that we actually become our own assailant to our own story because we just won't let it go. And I have this like anger in me to realize like, how much have I robbed myself from freedom? Because I'm assaulting myself into victimhood. 

And I'm staying a victim because it's easy.

'cause I don't have to be responsible for anything. Wow. And it's a painful hit. Hit that 

Jay Urena: in a wait. Hit that point again. If you're a victim, you don't have to be responsible for anything. Hit the, hit that again, 

Dennis Reil: it's I mean it's true. Like when you are a victim in your own story, you don't have to be responsible for getting yourself outta the mess that you're choosing to stay in.

Jay Urena: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: That's when you become the assailant to your own story. You become your own sabotage and it's no longer [01:18:00] the person who caused the pain that's responsible because you are staying in that mess. You're staying down when the person who caused it is way, way long down the road. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: And that's what I had to realize with my mom is that despite what I went through dramatically or victimized in my situation, how dare I keep blaming her for something that has happened so long ago that there's nothing she can do to fix it.

Yeah. Like I am in my late twenties, I am in my thirties now. Whose responsibility is it for me to move forward? Nobody. And if I stay in my past and I stay in my trauma and I stay in my pain, I'm no longer a victim. I'm actually the same if not worse, than the one who put me there to begin with. 

Speaker 7: Yeah.

Dennis Reil: And that's sobering. That's a hard pill to 

Speaker 7: fall though. '

Dennis Reil: cause despite what we may have gone through as adults or teenagers or kids, those traumas we experienced, those are real. And those [01:19:00] are hard. And those are truths and realities we have to go through and work towards. And in the same situation, if we stay in that, we become the same, if not no worse than the one who put us there, right?

And that's not the shame and that's not the guilt. And that's not to put this like pain on you. It's actually supposed to liberate you into realizing that you can stop beating yourself up. Yeah. You can stop sitting in it. You can actually just step back and let God into it. Just start restoring it little by little and that, that was I think something that I wish was taught a little bit more, maybe not through the same way I experienced it through prayer, but man, did it give me some empowerment to walk away.

Because I didn't know how to see it any other way than what I had to go through as a victim. Yeah. But when I told myself as the one who caused it, there was an anger of what the [01:20:00] heck? Not anymore. I'm done with this. There was a righteous anger of like, how dare the devil rob me of freedom, because he tricked me into thinking I'm a victim, when really I'm the hurting myself.

It's genius, I'll admit, but until that truth is spoken and revealed, how do you get out of it? Because you're playing a role that's not the right role.

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: You're not fit to be there. And that, that was liberating, to say the least. Yeah, that's really helped me get out of a lot of messy situations is, with my mom for example, I chose to be the assailant because I felt I deserved it.

I wasn't a victim in that and I knew it. I was assaulting myself because I needed to be punished from what I felt was justified until I felt like the beating was enough, and that's true. That's how I approached it, and I had to let God be the one to work forgiveness in myself, for me to forgive myself, and I think walking through your stories I [01:21:00] think when you have time and the patience for it, ask those questions. Is this a situation where I'm a victim? Am I hurting myself? Or am I both? And I think it would be shocking to see what the Lord can do with that. When you have Yeah. Just 

Jay Urena: that little bit of truth, 

Dennis Reil: that honest conversation, and it sucks and it's hard, but man, does it free you up.

Jay Urena: Yeah. Yeah. That's good, man. I think I can even think back to moments in my own life, as you're talking of, where it's that whole idea of like even your, what you feel is true, but doesn't make it the truth. Yeah. Like it's real, but it's not necessarily the truth or, anytime that we tried to use what we feel we deserve or just what we feel in general over the situation as justification for whether it's pain or justification for, not allowing ourselves to heal [01:22:00] and healing meaning like the everything doesn't just become good right away, but you actually become stronger through it. You actually move forward through it and grow. Anytime that we're in those moments where we're choosing that narrative, it's I think for a mature Christian or just a mature person in general, even like your radar better be going off because you're being lied to and you're being trapped.

And the only person that's capable of doing that to you is yourself and the only person who can, the Lord will show up for sure and wants to break you free of that, but the only one who actually has the power to say, I'm doing this now is yourself too. It's such a, an important moment, where it, it really I think there's a lot of us who need that truth that you can be a victim. Or you can grow stronger. 

You can move on. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. It's hard to make that [01:23:00] choice to move on. 'Cause you're stepping into an unknown. Yeah. You're stepping into responsibility.

I think first and foremost, do I want more? And it's like what the Lord says my yoke is light and it's easy if you partner with me, but we're gonna go someplace and we're gonna move forward and we're gonna keep walking. And it's not gonna be in the messy pen anymore. Yeah. It's gonna be in this comfortable, dark, damp room anymore.

We're actually going to be putting in work. And it'll, it, it can be easy and it is light, but you make the choice. Yeah. And I think it's the choice of Yes. And, I remember a pastor saying that we can live our whole life looking at nos, and there will be a million that always come up.

There's so many no's in our lives. But if you can just switch that perspective of what are you saying yes to? Yes, by default means everything else is no. [01:24:00] So in your life, what are you saying? What are you saying yes to? Because then you reject everything else. And so if you're saying yes to your story of trauma, if you're saying yes to your pain, then freedom is automatically locked out.

You don't have access to it because you're choosing the chain instead of choosing liberation. Yeah. You can't have both. And I think that's what the Bible means as well, about talking about your slave to one or the other. You can't serve both. It's either freedom, which means rejection of the rest, or it's slavery, which means rejection to the rest.

Yeah. You'll be a slave to something, so choose your shackles. 

Jay Urena: Yeah. And it's easier at times to be a slave to the pain. Or to be a slave much easier. Absolutely. Yeah. It, makes the bad feelings feel like, you're gonna get your due at some point, but the reality is you're not, your pain doesn't make you, make anything indebted to you.

Dennis Reil: Yeah. 

Not entitled to anything, [01:25:00] to be honest. And that's another truth we have to come to terms with. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Dennis Reil: We're not entitled to anything other than God's love. Yeah. Even then, that's a choice. Liberation comes by 

Jay Urena: into it or not. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's important to make the distinction right, that I don't think what we're saying is.

Just push your pain aside. I think what we're saying is actually sit in it, but sit in it in the place of, I'm going to, I'm gonna learn everything I need to learn from this and I'm gonna heal and I'm going to, like I heard Bill say all the time when we were in school, right? Is the Holy Spirit's called the comforter, right?

Not 'cause you need comfort when it's good, but you actually need comfort when you're in pain. And that means you actually have to let him into those moments where you're in pain and you are suffering. So that, yeah. What's the great exchange that he says? He says, lay your cares on me. Lay your burdens on me.

Come bring it to me. I wanna sit with you in it so [01:26:00] that I can take this moment, right? I can take the pain, I can take the bad and I can turn it good. And good doesn't mean you know that you're owed. Reward. It doesn't mean like you went through something bad, I'm gonna give you a million dollars.

Now it's, you went through something really hard, I want to sit with you in it and I'm actually gonna transform that part of you into something beautiful and holy. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. 

Absolutely. And again, it's also very important to clarify that you're not responsible for the pain when it happened.

Because I know there's a lot of things that we've gone through that we're not responsible for, right? Yeah. Some yes, we are victims. We are all victims to life and to other people, right? I am a victim to cancer. But at the same time, I am not going to sit in that as a victim.

Speaker 7: Yeah.

Dennis Reil: Like it, it happened. I can't change that, but I [01:27:00] will refuse to sit in there and not see how I can use that for good. Yeah. And I only could do that by letting God be present in that situation and to comfort me in the pain and to bring me out of it. Yeah. So it's, again, it's not to say that you are responsible for your pain and that I wanna be very clear on that.

And in the same context, we can be responsible for staying in the pain. And that's what where we're at is, by us staying in pain, that's our responsibility. Yeah. And we switch from being a victim to being the assailant to our own story, and it's not worth it. It's exhausting. Yeah. And it's painful to start the process to get out because that reality of truth of we can be both in our own stories while also being the mediator for it through guidance.

There's so much freedom in it. 

Jay Urena: Yeah. That's really good. [01:28:00] And I think it, it brings this kind of inner circle of I think sometimes what we think of like comfort being, when we're talking about even Holy Spirit being comfort, but just being comforted by people is I think our expectations at times look at that as being as almost more like coddling of that someone's gonna, someone's gonna justify my pain.

And I think what I've always found in those seasons, it's funny too, 'cause BSSM season for us was also one of the most hard, painful, difficult seasons ever. But I look back at that of I probably grew exponentially more in those seasons too, than any other season of my life. But like when we look at the comfort of the Lord comforting us in that, and that really is, I think, the transformative, or at least one of the key transformative.

Traits of the Lord when you're in those seasons is his comfort. But it was never, oh, my, my poor baby, yeah. [01:29:00] Oh my, my darling snowflake. Yeah. There was none of that for me. And first out who hurt you? It was 

Dennis Reil: like, you gotta get to work. You got bills to pay, 

Jay Urena: get to work. Yeah.

Dude. It was never that because I see this sometimes with people groups, right? Where it's like people groups kind of huddle together and they almost trauma. Well they do they trauma bond over their pain and call that comfort. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Jay Urena: And that's not comfort and that's not what the Lord does.

Yeah. And I think that, when I look at what the comfort of the Lord is, it makes me think of what you were talking about with your stepdad. It's presence and consistency. It's the it, Hey, I'm here. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna get up, we're gonna move. It's gonna be okay. You're gonna put one foot in front of the other and I'm gonna walk with you.

That is the comfort. Yeah. It's not the, I'm gonna bake you some cookies and tell you, you're beautiful and unique and all those other things. It's the, but you are, you're beautiful and unique, but that's not how 

Dennis Reil: you get out over, you're at [01:30:00] 

Jay Urena: it. It was the moments of Hey, we're gonna, you're not gonna stay here.

We're gonna, we're gonna move and we're gonna move together and we're gonna get up and I'm gonna walk with you and it's gonna be hard, but you're not alone. I'm with you.

Dennis Reil: Yeah. Yeah. To touch on that before we wrap up, I'm assuming we're a little bit past the one, one and a half hour mark.

It's okay. But it's great. In, in first year. What I thought was supposed to be a sabbatical of spiritual reformation and enlightenment. 

Jay Urena: I thought it was gonna, honestly, I was in the same boat too, man. I had never heard of Bethel before about six months before I got there and was like, I don't know what I thought I was going to, and I came right outta college and I was like, this is gonna be like another school, but it's just in a church and I'm gonna do more church things based on the school that I already did.

And I walked into I don't wanna, I don't wanna make it sound negative 'cause I don't mean it negative, but it was like, 

Dennis Reil: yeah, 

Jay Urena: I'm with a bunch of hippies and I don't know what I'm [01:31:00] doing. 

Dennis Reil: Yep. Yeah. No, for sure. You it's, you feel, again, my experience is that's not the season I was being walked into.

Yeah. It was not this like freedom child, you. Woodstock, everyone's just worshiping and having all their rent paid by random donations. Mine was like, if I don't work, I don't pay my own rent. I don't have enough to have lunch and dinner, so I guess I'll just have dinner, work and express.

I could take food home at the end of the night. Yeah, were like my survival, situations where I had to just, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be. And I remember halfway through the year, I was so frustrated with God because I didn't understand, I wasn't like backing away, I was just confused.

I was like, God, I trust you. I believe you, but I don't understand you. And I would like some clarity. Please. 'cause this sucks and I want to enjoy it, but I can enjoy it if I don't know what I'm supposed to be enjoying. 

Speaker 7: Yeah, 

Dennis Reil: [01:32:00] totally.

It was again, in one of the revival group gatherings. He gave me this perspective and he told me, rest can only come by partnering in the season you're called to be. And man, I was exhausted my first year because I was working full-time. I would go to school, get off at five, I would go to work at six.

I would get home around two or 3:00 AM and I would do it all over again, six days a week. 'cause we needed money. I needed to work, I needed to provide, I needed to go to school. I had to be a present husband and it was just a lot. And so I would honestly sleep during worship many times and sure.

My friend, we call that s 

Jay Urena: smoking man. 

Dennis Reil: Yeah. I was, yeah. I was just so in the spirit and it was a miserable year, like one of the hardest years I had to go through up to that point of building. And when I heard that kind of revelation that they'll be unfolded of you only find rest partnering with a season you're in.[01:33:00] 

I had to question, what season am I actually being called into? Because I've been partnering with a season of sabbatical, rest and reformation and Revelation and Woodstock on a spiritual Christian sense. And it wasn't that at all for me, for other people and many people, yes, and that's amazing and beautiful, but that wasn't my season.

I was being called into and I was partnering with something and I was fighting with my, my space that God would wanted me to be in. And I couldn't grow as much in that because I was fighting the environment. It's like a plant, plants only grow in certain seasons and they bear fruit in certain seasons.

And I was fighting the season and I wasn't growing like I could, but the moment I realized that God was calling me into a season of stretching and s and specifically seeing what I'm capable of, that wa that was the biggest thing that I overlooked was God was calling me into season to show me what I could actually handle.

And. To learn to be proud of [01:34:00] myself. Being an insecure youngest child growing up with all these like kind of hardships, you just, I grew up with a lot of insecurities. I'm not enough. I can't do it. I'm not worth that. I can't provide for that. I can't do this. It's too much. And yet it was a season of showing I'm actually capable of doing a lot and doing it well, right?

Like I can be a good husband. I can provide and I can be a present student and I can do all of it because that's where God's calling me to be. And the moment I partnered with that perspective and I shifted how I saw things, like things got easier. Or it got simpler, I would say. They didn't get easier.

They were still hard, but it got simpler on knowing how to switch into certain situations or environments. 'cause I knew what I was being asked of. I wasn't messing up the recipe, so to speak, and I didn't have to keep backtracking what I was trying to cook. Yeah. In, in an analogy of sorts.

And long story short is know the season you're called into and [01:35:00] partner with that. Yeah. And I goes back to the last podcast we had is expectation versus expectancy. My expectations were X and the outcome was y and frustration built because of it. And the result for me in that season was exhaustion.

I wasted, I didn't waste, but I lost about six months of opportunities that I could have had to grow. But also because I went through that season of lost opportunity when I figured it out and I corrected my lens, it helped me not do it again. Yeah. Learn through pain, learn through trial, and hopefully other people out there don't have to go through the same, thing I went through.

Jay: Yeah, man. Well, hey I appreciate your wisdom. I appreciate your vulnerability and your willingness to have these conversations with with me and with those listening and let your life not only be a testimony, but be fruitful. Let people eat of that fruit, of what the Lord's done in you and where you've walked and where you've [01:36:00] gone.

And just really appreciate you. And why don't you we didn't do this last time, but's see it this time. Why don't you just pray us out and we'll yeah, we'll close up there. Yeah, 

Dennis: absolutely. Yeah, father, I just I just thank you for every person listening and for every person in those people's lives.

And I just pray that you just bring revelation of just truth. They are capable of so much more than they, they understand and I just pray restoration. I pray freedom, and I pray liberty in all their lives that you know, they are powerful. They are not victims. They are not assailants, but they are more than equipped to walk into freedom in their life and the lives of those around them to just restore the church and in the simplest ways, just love people as they are where they're at so that you can do the work in them to move forward.

Amen. 

Jay: Amen. Amen. Appreciate you. Love you bro. Thank you too. [01:37:00] Love you.