No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
What My Father’s Fall Taught Me
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In this episode, Brody sits down with JB and shares his dad’s story of secret sin and moral failure and how it has shaped his own marriage and ministry at Snowbird. Brody pulls out his dad’s old, marked-up Bibles as a picture of a life that looked faithful on the outside but was unraveling in private.
They walk through hidden patterns of porn and infidelity, a suicide attempt, and the lasting impact on a family and a church. The conversation goes beyond one man’s failure to the deeper reality that any of us can drift if we don’t remain steadfast and faithful.
This episode isn’t just reflection, it’s practical. They talk about what it means to truly hate sin, keep your hand on the plow once you’ve committed to follow Christ, and put guardrails in place that protect your marriage and ministry. It’s a sober reminder and a clear call to stay anchored, finish well, and deal with sin before it has the chance to take root and cost you more than you ever intended to lose.
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Hey, this week's episode of No Sanity Required, JB and I are going to have a conversation and the guys behind the cameras. Um, we're gonna have a conversation that I just want to say on the front end, this is one of the hardest episodes that that I've thought about and planned to record. This has been a long time in the making. I've wanted to record this for about a year or two now, and it has to do with my my dad, my earthly father, um, and just some hard lessons learned through his life, a life that was in a lot of ways well lived, and in a lot of ways very poorly lived, and a lot of regret, a lot of pain, consequences to actions. Uh, and I want to be very gracious, but but very forward in the way that we tackle this content. It's something that is hard for me to talk about, but that if you've attended anything at Snowbird uh ever, there's a good chance you've heard me discuss my dad and the impact that his life had on me, both in the good and the bad. And in a lot of ways, I think his moral failures have really marked this ministry to be hyper-aware and hypersensitive to really what can happen. And it's also given me a real sense of urgency to want to finish strong, especially at this stage of my life, as I think about um where my life's at. I'm I'm I'm about the age that my dad was when he died. And that's a real sobering thing to think about. Next year I will be the age he was when he died. And so I don't know, I've been I've been very contemplative lately, and I talked to so many people who come from families where infidelity was a reality and homes are broken, and man, a lot of marriages struggle because of sexual sin. And that's our story in our in our household. That was our story. That's just a reality. So I'm not gonna try to do anything to to to throw judgment on my dad in this episode. I want to learn from his life. I think if he could sit here today and say, here's some things that I would want you to learn from my mistakes, I think you would, and I I really do. And uh so I just ask you to listen to this with an open heart and mind and with the heart of conviction, and you would heed warnings that come from one man's mistakes and failures and the impact it's had on a lot of people. Um, but also that we would understand the sin that grows and dwells in our own heart, what we're all capable of, what what failure we could all face, and the importance to examine our own religion, our own relationship with the Lord, our own fidelity to Christ and His Word. Um I think there's a lot to be learned from His story. I want to I want to do this in a way that's gracious, but but very forthcoming, and and I want to heed some warnings. So it's gonna be heavy content. I've asked JB to sit in and uh and kind of walk through some of this with me. Just uh I think a dialogue might be a better way to handle this. Uh so welcome to this week's episode of No Sanity Required.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe. Um okay, so the first thing I want to do is I'm gonna grab these Bibles.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And while Brodie's doing that, Brody talked to first the media team. We had a creative meeting, and he kind of gave us a short encouragement using like the base of what we're talking about today, kind of more brief. And then he actually went on and talked to all of our interns and a lot of our staff. We got really good feedback and it was really encouraging. And I was like, we gotta do an episode on this. So that's kind of where this originated. And so yeah, I just wanted to kind of give around.
SPEAKER_04:I'm thankful that like literally the reason we're doing this is because you gave me that nudge. Because I've been wanting to, I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, but just I don't know, it's such a difficult subject. And but I've I really wanted to challenge our staff with it. Um and so I don't know. I yeah, I'm I'm thankful that you've given the nudge, and so I'm I'm just trusting the Lord to use this. Yeah. Um, so I I want to start by so these are my dad's Bibles. He gave them to me sometime before he died, and he had kept uh, I think he had a Bible he was currently starting to read again. He had he had really walked away from that for a long time and had had started to read and started uh attending a church pretty regularly. And anyway, I ended up with his old Bibles. And there's a significance to why I I've got these. If you're watching and not just listening, you'll be able to see this is a pretty powerful visual. Um these Bibles are well worn, well used. There's no question, when you look at any of these Bibles, there's no question that the person that that owned these wore them out. I mean, the covers are falling off of them. Um, they're marked with notes, and um yeah, they're just they're they're the Bibles of a person that spent a lot of time in the Word. Highlights, margin notes. Um this one's even got like an old program from something at a church that he went to. Um used copies of the scripture. And the reason I've got these is um because I think there's a lesson that we can learn from my dad's life that I want to talk about today. But first I want to give a little background. I I told about his conversion experience as it was relayed to relay to me.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. This is cool.
SPEAKER_04:Cool story.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um so my dad, because people ask me, and I think when I'm when I went over this with the interns in the institute, someone in the Q ⁇ A or the discussion time even said, Do you think your dad was truly saved? Because there's that's that's a that's a hard thing to wrestle with.
SPEAKER_01:It really could be. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um because I don't know, yeah. That that's that's a hard, and I I think he was. And my answer was I do think he was. I think that's why the Lord eventually took him. I think just the consequences of his choices, um, and we'll get into that conversation he and I had right before he died. But my dad grew up here in Western North Carolina. His dad was a bivocational pastor, meaning he pastored small churches, but he also worked in a mill. Um, and then eventually was a full-time pastor. Um, when my dad was young, his mother, my grandmother, who passed away when I was in the sixth grade, but she was an amazing lady.
SPEAKER_01:Is that Dinky?
SPEAKER_04:No, that's my Dinky is my mom's mom.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So my dad's mom was my nanny. I called her nanny. Her name was Margaret Holloway, and uh Maggie Holloway, she was awesome. I mean, she was like old school, that that um depression era, World War II era. Like my nanny taught me how to wring a chicken's neck. Well, my nanny would, if we were gonna have fried chicken, literally, I have memories of her walking out, reaching down, just pick the chicken up by the head, and you just one big you swing it and pop like that.
SPEAKER_01:And its head falls off.
SPEAKER_04:And the head pops off.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_04:And so that's called ringing a chicken's neck. So when you hear somebody say, Man, I want to wring his neck, that's what it comes from. So I remember as a kid watching my nanny do that and thinking, I want to be able to wring a chicken's neck. And it wasn't when you grow up around that stuff, it's not weird. Right. See a chicken get killed. That's why they exist, is because we're gonna eat them, you know? Right. And so I was gonna, but anyway, I was gonna ring, I was gonna kill a couple chickens that little had bought. They were meat chickens, and we're gonna eat them. Word got out to our staff. That evening, there was like 50 staff at our house just watching you to watch me kill two chickens. And y'all, it is really fast. I mean, it's a one-second process. Um, now you've heard the saying run around like a chicken with your head cut off. When you pop that head off, that headless chicken runs around your yard flopping wings and jumping and without a head. With no head. It's a crazy thing.
SPEAKER_01:For how long does that last?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, for 30 seconds to a minute.
SPEAKER_01:And then they fall over.
SPEAKER_04:It'll run around for maybe 10 seconds, five to 10 seconds, like running and flopping, and then it'll just lay in one spot and kind of flop and bounce for 10 seconds. I don't know. Maybe 20 seconds. I don't know. I've never like timed it. It's quick. But it's long enough you're like, whoa, what is going on? And so we everyone's out there and they've all got their phones out, and everybody's filming at my house. And I've got two chickens, and um, I just hold both of them down on the ground because they don't know what's coming.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And you just put their head in your hand, and you basically you do like a windmill motion, but you have to snap it like a whip, and the head just pops off.
SPEAKER_01:That is crazy.
SPEAKER_04:And so, anyway, that was really funny. All the staff was at our house for that. So, but that was my nanny taught me how to do that, which is really funny. And so I was uh I was blessed to have a grandmother like that, and then Dinky was my other grandmother who's just awesome. But my dad was raised by you know awesome people, just but like a blue-collar mindset. But my my dad's dad, Virgil Holloway was his name, he is known in Western North Carolina in like Baptist circles. He was a really prominent, well-known pastor, speaker, mainly pastor in Western North Carolina. Um, but he's super legalistic, like very legalistic when it came to and what that means when I say legalistic, just to define some things, it's where Yeah, that's I think that's good too, because now legalism is thrown out like for everything.
SPEAKER_01:Who just used the word?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So if we were gonna do the letter of like like the letter of the law definition of legalism would be when you when you add um rules and laws and statutes that aren't included in scripture, right, you sort of apply those to how the Christian life has to be lived. So to say you have to wear a dress if you're a woman. That's not in the scripture. Well, it says you need to be modest. Yeah, but we live in a culture where modesty doesn't mean you gotta wear a dress, right? Um you cannot listen to music with a drum or an electric instrument. That's not in the Bible. Yeah. It's like you can't support that from scripture. Rules that apply to, you know, what you watch, what you what you listen to, what you eat, things like that. But what makes legalism legalism is when adhering to those rules makes you more spiritual.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, holy or whatever.
SPEAKER_04:It gives you a spiritual high ground, a moral high ground. So it's more, it's very moralistic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So it's the danger of legalism is it's it's it's moralism. And moralism is if I can live moral enough, then I attain a level of holiness, right?
SPEAKER_01:In a way, like Pharisees. Like I picture Pharisees.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the Pharisees were very legalistic. Legalistic, yeah. Yeah. And I want to be like this is a good place to pause and say, I want to be gracious because I think a lot of the Pharisees and a lot of legalistic people are well-intentioned. Right. Right. So it's not, I don't want to say they're legalistic because they're evil. It's they're well-intentioned. I think they mean well. Um, but I don't think it's the right way to do things. Yeah. And I don't think it's the most effective way. I don't think it's biblical. And the example that I use, in fact, I talk about it in the No Sanity book when we started Snowbird. I was always, I was raised in that legalistic tradition of um, there's a verse in 1 Corinthians that says, Come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord. Well, he's talking about the Corinthian Christians should look different than the Corinthian pagans in the way they worship, what their worship service looks like, what their active faith looks like. And he has, and that has to do more with he gets into like um how they take the Lord's Supper, drunkenness, speaking in tongues, like that. And that verse was always used in a legalistic manner to say you can't dress the way the world dresses, listen to the music the world listens to. It was just a misinterpretation and appropriation of that and application of that verse. So legalism is is, I think, very dangerous.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:So my granddad was very legalistic. I love my granddad. I mean, hear what I'm saying. I love Virgil. He was Virgil Holloway was a good man, and I loved him. Now we weren't particularly close, um, but I loved him. So my dad grew up sort of in that household, and but my dad rebelled. And so in his teenage years, he was there. My dad's name was Larry, so I'm gonna use first names some Larry and Virgil, my dad and my granddad. So Larry, Larry, there's crazy stories about Larry's teenage years. I mean, wild. And so um Larry, my dad, when he was 18 years old, the summer after high school graduation, matter of fact, it might have even been before graduation, it's in this one Bible. He became, he got saved. He gave his life to Jesus. It's this one.
SPEAKER_01:Man, you can even smell like these are old, well-used Bibles. Like you can smell. Yeah, you can smell them.
SPEAKER_04:It's crazy. Um, June 2nd, 1969. So he around high school graduation would have been June 2nd. Um, so he gave his life to the Lord. Well, he got saved in a revival meeting. And I was explaining to the institute what a revival is. Yep. And if you're a listener and you don't know what a revival is, a revival is when a church, a local church, they're real popular in more traditional older Baptist churches, yeah, they'll have a week-long series of meetings where every night for a week, um, you have church service and you typically bring in an outside speaker. Usually that speaker is a quote unquote revival speaker. He's someone that's kind of what he does.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, more like take action, like kind of like uh what's the word? Spur you on, encourage you, like yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Which kind of is what the word revival. Yes, it's to revive, you know, in the church, revive the vitality and excitement. That's right. And there will always be in those revivals, the churches around here are still doing.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. I didn't really know what they were until I moved up here. Really? Yeah, and then I would see signs for like tent revival or stuff like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, man, it was a big part of my upbringing. And and uh, and I mean it's a very strong cultural thing. And and you would always have some strong evangelistic cause. So some revivals are more geared towards the church, to revive the church, and then but there's always a strong evangelism emphasis to to try to win the lost, and so you get people to come to church. And so this revival happened in Haywood County, which is Waynesville, North Carolina, Maggie Valley, North Carolina, if you're familiar with this part of the country. In 1969, this revival happened that that went on for six weeks. It was a one-week meeting that ended up going for six weeks, people just coming and getting saved. And so Larry, my dad, got saved at this revival. And his dad was a pastor, but he had been living in a lot of rebellion. So the story goes that my dad had gotten in a pretty bad fight about a week before this revival, or a few, or the weekend before the night that he got saved. And in this fight, the guy he was fighting had pulled out a knife, and my dad got cut. It was on his hand, somewhere on his hand in this fight. He got cut. And so then the night that he got saved, the man that was preaching the revival was a man called Pastor Edwards. I don't remember Pastor Edwards' first name.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:But I met Pastor Edwards, I'll tell that part of the story when I was 10 years old. So Pastor Edwards was preaching. My dad makes a profession of faith. He comes to the altar and apparently was holding Pastor Edwards by the tie, necktie. My dad was under deep conviction. My dad was a really intense person. I mean, very intense, especially when he was younger. So he's holding him by the tie, and that wound opened up and he bled all over his tie and his shirt. So when I was about 10 years old, we were at Pastor Edwards' house. I got to meet him. I don't remember why. I think maybe my dad was preaching for him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Preaching a revival for him. And he lived out around Salisbury, North Carolina, which is like just north of Charlotte. We had driven out there, and Pastor Edwards, um, he says, I want to show you something, son. And this at this point, he would have been like in his 70s. And he he brings out, he was 60s or 70s. He brings out uh in his study, he had the necktie and the shirt that he was wearing that night of those 12 years earlier, would have been 12 years earlier, which to me would have been a lifetime before.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That he had hanging in his study with my dad's blood all over it.
SPEAKER_01:Wasn't it like in a frame?
SPEAKER_04:He had framed it and hung it up. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:That's crazy.
SPEAKER_04:He said, This is to remind me of what the gospel's capable of. Because your dad was a person that everyone was praying for.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And that night he gave his life to Jesus and he bled all over my tie in my shirt. He was under such conviction. He was gripping it. So kind of a cool, yeah, really cool story. The to add to that story, this man, Pastor Edwards, had a son who, when that boy was four years old, so 26 years prior to this, when that boy was four years old, he had died in a farming accident. Pastor Edwards was a farmer. He was a he was a pastor who farmed, and the son had been riding on the tractor with his dad. Pastor Edwards' son had fallen off of the tractor and been run over by the tractor and it killed him.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And he was exactly my dad's age. And so I remember him relaying and conveying, you know, like your dad seeing his his life changed by the gospel has brought so much healing to my heart over what had happened with my son. And so when my dad started to follow Jesus after that conversion experience, this, if you're watching, this was his first Bible. So you can tell he he he wore it out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And when you open it, um it is full of um just Bible verses, just meaningful verses of scripture. And it's like not much more than just verses. And I think there's a lesson that when you're starting your journey, for most of us, there tends to be an insatiable hunger for the word.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Like that's the thing you can't move far from. Even when you begin to study doctrine and um yeah, I mean, it's like you'll have one word, like Joshua 1.8, and he wrote the word success. Um love, and he wrote 1 John 3.13, marriage and fornication, and he wrote some passages from 1 Corinthians. The body as God's temple. Um God's return, uh, the Lord's returning. Jesus and God as one. So he's just jotting down verses that he needed to learn to understand, I think, core biblical um foundations. And then, yeah, just notes that he's he's filled up the inside covers of of this Bible with. So that was his first Bible. Um, when he so there's that one. The next Bible Um is this one, and so I think this one, yeah. So before I get into that, what then happened was he started to walk with the Lord. He went to Appalachian State on a Football scholarship and was a phys ed major because he wanted to be, he wanted to come back to Waynesville and coach football.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Be a high school PE coach and football coach. But while he was there, um, he decided he was going to become a pastor. And so instead of coming home and doing that, he went on to seminary after coming up.
SPEAKER_01:Do you remember where he went to seminary?
SPEAKER_04:He went to Liberty.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And it was the first ever graduating class.
SPEAKER_01:That's crazy.
SPEAKER_04:At that time, there was no Liberty University or no Liberty College. It was Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. And he was the first graduating class. And they met in downtown Lynchburg in like the lobby of a in like a conference room of a hotel.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:That was where his classes were. And I can remember that. We moved there. I remember I because I was born when he was at App State. I was born his uh red shirt freshman year. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't realize that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So like when I his last year of football, I was like three and a half, four years old. I went to his games. Um I think I was three and a half, which of course I don't remember.
SPEAKER_01:This is off topic, but were him and your mom like high school sweethearts or something?
SPEAKER_04:No, they went to the same high school. She was a year ahead of him. Um she's scared of him. She said he was crazy. So when she graduated, he was still had his senior year to go. He's still wild as a buck, you know. And uh then she went to a little junior college called Lee's McCrae, which is near Boone, and then transferred to Boone to finish her four-year degree. She's uh education major to be a teacher. And my dad and her um got together there. And uh he was a new believer, she was a new believer. She had made a profession of faith when she was 19 at Lee's McCrae.
SPEAKER_03:Gotcha.
SPEAKER_04:I think they met, maybe met back up. They knew each other from high school and then connect, but had never known each other, and they connected through like a campus ministry.
SPEAKER_01:That's cool.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so then I was born. I mean, they they they got married. It was fast, like six weeks. Like met, connected.
SPEAKER_01:Ring by spring for real. That was it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:They're married. I'm born ten months later. I mean, I was almost a honeymoon baby. I've always wondered the timeline. Was a honeymoon baby or a shotgun baby? Right. Because it's really close. Blurred lines. Yep, it's very blurry. Um, so yes, like their anniversary and my birthday are around nine months apart, something like that. It's really funny. Um, but they they got married um right after college, uh, got his degree and then moved to Lynchburg, did his seminary, and then later would get his um doc his PhD in theology from a different seminary. And so, yeah, so it started that he was in ministry, and right after that seminary stint, he went to work at his first church as a pastor. That was a little church just south of Lynchburg, Virginia. So we lived in Virginia when I was real little.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We moved back to North Carolina. I found out later, so here's where the story starts to kind of get crazy. I found out that the reason we left Virginia was because my dad had been unfaithful to my mom.
SPEAKER_01:So pretty soon. Pretty quick, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It was pretty quick. Um and it was a pretty bad situation. It wasn't simply two consenting adults fell into a you know sticky situation. Yeah. It was there was there was some layers to it that was pretty dark. And so when you take this second Bible, what's here's where the warning started to really come to me and that I shared with our staff. Um this second Bible, okay, before I read that, the third Bible, he he starts to lay out when he when he read through um each each copy. So like like he'll have in the inside covers of these Bibles, um, started, started reading uh on this date, finished reading on this date. That's the fifth time I read through the Bible.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Started reading on this date, finished on this date, that's the sixth time. So every time he read through the Bible, he logged it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Which nothing wrong. I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. But just saying he was consistently reading through the Bible every year or two. He read this Bible through two times, um, once in 1976, 75 to 76, and then once from 76 to 77, which is about the time then that he took that first pastorate. So this was the Bible um that he started off with preaching and teaching. So his third Bible started his first pastoral ministry. His second Bible was the Bible he had through seminary, and this is the one um this is this is shocking. And we might pause right here and talk about this for a minute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:He's written in the front cover of this Bible a few a few notes. The first note says election, and it's underlined. So uh it shouldn't be, but a controversial doctrine, the doctrine of election, right? I don't know why it's controversial, but it is. I think the reason it is, is because of the Schofield this is a Schofield Bible. I think the Schofield sort of soteriology, that's another conversation for another episode, but whatever. It's controversial. Election, it says this God voted for you in Christ Jesus. That's his first point. Second point, Satan has voted against you. Third point, you hold the deciding vote.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:So this is a man that at this point has is pursuing a master's degree in theology. And this his his interpretation or understanding of election is you hold the power, like you hold the the deciding vote. Deciding vote vote, right? So there's this picture that God and Satan are vote both vying for you, and the choice is put on you which side you're gonna go with. Now, there's no question that the Bible teaches that you're held responsible for what you do with the gospel. Yeah. What you do with the revelation that God gives you. In fact, Paul says in Romans chapter one, um, they are without excuse. Suppressing the truth, you're without excuse. Because what God has made known to them, they suppress. So man has responsibility and salvation, right? But to take that view of election that says God has voted for you, that's that's your understanding of election.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Satan has voted against you, and you hold the deciding vote.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:For me, when I read that years later, it helped me understand maybe part of where my head was at. Yeah. And why he went the way he went. Because when you put the responsibility on your shoulders more than on the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_01:Now and also when you read that, to me, I picture it as like, okay, God has casted a vote. The devil, Satan has casted an equally as powerful vote. Well, we know that's not true. Like we know that the vote, quote unquote, that the Lord has casted on us is victorious, you know. So I think that also kind of plays a role of like, man, I could go either way. Like I've got, you know, the devil on this shoulder and the angel on this shoulder, they're both equally as powerful, you know. So I think that also comes to my mind when you read that.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's I think that is the big idea. Right. And because, you know, I recently in the sermon series, I think it's winter sw, where um I make the point. If someone asks you, are you a Christian? How do you know that you're a Christian? If you start by saying, Because I because I said this prayer, because I do this or I do that, because I anything, if then you're you're on thin ice.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:That's not good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:If you start that with because of what Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm in response to that, then saved by grace. So yeah, I think it's yeah, and I I even made this statement to our staff when we were going through this the other day. It's like, I don't care what Satan thinks about me. I mean, I do, I know what he thinks about me, and I'm not being arrogant or haughty. Right. I don't care. I don't I like I know what he thinks about me, and I know he's voted against me. But what the Bible teaches, if God is for me, who can be against me? Who can be against me?
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And that's a powerful truth that that that is laid out for us in the scripture.
SPEAKER_01:I also think we might get into this a little bit a little bit later, but I think this is a perfect example of like, okay, it's obvious he's in the word, he's reading through the Bible more than I ever have, you know? And so I think that's important and I think a good principle, I guess, of okay, you can all day, you can say you've read through the Bible, and I'm not saying that's a negative thing. Being in the Word of God, we know is like the most powerful thing that you can do. It's authoritative over our souls, our bodies, right? But if you're not living with like a repentative heart and you're not living in prayer and you're not letting scripture live inside of you, then you're just reading a book. You know what I mean? Yeah. And like your actions, and we'll get into this later, kind of like the unfolding of your dad's life. But it's not because he wasn't in scripture. Like we know he's reading, he's read through all of these multiple times. That's right. But it wasn't authoritative in his heart. It wasn't living in him. He wasn't, I don't know, just letting it be authoritative. And yeah, you know, I think that's a good principle.
SPEAKER_04:I think the the lesson is that we try to teach here is I I wonder, was he maybe not coming under the authority of scripture? He was approaching it sort of eye level.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:If if that visual works, like um coming to the word of God um head on the case.
SPEAKER_01:Well, like he said, he had the deciding vote. Right. So, like this to him is just kind of like a tool, which it is like it is a great tool, but like you said, he's not living under the authority of it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and it's complicated because he would preach as if it had authority for our lives. And so I think the lesson there is um little things are big things. Um, we can get all the big things right. Right. Um, but we need we need to really focus on the in intricacies of what we believe about the scripture and the authority of God's word. It's one thing to say God's word has authority for our lives, and then we apply it to certain aspects of our lives, but not to other aspects or something like that, maybe. Andrew's behind one of the cameras, James 2. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think that's a good James 2, where James says, being hearers of the word, but not doers. And he, I think that's what he then says, deceiving yourselves.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You're living a deception if you're hearing it, reading it, but not submitting to it. Yep. And then doing it. And uh, and I think that's one of the blights on you know, West a lot of Western Christianity or American cultural Christianity, I should say, especially in the Bible Belt. It's like, I'm a Christian, um, but am I a doer of the word? Do I submit to the word? Um I I heard David Helm, who's one of my favorite teachers and commentators, um, he said, When I open the word of God, the word of God opens me. And so I think the I don't want to overemphasize the lesson here. The lesson is, man, you can read the Bible in futility.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I've I found myself reading, reading just to read. Like, check, read this morning. Yep. But if someone said, Hey, what'd you read? I would be like, uh, first John, but like, what was it? Like, you know what I mean. Just reading it out of saying what I read, you know.
SPEAKER_04:So, first lesson, I think, right here is based on what you literally what you just said. First, I need to read the word every day. Every day I need the word of God. But when I approach it every single day, I need to pause in front of it, as if I'm literally standing on the other side of the door of a roaring lion that could bite me in half when I open this door. But that that lion is for me if I submit to him. So I'm gonna open that door and submit to the lion, and now he's for me. It's Aslan on the other side, right? But that if I open that door in arrogance or haughtiness, then that line is gonna consume me. Or there's another line waiting, and that's the line the Bible describes Satan as the line that's roaring, seeking whom he can devour. And so the the the word there is the first lesson in this episode would be, and what I want our staff to learn, and what I want to know in my life and try to live by is every day I want to open the word of God, I want to approach it in humility, I want to submit to it, I want to let it wash through my mind. Paul says there's this washing of the word of God in in Ephesians 5. He says that Christ sanctifies his bride through the washing of the scripture, just the irrigation. I think I used, did I use the story about the horse with the cut on its leg? Was that what y'all? So I had a so I I had a I'll tell that story real quick. I had a horse that two different horse stories. Had a horse that got cut real bad. We caught the wound, we saw it, um, and we got a vet to come out, and then every day I had to irrigate that wound, and we saved that horse's life. It was, you know, horse breaks its leg, it's dead. If it gets an infection in its leg, it's dead. So the first horse had cut right above the ankle, really bad laceration, cut into some tendons, there were sutures, and it was a lot of work that went into putting it back together. But one of the things we had to do to rehabilitate that horse is irrigate that wound every day, which we just held water on it for 20 minutes. Flush it out. Flush it. Yeah. Had another horse, had its foot almost cut off, and then it went untreated. We didn't know for three weeks. And what had happened is that horse didn't belong to me, it belonged to a buddy, and it was in his his pasture, and we had gone on vacation, and uh, and I told him, hey, we're gonna be gone for a week. So, like, checked on the horses before we left, left for about 10 days, came back, didn't get over to check on the horses for another week. By then, the horse had apparently cut itself right when we left. It'd been two and a half weeks, and it was infected, and its foot was about to fall off, and we had to shoot the horse, had to put a horse down. So the irrigation to cleanse that wound didn't happen. Infection set in, it would have killed the horse. It was crazy. That horse had only been injured for three weeks and had already lost about 200 pounds.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:Just the infection, the gangrene, it was already like the infection had taken over this horse, and we had to put the horse down. And it and it was like man, it like rips your heart out. Like, because you're like, this didn't have to happen. And it to me, it's such a visual of the effect of the word of God. Two and a half weeks. And that other horse, two and a half weeks of irrigating that wound every day. And he was healthy, and it yeah, and within about a month, that horse was good, had a clean bill of health. So just how fast the word of God does the work in our mind, but also how fast the flesh takes over when we don't. And I think that's the lesson I take from my that part of my dad's story because what then happened is we moved, um, and then I actually have two more Bibles that I don't have. They're they're behind the the set. But um we moved from there to another place, moved back to North Carolina, had uh, we were in limbo for about part of a school year, moved back to Boone, where App State is. That's where my mom's side of the family was from. We moved back there, stayed there um second grade. Um, I was in second grade, then we moved back down to the Waynesville, North Carolina area, Wainesville, Canton, and my dad became a pastor again. After about four years, we moved. Now we only moved this before the internet, you could move one town away and it was a pretty good distance.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:People were not as connected. We moved to the next community, and he took another pastoral job, and I found out later from my mom, all this when so let me let me pause and say my mom and I had a conversation um when I was about 30, where I said, I need you to tell me everything, everything. Because I never knew why we kept moving and why, and eventually, like, because the way the story goes, eventually my parents split up because of my dad's infidelity. Yeah, but I thought that's the first time it happened.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And I knew of two. I thought the second, what I thought was the second infidelity is when they divorced. And I thought second time, and I thought, yeah, second time, don't give them another chance, be done. I found out it was a pattern for 16 years before the first one was known. And so um, we kept moving because my dad kept having these extramarital affairs. And and so when when I was like late teen years, the last one kind of came to a head. And so I want to tell how that happened. I think I told y'all how it went down. Yeah, and this is that just the idea that the Lord is not gonna be mocked. Your sin will find you out, what you reap, you know, what you sow, you're gonna reap. And that's scary for all of us. That's scary for me. Like, because we all have sin that lives inside of us. I want to be real clear all the way through this whole conversation that like be aware of the sin in your own heart. The sin, the sin that grows in you is the sin that will bring you down, that will, that will, you can read your own copy of the scripture and teach a small group, or be a pastor, or be a student pastor, or be a husband or wife, or mom, or what like, and you can have that sin grow in you that Paul says the sin that besets or entangles you. And so we've got to wage war against that sin.
SPEAKER_01:What's that thing that you say sin will keep you longer than you want to be? What is it?
SPEAKER_04:It's yeah, it's an old saying that um from like yeah, from old pre it's an old preacher saying, Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, cost you more than you want to pay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, yeah, it's that's a powerful saying.
SPEAKER_01:Because like also nobody sets out, your dad didn't set out and say, I'm gonna live a double life and I'm gonna cheat on my wife over and over again, and I'm gonna cause all this hurt and brokenness. No, nobody sets out with that intention, you know, like sin is mischievous and sneaky, and like you said, it's like growing in us, our fleshly beings. So if you're not constantly waging war and killing it and dying to the flesh and submitting to scripture, then that's what's gonna happen. Like it's gonna corrupt your body, you know.
SPEAKER_04:That's right. Yeah, and it's it's it's like as much of an enemy as Satan is, my flesh is the greater enemy. Because it's always that's why Paul says, or why David says in Psalm 51, I know my sin. It's always in front of me. I'm most aware of my own sin. And yeah, so um, so the the first time I knew of my dad's infidelity, I was in college. And um and I was living uh I I wrote in the book about Liberty Expeditions, um my first sort of endeavor into camp type ministry outfitting. I was I had just gone to work at Liberty Expeditions, and so I was in college, but I lived at this camp. It was a real small little camp out in the out in the woods, and uh and I and and a little came to my house. We we weren't married yet, we were dating. She came to my house and she said, Hey, one of my teammates was at church this morning and they announced at church um, hey, if any of you so you this is crazy to think about. I was literally off the grid, no cell phones, nobody knew, I didn't Have an address. I still used my home address back home in North Carolina and I was at school in Virginia. And so, and I had like a box, a P.O. box at the university post office. And so nobody knew how to get a hold of me, but my dad had tried to commit suicide. And I'll explain what that looked like in a minute. Um, because he had been caught very publicly in this most recent affair. Yeah. And so um this church made an announcement. If anybody knows Brody Holloway, we need to get a message to him. The Lynchburg Police Department needs to talk to him. It has to do with a family emergency.
SPEAKER_01:From like the pulpit.
SPEAKER_04:From the pulpit at Thomas Rogue Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So there's a girl sitting in the church that morning who's friends with Little, who then, like, I don't remember. She gets up and leaves. I wasn't at church. Um, and I might have been at church, but I didn't go to that church, so I don't know. She gets up and she goes and tracks Little down. Again, no cell phones, so you gotta go find somebody. So she tracks Little down. Little comes and finds me, she knows where I'm at, and says, You need to call this number. She has a number on a piece of paper. So I call this number, and it's uh a man answers the number and explains to me. I tell him who I am, and he says, There's been an incident, so this is on a Sunday morning. Well, I'd just seen my dad on Saturday. Right. Me and Little had lunch with my dad, my mom, my whole family in western North Carolina on Sunday, and then we drove to Virginia, me and Little. And when we drove off, I remember getting on I-40, we had met at a cracker barrel outside of Asheville on I-40. And I was coming from Georgia. I'd gone to get Little from her parents' house that we were going to go back to college, um, go back to school, and we had met at a cracker barrel and had lunch, and my dad got on his, he was a biker and he got on his Harley, and he peeled off and went one way on I-40, and I went the other way. Well, he was going to see a girlfriend, unbeknownst to any of us. Right. Just thought he's going right.
SPEAKER_01:So after having lunch with the entire family, then goes and sees Yep.
SPEAKER_04:And not just going to see her, but this is where it gets really diminuted and twisted. He goes to this girl's house. He had met this girl. Um, he worked for one of my uncles on Fridays. Um, Friday was his day off as a pastor. Now keep in mind, my dad's a pastor at this point with a PhD in theology, a master's degree, an MD of in theology. Um, and he's been pastoring for about 15 years, six 16 years, something like that. And so um he goes to this to to see this girl. This is a Saturday afternoon. I drive on, I drive five hours to Virginia, little's with me. Um, we're not married yet. Um my dad gets to this girl's house, and there's like a cookout barbecue going on at her house. Well, this girl lives, my dad would have been in his late 30s, and this girl was like mid to late 20s. Okay. So she's a little younger, and she lived like in a mother-in-law apartment beside her parents, if I remember. If memory serves me, that's how the arrangement was. So he goes. Now, I don't know if he knew he was going to this barbecue or if he was just going to see her.
SPEAKER_01:It was like a family reunion.
SPEAKER_04:Turns out it's a big family get together. He gets there, there's a bunch of people there.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And so, and he would take his wedding band off. Now, my dad told me this whole story. To be clear, my mother told me her side, her recollection of everything. My dad told me everything. We had, I had a heart, I had one each mom and dad, hard conversation when I was about 30. I was 33 when I had the conversation with my dad. I was 30 when I had the conversation with my mom. Took my mom to lunch. I said, I need you to tell me everything. Um, took my dad, my dad showed up at my house after Laley was born, which that's outlined in an early episode of season one on NSR. And it's talked about in the book. But um, so my my dad gets to this barbecue cookout family gathering, and now this is over not far from where you went to school. You went to school near Newport, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh Jefferson City. So it's about 30 minutes away from Newport.
SPEAKER_04:This might have been Jefferson City. I can't remember where it was because it was somewhere over in that area.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, East Tennessee.
SPEAKER_04:Yep, it was in East Tennessee. And he had he had worked for my uncle on Fridays, and he was working. He would go to University of Tennessee, he'd go to Carson Newman, East Tennessee State, you go to colleges. We they they did work in with the maintenance departments of these um colleges with my uncle's business. He did door systems. So it was construction, door security. So my dad had these accounts. He had the UT account, he had the Carson Newman account. Somewhere over there, and he had pulled into a truck stop, and this the young lady was the waitress of the server.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, gotcha.
SPEAKER_04:And he started a relationship with this girl. And so had his ring pulled off, you know. So he had a sexual relationship with this girl for some time, and he he's just hooking up with her. And so he goes to see her on this Saturday afternoon. Now, mind you, he's preaching the next Sunday, the next morning. Yeah. He'll be preaching in both services at the church. And found out this had been a pattern. This wasn't like a oh, we got caught the first time. Yeah. This had been a consistent pattern. And so he um he gets there and he is with this girl in a compromising physical position.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Like they're in a face-to-face frontal embrace, kind of, I think being very intimate. And it's kind of in public. They're the way he explained it, they're out in front of the house, leaned up against her vehicle, and all the family's kind of, you got cornhole and barbecue and whatever. And a car pulls into the driveway, and the two people that get out of the car, my dad makes eye contact, and the husband is the is a deacon at my dad's church.
SPEAKER_03:No.
SPEAKER_04:Come to find out he's a cousin to this girl.
SPEAKER_01:And he can't deny it.
SPEAKER_04:Like he's he's in this frontal embrace, they're lip to lip, neck to neck. Yeah. They're kind of they're essentially making out. They're essentially making out. And so this guy gets out of the car and they make eye contact, and this guy says, Larry? Kind of like that. My dad said, he literally goes, Larry? Like, I can't believe that's my pastor, but like, are my eyes deceiving me?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And my dad said, uh, hey man, he he stepped away from the girl. He looks at her and says, Hey, I'm married. I've been lying to you. Crazy. And he looks at this guy and his wife, and they're breaking down. The wife is breaking down. And he says, I'm going home right now. I'll take care of this tomorrow. Like this Saturday. It's probably two hours from where he lived. And so he goes home, and that night my brother's laying on the couch, and uh, and my dad, my brother said, My dad comes through the living room. We lived beside the church. They lived beside the church. I didn't live at home then. They lived beside the church. And my dad says to my brother, you know, I love you. And my brother always said it was kind of an a little bit of an odd interaction, like kind of almost out of place. Like, why'd he stop and express this real deep emotion, you know, kind of. He said, Something was up, he could feel it. My dad walks out the door. Well, that night, my dad goes behind the church, and my dad had worked for the sheriff's office, and he was a chaplain, and so he had worked multiple carbon monoxide suicides. Right. And so he was going to kill himself in the church parking lot. So he goes behind the church.
SPEAKER_01:Which is also just crazy.
SPEAKER_04:Crazy.
SPEAKER_01:Like killing yourself, not owning up to what you've done or telling anyone what you've done, and then letting the congregation of your church find you.
SPEAKER_04:Find you dead.
SPEAKER_01:In the parking lot.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. And he said his reasoning for doing it was at 5 a.m. on Sundays, they would do men's prayer group. Like there's a group of men that would meet and pray. And they would meet at five, pray, and have a men's prayer breakfast, meet, pray, six o'clock, they'd eat, and then they'd all go home, shower, get their families, come back to church. It was a m- and so he's like, there was this one guy named Jeff, godly dude. It's funny, his name's Jeff Taylor, which the eye doctor here, who's a member at Red Oak and a good friend is named Jeff Taylor. Different Jeff Taylor.
SPEAKER_01:Different.
SPEAKER_04:Um, this Jeff Taylor was a truck driver and was just an awesome dude. To this day, just a man that I remember, somebody that loved the Lord. But he's like, Jeff would always get there before five and walk around the church and pray. And he said, I knew Jeff would find me, deal with it. I trusted Jeff. And so, which again, to be at a point where you get caught one time and you're like, I'm gonna kill myself. You're like, oh, this is years of building, building, building. But what he did was he ran a water hose, a green hose pipe, out of the exhaust pipe of his truck and into the back window, yeah, taped it all up, took some sleeping pills, took some meds, went to sleep in the truck, pumping straight carbon monoxide fumes into the truck cab, and just went to sleep. And this was like midnight or one, and at five o'clock is when Jeff would normally come, but the Lord stirred Jeff at three in the morning, I want to say. It was earlier.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And he came to church. He's like, I'm gonna go walk and pray. And he gets there, and my dad is unconscious but not dead. And what had happened is the hose had kinked and a hole had like burned in the hose. And so not all of the carbon monoxide was getting into the cab. They thought he was gonna have permanent brain damage. Enough had gotten in that it would have eventually killed him.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:But then it gets so jacked up because remember, I maybe, maybe, so I'm gonna interview my brother. So here's a little um teaser. I'm gonna sit down with my brother and a cousin to talk about the early snowbird days um this spring. I'm excited about that episode. But maybe me, me and my brother, do a follow-up to this episode and kind of share um from his perspective.
SPEAKER_01:Because he would have been what, a junior, senior in high school?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like a junior in high school. And they went and got him and brought him out of the house and tried to get him to get my my dad wouldn't unlock the doors of the truck.
SPEAKER_01:Which when you told me this is crazy. Like putting myself in his shoes, like 17-year-old kid having to like enter into that situation the middle of the night, like having to talk your dad off a ledge, like that itself. I mean, that is crazy to think about.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and I think part of it is hard times make hard people, make strong people. It was a different time. People were not gentle back then. Right. You know, now everybody's scared of everybody's hypersensitive to everyone's feelings. It was a roughered generation, and I think it was like, hey, you gotta get your dad to get out of this truck. It was like, but yeah, now thinking about it, it's like crazy. I mean, he was 16, maybe it maybe it was so this would have been he would have turned 17 in July, so he'd just turned 17 maybe. And so um my dad ends up in intensive care. Um and when I call that number, it's the next day. He had written a suicide letter and put it on his desk.
SPEAKER_01:In that letter, did it confess anything? Did it confess like all of the affairs or anything?
SPEAKER_04:No, I don't think. I think it just said, you know, I've I've caused pain to my family. And um I wish I had it. I think my mom got it and then immediately threw it away. She just didn't want to I think. He wrote me a letter later that I held on to, but I lost it in the cabin fire. But um But he the part of the problem was he I feel like he played a victim um for a long time before he ever finally owned up to it. And he did eventually own up to things, and I'm thankful for that. But he would say things like, I grew up with too much pressure, my dad was a strict pastor, and I was an athlete, and that was kind of his take. And so he he looked, and I there's some validity to that.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:Like he looked, I see this with a lot of preachers' kids, pastors' kids, like live under the pressure, yeah, say look outside. I mean, Andrew grew up a pastor's kid, like it's there's a different pressure, you're under a different magnifying glass.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I've always tried to be sensitive to that with my kids. Sure. And and so even the way that kids get used as illustrations and sermons, you know. I try to I try to not do that until they're older and it's a long ago story, you know. Like once you got an adult kid, you tell a story that happened when they were five. Something like that. So he he was in this rehab for a while. Oh, but I I call that number the next morning. So on Sunday morning, I by the time I get this number, it's Sunday afternoon. So it's almost, you know, 24 hours or 12 hours later. And I end up the guy that answers the phone tells me, hey, your dad's been in it. He doesn't tell me what's this is another, it's crazy. I'm a 19-year-old dude or whatever living in Virginia, and the guy says, You need to get home. Something's happened. Your mom's okay, but something's happened with your dad.
SPEAKER_01:That whole drive.
SPEAKER_04:That's all I got.
SPEAKER_01:Your mind is running.
SPEAKER_04:I drove 90 to nothing. I mean, I was wound out, drove five hours, made it in three and a half.
SPEAKER_01:Dang, that is crazy.
SPEAKER_04:Hauled butt home, um, go straight, straight home. Everybody was at my my aunt's house, my dad's sister's house. Get there, and the dude who was one of the deacons at the church sits me down and tells me what's happened.
SPEAKER_01:So at this point, had things kind of started to come out.
SPEAKER_04:Like they knew what had happened.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah. And I think he probably, back to your question about the letter, he probably said it in the letter. Because they all knew.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Because my dad wasn't conscious. He was so, and I think, yeah, when I get there, my mom is there, and I'm like, I'm so mad at my dad when I hear this news.
SPEAKER_01:Because you said this is like the first time you heard of it or the second time?
SPEAKER_04:For me, it's the first time.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So I'm shocked.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't know he had had multiple affairs at this point. So I'm just shocked. But then my reaction is just anger. Right. My brother's reaction, and my brother's more hot-tempered than I am. He's more of a fighter than me. But I remember for him, he was crushed and just weeping. And it's because of what they put that kid through, you know. Um, I remember he was just broken, and I was just livid, and and now I'm just mad for my brother and and my sisters, and probably your mom too. My mom, I'm so mad for my mom. And she, I remember my mom was just in shambles. She's just and she's a strong lady, but she's just broken. And uh it was a crazy few days because I drove back, my brother rode with me. I had to go back to school. I was I had to get registered for classes. Back then, you registered on the front end of the semester. You had to do all that in person. Two days later, I drove back up, my brother rode with me. Five hours went up, got registered, wasn't sure what was gonna happen, but yeah, drove back down. Um, my my parents, and man, I don't want to go in the weeds of this, but it was I lost, I I got so frustrated with the church because because of my dad's failure, my mom and siblings ended up homeless because the church fired. Like living in the parsonage or they were living in the parsonage, so they moved into my aunt's basement.
SPEAKER_01:Dang.
SPEAKER_04:And they were living in my aunt's basement. My dad was unemployed and in a rehab facility, and my family just got put out. And that church did not do my family right. I mean, my dad screwed that church over. Sure. I mean, he but they did not handle it right. They should have looked after my mom and siblings, and they didn't. So my mom went to work. She hadn't worked in 20 years. So she went to work, and uh then my dad got out of rehab and he he went back to work, uh, started working a job, a sales job. And they tried to make it work, and um, I won't get into the rest of it, but he ended up doing it again, and um and the marriage ended. So years later, I asked my mom how you know, tell me everything, and that's when she walked through, and it was affair after affair after affair after affair. And then it came out when that the one that kind of broke the back, um, the one that I first heard about, the story I just told, even then, multiple other ladies came forward.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:When that because that that was when when my dad got when that all happened, and my dad tried to kill himself, and that blew up in our community. Yeah, it's what everybody was talking about. So everybody knew. So then multiple ladies came out and said, Oh, I was having an affair with with him. Oh my goodness. So it was pretty catastrophic. Yeah, so all of that to say, you know, when you hear me tell a story about my dad, and and if you've heard the early NSR episode or you read the book, the story where we had that conversation, and he I said, You tell me how I don't end up like you. And he really wanted to have a relationship with his grandkids. Cause because I basically we we were a strain, we had a very strained relationship. Each of the siblings dealt with it a little differently. My my oldest sister, I'm the oldest. It's me, then a girl, then a boy, then two girls. And um for me, I became a husband and a dad and just was like, I'm gonna protect my kids from my dad.
SPEAKER_01:Well, also, in some ways, like you are a little bit removed from your immediate family because now you have your own family. Sure. You know, like so just the timing of it all also probably played a big role into that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and I and physically removed, I live an hour and a half away from all of them, an hour and 15 minutes from all of them, and they all live in the same community. So they would see my dad, and so they all continued to have a fairly interactive relationship with him, but I didn't, and then eventually, and I won't go into that here because I've told that story before, there was some really cool reconciliation. But the part of the story I was going to tell that um after we this is the last thing I'll say, and then we can just kind of discuss it. But um I I after I met with everybody the other day and told told this whole story, I was up in the media office talking with Austin and Mike Fitzpatrick and Chris Fitzpatrick. I feel like somebody else is up there, but um was telling them my dad, we had that sort of reconciliatory conversation in 2005. Um in in 1998, and my siblings don't know this story, and I'm fine if they hear it here. But my dad and I had a falling out where um my mom started dating the guy that she's now married to, who's the granddad my kids know, my stepdad. So I've been l married longer than my mom and stepdad. And so my mom started dating this guy, and my dad really is weird, so weird, but he acted crazy towards that. And he did some things that were very threatening. And one of those things was my mom came out of work one night. Okay, but I got my mom had a weird couple of interactions with my dad where he showed some pretty aggressive it was weird, and it was uh my my parents were sort of splitting custody with my kids. My youngest sisters, yeah. So my youngest sister between those two parents, my mom was picking her up or something, or my dad was dropping her off, but anyway, there was a pretty intense interaction that was a little bit threatening. A day or two later, my mom comes out of work out of work to go to get in a car, and the windshield of her car has been smashed out. And so in my mind, I know my dad did that. Right. So now to this day, there's no proof he did it, right? But I know he did it. And so this is in 1998. So I called my dad, and I didn't know where he lived. He was living in a in a camper, like a little trailer up going towards Sam's Gap, north of Asheville, North Carolina, going up towards like up in Madison County. And uh and I I caught Called him and he he had an answering machine. Like an old school answering machine where if you're in the room and it picks up, you can hear the person leaving the voicemail. Right. And so I'm yelling at him, pick up the phone. Pick up the phone. And so he picks up the phone and I said, if you ever go near my mama, I always call my mama mama. I'm country, you know? I didn't call her mom. I called her mama. You go near my mama, I I'm going to. I this literally I said to him, I'm going to put a bullet in your face. Remember, I said it was a really intense. He's yelling at me and I'm yelling, and he hangs up on me. And then I try to call him back and he wouldn't answer. So that was my that was like a pretty intense interaction. Then he wrote, that's when he wrote me a letter. I got a letter in the mail from him, but it was like, I'm a victim. You don't know what I've been through.
SPEAKER_01:Not owning up or not owning up at all.
SPEAKER_04:No, and I kept that letter. I read it a thousand times and I lost it in that fire in 2018. But it was I kept it because it reminded it was the opposite of David in Psalm 51.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Where David said, I know my sin.
SPEAKER_01:I was thinking about that earlier.
SPEAKER_04:It was the opposite of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And he was like just saying how he had been a victim. And and I should add, the thing I challenged our institute and interns with, my this my dad would say that all of this started with pornography when he was 12 years old. He found a pornographic magazine, and that's what started. He had a porn addiction that grew into a sex addiction. And um, so and and later in life, I mean it didn't get better.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:In fact, it got worse. Um and so he was at my house. We so 2005 he came to my house and we had some reconciliation. I tell that story in that other episode. Yeah. We we let's link that episode here.
SPEAKER_02:We'll do.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but then um that was in September of 05. So in at Christmas of 05, we asked him to come spend Christmas with us. First time. So Kilby's five years old, Tuck's three years old, Laley's newborn. Like, come spend, come over on Christmas Eve, spend the night with us, wake up Christmas morning, we'll have breakfast and open presents, and you can leave, we'll go make the grandparent rounds. And so he did, and we had a great time, and I was like, let's do it again next year. He said, Yeah, it'd be great. So I saw him a few times over the next year.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't see my dad a lot, but I would see him. My other siblings saw him a lot more because they interacted with him more regular basis. And the next Christmas he came over, and on Christmas Eve we had a big meal. So now Kilby's six, Tuck's four, Laley's one. And the kids are all playing in the floor and we're having a good time. We had a big meal that night, Christmas Eve. And I said, Man, it's two years in a row. Let's make it a tradition. We're gonna do it a third year next year, third time's charm. And he said, No, I don't think I'll be here next year. And I said, Well, you got big plans? He said, He said, No, I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'll be alive next year. And I said, What? And he said, he said, Man, we had this really intense conversation where the sum of it was, he said, he said, I think that there, like I've there are worse things than dying. And I've made choices in my life. And this by this point, he's owning his his he's taking responsibility for his actions. He said, I don't think the Lord He said, I think the Lord's gonna let me come on home. He said, I think I've done damage that I can never reverse or repair, and I don't know what good there is to me staying here, you know. And he said, I tried to take my own life once, it didn't work. Then I tried to take it over the long haul with alcohol and just the way I've lived, and that didn't work. And he said, I finally feel like I've I've started to focus on the Lord and spend time reading the Bible again and going to church and like starting to try to cultivate a relationship with the Lord. He had read a book called Wild at Heart, which was a like a really popular book in the early 2000s that it's so crazy. I thought it's kind of corny. Well, God used it, it was instrumental with him. Yeah. And I'm like, it makes sense because it really went back against, it pushed against that legalistic generation of Christianity, and um looked at the father heart of God, and he said, Man, I just feel like God's restored a lot in me, and but there's so much damage done, the best thing is for him to just move me on. And so we had that conversation on Christmas Eve of 2006, and he died six weeks later.
SPEAKER_01:Crazy.
SPEAKER_04:So crazy. And I got the news of his death. I was preaching. Spencer interrupted the sermon, walked on stage, and said, Hey man, something's happened to your dad. And I I paused and prayed and said, Hey guys, we're gonna take a break, pray over something's gone on with my dad. And I shared a little bit of his story and just gave the gospel. And three kids gave their lives to Christ that night. And um my dad had passed and uh passed suddenly and just just died.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And um, yeah, so anyway, all that to say his story and legacy, I think the redemption in it is we learn from it.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Right? We don't run him in the ground as much as I stay frustrated and sometimes I think face bitterness over some of the things he did when I was young. And we can get into some of that in the discussion part of this as we kind of shift towards now some dialogue.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but I think part of the struggle I've always had has been was so rules-based and rules heavy, and then to find out that wasn't so much. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I want to take a minute and invite you to come join us for the March 13th, 14th, 15th weekend, which is our annual spring retreat. So we only do one of these each year, and it's it's a great opportunity for those of you that might be interested in checking Snowbird out. Maybe you're considering coming for a week in the summer, or you just want to get a feel for who we are and what we're about. Um, this will be the last opportunity you have to attend an event before we open registration for the summer of 2027. So it's a good opportunity for you to check Snowbird out. Um, and we'd love to see you. We're gonna be looking at 1 John, doing sort of an overview of 1 John. All of the teaching content will come out of 1 John. And it's just an exciting weekend because for our staff, it marks a transition from the cold winter months to uh we start to turn our attention towards summer. It's the last event we do with students before we start preparing for our upcoming summer. So a lot going on. Um, the spring retreat is a great opportunity for a number of reasons, and we hope that if you don't have plans, uh you'll plan to join us. We'll see you March 13th.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, we took a short little break, but I want to pick up, and at the very beginning of this episode, you talked about how a lot of like the moral failures of your dad kind of shaped this ministry and kind of shaped a lot of like how you view sin or how you view. So I kind of want to get kind of inside of your head on that and kind of talk, give more details on that.
SPEAKER_04:Um yeah. One of the things is I don't think I would have guarded my marriage the way I have, if it wasn't for my dad's failure. I remember a buddy of mine, his parents divorced, and I was in high school. I think they divorced when we were in middle school, and then we're in high school and having a conversation with him, and he's talking about how his dad had left his mom for another woman. And I remember literally, talk about being naive. I said out loud, man, I'm glad I'll never have to worry about that.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:And I mean, my dad was being unfaithful at that moment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So I think I was naive. I just thought, you know, my my dad was very legalistic, so we lived in a very strict household. Now, my younger siblings did not experience that. But I grew up, and my older two siblings, the next two kids behind me, experienced some of it. But when all this happened, um, things had loosened up some. But like when I was in elementary middle school, super strict, no movies, no TV. We we got our first TV when I was in seventh grade.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I wasn't allowed to go to the movies uh until I was, I think I started getting to go to the movies when I was a teenager. But growing up, my granddad would take me to the movies if they were G-rated. And the only G-rated movies back then would be like the early Disney movies. Yeah. Um, so weren't allowed to go to the movies, wasn't allowed to listen to any music except Southern Gospel.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:Um, super strict. And I think one of the things that that did is it created a shelter of naivety.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, you know, so sheltered, even though I went to public school, it's very sheltered. Um very sheltered. Like I remember uh even being like and I rode the bus. I remember seeing weed on the bus or sexual things happening on the school bus because I went to a public school that was K through nine. It was public school, but it was kindergarten through ninth grade, all on one campus.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It was two campuses, a junior high and an elementary school, but they kind of butted up to each other. So I was like when I was in second, third, and fourth grade, I'm on a school bus with eighth and ninth graders. And I'm hearing stuff, I mean I didn't I didn't know what it meant. I was pretty naive. So all of that to say when I got married, um since I got married, I've always been hyper-vigilant about the way I interact with females.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I don't think I would have been.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Like I really don't. And so now I'm not saying I think that I would have had an affair on my wife, but I think there's every likelihood I could have. Because I think it blindsides people. Like you said earlier, it's like you don't wake up one day and plan to do it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Always been hyper-vigilant, hyper-vigilant in the way that we um it's defined the ministry um in terms of you know how we talk about our this really key pillar to snowbird's ministry is expository teaching.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So making sure that we teach the Bible appropriately.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We say what the Bible is saying, we apply it the way it's meant to be applied. When you don't do that, you're left to interpret things on your own. You get a jacked-up view of election and soteriology, and well, I, you know, so much is riding on my performance. And my dad, one of the things I appreciate is he he admitted late in life, he's like, hey man, I was living a performance-based Christianity. And when you do that, every time you fall short, it's a failure, and it's like a sh you you take a shot. Whereas when you're walking in grace and you're pursuing the Lord and you're trying to keep your eyes on Jesus, when you fail and falter and you just lean into God's grace and you recognize your shortcomings and you just keep, you just keep your eyes on Jesus, keep moving forward. Sometimes you're crawling, sometimes you're running, sometimes you're staggering, but it's always forward, always forward. Hand of the plow, don't let go. Keep your eyes on Jesus. You fall face first, get your head up and get your eyes on Jesus. Where my dad's system of religion was works-based legalism. What music are you listening to? What clothes are you wearing? If somebody drinks a beer, they're they are going to hell. Yeah. You can, it is impossible for you to drink beer and go to heaven. Like that kind of Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So he's like preaching that all meanwhile, you know, living that double life.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like I think I told y'all the other day in that meeting. I remember when I was about 18, 17 years old, and I had uh a pouch of, it was either a can of Copenhagen or a pouch of Levi Garrett, some kind of chewing tobacco, fell out of my pocket, which I would never have let him know I was like in his mind, that's in the same category as smoking weed or whatever. And I was in the house and it fell out of my pocket. I was sitting, I can still remember sitting at the kitchen table, and it falls out of my pocket onto the floor when I stand up. And I mean, he goes off on me as if I had brought heroin into the house. I mean, just chews me up and down. I mean, lights me up. You're gonna disrespect my house. You're gonna bring that into my house. You know, he's just kind of railing. I'm like, it's chewing the background, like, it's not a big deal. And that sort of that that mindset of creating a system of do's and don'ts, and and it's and legalism is so destructive in the long run, I think. And so the way that it's informed and shaped Snowbird is is the way I overcorrected is when I started to walk with the Lord at about age 19, I sort of swung the other way and exercised too much freedom. I was like, Well, I'm not gonna go the way that my dad did, but I want to be a Christian, but I'm gonna be one of those modern free Christians, and so I'm gonna do what I want to. So, you know, I I went to excess with those freedoms at times. And so I think Snowbird, one of the things that the Lord has done in this ministry is given us an appreciation for discernment, wisdom, good decision making, letting the word of God inform how we live our lives. And that's a that's what shapes this ministry is that we teach the word of God effectively, we apply it, the teaching and the application of scripture, which you know, Andrew on the break suggested talking about the application of what you know what my dad what do we learn and take away from this? I do want to end with that, but yeah, but yeah, so I think the way it's informed Snowbird is understanding the importance of reading the scripture as I'm holding up this old Bible, understanding the importance of reading the scripture, but also um understanding the importance of submitting to the scripture. Reading it, submitting to it. So if I was gonna say, where did he fall short, I would go. I think he read it, he studied it, he learned it. Yeah, he didn't submit to it.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:He never surrendered to it.
SPEAKER_01:Right. I think another thing that you kind of when you talked with the media team, you really painted a cool picture that I think we're gonna do a separate episode on that, and you kind of uh use this as an example, and then you use King Hezekiah as an example. But with the interns, you kind of really harnessed it and focused it on the hatred of sin. Like don't let, you know, we could tell story after story after story about people that we know or people that have worked at Snowbird or family members that have at once, at one time been faithful and then have since like fallen away. So we could tell that and kind of live in like discouragement or whatever. But really, what that should encourage us to do is have a hatred of sin and let that, like I would say, like a rightful fear of sin, but also like a rightful hatred of sin and let that kind of like fuel us to, like you say, like a few key token phrases that we use at Snowbird and it's in the book is you know, keep your hand to the plow and also take a day off, get mauled by a lion. Like we have t-shirts with that on it, you know. And so I think that is honestly a very practical, practical point of not getting discouraged, or even like when we see huge pastors or preachers or huge uh people in like the Christian circles fall or have some affair or like something sinful come out about them. I see so many times people, you know, get discouraged or be like, well, if they fell, man, we're all doomed, or like whatever. And I think I've worked here long enough to see some of my close friends that I've worked alongside who now don't walk with the Lord or have really screwed up in this way or gone down this path. And I could sit there and just be grieving them or sad. And of course I do. Like I I am sad for them, and I want them obviously to walk it in accordance with the Lord's will for their life. But I think in a lot of ways, it puts a fire under my butt of like, man, like at one point we were walking with the Lord together. Like we were on the same page, like doing the same thing, working in the same place, and now one or two actions have now led them completely down the road. Yeah. And so I think that's practical for me at least, of like keep that hatred of sin, but also keep kind of what we were talking about with election. Like, okay, it's not all about sin. Like this past weekend at Pure and Holy, a lot of it was talked about. You talked about David in Psalm 51, where like repenting of his sin. So it's like finding that balance of okay, yes, sin is destructive and it will could ruin your life if you let it, but that's not the point, you know. Like the point is we know what is more powerful than sin. And that's not to say, oh, I'm a Christian, I'm never gonna sin again, I'm never gonna be tempted. But we do know that Jesus has died for our sins to wash us clean and to live in that freedom.
SPEAKER_04:You know, I'm getting off on a tangent, but No, I think that's I think that's very important. It's when I'm listening to you explain that, I think of two things little talks about. One is she I think she calls it one thing mornings. And it's in the morning, it's one thing, and it's time with the Lord. That's the one thing. Yeah. It's not Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, scrolling, YouTube, news, newsfeed, podcast. It's not that. It's not get up and get running. It's get up immediately after getting awake, hit pause. One thing. Time with the Lord in his word in communion. Yeah. That's critical. And and if you do that every single day, the Lord will meet you there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And then the other thing that she talks about that I've always gotten so much out of is she talks about keeping short accounts.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's like never letting it get too far out ahead of you. Like, ah man, just so I'm keeping my heart in check. I'm I'm examining, you know, when David says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my way. See if there's any wicked thing in me and lead me in the way everlasting. That's a really cool verse because what he's saying, he's saying, right now, in this moment, I want you to search my heart. I want you to search my mind. I want you to mine out a hint of anything wicked. Right. So that you can lead me in an eternal, everlasting, never-ending path.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So it's like in this moment, the everlasting or eternal can be affected. And so that idea that Little has of keeping short accounts is every day, it's a short accounting. It's an accounting of my thought life, my actions. Because let's be honest, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to fail miserably.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You're going to be on your face repentant before the Lord. I recorded an episode that we still haven't dropped and we may not about David. I might need to go back and redo it. I recorded that episode because I was feeling so convicted over personal sin. And it's sin that nobody even knows about. It's attitudes and and and and everything from laziness to, oh my gosh, I just got so lukewarm for the last week. You know, like, how can I get to a point where I'm no longer enamored by your grace, Lord? And it affected attitudes and actions and thought life. And and so I like we're all so capable of the worst sin.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And the worst sin is turning away. Turning away, walking away, falling away. I mean, I mean, the scripture says the one who endures to the end will be saved. And there's a lot of tension for someone like me, someone like us, that believes in the doctrine of eternal security. What do we do with something that says if you don't endure to the end, you're not going to be saved? And I mean, the the short answer is I would say that person was never truly saved, right? But it's a bigger theological discussion. At the very least, there's tension we got to live with. Wait a minute. That person that Jesus said, man, that person cast out demons in his name. And they did many wonderful works and things in the name of Jesus. And he's going to say, Depart from me. I never knew you. Not I knew you, but you didn't endure, so now I don't. Right. And I never knew you were never the real deal. And what scares me for the people that turn away, walk away, fall away is that, oh man, they're going to come under a heavy judgment because they were exposed to it, but they never submitted to it. And that's why I've wrestled with my dad's situation. I told a story when I was talking to the staff about this about a girl named Mary that worked on staff. And she was one of a lot of these stories I could tell. But I remember she was leaving Andrew. She had left Snowbird and went to work in town, but stayed in the area, which is always a little bit of an odd thing to.
unknown:Me.
SPEAKER_04:Um we've only seen that happen a few times through the years where somebody disconnects from the ministry, but they stay in Andrews, but they're just kind of like, what are you doing? You're not really plugged in.
SPEAKER_01:Let me clarify, there's a ton of folks that have don't no longer work at Snowbird, maybe work as an electrician or work at the coffee shop, but they're still very connected plugged into church. Church and Snowbird. Right. Kind of hating on Snowbird, but still was in the area. And if you're not aware, Andrews is not that big. That's right. And so Snowbird makes up a pretty good majority. It's a big footprint. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And I appreciate you clarifying that because yeah, we have so many people that now are business owners, tradesmen, um, school teachers, coaches, nurses in the area, um that uh police officers that worked at Snowbird and now they this is their home.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:But they're plugged in, they're connected one way or another. Um, yeah, this girl just withdrew and kind of fell into a friend group that was uh they weren't believers, and then she was leaving the but she's still living with the Snowbird couple in their spare room, an older retired couple, and she was leaving to go into a same-sex relationship out in the Greensboro area. And I remember sitting down with her. I drove over to their place the night before she was leaving, and I pleaded with her. I said, Yeah, I said, Mary, if you're a child of God, you're gonna come come under the Hebrews 12 hand of discipline. And I'm and I'm doing what James says in James 5. I'm begging you to come back from this sin. And I'm trying to save your soul. And Hebrews 12 says, God's gonna discipline you if you're his child, but if you're not his child, he's gonna give you over to this sin, Romans 1. And then you'll go headlong into this destruction, and you'll never seek repentance, forgiveness, or grace. And that was a hard, that was a hard conversation, and to my understanding, she's still in that lifestyle. It's been 15 years. So yeah, that when you think about those people that you've served with that have, you know, fallen away or turned away, I think it goes back to something similar with these Bibles, you know. It's like you can what Hebrews 6 says, you can taste of the you can be a partaker of the spirit, you can taste of the heavenly gift. Um, you can have a spiritual religious experience, but one thing mornings and short accounts over the long haul, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:It really will.
SPEAKER_01:I also think two things, kind of going back to short accounts and one thing mornings. We sing this song, I don't know the name of it, but it says, Come search me and know me, come burn away all my impurities. Do you guys know the name of that song? If not, that's okay. I'm singing that line in my head right now. Yes, and that is a prayer that I pray, like that verse, that line over and over and over again, when my attitude changes or when I have a foul thought or a sinful Lord, search me and know me, like burn away all my impurities. Like, like what you're saying, like pleading with the Lord, like let this be like an internal, not internal, eternal impact. Like, don't let this secret thought that I know that probably no one else will ever know. Don't let that get out of control or like to plant deep roots in my heart. Like, come pluck that insecure, not insecurity, impurity out of my heart right away. And like just submit that to the Lord. And so I think sometimes I know at least for myself, I get very caught up in the weeds of things of like, man, I I did have this thought or I did do this thing. Like, now what do I do? What do I do? Like I've sinned or like I've had a bad attitude or whatever. But it's just simple as like having such a repentive heart and just pleading with the Lord, like search and know me and pluck away and burn away all of those impurities and like just that daily confession and that daily repentance and submission under God's word and submission to the Lord of like your sins and your thoughts. And then also, I can't remember what series this was at during Red Oak. I can't remember what it was, but I think of this daily as well. Joseph Tucker was preaching and he said, like, imagine sin as like a big red line. And so, why as a believer would we try to get as close to that line as possible, but be like, oh, but I didn't sin, I didn't sin. Like, even in like relationships or friendships, like I think a lot of a lot about like physical relationships. I'm also just we just had pure and holy, so I'm thinking a lot kind of on that track. But why would we do everything but have sex or do everything but, you know, just like on that line? But as believers, we're called to run as far from that line as possible, you know, in friendships like with gossip. Okay, we kind of gossip, but not really. Like we didn't really cross that line. But it's like, no, see that line, like see that sin, know that sin and run, like far from it. Don't try to get as close to the line as possible and then be like, yeah, but we didn't, we didn't cross that line, like we didn't sin. Because truth be told, like as a believer, that's not what the Lord intended for us to do, and that's not how we should live. Like, we need to know that sin, recognize that sin, and run far from it. Why would we tempt ourselves? Why would we make even an opportunity or like a bed for sin to lie in, you know? But those are two things that I just thought of.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think that's very insightful. And uh when you're talking about that, my mind goes to like the idea of how comfortable I don't know, you kind of get comfortable with the thing that breaks the heart of God. And that's a that's a crazy thing. Like I think about as a dad, if I knew like if if if a boy wanted to be in a relationship with my daughter and I had a window and an ear into what he was saying to his buddies behind closed doors. And he's he's showing the right things on the front end, but but in the closed place, he's saying what he really wants to do.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And he and he just wants to use her for sexual pleasure. And I know this. I wouldn't let her be seduced by this relationship, you know. I'd I'd fight for it. And I think the Lord knows what the world, what the enemy, the lies that we're gonna fall into, and he wants us to he wants to protect us and he wants us to know um the importance of our relationship to him, but man, we get so easily seduced so often. And and and there's like so much there for us if we will keep our eyes on Jesus, just be faithful in the day-to-day, every day, spend time with the Lord. It's really, really, really a long, long, long life.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Of one day at a time, one thing mornings, after one after another. And it's not that, it's really, we it doesn't have to be that difficult.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Renew your mind every day.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:So the application then, going off what you just said, which I really appreciated, and and what Andrew had asked in the break is what's what do we take away from this? Just every day renew my mind. Laylee sent me a picture from her their little you know, that little sunroom on the back of their house. She said, Every day I can see the sun come up. And so uh yesterday she sent me a picture of the sun popping over the trees. And uh and then I sent her a picture of our fire. She loves to, you know, everybody loves to sit in front of our fire, our wood heater, and do their quiet time, and and it's like one thing mornings. And and I and I sent her Lamentations 3, 22, and 23. Steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. Yeah, his mercies are new every morning, great is his faithfulness. And I think recognizing its new mercy every day and Romans 12, 1 and 2, my mind needs to be renewed every day. So my mind is renewed by receiving the new mercy of the Lord each day, and now I have what I need for this day. And the writer of Hebrews says, and sufficient for this day is its evil. So if this if the evil of the day is sufficient for the day, then I need the mercy of the day needs to be sufficient to help me combat that evil and not be allured away.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And I think somewhere along the way, Larry got allured away.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And once once you start that slide, it takes the farther you slide, the more dramatic and aggressive it has to be to come out of it. And so this would bring me to, I think, a very important talking point here at the end as we're as we're thinking about these applications, and it's this if you're listening to this and you've gone down that path of sin, especially sexual deviance, sexual sin, you've started on that path, it is not too late to repent and let the Lord restore you.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:There may be consequences, there may be some hard conversations, there maybe may be some damaged relationships, but the Lord can do a restorative work. But the longer you go, the harder it is to fight back from that. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:And so now's the day. Today's the day. If you're a child of God, a Christian, and you're on that path of rebellion, repent and turn to the Lord because the further you get on that path, the more, you know, it takes one lie to cover up another lie to cover up another lie, to cover up another lie. And next thing you know, you're sitting, you know, to use the analogy, you're you're in somebody's driveway two hours away, thinking you're hidden from the rest of the world and you get found out, you know. So whatever that looks like for for for you or for me or for you know, whatever listener, um, thankfully the Lord loves us enough to not leave us in our sin. But I also think there's grace. I want people to feel again out from under that legalism. You God knows you're not perfect right now and he's perfecting you. Yep. It's the work of sanctification, he's growing you stronger, and but there's still a means of grace for you every day.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:And so live in that and receive his forgiveness when you need it and the healing that comes with it, and and just love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love his word and submit to him.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Totally.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we'll do we'll get in, we'll do that Hezekiah story.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I am very grateful for you sharing. I know even I've kept some cards close to my chest, like with sharing with family, but I also know and it's powerful. And so I'm I'm very grateful that you were able to share this. And we were talking before, like, I know your family listens to this, and so that's intimidating, knowing like, man, this is some deep hurt and crazy stuff that has happened to my family, but I know that it will be like just like how we tell all of our guests. Like, just we were talking with Denise over text. We were telling her, Man, I know the Lord is gonna you know use your story and us, same goes for you. Yeah, so I am grateful that you share that story. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. Just praying the Lord uses it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think you will.
SPEAKER_01:Totally.
SPEAKER_04:Thank y'all for tuning in. Let us know what you think, and uh, we'll see you next week.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.
