Achievement, Finance and Freedom: What Do You Think? With Jonathan Mendoza | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Let me welcome everybody to Run and Hope Unfiltered. And this definitely isn't Hope.

No, I'm not.

And she's much prettier to look at than he is. So anyway, she's the life of the party. I told you, we're going to have to do two in a row. Hope's kind of doing her book tour and her Come Higher thing, which she's been having so much success with. So she told me, she said, you're going to have to do a couple of these by yourself. I'm okay. We'll make it work. So last week I had Pastor Matt here, our student pastor on the west coast. And today we also have our Spanish church pastor. Many people don't know that we literally, on the west coast have a Spanish church. Not a Spanish service, a Spanish church. Yes, sir. And we had Pastor Osbaldo, who reached about 70 years old, had been there about three decades, and he retired and recently turned it over to you. So your life has changed. You got a church, you got Marri, and you now expecting a daughter. I am all within what, a year and a half?

Under a year.

Under a year, yeah. So big changes. So hang around. Let me tell you what I'm about to do. Number one, thank you guys for being with us. You need to like it, you need to share it, you need to download it. You need to tell somebody because this is real, raw and relevant. That's what we call it. Run and Hope Unfiltered. Real, raw and relevant. I just get to talk about things here in a conversational style that is not sermon material and probably be a little bit more raw here. Maybe say some things here that would not be kosher to say in a pulpit setting. So that's why I love these podcasts. So thank you for tuning in and hanging around. I was telling him just a moment ago, I said I spent some time a while back on Google and Pastor Jonathan, when I went on Google, I just typed in, you know, what are some of churchgoers main concerns? What are the things that millennials are most stretched out, stressed out about? What are the things that Gen Z worry about the most? Well, I just. And I literally, by the time I got through in my iPad, I had like pages of literally just topics. Just topics that I'm like any one of them, you know, according to Google, which is pretty good source, would be something of relevance to our congregation. And this is what they said. They said that three. Every time I hear. Let me back up. Every time I hear preachers not Necessarily TED talks or any of those, but preachers. It's just relationships, and it's anxiety all the time. And I'm like, number one, are we really that bad at relationships? Number two, is everybody that stressed? Because it seems like it's a topic that is just predominant no matter which one of your millennial leaders that you follow. It's just on their lips all the time. But as I Googled, it didn't say anxiety and it didn't say relationship. It said three things, which surprised me. It said millennials. So we're going to talk mostly about millennials today. It says that three of the things that are on their minds the most are achievement. I told you this. Finance and freedom.

Yes, sir.

Achievement, finance and freedom. So here's what I'm going to do. I want to ask him, number one, does he agree with that? Number two, what are his thoughts on it? What concerns him, what scares him? What stresses you out? What causes you anxiety in this area? And then if I have anything from my area or my. Well or my expertise to add to what might remedy that, I'm going to bring it up. But I'm also not too proud to say. If I don't know, I don't know. I just look at it and say, you know, I don't have an answer to that. But, number one, I don't know if I'd have got it right. If you said, guess what three major or three major topics of concern are to millennials? I would have probably said maybe finance. I don't know that I would have said freedom and achievement. Number one, let's start with achievement. Do you even agree 100%?

I would say 100%.

Define that for me.

I think especially nowadays, we have this feeling of being able to achieve or do for yourself. Well, at least in my case, for what my parents did for themselves. But in a different way, if I could say it like that. I see everything that my parents did. And then in my case, I guess I come from people who came or from parents who came from another country. You know, they came here, they got their citizenship, all that kind of stuff. So they kind of put me in a place.

And you'll have a family business.

Yes, sir.

Your dad's a hard worker. He owns an electrician business. A commercial, I think. Commercial, electric, commercial and residential. God's blessed you. Y' all have done very well. So you come from a family that they work? Yes. And they've been successful because they work. You want achievement. But are you kind of telling me I Don't want to do it that way.

Yeah. I find myself, because feeling like the call of ministry. So then if I wanted to, I guess, say, make money for money's sake, I'd go that route. But I don't feel like that's where my heart is tugged at. And I think the achievement part comes to being true to what I feel in our case, what God put in my heart to go ahead and accomplish. So then I find myself, like, in this middle spot of do I follow what my dad did and my parents did and, like, work my butt off, so to speak, or do what I feel like God has called me to do and in that, give my whole work and my effort. But it is a stressful thing.

So what is. What is success to a millennial?

I don't know.

How do you know when you're there? How do you define it? I can tell you clearly how I would define it, but I'm just curious, you know, to a millennial, and two of my kids are millennial. One of them is Gen Z. You know, I will tell you something from them. I would get three different answers. Yeah, how not Jonathan, A normal millennial. If I had a group of them here, how is success defined?

I think success nowadays is defined in those three things that you just talked about. They feel like they've achieved what they wanted to achieve. They have the proper finances in place, and then they have the freedom to do whatever they want to do. That's one thing you see in our generation. Like, people want to travel to do all these things, and by whatever means they're doing it. Nowadays, they're finding themselves where they want to be successful, and they find success in achieving what they want to do, being financially free. And then that leads into having the freedom to do whatever they want to do. That's what I. I come to see on social media, kind of those things. That's what I would say. Because my definition of success may be different. I don't feel like I'm anywhere near of, like, being where I want to be. But. But, like, when I see of and hear what you just mentioned about those three kind of topics, that's exactly what I would think would define success for any millennial today is achievement, money. I think it goes hand in hand. I think all three of those go hand in hand. Because when you said it, I was like, man, that's very, very true. Like, if I feel like I've achieved what I needed to achieve, I should be financially free. And if I'm financially free, I Have the freedom to do what I want. So, like, I can see how those are intertwined. And I think what you were saying about, like, hearing the millennial pastors of today speaking and. And doing that, I think they're trying to remedy a symptom of those three, because the stress and the anxiety and the relationships are kind of woven in those three. Of the achievement and of the finances. Yeah, I would say those are super intertwined like that.

Is family important to a millennial?

I think so. More than they would lead on to belief, I would say.

Or maybe it's because people are calling this the most broken down family unit in American history. The generation before you began the fatherless generation. But now there's an attack against the whole family unit in general to where we don't even know how to. We don't even know how to gender somebody correctly. Yeah. So you look at roles are no longer traditional role. Millennials function is no longer traditional function. And millennials have changed the world in a lot of ways for the better. But every way they've changed the world has not been better. The long and short of it is as I define success. I've never chased a dollar bill. I can look you. I can look this camera right in the eye. I've never chased a dollar bill. I'm not a wealthy man. I'm blessed. I'm a blessed man. I have been able to enjoy a lot of the nicer things of life. You know, I don't have yachts and I don't have. I mean, I don't have all that stuff. But, you know, I don't have to stay in a ready hotel. Yeah. If me and my wife want a steak, I'm in a place where I can go get me one. And that's a dollar bill, to me, was never the picture of a success. Success to me was being true to what I was put here to do. Okay, now you're going to hear some old school. Come on. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Success to me was literally God, what do you want me to do? And then I was taught to look at that out of the lens of sacrifice. In other words, it wasn't about God. What have you done for me lately? And how much can I accumulate and how much can I use this position to benefit me and set me up, but how much I can give to it? Because I was taught that a successful life was a life where you gave more than you got and you left it all on the table. Let me tell you exactly what I'm talking about. When I transitioned, of course, we've gone back to the east coast and opened back up. It's a wonderful thing that's happening right there. I feel like God's given me a chance to correct all my dumb mistakes, so I'm really enjoying that. But when I first transitioned, 2018, when I felt like after 27 years, God was calling me to the west coast to pastor, I had a six month transition because there's a lot of moving parts. And I did my best to transition well. Everything didn't work out, of course, as I had hoped, but I had a good plan in place and I worked very hard to try to see it through, but you're just not in control of everything. I remember after six months of literally going there and running staff meetings, jumping on a plane, going across the nation, doing a staff meeting, and there I was handling feelings and anxiety about the future and the transition. And it was kind of like everybody was just done, you know, I mean, I was managing these atmospheres, these different cultures, and I was tired and I was time zones and jet lag. This went on for half a year. I mean, almost no days off and just burning the candle at both ends. And I finally came to the transition service. My wife didn't go. It had been too emotional for her. She didn't want to go, but she was staying back at the hotel. So I'm in Greenville, which I live 27 years, and I'm staying in a hotel because I've sold my house, you know, just weird. And I stood up on the stage and watched a campus that God used me to build, and I was giving it away, you know, and it was a difficult night. And I got back to the hotel room and Hope was asleep and all this emotion. And finally six months had come to an end. And the next day we're getting on a plane and we're going to the west coast for good. And I looked and there was a gift there, and it was a watch. And it had the face open. I always cry on these things. I cried last week. I don't want to cry. And she had a note. She said, you gave it all you had. That's success to me. It's not stuff, it's not clicks, it's not likes, it's not follows, it's not money, it's not things. It really isn't. And I don't know if I'm right and anybody else is wrong. I don't know if my value system is greater. But knowing that I went there and I left Empty. Paul said, I'm a drink offering. I've been poured out. So God took me in Greenland. I didn't have nothing else. And my wife recognized that. You gave all you had that allowed me to leave in peace. Why? Because to me, that was a sense of achievement in that, that I know I did everything under the sun I could to try to obey God while I was there. To me, achievement also comes with, how are my kids? Not sure what kind of dad I was. I think there were times my life was out of balance. In fact, my life was never balanced. I just tried to manage the imbalance, tried to find a way every day to have a church that was exploding, a ministry that was exploding, and still make baseball practice and still know how to touch my wife on the cheek and give her a flute rub at night. How do you balance all that? Those things are achievement to me. So I live. Do I have things I've done over? Do I have regrets? I mean, yeah, I got a lot of places I'd like to do over, but I live with a sense of success that has nothing to do with things. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think millennials see that the same way? Because it does seem like. Like I saw a Twitter thing today where beautiful girls were standing in line, beautiful ladies, young ladies on a curbside saying, we want rich men. Yeah. Yeah. If I would have written by hope at age 20 and she had a sign, I want rich men. Do you know the one girl I never touched was the one holding up signs saying, I want rich men. So I'm wondering, is the reason this whole millennial generation is on Xanax, as Are they chasing the right things?

No, sir. They're chasing the wrong things 100%, if I may speak to that. I would say, I mean, as plainly as we could put it, having a relationship with God changes everything. Pastor.

Everything.

I would say that I would say, because I have, in this point in my life now, a lot of millennial friends who are not believers, and I have a lot of millennial friends of, of course, who are believers. And I'm also, since I, I'm pastoring the Spanish church, like, I, I see a mix of the baby boomers and that, you know, all that. But in the, in the midst, in the midst of that, I find myself seeing those who are not believers chasing success through achievements, money, and freedom specifically. And I'm not to, like, talk myself up, but I, I, I think maybe because of how my parents instilled it in me and the fact that I truly would like to Say, I love the Lord. I live more of a life that goes towards. To live is for Christ and death is gain. And in that I feel.

That's a whole different value system, though. Yeah, it is. That's a whole different value system.

It is.

I go home at night feeling like I'm a success. Not when I go check on my. The balance in my checking account. I go home at night. Did I maximize this day?

Yes, sir.

Did I touch everybody that was in my circle to touch? And did I leave this world better than I came into it today? And you might say, boy, you sound like a beauty pageant content. That's really the way I think. That's the way I think. And I will tell you that I think that the blessing of the Lord is a byproduct of getting your value system right 100%. I agree. I think if you got the first things first and the second things second and the third things third. Psalm first, 51, some 50, 51 talks about he blesses the integrity of the heart. In other words, those who try to live uprightly. Which means I'm trying to live daily for what's important to God.

Exactly. Firstly.

Right? And therein comes my fulfillment, therein comes my blessing. And you know what? There is some money in my checking account because I view that as if you're getting what God is concerned about. Right. God smiles on that and his blessing comes. I don't know. We got a new ad today and I am excited. As I have learned now, I'm learning a little bit about the people who are now sponsoring Riding Hope Unfiltered. Before we tell you who these people are, I want you to take these things seriously because please understand, when you use that code for Ron and Hope and you become one of their customers, they are inclined to continue to be one of our sponsors. And it's the sponsorships that help us pay the bill to do this. All this stuff that's making these podcasts happen, they don't just happen. There's a lot of people that make it happen. We enjoy doing it. And we're not asking you for tithe and offering. We have sponsors. But you know when you're listening to a song on the radio and you get the feeling that the song was being written. Now imagine having the power to gift that same feeling to someone you love with an original song from Song Finch that actually is written just for them. Song Finch lets you create an original radio quality song inspired by your own life and the people you love. That's crazy. It's completely unique, personal, and lasts forever. Whether your song is for Mother's Day, Father's Day, an upcoming graduation wedding, or just to show a loved one how much you care, start your song now. To lock in a top song Finch artist, here's what I need you to do. For a limited time, songfinch is letting our listeners upload their song to Spotify for free. So you and the lucky person you gift it to can listen to it anywhere, anytime. Go to songfich.com roninhope let me say that again. Go to songfich.common roninhope and start using your song. After you purchase, you'll be prompted to add Spotify streaming to your original song for free. And that's a $50 value. Again, my URL is songfinch.com RonAndHope don't forget to share your song with us too. Songfinch.com Ron and Hope man don't sound unique. That sounds. I guarantee you a millennial started that company for sure. 100%. I guarantee you the baby boomer baby buster.

I've seen videos of those.

Yep. And I think I have two. But I didn't know it was this company and now they're going to be supporting us. So guys, let me tell you something. You can score some points. Guys, you can. You know how much the girls can do it for a guy, I can't really, I can't really scale that. But a guy doing it for a girl, I'm going to tell you, I mean, that could be a big score. So anyway, we wore achievement out and actually we talked 20 minutes and I was only going to talk 10 about each one. Finance. You peer into your world money wise, what scares you?

I mean, I would for me.

And you come. Now let's be honest. You come from a family that has done well. Yes sir. You come from a family that's done well. And so your perspective may not be like everybody else's, but even from someone who's seen a family succeed. As you look into the future, what makes you go man, man, first and.

Foremost, there's a page for our area, San Jose. And they were talking about that the minimum income you can make to live okay. Was over $135,000.

And this was number one in the country, I think too the one I saw. If you saw the same one I saw and to qualify for entry level housing in the San Jose Silicon Valley area, the minimum combined household income would be 330 grand. Yep. That's exactly the way I want to make sure you heard What? I just said 330 grand. If you had a combined household income in Greenville, South Carolina, where I spent almost three decades of 330,000, you could live in a gated community in any gated community in that city, and you still probably could even today. And so that's a millennial west coast staring into the future, knowing that those numbers, you know, without giving what is, are not a part of your life right now. What scares you?

I would say the very first thing. Now that I'm about to be a dad and been married for years, like, will I achieve or come into being able to buy a house? And like I mentioned earlier, like, if I, if it was for money's sake, though, like, I would have gone to work for my dad or learn the business and, and take over the company because he, like, he does well, even though I, I didn't. I grew up in the struggle years of, with them, but knowing what it took to get to where they're at. But I do, I do think of those things. And then I guess in my case, and I would hope that, you know, whoever's listening to this, the millennials that listen to this would, would realize what we talked about a second ago, like, when you put God's stuff first, when you put, you know, Matthew 6:33, first seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the stuff.

All the stuff.

And I think that's what you're alluding to. And I think the problem, Pastor, for our age, that I think your, your group, age group does very well is you always remind, remind yourself to look to the Lord. But there's so many distractions nowadays that we try to find quick fixes. So then that's why you see online companies of doing this, that or the other to make money fast because we're always trying to have more, to have the freedom that we had mentioned earlier. So I would say, like, in my case, it's just knowing that God's got me because I'm doing His work, whether I'm doing it, you know, full time or I'm just doing what I'm doing. I'm not allowing myself to be defined by success of society, I guess you could say. But at the same time, I do have those thoughts. And that's where I guess the anxiety would come in or the feeling of like, I guess the temor we say in Spanish, the fear of, like, oh, am I going to be able to do these things? You know, and then you see the post, and that doesn't help it's like, well, we don't make anywhere near that, you know, so, like, it's understanding, I guess, those little nuances.

Yeah. So I was also talking to you before we started the podcast. We was just small talk. And I said, my dad's generation built America. This is the Industrial Revolution generation. They built the bridges, they built the buildings, they, you know, they built the machinery that made America what it was.

Yes, sir.

They built the skyscrapers, all that. My generation kind of came along on the heels of that, made a few improvements. The millennial generation, as they come on and they look at money, I'm a little bit troubled. And here I'll tell you why. I think what I would tell a young 20 year old Ron Carpenter is this. There's some things I did right out of all the dumb things I did, some things I did right. I knew for some things that I wanted, like I wanted my kids to go to a certain school. I knew the kind of vacations I wanted to take that my kids would never forget. I remember I wanted to have a camper. That don't sound like much, but I mean, those are all extras, of course, so you got to make sure life is covered before you start going into the extras. And my kids to this day say that camper was their greatest childhood memories. We graduated to being able to get us a little lake house later in years after the camper years were over. And people say what people don't understand. And I think I'm going to be sharing this actually with the church Sunday, because I'm going to start talking about stewardship. But in order for them not to equate, you're making a lot of money from the church. I'm going to actually let them know where I make my money. I'm going to give full disclosure. This is where my income comes. And I would go tell the younger version of me, there is no one paycheck that's going to give you your lifestyle. You would have to be in a Fortune 500 company at a senior executive level to get wealthy off of a paycheck, meaning stock options. And you're given all different kind of dividends from the company. That's a small funnel.

Very small.

So you're talking a company that might have 20,000 employees has five of those guys. Yeah. Okay. So that's a small funnel. It's like the NBA. I was hearing Charles Barkley talking about, he goes to schools and everybody raises their hand, says, I want to be a, you know, I want to be a football player. I want to be a basketball player. And he says there's 400 guys in all of the NBA. 400. There's 350 million people in America. That's a small funnel. You better get another vision. Yeah. Because I'm not raining on your parade. But chances of you being in that false 400 are not good. And so long and short of it. From an early age, I developed other streams of income. And what people don't know is I make less now from the church than I made in 2005. Wow. 20 years ago. Why? Because these other things that I have developed on the side that feed our life.

Yes, sir.

I do things with media that feeds our life. I've monetized social media that feeds our life. I have a ministerial fellowship. I didn't take a salary for 20 years, but I have in the last three or four, started allowing it to pay me from all the men that I mentor and all the men that I coach and everything else. And not only that, I have. You know, I've always done real estate. I flipped houses starting when I was 26, buying houses out of foreclosure, fixing them up and selling them and making big profits. I broke even on a few. I lost some money during the recession, but for the most part, I made a lot. And you take none of those were going to make you rich. But when you put them all together, they allowed us to live a certain life that I just call the blessed life. And so I would tell somebody, number one, you don't do extras until your basic needs are taken care of.

Yes, sir.

And you don't wear around a 300 pair of Nikes if you can't afford groceries. You got to get your priorities right. You got to make sure the necessities are taken care of. Then you start looking at the extras you can do that will add value to the quality of your life. That's where the campers and all those come in. The. Those added value to memories and experiences that can never be taken away from you. It's not a camper, but I remember the payment was like $259 a month. Okay. I got to make sure groceries and bills and gas and everything taken care of. Now let's go camper shopping. So in the grand scheme of things, I may be talking to multimillionaires who write checks for campers if they even wanted a camper. But most of the common working people, they have to build. Yep. And let me tell you something. If you'll be patient, you'll honor God, you'll do what he asks you to do financially and keep that seed in the ground. Then I believe there is a way where God wants you. Prove you're faithful and little. He makes you ruler over much. And that's the way my life, I didn't have this one day my ship came in and my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you watched me, you could just see me taking it to the next level. Yeah. I would fix this house up, live in it three or four years, make $100,000 off of it. I didn't go blow the $100,000. I reinvested it in the next level.

Yes, sir.

Bought one in foreclosure, fixed it up, lived in it four or five years, go to the next level. Well, if somebody preachers houses and they showed my house. Yeah, it looked nice, but I didn't get there by preaching. Yeah. And see, once they show that stuff on Twitter and Instagram and everybody's mad at you, the problem is you don't get the chance to defend yourself and say, you know, like, I had an Instagram website one time, took my watch, I was preaching, holding my phone and blew it up.

No, they didn't.

And told everybody how much it cost. I'm going to tell you right now, it was a Rolex presidential diamond studded. Okay. You know how much I paid for it?

Nothing.

Nothing.

I knew it.

You know why? When we had 25 year anniversary as pastors of Redemption, I had eight couples in the church. Eight that all went together and bought me that for a 25th anniversary present for serving the kingdom for 25 years. And gave it to me. But I couldn't even wear it because people were killing you. Yeah. When that guy said that. But you don't ever get to tell them the story. And that's a shame that I have something like that that I can't wear because I don't get to defend it. Yeah. So last thing. And we've already at a 30 minute mark. But I do want to talk about it. What is freedom? When I say freedom, freedom. It ain't like being in America and being free. What are millennials saying when they say, I want freedom in my life? Yeah.

I think nowadays it's more so the freedom to. In the case of all those things that we had just touched upon on our achievements and our financial. I think we consider financial freedom being the, the gateway to all freedom. So if I wanted to not work and go on a vacation and I could do that at any time, given given moment that I could That I. That I could because of the fact that I am financially free or I achieved that.

So it's freedom. Is freedom passive income to which you have no responsibilities? To me, I grind, man. Yeah. You know how I work.

Yes, sir.

I was the last one left here last night. Except for the security guard.

Yes, sir.

Okay. I would be miserable if you took me out of this. Miserable. Probably be depressed. Okay. And I see so many people that, like, they're trying to get themselves to a place where they don't have to do anything.

Do anything. Exactly.

Yeah.

That's really what they're trying to do nowadays.

So what purpose do you serve here again? Achievement, fulfillment, significance. All those, to me, are tied to purpose. Yeah. Yeah. I was preaching when it paid 50 bucks. I was preaching when they fed me. We ain't got no money, but come over house and feed. You come home. Why? Purpose. And I was happy. In fact, I'll tell you, some of the worst days of my life is when I had the most money. Miserable driving a brand new car. Miserable driving the one when I first got married that was tore up. I'm praying it all the way there. Happy as I could be. And so I want to encourage you, there are more ways to make money now than there's ever been.

Yes, sir.

But I don't think freedom under God is the place where you have no responsibilities.

Exactly.

Because a life without purpose to me would be the worst possible way to spend an existence. Yeah. Yeah. Knowing that I wake up every day, nobody needs me, nobody depends on me. And I affect me nothing. I mean, just think about. I affect nothing. It doesn't matter. I do not matter. It doesn't matter if I wake up, doesn't matter if I die. Yeah. Because to anybody else, I make no difference. And just to get myself to where I got money coming in, and I can do that, but I'm leaving my imprint on nothing.

Nothing.

Yeah. I don't get that. As a guy who's not a millennial, I look at it, I'm like, I don't get that. Because to me, freedom is doing what I love to do. Yes, sir. Not doing nothing. Yep. A little bit of a different definition.

100. I think you hit it on the. Hit the nail on the head when you said it's freedom under God, though. I think all those three are entirely different outlooks. What is achievement under God? What is, you know, finances under God? And what is freedom under God? And the most of the. I would hate to say it like this, but most millennials, especially here in the Bay Area don't find themselves very in a deep well of relationship with the Lord.

That's another podcast. Yeah, that's another. Now you've hit my trigger now. Yeah, we're not discipling you guys. There's a whole generation that just. They're packing out churches, but they know nothing about God.

Exactly.

They know nothing about the word of God. It hurts my heart. It hurts my heart. But we just got everybody wading around in ankle deep water. If most of them got in a debate with a Muslim, they couldn't even defend their faith.

And that's what you were saying when you said the fact that I know I'm a millennial, but I guess being the way I grew up, I can see the differences. And I just find ourselves being so depressed, stressed out, anxiety driven, all those kinds of things, because we're letting other external voices really determine what those. What is achievement, what those markers are. Exactly. And I think that's where all of it comes from.

That's social media.

Exactly. Exactly.

Social media. And you know, this is not original. I've heard many preachers say it. It is a highlight reel.

They show all the good stuff.

You might have a girl get on TikTok and cry every once in a while when she broke up with a boyfriend. But the fact is, Instagram is not designed to show struggle and pain. And there's so much of life that success comes through struggle and pain. Well, when I get to the success, I show it to you.

Yes, sir.

But I didn't show you the struggle and I don't show you the pain. So everybody looks at their life and compares my reality to your highlight reel. And there must be something wrong with me. So I'm anxious, I'm depressed, I feel behind, I feel all these different other things. And the fact is, I believe most of that life on Instagram is just not real. And I hate more than anything when I see preachers do it, because I am a preacher and I look at them and say, that's not real. That's not reality. What I do hurts. What I do is painful. You get betrayed, you get done wrong, you get sued, you get left, you get. And they don't portray that. And I'm like, that is not reality. So you got people saying, man, that dude, he got a good gig.

Yeah, it's not really, you know, the other thing I wanted to mention, if I may, Pastor, like, because you're the one that really pushes that in our. In our church, in our generation, and. Or just everybody that Comes obviously there's a time of sowing and there's a time of reaping, but in the middle of it, there's that waiting time.

Wait.

And it's funny because I put a video the other day and it did very well because. In Spanish, of course. But people, that's almost like a new concept for our generation. We like, we see the. Okay, this is what I put in, this is what I got out.

Right.

Especially if you see online. But they don't. The middle part. And a lot of people are in that middle part and they don't know how to.

Your generation struggles with delayed gratification.

Exactly. Microwaves, everything stuttle.

They struggle with delayed gratification. Whereas those that came before you just did not have the modern conveniences. They just did not have them. So they were taught to wait. There are some things you only could get it by waiting. You didn't have really instant anything. Anything. You didn't have instant food. You didn't have instant cart. You didn't have any of that. You went home and you cooked it. You prepared the food and you cooked it, then you cleaned it, then you washed the dishes. So there was a two hour process and what's. Now we just sit there and bring it on our phone. You know, it is a much different world. But that also teaches you. It's conditioning you and God doesn't function like Instacart.

No, sir.

Life doesn't function like Instacart. And so when people get in here and it don't happen fast, they don't know how to respond to that. But there is seed time, there is waiting and then there is a harvest time. And then I get on Instagram and show you my harvest.

That is the problem.

Yeah.

And that's where all these things come from. That's why we are defining our achievements, our financial goals and our freedom goals.

I see these girls on Instagram that are obviously had mounds of plastic surgery. Okay. Why didn't they show the eight weeks with tubes coming out of them, draining the staples in their head, you know, going for a year and your nerves have been so disrupted you can't feel parts of your face. But they don't show that. They show after the six months is over with and they're. And then all the other girls say, why don't I look like that? I look like that.

Yeah.

It's just amazing to me. And we've got a generation that's built like that and I don't know how to unwind it and I don't know how to correct it. But here's where I am, and I'm going to end with this. I told them the uniqueness about my generation is that I'm not my dad and I'm not you guys. I'm in the middle. And so I saw what built America, and now I see millennials. And I get you guys, and I get those guys. And I could sit down and have a conversation with you and I could sit down and have a conversation with my dad and understand both of them's worlds. But if I got you in a conversation with my dad, those are two different worlds. Those are two totally different worlds. Totally different. And so we just need to understand that. But here, again, was a freedom. It was finance and it was achievement. We may come back and talk about some other things as far as millennials and what they expect out of church. Love you guys. This is Ron and Hope. Real raw and relevant. Next time, Hope she'll be back. You should see her beautiful smiling face. I miss her. I'm ready for her to come home. And I'm ready to eat some good country cooking like only she can do. We love you guys. We'll see you next time. God bless.

Peace.