God’s Plan or My Plan? | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. This is Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw and relevant. Ron's got me tickled because I'm concerned because I found a picture. I saw a picture today on Facebook of this boy that I dated a few times in high school. And I sent it to Ron and he said he must have had a good personality.

He must have could sing.

He must have could sing.

He must have been a great singer. Oh, man.

I said, so let's pull up some of yours.

Rome.

They were quite large at this point. Yeah, things change, don't they?

I just need a minute to get over what I've just seen.

It was pretty bad. I'm like, thank you, Jesus.

What were you thinking?

For your mercy. For your mercy.

What are you thinking at the moment?

Well, he didn't look like that then. He wasn't the best then. But he didn't look like dad.

Just in season when you're doubting yourself. No, you didn't win. You didn't win the pageant that year.

He was not from my town.

You didn't win the pageant that year.

He was not from my town. And he did sing. And I thought, well, this is a good Christian boy. I'm going to date him. Oh, Lord, it was bad. I'm just so glad I met you. Blonde run. Look, I got brains, handsomeness, the annoying.

I can sing.

You can sing. You're funny. All the things I got one package.

It was something y' all wish.

We cannot show it.

Wish I could let you in on it.

No, we cannot. And you, you sent that picture to our friend.

Yeah, to our friend Eric. And you, don't start giving too much information.

Who the hello Kitty is that anyway?

Person just changed a lot.

They changed a lot. They did.

It happens to us. It does happens to us. Our hormones change and the gravity. You lose hair and hormone gets low and we deal with hair loss and all these other things we have to deal with.

Anyway, what we talking about today, Ron?

I had a good one. What was it I said I want to talk about.

Remember the mercy of God?

No. Decision making. Talk about. Talk about destiny. Decisions, decisions. When you're the fork in the road in life. I did a series. I'm not. I'm not preaching the sermon. I don't even know what it says. Years and years ago. I just remember the topic. I did a message on decisions. I Hope it's probably 15 years ago, and I called it destiny decisions. And I talked about. In one of those messages, I talked about defining moments and, like, you know, Joshua you know, Moses was their leader forever. And then here comes Joshua. And when they crossed over, said, and that day they saw Joshua as they saw Moses. That's a defining moment. The Holy Spirit came down. This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. We don't know anything really about Jesus before that. That was a defining moment. And a lot of people get hyper spiritual and you know, I'm facing a destiny. No, you're not. Maybe a half dozen in your whole life. Maybe I'm talking about life altering, setting the trajectory of the next decade or two of your life next season and some of them of the rest of your life. And we were just going back over our life at some of the destiny decisions that shaped our lives really literally had. And those decisions, had they not been made, would have created entirely different outcomes.

We talked about that the other day about college. We were sitting at the. We're having dinner or something and you were like two weeks.

I was two weeks from going to University of South Carolina. And that was my.

And you would have gone.

That was my fleshly dream. That was my just natural. It ain't nothing wrong to have dreams. And I wanted to be a Division 1 big time SEC head football coach.

You?

Yes, I wanted to be that. I'm pretty motivated, I'm pretty passionate, I'm disciplined. If I set my face like flint and headed in a direction, you know me, you've been married to me. I think I would have made it. That that was what I wanted, that was what I desired. It inspired me. I went to school, I was going to apply to be a graduate assistant at that school and you know, hopefully sometime or another spend some part of my career there. That's what I wanted. I wanted to make money. My family never had any money. I'm just going to be honest with you. No matter where you stand on the prosperity scale, not having no money sucks.

Right?

And we didn't. We never had any money. My dad was rarely treated fairly anywhere he pastored. I love our heritage. I've said a thousand times I wouldn't trade places with anybody. But we learned to live meagerly. We didn't have the appearance because you're living in a brick home, but it was a parsonage. The church owned it. You know, and so you govern our neighborhood. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't poverty.

But you didn't own it.

Yeah, we don't own anything. And they never did. And you know, gave him a place to live and gave him a very meager check Every week. And I saw what the check was. It's embarrassing. I saw what the check was up till the time I went to college, you know, and loved my mom and dad dearly. Still. My mom's still alive and just the most amazing woman. But I didn't want to live that way. And two weeks from school, two weeks, I wanted to play ball. The guys out there who are sports guys, I'm not going to tell a bunch of stories of what I wasn't. I was a very good high school athlete, but I was a tweener. I wanted to play college football, but I was a tweener. I was a six two, 200, 210 pound tight end. Tight ends in college are 260. I was not going to gain 50 pounds of muscle, but yet I was not that small, speedy wide receiver. I was everywhere I went. I tried out at two camps. They said you're a tweener. Like your hands, like you get. You're a tweener. Tweener, that's what they call them.

And that is.

And everybody in the sports world knows what a tweener is. Tweener is what a tweener is when they not sure what position you would excel at.

Why is it tweener though?

You're in between.

I know, but why don't they say you're in between?

You are in between. I guess it'll go from five to two. Two syllables. They just call them tweeners. That's what football coaches call them. And I was that. And I got told that by everywhere I went. And so I lent basketball. I probably was better, but I didn't like basketball as much. But I was a lifeguard. And we'll tell this ain't the only story, but I want to tell some of these then I want to give a spiritual sense to this for all those who watch the podcast because there's something we're saying that can help you when I tie it all together. I was a lifeguard senior year after my senior year at a community pool. My dad never. I don't think my dad had ever been to that pool. It was about 10 miles away in another little town and it's 5:30. We started at 12 o' clock and we baked in the sun till 5:30 with a bunch of screaming kids drinking a jug of water. Wore out. 95 degrees, 100% humidity. You know, use a lifeguard trip.

Did you drink Mountain Dew back then?

A lot. And my dad, 5:30 came pulling up and I remember like, what is my dad doing here? And he came up, he said, you are going to be trying out tonight before Emmanuel College basketball coach. We got to drive to Georgia, and he's going to give you a shot at making sure.

And you already were registered, had your dorm.

I mean, I'm gone. My decisions are made.

Yeah.

And my dad came up. Well, my dad knew that was dangling a big carrot in front of me. I love sports more than anything at that time. I love sports more than I love gardening. I love. I played sports all the time. And I was like, man, I'm finally going to get my shot at college athletics. And I hadn't had a basketball since March. I was exhausted. I hadn't had nothing to eat. You don't play basketball in the summer. It was like August. And we went down there and this is a miracle. He had his number one guy, number two guy, that's the point guard and shooting guard who was staying over for summer school or something. And me and another high school recruit were there. And the guy sat down with his gentleman, taking the notes. The head coach just sat down on the bleachers and told us to play three games of 21. And we beat those guys two games in a row. Me and the other high school recruit beat his two starters. That. That shouldn't happen. I'm just going to tell you that shouldn't happen. And he came walking over to me and this is all he said. It was just a short night. He's short. They didn't. A lot of words. He said, I got a space for you if you want it. I changed everything.

Were you conflicted?

No, not at all. No. No. You know, I'm a big University of South Carolina fan, but, you know, I got scholarship money for you to come play basketball. I didn't care what school it was. I probably would have went to any school that would offer me that, quite honestly. This was a Christian college. It was a junior college. And that was probably my basketball skill set. I was probably junior college material. And I went there and got saved that fall, gave up my scholarship and then went and changed my major to the pastoral curriculum and went home and told my mom and dad I felt like I'd been called into ministry.

So if you had gone to University of South Carolina.

I may be the coach at the University of South Carolina, but I would not have.

You would have not had any church atmosphere where you could have gotten saved.

Your church would have radically, you know, in the mind of God, you know, is it like a Jonah, God's going to get me where he wants me to go no matter what decision I make. I don't know. Because God let some people, you know, walk. Walk off the path. And there were other people like Jonah. You didn't get to make your own decisions. God will get you to where he wants you to go. I don't know. I think I'd have been in the Jonah crowd. I don't think God was going to turn me loose because I had a call on my life. I don't know if I was running like sin, but I just. I did not want to do what my daddy did.

Yeah, but you would have. You would have never met me there.

None.

Cuz I was not going to the university.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I can't imagine life without you. I can't imagine. I can't imagine. I'm sure. And I can't imagine my kids not being my kids. I can't imagine any of it. But I will tell you that. Coaches, let me see him play. Bring him here tonight. My life.

But it was your decision to say yes that changed your life. You could have not made that decision. That's what we're talking about.

True.

How to make the decisions we need.

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It helps them. You will know and they help us. It'll help you. Everybody gets help when you go do that. And it is great food. And here again, we wouldn't be talking about it if we didn't enjoy it ourselves. And, you know, may take a little bit more than the 30 minutes we do because I want you to be able to chime into this, too. But, Hope, that was a defining moment in my life. You know, I look back and I look at where I am now at 57 years old and all the hand and the blessing of God. But no, I would not have met you. No, I would not.

So God dangled the basketball as a carrot.

It just got you there in front of you.

It got you there.

I wanted sports more than anything. And as soon as I got down there and got saved, I had no. I had no. I dreaded practice.

Yeah.

I didn't want to do it no more.

Did you realize that that's. That you weren't even there for basketball, that God used it?

God used it to get me there because he knew my. Knew my love for it.

And God dangled you in front of me to get me to go to Emmanuel.

You're saying that like funny, but there's some truth to that.

It's true. I know because I was going to another college.

You had a scholarship at another college. And Emanuel could not, I don't think, had the finances to even offer it.

Gave me a baby scholarship. And I wasn't going to Emanuel. And then I met you.

You came to a visitation weekend.

And that changed the decision for my life. And here we are today.

A decision to leave our denomination, Pentecostal Holiness folk watching this. We love you. Okay. But one of the biggest battles I had to fight. I had to fight right out of the gate.

Yeah.

My early 20s. And it was when we wanted our church to be an interdenominational, independent church. So we were trying to walk A fine line. I admit this to everybody who says, you know, y' all guys were. Were playing both sides of the fence. Yes, I was. I wanted to maintain my credentials because we loved them. Because I loved my dad, who was an official then, and I loved them and I love my heritage. But I knew it was a 99.999% white denomination.

This type of church was not what we wanted. We wanted the good stuff here again. We wanted the spirit filled my deep convictions from that church.

Again, the sports people know what I'm talking about. If you are a white guy who can ball out, especially 80s, 90s back then, maybe a little different now. You earned the respect of the brothers and I was the guy they embraced. I got in fights with them and fought on their team. I got. I could play ball with them. I rode, they took me home in the car. I took them home. So my world was multicultural and my church experience was not.

Yeah. Growing up.

So when I got saved out of a world of locker rooms and sports, I wanted that same dynamic in the church and thought that that was what the church was supposed to be anyway. And even at 21 years old, I knew that was not possible in that.

System, in that structure. Yeah.

And so my first battle was with the church. My very first battle.

Listen, your first battle was with the church over loving people?

Yep. They couldn't understand the, you know, the independent. Why you got to be independent? Why you got to be. Because there were rules you had to follow being in the organization, the one that had to be on your side. Well, I know who's going to come in that door and who ain't going to come in that door with a sign. So the fact is, even then I had enough sense to know I couldn't do this within that system. Here again, hope to this day, we may on both coasts, but especially on the west coast, we may have the most multicultural church in America.

In America, truly.

I don't know, one building you can stand in and see the whole world like this one. And here again, had that decision not been made, because I had two churches. My dad wanted me waiting for me to go interview in, and I turned them down. And both of them had, like, houses and, you know, a leased car and health benefits of which we left the system and had none.

Had none.

And struggled mightily.

But it was a strategic decision for us. It wasn't easy at the moment, but we knew that it would benefit us later.

Right. And no, at the moment, it benefited us none at all. Because when you leave the System, you lose the support of the system.

And you don't have the luxury of standing up and explaining why to everybody either. You can be very misunderstood.

And it was. And it was a decision for the best spiritually, not because we didn't want to be around a certain group of people anymore. And so here again, defining moment in a multicultural setting that I don't think would have happened had that decision not been made.

How do you know when it's a defining moment?

Do you? There's times I knew.

Okay, you can feel the weight.

Let me give.

You can feel the weight.

That's a good question. Hope you stumped me right there. That's a good question. I didn't know those were defining moments. I didn't know going to try out that night was a defining, a true defining moment in my life. Yeah, I didn't know. Ah, kind of quasi. I'm going to have to go outside of this system to do what I feel like God's called me to do. I kind of knew that. But most of those, you made them and look back on them and say that was a defining moment. And pretty much you didn't know you were in one. So you thank the grace and sovereignty of God.

Okay, I knew where I was going to college was a defining moment.

You and I are separated. World's falling apart. Everything we've ever hoped and dreamed would ever happen is looking very unlikely. I knew I was in a defining moment to reconcile.

Yeah, you better believe it's huge to.

Try to reconcile or, you know, it's beyond repair. Let it go. That I knew I was in a defining moment. And the weight of that was crushing. It was crushing. I knew those decisions were going to determine things about ministry, placement, kids, holidays, vacations, money, everything. You know, I don't even know how I felt. Tremendous weight. I had many encounters with God during that moment to heal and change and turn my heart. A hurt heart can become a hard heart real quick. I think that's probably the natural course if you don't get it healed.

And making major decisions when you are bitter or hurting, usually most people can't make good decisions.

And that's the problem with that, is a lot of major destiny decisions will confront you at a time you're least apt, apt to make it. You know, you're emotionally bankrupt, you're torn, you've been hurt, you're offended. And then you got this decision because.

Guard your heart, because out of it.

Flow the issues of life. And so yes, I knew I was in a defining moment. And I knew not my next 10 years. The rest of my life was being outlined during that really tough. That was a tough year for us. That was a tough year. And it lasted a year. Just everything together, you know, trying the falling apart, trying to put it back together, the rebuilding. There was a long process, but there was a year there that was intense.

Yeah. The squeeze.

And that was a defining moment. I had a time. Right after you almost bled to death in 2000. Mechel's diverticulum. That was hemorrhaging in your colon. And they had to do emergency surgery, and you'd almost died right on our living room floor. Excuse me, bedroom floor in a pool of blood. It was an ugly scene. And didn't know if you were going to make it. And, you know, I came back because I was. You had. Had. They basically just filleted you open and pulled out your insides and said, we can't find it. We got to hunt for it. And when they found it, cut it out and then put everything back in you. That's what the doctor described to me. I mean, you were in bad shape. And so I committed to do what I've always done. I take care of you. You know, I take care of you. There ain't no 10 nurses in the world take care of you like I can. And I canceled everything for a year. And there was one, remember?

I do.

I could not cancel.

And it was the least attractive.

It was the ugliest date I had on the books.

Yeah.

It was the date they know money.

They know honorarium to be an attendee.

I was going. They had some church planters coming to an old lady's house in Georgia, in North Georgia, up literally in the woods. And because we had started a church, they wanted us to come spend the day. And we knew what that meant. That meant they didn't have no money. Church planters back then, it's different than it is today with social media. We knew they were probably fighting. We knew there's probably tremendous stress on their life. And there was no expense money. There was no gas money.

Yeah.

And I had these other really nice things. Cancel them out. Could not. God would not let me cancel that date. So I literally wrapped you up and made you a bed in the backseat and let you lay down. You couldn't even, like, sit up. And then I had them have a bedroom for you. And they literally was in the bedroom and was able to rest and stay in the bed all day and did it. And there was this guy in the kitchen that would keep coming to the den and stand in the doorway. And he wouldn't speak. He just kept coming. I was there all day. I never knew the guy's name. So I was leaving that night and he came up to me and said, where did you get your limp? Well, euphemism, but I didn't know. He said, you know, Jacob, God wrestled him. God humbled him. I can tell just by listening to you, you got a limp in your life, you're walking humbly before the Lord. And we struck up a conversation. I still. I knew his name, but I didn't know who he was. Got a call later and he was the editor in chief of the largest Christian publication outside of the Bible in the world then. Yeah, yeah, things have changed. I don't know if there even are magazines now. Came and did a thing called Breakthrough in the Bible Belt, 1999. Big spread. Nine, eight or nine pages, big spread. In the middle of that, out of that came the call to go on national tv.

Somebody read that, read that, came drive.

Up there, put us on single handedly, put us on national tv. And out of that, I came in circles, like Rod Parsley invited me into his circle. All the just.

Our world opened up. Yes. Our world opened up because of a.

Woman'S house in northeast Georgia in the woods where there's no money. You're going to go in the hole. And I said yes. Didn't know I was in a defining moment.

No. Do you remember what Bishop Tony used to say? He used to say, big doors swing on little hinges. Little hinges. That has always made sense. Such an impact on me that you can't. It doesn't have to look grand and it doesn't have to look glamorous if it's a God door.

Yep.

Big door swing on little hinges.

So when it comes to making these decisions, somebody say, okay, it was the most unattractive date you had and you made the decision. How did you make it?

God wouldn't let you not make it.

That's the key.

You were being led.

That's the key. There are no destiny decisions that will be made accurately if there's no relationship with God.

Right.

And I know that ain't a sexy answer. I know they want a 1, 2, 3 thing. There's a lot of outlying principles I can give you. But number one, these were all spirit led decisions. All of them. That night before I called you and said I was willing to. I'm not. Lord told me not to abandon you.

Right.

The Holy Spirit whooped me like an octagon. UFC fighter that whole night. And I was a different man that morning than I was the night before. I went to bed because of the Holy Spirit and my relationship with God.

Yeah. And he leads us. He guides us into truth.

So there are. There are some things sometimes the destiny decision will not align with your feelings. You have to do.

Absolutely. Many times. Because that's faith.

Yes.

Because you're taking a step of faith. And the Bible says without faith it's impossible to what? To please God? I'm not saying across the board, those are destiny decisions. Those that please God.

Yeah.

I'm not for your walking out the purpose and plan of God for your life.

These principles are not across the board, but these are things you need to watch out for. I think there's a high probability for many times they are the less attractive ones in the natural got called they don't make sense. By a church in Richmond, Virginia, that was a large church to come be their pastor. When we were about 12 months into our church plant and struggling to buy a can of beans.

Yep. But we would have been living up under thumbs.

The church of 1,000 people with millions of dollars of property paid off a five bedroom parsonage and called me. The guy on the search committee was a doctor. We want to bring you up here. We want to. And I had a great internship at that church. And I'm sitting there. Here. Again, destiny decision. Why? Because we were in a warehouse with shower curtains and I remember looking at you saying, what we have has more potential than that. So a lot of destiny decisions, you have to look at what can be, not what is right. Okay. Thirdly, you always have to be careful who's in your ear during these decisions.

Because whoever has your ear has your future.

Who's in your ear. There are people that pull out the best in you. There are people that pull out the worst in you. There are people that when they're in your presence, they appeal to your spirit. There are people when they appeal to your flesh.

Right.

When you are in a destiny decision time, you better get around people other than you that hear God and who.

Want to see you succeed. There are so many people in your ear that are haters, really. Secret haters who.

Frenemies.

Yeah, frenemies. Who don't want to see you elevate and who will give you bad, not godly wisdom.

And so I remember, and I'll leave them with this. I remember an example I heard. I want to say Bishop Jakes, I try to. When I know something's not original in Me sometimes I got so much equipment in my head now, I don't know where I got it. I think this was a Bishop Jakes illustration. Bishop Jakes, when he talked about major decisions versus minor decisions, he gave the example years ago of a navigation system. You remember me talking about that at church one time, he says, when I got my navigation system and I'm driving and that thing, you know, turn here, 700ft, turn there, one mile ahead at the light, turn right. He said, there's a comfort with that. He said, but when you start driving and 20, 30 minutes to pass and she ain't talk to you, you start getting nervous. And he said the most, you start thinking profound thing.

What should I do if I missed a turn?

Am I on the right? Am I on the right? Is this the right way? Have I got the right address punched in? And he said, if God's talking to you, turn. He said, if voice. You don't hear anything. Silent. Keep going straight.

Yeah. Keep going down the path you're going.

In other words, keep doing what you're doing. Keep heading in the direction until you get a different direction. And I thought, you know, God's navigation system, he talks when there's a turn.

Yeah.

But other than that, keep being faithful and do what it is you do.

That's good.

So I don't know where some of you guys are. And here again, I'm not trying to have an altar call. Some of you are making decisions and you don't know the destiny decisions. All the more to be watchful, alert, and keep your relationship with God up to date. Because several of them that I had, I didn't know I was having them. There are some other times in my life I knew. The denomination thing, the marriage thing, I knew.

Yeah. You got to know the vision for your life and what God's told you for the vision. Then you also counsel and consult the Word.

Right?

The Word is our guide. But then you got to be led. And I think that's the hardest part.

That's what I'm trying to teach people now, I said, is to be led.

By the Holy Spirit.

Trying to get out of being a preacher that tells them what to do and what not to do. And I tell them the more I give you rules, the less you have to be led. I want you to hear from God. I want your convictions to come from God. I want your directions to come from God. There can be a prophetic voice in your life that God brings here and there, but that is not going to be the main Vehicle by which God speaks to you. In fact, prophets can bring revelation, but more often than not, I think the prophetic is used for confirmation. You already have something embedded in you, and a voice from the outside comes and says, and you're like, okay, now I have confirmation. That's what I'm supposed to do. So these are just some of the principles. Every day, you know, you don't make those major decisions. Where you're going to eat lunch is not a defining moment. Whether you wear the blue shirt or the red shirt is not a defining moment. But these other things, like what I'm talking about, and if you feel like you are in that type of fork in the road, get with God. Get with God. Because every time I've obeyed that voice, it has never failed.

And then let the peace of God rule. Let the peace of God rule. It counts your decisions in or it counts your decisions out.

It's the umpire.

It is the umpire in your life. Listen, ladies, I have some amazing, amazing, amazing upcoming events. They're called Come Higher. And what it is, is three and a half next year, three and a half days, where I take 10 to 12 ladies and we go to some amazing place. Lake Tahoe, Orlando, Gatlinburg, just all kind of places all across the country. And I cook for you. I cook your meals. Good old country cooking. And yes, I do. I'm sorry, you said you don't cook for me. You want to come to Come Higher.

Hello. Fresh ain't in there. I don't get it no more.

So we go to amazing places, spend three and a half days together. I teach out of curriculum that I've written. And the whole premise is lay aside every weight so that you can soar, so that you can become everything that God's called you to be. Go to hopecarpenter.com events. We have three come hires in 20, 20, 26, and all three of them are almost full. Probably have three or four spaces in each one. I'd love for you to come join us at one of these events so that I can get to know you, so that we can build a relationship and you can enjoy some of my cooking and we can get closer to God. They're called Come Higher.

Go get the Ron Carpenter AI app. Go to the App Store. Download it now. I think it'll be a great resource. Other than that, next podcast, we will be reviewing all of Hope's former boyfriends.

Jesus.

And be talking about that and the impact they've had on her life.

You're horrible. Until next time, Ron and hope unfiltered, real, raw relevance.