Ron + Hope: Unfiltered - I Screwed Up

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. Here we are again. Ron and Hope Unfiltered. It's real raw and relevant. I just went ahead and said it. Didn't want to even give him the chance to mess up. Ron and Hope Unfiltered. Real raw and relevant.

I got this down. Pat Mattock. We've done this about six times. I've done. I got that down.

I think this is episode number nine.

This is. We've done that many.

Yes. This is episode number nine, baby.

I think we've done that many. Okay.

Yeah.

Time just gets lost with you, does it? Yeah, just, you know, I can't keep track of time when I get around you. So I don't know how many of them. We've done nothing. We've got. When you hit me with this topic that we're going to do Tonight, there's about 100 different ways you can go with this.

What's the topic?

You tell everybody what you came to me with. Because we're trying to pick these topics that are.

And people write in also and ask us to talk about certain things.

Relevant. And we've had a lot of that lately. In fact, our next one is going to be one directly responding to a correct question about finances and about economy and what does God really say? You know? But anyway, you want to do one called I screwed up.

Yeah. You know why? Because we all do.

Yep.

You know, there's not one person that I've ever met, no person that has ever walked the face of the earth who has not messed up in some shape, form or fashion. Jesus is the only perfect human. And so we all mess up. So the question is, now what?

Yeah, so I like to say it this way. Failure, failure, failure. Screwing up mistakes, however you want to label it, doesn't discriminate.

Right.

It really doesn't care who you are. Don't care what level of education you have, don't care what color your skin is, doesn't care who your daddy is, don't care what your job is.

Your bank account says none of that.

It visits everybody. Failure, mistakes, screwing up visits everybody. I told you in some of the private talks we had over the last probably six, eight months, I said, for the first time in my life, I don't live in regret, but I'm looking back over significant areas where I just. Boy, if I could do that again. Not that it was sin, but it was a mistake.

Right.

You know, all mistakes aren't sin. So it ain't like we just come to talk about sin, but sin is all mistakes aren't sin, but all sin is always a mistake.

Right? Right.

And so we're going to hit a little bit of both about what you should do. I may even if you're in ministry, I may even hit a little bit about what do you do if you screw up and you're a leader. You know what? If you are the one that is supposed to be setting the stage, you're the one. Everybody's supposed to model their actions, their behavior after, and you yourself have missed.

And there's a lot of pressure, you know, on us.

There's a lot of pressure on leadership. There's a lot of pressure to get it right. And so the part we know we're not getting right, we are taught to hide it.

Absolutely.

We're taught to hide it because we're scared to let you see it.

Yeah.

We're scared. We lift people so high that they can only fall so far. And the fact is, I know because I was raised in the house, I know because I am one. I know because I have two to 300 pastors, that I am an oversight, and I shepherd their lives. I know that we want to show you the best of us, and it's not that we want to be blazing hypocrites, but we're scared to show the parts of us that don't work. Right?

Right.

So I was just. I don't know. I told Hope, I said, I don't want this. I'm teacher. I'm a teacher. So, like, when my kids come and tell me something, Hope laughs. Because I have to look at them and say, all right, what are you wanting? Are you wanting me to listen? Because I'll sit here and listen to you. I'll keep my mouth shut. I'll keep my arm around you and I'll listen to you.

That's hard for you.

Yeah. Are you wanting answers? Because I am built to provide answers. I'm built that way. And so I told Hope, I said, this is supposed to be something conversational. I don't want this to become, you know, a half hour message on what to do with the good. But you're so good.

I want us to talk teaching. And I think people listen. They want us to talk, but I don't want to.

God, he won't let her say nothing. I don't want to. I don't want to go down that road. I want you to interject with me.

I'll slap you if it's my turn.

Don't hit me too hard. It might hurt my feelings. But anyway, the first thing I would say, number one, there's many different dimensions, many different categories of this, many, many different levels you can screw up by missing your turn. Okay. That's not a great transgression. I do that transgression every day. And then you can mess up being a father, messing up, missing a turn because you were talking on the phone versus I screwed up my kid's childhood. Those are two totally different things. Both of them are mistakes. Both of them. You wish you could go back and do them over, but the fact is they have different responses. So before I jump, I got things I wrote down. Whenever you see this.

Oh, yeah, it's dangerous.

You see post it notes and sticky notes and napkins especially.

Yeah. I was about to say a napkin. If we got a napkin sitting here.

A napkin is prophetic revelation. Yeah. Yeah. So if you see me come out with a napkin, I have a now word.

So anyway, you know, I heard somebody say Ron, I forget who it is. I really do. I was sitting here typing, trying to Google it, but somebody very important said, it's not your successes that define you. It's what you do when you fail that defines you.

It's not the failure that defines you. No. It's your response.

Yeah. It's your response to the failure.

So important. I've told so many pastors, baby, who have. Who've made a mistake, crossed a line in some area of their life where they shouldn't. And I told them, I said, you are right now. You've just entered a defining moment.

That's right. You're at a crossroads.

You're at a defining moment. The day you burnt. The day you built the sanctuary, the day you burnt the mortgage and everybody clapped. The day you cut the river. Those are not your defining moments. Your defining moments is when you have screwed up royally. And you know you have. And how you respond to that moment will define the trajectory of the entire next season of your life. And some of you may be there right now.

Yeah. And you know, I think as Christians, as leaders, as those who are really trying to serve God, you know, that's the thing. We think that we're not supposed to fail. And I think that is just. We got to just blow that out of the water. Because the Bible says, though a righteous man fall, falls, what happens then?

He gets back up.

If he falls seven times, if it's just something that happens to you over and over and over you. That's what a righteous person does. Somebody who loves Jesus, you got to get back up again.

Hope I Have failed over and over and over and over again. And I think that's why I succeed.

That's so good.

But to me, there is no such thing as failure. Unless you quit trying.

That's right.

Then you're a failure.

Yeah.

If you don't fight, you don't win. If you don't fight, you don't win. But the fact that I have adopted this thing, I'm not going to be prideful over a failure. I look at everybody and say, you know what? I screwed that up. And so let's go do something else. And so don't live in it. Don't wallow in it. Like I said, it's all right for me to want to do over without me living in regret. I don't want to live in regret. That's God didn't call us to live in regret. But there are facts. There are times where I look over and say, man, if I could just have that one back right there. If I could just have that one back. So you let me know because I got some real key things. Why don't you jump in?

Why don't you jump in?

All right. So jump in with me. Don't let me take it over. Okay, babe. You look pretty today, by the way.

Thank you, Ronald.

I think the first thing I would say is you need to accept your humanity, because God does. Let me tell you something. Oh, that's good. God anticipated your weakness. Yeah, God anticipated your weakness. Everybody has dominant strengths and everybody has dominant weaknesses. The enemy does not paint a bullseye on your strength. He paints a bullseye on your weakness. It's the area where you're most vulnerable, where he wants to come and try to bring something about that destroys your future. And so I would just want you to know that right now you need to accept the fact, especially if you're in ministry, because we're told we're supposed to have an S on our shirt, and we're taught we're supposed to be above making a sinner.

Yeah, Hyper spiritual. Got to know what to do at all times.

You've got to accept your humanity. Look, Jesus cried. Jesus was hungry.

He was tired.

Disappointed. Jesus was tired. Jesus got frustrated. But he didn't sin. He didn't sin. That's the difference that separates me and you and everybody that's watching right now and Jesus. That's the difference. He felt what we. He felt the feelings of our infirmities, but he was yet without sin. So accept your humanity and accept the fact that if you have put up a Goal that you can never fail privately or publicly. You have set an unattainable goal.

Right.

And the whole message of grace. You've set a message of law. You don't have a message of grace. And the spirit of the law kills. Yeah, it kills you when you think you can't. It is difficult to live thinking you can't ever make a mistake.

It is.

That's eggshells to welcome. You said before that your house was a little bit like that. The standards were so high. Standards were so high that they was walking on eggshells. And there was a lot of stress.

Just the perfection mentality.

You know, it's tough to live in.

Make A's all the time. Be home when you're supposed to, all the time. You know, never go out the door without making up your bed, you know, getting it right all the time. And no child. Nobody. Especially children. That's when we're learning. That's when we touch our fingers to the stove, so to speak, and burn and learn lessons. So, you know, how do we learn sometimes, unless we fail.

Secondly, you need to understand now, this is when it gets tough. Who was influencing you during the time of your mistake? Ooh, look at your circle. When you fail, when you screwed up, when you crossed the line, when you made that mistake, when you violated your own standards. Who were the voices that were influencing your life?

The devil didn't make us do it.

No, come on.

Flip Wilson said the devil made me do it.

Sin is a conscious decision. I even go further to say you don't fall into sin, you plan it.

Yeah.

I believe sin is strategized and planned.

Yeah. The word says you're dragged away by your own evil lust and desires. That's already in there. Those of us who love Jesus with all our heart. Yeah, we got evil lust and desires.

The architect of a good guy doing a bad thing was David Bathsheba. And if you just look at that entire narrative. Sweetheart, the entire narrative was a strategic plan. He planned to get Bathsheba. He planned to get her husband out of the way. Everything was a strategic move on his part until he had a prophetic voice in his life call him out.

That's right.

And when the prophetic voice called him out, what did he do? He repented.

He did.

He repented.

Created me a clean heart.

Yeah, exactly. So soulish repentance is. I kind of did wrong and I kind of didn't. But Davidic repentance is owning it. Purge me with hyssop. That was one of my next Ones purging me with hyssop and creating me a clean heart. So who were the voices influencing you? You got to be honest with yourself on that because sometimes it's people you love.

Yeah.

Let me tell you something. A true friend does not encourage you to operate in destructive behavior. A true friend, somebody who really cares about your life, will do everything they can to wave the caution flag in front of you when they see you headed down a road you shouldn't be headed down.

I wrote a whole chapter in my book about that.

Really.

Warning signs. Warning signs. You know, because I've had my own sets of failures and wrote a whole book about it called the Most Beautiful Disaster. Because, you know, what the world thought counted me out, you know, God. It was a perfect setup for God to take my heart. That was very repentive. Yeah. Davidic repentance. I was sorry. I owned it. But then I had to go back and, you know, look at all the people, places and things that were surrounding my life. You know, what was I listening to? What was I giving my ear to? How did I turn my back on God? So many things. I have a whole chapter in my book. If you don't have it, you need to get it anywhere, books or something.

The larger the transgression, the more time you need to take to analyze it. So good. What was the. Another thing, let's get above. Who was influencing you? What were some of your alternatives at the time? What could you have done? What could you have done? I think about that a lot in the areas where I wish I had a do over. What were my alternatives and what would I have done if I had that chance to do it over again? So as you are analyzing the mistake, why? Because you do not want to repeat it. So you analyze it, you break it down. Who was influencing me? What was I allowing in my life? Not just who. What were some other outlying influences in my life? People, places in place, what environments were I in? Yeah. What activities have I allowed to go? Where. Where was I beginning to compromise a little bit until I found myself in a place saying, how in the world did I get there?

Make no provision.

Yeah. Talk about how. We talk about if you just pivot a little bit. So if you just pivot a little bit, talk a little bit about what we say happens there.

Well, you know, in my own life, and I tell this all the time when I'm telling my testimony is I was going down this path and we all are the path of our life and didn't like where I was or What I was feeling or what was going on in my life. But I turned just a little bit and I started making different decisions and hope decisions and flesh, you know, being dragged away by your own evil lust and desires.

And.

And I turned just a little bit and started walking down that path. And then nine years later, I turn around and look. If you're walking down this path, you pivot a little, but you keep pivoting same direction. Many years, you turn around and look how far you are off the mark.

Just right here on the table. I guess the people will. So I'm going straight, but I do this right here.

Yeah.

Which don't look like much. I'm just looking at it years later, but look.

Yeah, years later. It's huge.

And then you look back over five or 10 years and you're like, I am a Grand Canyon away from who I want to be, who I should be, and what's happening.

And not even happy.

Yeah.

And you think that you're making these decisions to be happy, but you're miserable. Miserable, miserable. You know, we only live when we die.

I will never forget one of the things Denise talked about that a lot of people who aren't happy and they pivot a little bit in an area of compromise that later down the road, the thing you're running becomes heavier than the thing you were trying to get away from.

That's so good.

The thing you run to becomes a heavier weight than the thing you're trying to get away from. Somebody needed to hear that right there. Who's just beginning to compromise a little bit. Well, it may look like only a little bit now, but down the road, it puts a lot of distance between you and who God really called you to be. Another thing I want to talk to you about is you need to taste the pain of your mistakes. This is where. If I had a do over, I'd do it.

Yeah.

If I had a do over. I was always rescuing my kids.

Come on.

From their pain. And all it did was prolong the activity. I'm going to tell you, this was hard.

Give an example.

Oh, I could give a hundred of them whenever. Especially my oldest son would get arrested or caught with drugs. I had a lot of connections in Greenville, South Carolina. I was there almost 30 years, and our church was a major player in everything. And I knew judges and I knew. And I would go and I would talk to him on my son's behalf. I would, don't lock him up. I'll do this. I'll leave here right now and take him so and so. And there were many times that I was able. He would do an action, the consequences were headed his way, and I would come and intercept them. I would intervene and I would intercept them.

So he never felt the pain.

Right. God has built in the law of sowing and reaping pleasure and pain, if you sow the right seed, built in that kingdom principle is reward.

Yeah.

It's built in. If you do the wrong thing, God has built in the spanking. It's in there, too. And what happens is we want our children especially to feel the pleasure of their good decision, and we intercept the pain of their bad decision. And pain sometimes is the only thing that brings change. It's true goodness and mercy and grace sometimes don't bring change. Sometimes the only thing that can bring change is letting somebody experience the pain that their decisions have made. And I remember after literally. And everybody knows Chase's story so well. It's some of my most watched YouTube. YouTube things were when I would give testimonies about my son. But after him getting locked up about six or seven times, I told you one night I laid there and I said, I'm going to let his butt stay in jail.

Yeah.

Can we say. But on our podcast, I can't say.

That we already did.

I'm going to let his butt stay in jail now. Can I tell you something? I let him stay in jail about three or four days. He didn't like that. No, he didn't like that. Remember, he said he was.

Chase is a funny creature.

He said he was locked up with a guy who had a shaved head. Had a shaved head. Said he sat on a bench with his eyes as big all night and had a tattoo sat insane across his chest.

Jason said, I couldn't sleep all night, mama. He said, I sat on my side just watching you.

I can remember that right now.

We need to have him on our podcast.

Yeah, we do. I told him I want to interview him one day. But actually, all three of our kids, whether it was little things, one of them was stupid, or all three of them have experienced some type of legal trouble. And I think by the time they got that from your people, I think by the time we got to the last one, I remember we got a call one night about channeling. This is my baby girl. Uh oh, this is my baby girl. She's the one I never would spank. Remember? You get mad at me.

Listen, let me tell you what he did.

She's gonna tell on me.

Chandler was like four, I remember. And she'd gotten in trouble and Ron was gonna take her in the room to spank her. So he took her because I would.

Worry them kids, boys out.

Yes. But he took her in the room and I was waiting for the scream, you know, for Chandlin to yell out. And Ron tells her, he says, now, Chandlin, don't tell your mama. He said, but I'm not gonna spank you. I'm just gonna hit the floor. But you scream when I do it. And so Ron's going, and she's like, I knew, I knew that you had not spanked her.

And we both come walking out.

Yeah, acting like she was crying. So you intercepted.

Excuse me. But later on, there was one crossing she had with the law. And I was in bed when I got the phone call. I normally would have got up one or two o' clock in the morning, went and bailed them out. And you know what I did? Left her in jail, laid back down and I laid there. That was a very memorable night for her and she didn't enjoy it. Not everything has to do with being locked up in jail and legal system. But moms and dads, especially wives doing it for husbands, husbands doing it for wives, parents doing it for kids. You cannot continually intercepting pain. If you intercept pain one time and they received it as a grace and mercy and they went on and didn't do it again, then it worked. But most of the time, until they feel what their actions have caused, they will not be saved.

Most of the time it's just a pass to keep doing what you're doing.

And I didn't know that. I thought I was being a good dad. And I don't know what defined that for me, but I just thought I was being a good dad. Number one, I'd never had a lot of exposure with legal problems.

Well, who wants their kids locked up in jail and their whole, what you know, that God's called them to, you know, you're just trying to keep them out of that path. And yeah, we did a lot wrong. And well, they learned though, they're all serving Jesus today.

Yeah, I wrote some of these down. These things aren't descriptive, but when I knew what the topic was about, I did just write down some things that I know in the past that I've taught in different settings. I think as you're doing the inventory of yourself, when you make a mistake, number one, you have to list what did you learn from it, Right? What did I learn from this? I don't know how much hope that I'VE learned from my victories, but my goodness, I've learned from my mistakes.

Absolutely.

I've learned so much from my mistake. Just had some decisions here in the last two or three years. Man, I wish I could do over and make better and see what I could have changed, adjusted and made some, maybe some red flags, maybe some warning signs. What could I have seen that I didn't? So I have even in my own life, gone back and said, you know what? If I had it to do again and something may come around and revisit me where I need to make these decisions again, I would do this different and I would do this that, and I've learned this. I didn't know this until this happened. And sometimes people just need to. What did you get out of it? Don't let a painful experience leave you without lessons learned. You've wasted it.

Yeah, yeah. Nothing's wasted in God.

Yeah.

God wants to use everything. Romans 8:28.

Everything's a teachable moment.

Yes, it is. He uses it, all right, for our good and for his glory. So God will use all the painful times in our life, all the mess ups, all the screw ups. He will use it if we repent, if we learn what we were supposed to have learned and get back up again.

Another one that I would talk about, and it's just I got 20 of them, so I'm just going to talk about some until we get through with our time here. I hope you're enjoying this, by the way. I'm hoping it's helping somebody because everybody's failed, but maybe somebody's dealing with it right now and didn't know what to do, don't know how to respond. And so maybe these things will help you. Now, this is where you would always get upset with me because I'm not good at this. So there's a little bit of hypocrisy and me teaching you this, because this is certainly not something I've mastered myself. Let blame be assigned where it needs to be assigned. I'm the kind of guy, I'll let people blame me for stuff I didn't do.

Yes, you will.

And it tears her up when I do that. But I have such a. I'm such a peacemaker that I have been the kind of person. I'll let people lie about me, step on me, whatever I got to do.

And being humble and being a scapegoat. And you don't have to take on that identity.

Yeah, there. You've got to. If there, if this was a group mistake Then you've got to let everybody have the ability, have the responsibility assigned to them that everybody needs to take responsibility for their part in it. I was always the kind of guy, not. Not that I'm that good a Christian. I think it was almost a personality type. I was just the kind of guy I wanted this thing to be over with and be in my rearview mirror so quick. I'll just take the blunt of all of it. And what I'm not doing is I'm not helping these other people learn. Learn what God wants them to learn. And I'm getting. I'm getting a spanking and a cleanup that I really don't deserve.

And then you end up. Then you end up resenting it. Resenting.

Then later on after you let it happen, you start resenting it. So when you don't let blame be assigned properly, the fact is you're going to have to come back around and probably deal with the fact that it's trying to make you bitter and trying to be a toxin in your life. And I've been guilty of that. So I'm teaching it. But being very honest with you, that I've probably not yet mastered it. Restitution. I think you're good on this one because I think just about everybody watching knows our story, too. And I gotta be honest with you, you took that part of the restoration process and you probably aced it. Knocked it out of the park, knocked the grand slam. Because you wanted it to be known that this will never be a part of my life again.

Right.

I'm gonna let you talk about that because you can talk about it probably with more passion. Well, because you. You walked it out publicly.

Yeah. What is restitution? Restitution is going above and beyond to pay back.

Restoration is.

Yeah. To pay back the debt you owe or the damage you've done. To go above and beyond, to let the people that you've hurt, the people you violated, know that this will never be a part of my life again. Right. Scripture, Zacchaeus, perfect, Exactly. Took more than he should take as a tax collector. But because he was so sorry for being that way, he said, I'm going to pay back four times more than what I owe to prove to you.

And Proverbs says, the thief, if he be found, must return seven times. He must not return what he took. He must return what he took times seven. Because God demands restitution of the thief. Zacchaeus, just in the sheer presence of Jesus. Jesus never brought up.

Never. Never.

But being in his presence brought such Deep conviction. He said, I'm going to go above and beyond to make this right. And restitution really doesn't have to do with getting a person to forgive you. Restitution, I think, has to do with more rebuilding trust.

Yeah, it does.

It's the trust process. Forgiveness is the decision. Trust has to be re. Earned.

It's longer.

And restitution, going above and beyond what you have to. I rem.

It makes you credible.

When me and you were doing everything we could to repair our marriage, I remember you came to me, here's my keys.

I was about to say, what's an example of restitution?

Here's the computer. Here's my phone.

Here's my phone. At any time you got the password, you can log in. My phone's never turned down. It's up.

Well, you gave away your phone for a year.

Over a year.

You did, over a year. Yeah. You didn't even have one.

No car.

Didn't have one.

And social media for years.

And you didn't roll your. Here's my phone. No, you didn't do that. Here. I don't need it.

And if there's any time. This is so important that you go into rebuilding trust and restitution kicking and screaming.

It's not real. It's not authentic.

Yeah, it's not real. You really aren't sorry. You're just mad you got caught. That's the difference in David's repentance and Saul's repentance. Saul was like, yeah, but I sinned, but David's is, I just sinned and God do something with my heart. That's the difference. That's how you can tell if the person that's violated you or. Or if. If you violated somebody. If you go into it very resentful and you're like, ugh, I gotta show on my phone. Or, oh, I can't believe they're asking me to not go on this girl's trip. Or, you know, it's. It's the attitude in which it's done with. I wanted to do it because I wanted so bad to rebuild trust and I was willing to do whatever it took.

You loved me.

Yeah, I loved.

You loved me. You wanted to do it and it was received. And I remember, I've just let people in on a very vulnerable moment here. You remember at night I took you out to eat and bought your brand new phone and gave it back.

Yeah.

And I remember I gave you that and said my hand was trembling when I gave it to you. Why? Because in this day and time, that is a symbol of trust has been regained. Because a lot of people nowadays and times, if there's something that is an alternative in your life that you're trying to sustain, this is the way we keep it so strong.

Yeah, you can go way underground with a self help.

So one of the first things Hope did was take this. And then after about a year or whatever of her just, you know, basically, I'm going to show you how much I love you and I'm going to show you that I'm sorry and this won't happen again. And I remember the Lord spoke to me and said, it's time. And I went and bought you a brand new iPhone. I took you out to eat and.

I still had it in the bag.

And I remember when I reached across the table and told you that, your eyes lit up almost like I was asking you to get married. Because I knew what it meant. It wasn't the phone. I mean, you.

I knew we had crossed a huge canyon.

Something had been recovered that had been lost. And most people probably thought we'd never recover.

So, yeah, you can recover from screwing up. There's a lot of steps to rebuild credibility.

We probably talked 10 or 12, just right here. How much time we got, by the way? Because I got one or two more. I didn't time it. I don't know how much time we got.

Got about 10 minutes.

Got three minutes.

10 minutes.

Okay. Allow yourself time for recovery.

That's so true. It doesn't happen overnight.

Preachers want to screw up. All right, I didn't preach for three weeks.

Now I'm back in the pulpit.

I didn't preach for a couple of weeks and I need to get back. No, allow yourself time for recovery. Allow yourself the time to get what you need from God and to let other people get what they need from you. There's things that you need to rebuild when you have lost trust. Trust. I've always said this is. My definition is repeated reality. That's not Webster's, that's Ron Carpenter. Repeat. I learn what I learn from you by your patterns, not by your potential. I don't study your potential. I study your patterns. And when I look at your patterns, you teach me who you are and you teach me what you are. And so recovery is not just for you. Recovery is for the people that follow you.

And healing takes time.

True healing takes time. For instance, I tell people, I said, you know, if I got a deep laceration in my arm, you would see me go a while with Stitches. You would see me go a while. I wouldn't go work out. You'd see me go a while. I probably won't need sweat to get in it. I don't want it to get infected. I would allow it time to recover. And recovery means you do not assume normal activity.

Right.

You refrain from normal activity. And this is where I come out.

And that type of cut is different than just a finger cut. I tell people about healing and how long it takes to heal and to recover.

Depends on the cut.

It depends on the certain. The what? Like if you have open heart surgery and you slit, you're going to be out a while. You're going to be out, you're going to be down, you're going to be in a sterile environment. It matters where you go and who you listen to and who has your ear to make sure that you recover right so that you heal right. My dad just had surgery two weeks ago.

Eight weeks.

I said eight weeks. Non weight bearing on the foot. On his foot. I mean, his whole life has stopped. But they said if you don't do this, it's not going to heal properly and you'll never walk the same.

And people getting back into the game too soon.

Yeah.

Is almost destined to repeat itself.

Yeah.

It's almost death. So your dad's already had one surgery and he didn't allow it time to heal.

Right.

It never was right. And he had to repeat it. I preached that right there. So if you don't allow yourself time to recover, many times the activity is destined to repeat itself. Allow yourself time to recover. Ministry. If you're in ministry and you have a transgression or you have some type of moral failure. Let me throw this out there and we'll wrap it up. Number one, own it. I've noticed something about church people. I've noticed that church people tend actually they are gracious, they are loving. When you and I went through the hardest time of our life, I don't think we lost one member. I remember going back the next week wondering if anybody would still believe in us. And I remember the building was packed.

But it's because of how we handled it.

Yeah, exactly. Right. Own it. We didn't duck, dodge, dive. We got right up and said, this is what's happened, this is what's going on. As distasteful, as painful and as ugly as it was, most people just cannot abide a liar.

Right.

They can abide somebody that screws up and makes a mistake. But lying, there's something about lying and the People feeling deceived, that they have a very difficult time get over. If you have screwed up, own it. Own it. The next thing you've got to do is you got to confess it. Own it totally. Then confess it. And if you're a leader, yep, you got to confess it publicly.

Confess your faults, one to another, that.

You may be healed.

That you may be healed.

So you might can move on with the activity. But healing has stopped till you've confessed it's not. You've just caused a standstill. So confess it then. Thirdly, this is the tough one. The total and complete surrender. Submission to a mentor. You might want to speak about that. Total and complete.

Listen, I was in my 40s when our marriage just unraveled, crumbled. My life fell apart. I went to Living Waters Ministry, submitted my life to Lee and Denise Boggs.

I don't know if they really believe that. Tell them what that means.

I just don't even understand. Y' all don't know what I did.

Tearing a ponytail, no makeup. I had no car keys.

I couldn't go anywhere I wanted to go. I couldn't go to cvs. I could not go to Starbucks. I could not pick up the phone and call who I wanted to call. I had to ask permission for everything. And, you know, most people would cock their neck and say, well, I'm a grown woman. You know, I don't have to do that at all. Well, do you want to be healed? Do you want credibility? You have to submit yourself to somebody else. Because when you are broken, you cannot resubmit yourself.

You don't put yourself back together.

Yeah. You don't put yourself back together. You need help.

You can't restore yourself.

No.

Now let me. And so when you unconditionally submit to a leader in your life that says, I will walk you through restoration, you do every single thing that is asked of you. And you don't decide when you're ready.

They do.

They decide when you're ready. Why? Because when you step back into the game, people may not believe in you yet, but they believe in the name of the mentor.

Yes.

So if the mentor is putting you forth, then they believe in you enough to allow them.

So good.

You see what I'm talking about?

So good.

And then they believe in the name of the one who's restoring you until you've had time to reestablish your own name.

Wish I had some money, I'd sew it right here.

You cannot restore yourself. You cannot heal yourself. You cannot decide even when you're ready.

No.

If you could decide when you're ready, you never would have been in that position in the first place. So it's the conditional submission to somebody else in your life to say, I'm placing this process, this journey, in your hands. And if you ask me to pull my ponytail up and help me clean the house, I'll do that, then that's what I'll do. And God will use that in my life somehow. And that's where I said you aced it. And you did. Every bit of. Was tough to watch the level in which you submitted because you were still my wife. You were my queen, you were my princess, you were my first lady. But I saw you in that time to say, you know what? I will become whatever I need to become in this process to let God do whatever it is God wants to do. So anything you want to add? Probably. We've given them about 20 points right there.

Yes, we have. I just pray that this helps somebody. You know, I think the number one key, the key here is knowing that God has not called us to a perfect life. Nowhere did he ever put that pressure on us and demand. Yeah, we're to aim, we're to strive, we're to press toward the high call of God in Christ Jesus. It's a high call. It's hard. It's to up and oppress is hard. We're to press toward that. But we will mess up. We will disappoint people. But it's all in how you handle the failures and the fall and the disappointment that makes you so successful.

Let me end with this. When you said that, just remind me of this. People confuse holiness and righteousness. Righteousness is God. Jesus making you perfect with God. You have been made righteous before God without anything that needs to be done because the blood has done it all. So that right there has been perfected.

Jesus did it.

But conduct and behavior has not been perfected.

No, that's a process.

And that's a process of sanctification, a process of maturing your faith, a process of growing in holiness. And while that process is being completed, you got to understand these principles. Because if you don't understand these principles, you're going to spend your whole life cleaning up your own mess. And that is not what God has called you to. We love them, don't we?

Yeah, we do. We love you. Listen, got tons of resources for you. Ron's got a YouTube channel. I have a YouTube channel.

Sundays, every Sunday on our live Facebook. I church, I youth, I church I kids. I prayer our groups, we got everything for a virtual experience.

You could want Facebook, Instagram, Riff. We're on the RIF app.

Ask me anything.

Ask me anything. On Wednesday mornings, it's pray and slay with just gotta. We're doing what we do to try to equip you right to be better, to give you the tools to run this race. We're here for you. We love you. So glad that you tuned in with us. Share this with a friend. People that you know that needs this. And guess what? Another episode drops next Thursday. We love you.

See you soon.