[2024.2.15] Pastor Steven Furtick's Most Personal Interview Ever! (Almost 3 hours!)

There is more to you than just what you see right now.

Yeah.

This might be the last one. Who knows what I'm going to say? That was. That was the shift. That's why I wrote the book. To the greatest podcast of all time.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Got a big episode today, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervy. A little nervy. But it's gonna be good.

I gotta pee.

Should I pee now or just not pee?

I gotta pee. Pee. My boy. What was that? Drive. He's not too dead.

I did the whole 24.

Karatman's gonna. Hey, JT, how are you? Hi.

I'm great.

How are you?

I'm great, man.

Thank you. Appreciate it. We're going in live a, right?

Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. Hello. How are you? Good. How are you? Good.

Welcome to another episode of the Youth Nation podcast. Today we have a very special episode, but before we do, we just want to introduce the one, the only, Elijah Furtick, who's back from college to continue hosting. Elijah. You feel good?

I feel great.

You feel ready?

I'm hyped. This is my. The most hyped I've ever been for an episode. I mean, it's easily our biggest guess, but.

Oh, easily.

The layers going on here are crazy. That's what I was thinking about before the pod, because he's my dad. My pastor. Your pastor, your boss.

And your dad.

And my dad spiritually. Do you want to. Do you want to introduce our guest today?

Man?

We have the one, the only, the greatest dad of all time, greatest preacher of all time, New York Times bestselling author, Grammy award winning. Come on, songwriter. The man, the myth, the legend, Pastor Steven Furtick.

Let's go, man.

Oh, that's so good to have you. Thank you, son. Keep going.

How many more of those you got prepared?

We've got time.

As long as you don't tell me to stop, I can.

Don't stop. Don't stop. You ever seen somebody go like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Oh, man, I love that. Before we get going, I just.

I love when a preacher gets up and the people are trying to show him a standing ovation, right? And they go, sit down, sit down. No, no, no. It's for the glory of God. They're just trying to be nice, right.

Man, they just want to honor you.

Making the crowd you're in.

Thank you, man. We've been talking about a way for you to interview me for three years.

For the longest this has been in the works.

And we kept going, like, when will be the time? And y' all have been doing such a good job with the pod. I'm proud of you because I see how hard you go and I see how you wait for people to finish concerts at two in the morning and haul stuff all the way to Texas. And it's good. I mean, I thought when you did an episode or two, like, well, let's see. Let's see how serious they are about this. But you've been consistent. And I think some of the conversations that you've had are conversations that if people really, really sit with them, they're life changing. So to me, it's more than just getting some good interviews. It's like putting truth in people, you know? So I'm really proud of you.

Thank you. That means the world. That honestly does.

Yeah, it really does. And it's just been so. Such a special journey to be able to do with him too. For sure, we're going to get into Elijah and fatherhood and all that stuff. But, bro, it's just been with. With you, bro, it's been. It's. I remember the day I came to you and was like, is this a good idea?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, it's been floating around in my head. I feel like it's something God placed on my heart. And I think you were 16 at the time, which is so crazy.

Yeah.

It's like, bro, is this even, like, a good idea? And you were like, whoa. Yeah, like, let's do this.

Let's.

Let's run it.

So it's been. It's a full circle moment to be able to do with him and with this house, so great work.

What number episode is this?

This will be around, like, 25.

25.

Yeah.

We got something in the books. Yeah.

Yeah.

Good foundation.

Yeah, for sure.

Definitely. Gotta add more to the foundation today.

Yeah. This might be the last one. Who knows what I'm gonna say? They might shut us down.

Shut us down.

This is Unfiltered After Dark.

That's what I'm saying.

After Dark.

Speaking of Unfiltered, you wanna introduce our game to start out?

Yes. So we normally start off with a game.

I wondered if y' all were gonna do this to me.

Today we got a special one because we were intentional about this one. You don't see it coming, and we hope it's fun for you. But today we are going to play a little game. The game is going to be. Is this a sermon title you've preached or Is this a Metallica song? And you're going to have to guess which is which.

I should win this, right?

It would be very funny if you got one, right?

Yeah. I can't imagine slipping on this. Let's go.

Okay. Let's do it. And this could be from any time we've been back in the vault. So first one is I'm the One.

No, that's a sermon.

Sermon title, Correct?

Yeah.

One is a Metallica song, but I'm the One is a sermon title.

There we go. Ding, ding.

December 9, 2019 is when you preach that one.

No. Yes, that's right. And then I did. He's the one. He was the one. This last year.

That was really recent.

I didn't realize that was a sequel. Thank you, jt.

Keep going.

Definitely a Metallica song. I'll just go ahead and.

Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Okay, here we go. Next one. Too Far Gone.

That's Metallica song.

Metallica song off the album.

He's too good.

72 seasons. Okay, on to the next one. We're too.

You know about 72 seasons.

I don't.

That's gonna let the first 18 years of life form our psychology, and those experiences, whether traumatic or developmentally productive, shape us into who we are. So 72 seasons. 18 years times four is the whole theory. 72 seasons and you're 18.

So the 72 is 18.

And our church is about to turn 18. Turn 18. So I've been listening to Matte Metallica 72 seasons as preparation spiritually for our 18th anniversary. Wow. And in honor of your life.

What are the odds? Let's go.

This is great.

All right, next one. I like this game.

Next one. Next one. Here we go. The Day that Never Comes.

That's Metallica song.

Metallica off the album Death Magnet.

Magnetic.

Magnetic. Sorry. Yeah, he's corrected.

He won't let you slip by with incorrect Metallica facts.

Okay, next one.

You can misquote a Bible verse, but leave Metallica alone.

M quote a Metallica alone.

Leave me out of it. Okay, next one. Before and After.

That is a song that I wrote with Amanda Cook and Jason Ingram. Not Metallica. And it is also a sermon titled that I preached about the baptism of Jesus and how he received the affirmation of his father before he was tempted by the devil. And so it is a song title, but not a Metallica song title. And a sermon title. Right? Yeah.

Bingo.

February 26th, 2018.

Let's see if I can get him with my four.

Okay. All right. He's four for four right now. And adding.

I don't look like he's going to slip up.

I don't think so.

All right, you ready?

Ready.

The struggle within.

The struggle within. It suits you fine. Struggle within, you're ruin. Struggle within, you seal your own coffin. You're struggling with. Is a deep cut from the Metallica Black album. I believe it is track number 11 on the Black Album, 1991, produced by Bob Rock.

Black Album is too easy. We shouldn't have given him that one. But it is a deep cut.

He said it was a deep cut.

It's a deep cut.

Wow. Reaching out for something you got to feel you thought was real.

Okay. Starving son.

That is crazy.

That was a sermon about Jacob and Esau.

But.

But what was so fun about that one? I compared it to the prodigal son.

Okay.

Remember, the prodigal son left home, spent his inheritance. Wild living harlots. All that comes back 808's in the house. The older brother's like, you can't party. He squandered our money. Father's like, no, he's dead. He's alive. And the son who had stayed home said, I've been living with you this whole time. You never grilled me any hamburgers. You never gave me a cookout.

Right.

And the father said, son, you're always with me. All that I have is yours. And I talked about, isn't it a shame that he was living in the house with the father and starving? The one that left the house was starving because he left the father. But some of us, we're in church, we know God, and we're still starving because we can't receive what God has for us.

And that was all the way back in 2014, was it?

Is that the self.

July 31st.

July 31st.

That's the 14th series.

Yep. That would have been the time frame.

Yep.

Dang.

But I thought it was cool because then I started studying all the different father, son, sons, twins in the Bible. Jacob, Esau. And I thought, like, the prodigal son story was kind of a retelling of Jacob and Esau because you have the older brother Esau, who should get the blessing. The younger brother gets the blessing. Prodigal son story. The older brother should be blessed. He's living in the house. And then the younger brother gets the blessing even though he doesn't deserve it.

And why did he give Jacob the blessing? Because he was starving.

Yeah. He gave him the blessing for a bowl of beans. So, like, Esau would be like a 16 year old girl who maybe is starving for affirmation, starving to be told, hey, you're. You're beautiful. And so some guy comes along and gives her that little shred of affirmation, that little crumb of affirmation, and she might sell herself out, maybe physically, maybe go further than she wants to or feels like her values should let her go. But sometimes when you are hungry inside, you forget who you are and you trade away your identity for temporary relief from the sensation of a feeling that sometimes you can't even name. And some of the things that we do in our lives that we look back on and feel shame about, we didn't do it because we were evil. We did it because we were hungry. So that was. That whole series was Jacob.

Yeah, because the whole Delta selfie was Jacob. So then that's how you kind of brought Ty.

I should bring that back. I should bring that whole series back.

That would be dope. A revamp.

When I think about that series, like the, the whole impetus of it was something Bishop Jake said. He said that. That God can't bless who you pretend to be. He can only bless who you really are.

Yeah. Legendary Bishop quote. In our house, at least.

Legendary Bishop quote. Which is redundant to say. Legendary bishop quote.

We can just say bishop quote.

But yeah, it was really cool to go through Jacob's life because he kept pretending to be his brother Esau. He kept thinking that if I do this, I'll be blessed. I'll wrestle with God, I'll be blessed. And then when he finally let go of who he thought he needed to be to be blessed and said, I'm Jacob, then God really blessed him. So that was a good series. I have really good memories of that series.

I would be so hyped if you did a revamp of that. I definitely think you should.

Do you think in a way though, it'd be like almost, I don't want to say a cop out to go back and repreach the old series that it would feel like.

I feel like there's such new implications with how much like technology in the world has changed since 2014, that it's almost like you might even need an update.

You know, it might be a little bit hard for me too, to hear what I said 10 years ago and say, I don't even think that's right anymore. Maybe you could have a chance of.

Limitation, fix it up a little bit without anyone looking back.

Yeah, it could be like my own fixing my own bad theology from 10 years ago.

If you Ever run out of sermons? Now we got a plan B.

You know, I heard somebody say the other day, they're like, I think Stephen Furtick or Elevation is okay, but I don't agree with everything he says. And I'm like, I don't agree with everything I say while it's coming out of my mouth. I don't agree with it. When did that become a prerequisite?

Right? That is amazing.

That's crazy.

Holy.

Yes. I'm getting hot. I mean, we're already. We're already heating up, and we're only on the game. We're already getting into.

I want the whole game.

Okay. The thing that should not be.

That's Metallica song.

Master of Puppets.

Yeah, it's off. Master of Puppets.

Too easy.

Too easy.

Haunted Heart.

Haunted Heart. I preached. You know how Christians hate Halloween. Like, we have hayrides and we have harvest festivals, but we don't celebrate Halloween. And it's on October 31st. But we don't celebrate Halloween. Hallelujah. Trunk or tree. Yeah, I'm not making a statement about that. I think that's great if it's your conviction, but I did that sermon, the Haunted Heart, on Halloween on a weekend. Either it was Halloween or it was close to. And I remember making people put these, like, big lots rubber masks on, but I don't remember what the point of the sermon was. I just remember. You just remember the mask.

That sounds crazy with no other concept.

From a psalm or something like that. Okay, that makes it sound a little better.

Oh, my God.

That one was November 2, 2005.

November 2. So a little post Halloween.

That's a OG sermon. That's like, right when the church starts.

Well, if. If Halloween is coming up or Halloween has just passed, you always get to make this joke as a preacher. Okay, so any aspiring preachers just take note, right? You get to say something like, hey, Halloween is actually a Christian holiday. Every Sunday we wear our mask and pretend to be something that we're not. And you know what I'm saying? It's always a little bit of a.

I love that. Okay, so before we get into the questions, specifically about the book, we wanted to hit the fun questions first. Kind of. Kind of. The ones not related to the book, the best ones that we felt like we needed your answer from. But before we get into that, I want to start off by saying a lot of people might not realize this or not really think about it, but you don't really sit down to do a podcast often. So I wanted to ask you, when's the last time you really even sat down and did a podcast. And thank you for, like, this is such a special privilege for you to be able to come on here. It's so rare for you to even do something like this. I feel like.

Yeah, same for me. Like, I woke up this morning excited to talk to you, like, hoping we can capture what we have when no cameras are on. Because I told somebody the best sermons that I've ever preached. I preached to my oldest son. They're not recorded, they're not on YouTube, they're not on Spotify, they're not in this book. Some of the stuff kind of filtered gets there. But I think when you started the Bible club a year and a half ago, and I know I kind of started it. You kind of started it, but joint effort. Let's just tell the story about that real quick.

Yeah. Because we have to. Because we're going to reference it so much.

Yeah. I want to just make sure people know where we're coming from in our relationship. You know, we've had the typical father and son bumps and all of those things, but, you know, it's a pleasure to be your dad. And one of the ways that it is is because you can think on a level that a lot of people my age and even I struggle to think. And I'm 43, maybe 44 by the time this comes out. Em, I always felt from the time you were like 5 or 6 years old that if I showed you what sermon I was working on, you would get it quit and it would freak me out. You're like 7 or 8, and I'm showing you, like, then I want to do Jacob and Esau and the bowl of beans and the prodigal son. And you never felt like a kid.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it would make me want to tell you more. And I don't know if you remember how many Saturdays I'd pull you around, like two o'. Clock. I do for that five o' clock service. And I go, this is what I'm going to preach. How's it sound? Still cooking. And you'd get so excited. And I think it was a year and a half ago when you and Kelsey were reading a chapter a day because you were like, I need to read the Bible with my girlfriend. That's what you're supposed to do. I think one of the podcast guests.

Had said it was when we had the maddie pod. She was like, the men, like, we asked her, what do you look for in a man? She was like, I need A man who's like the spiritual leader in my relationship. I was like, dude, I gotta lock in.

I gotta start some plan Genesis. So you're like coming to me. You're like, me and Kelsey are reading a chapter a day and we're going to go straight through from Genesis. And I'm like, son, you need to start with John. You need to go to the New Testament. You need to read Philippians or Psalms or something. You're going to really get bogged down in the New Testament. You're like, no. So I want to do it. I want to see what the Bible's really all about, how it was originally put. I want to follow the storyline in the order. So I'm like, all right, all right, do it. And you came to me one day and you're like, dad, the Bible's getting real weird. I'm noticing some things in the Bible. Bible's kind of R rated. It's kind of twisted. I said, where are you at? And you said, Genesis 18 or whatever it was. And you said, somebody's wife is sleeping with the pharaoh. And he said it was his sister. And I thought it was just incest. I don't know what's happening. And I said, okay, what chapter was it? And you told me. And that night I just went in and wrote a little sentence and I said, Genesis 18:3 or whatever it was might mean this for us. So that's our key verse just to help us. And it was a sentence.

Remember?

It was so small.

Super short.

Yeah. And you and Kelsey texted me back and you were so fired up. You were like, wow, Mind blow fire emoji. Like, this is the greatest thing ever. This unlocks it. Well, you're brilliant. You're a genius. And honestly, it fed my ego. I'm like, all right, I'll send you another one tomorrow about Genesis 19. See how you like that. And you know, because men are like that. If you'll reward us or encourage us.

Oh, yeah.

We will lift a car and it on our finger if you tell us. Oh, you're so strong. So honestly, that's how our thing started. And then it was Genesis 20:21. I went in and figured out how to name group chat on text message, which honestly took me longer than reading the Bible chapter that night to figure out how to name it. And I did the math and I realized if you read one chapter of the Bible per day, it would take you four years to get through the Bible.

And that's how I got the time.

So we named our club Read the Bible in four years Club.

Yep.

And that was a year and a half ago, and we've done it every day. And what we began to do was I do a verse. You do a verse, Kelsey. And then your mom applies for the job. We gave her a trial run, fourth member. She got a trial month. She jumped in in Deuteronomy, and she.

Passed with flying colors.

And she made it. Wow. But I wanted to say that as we talked about doing a podcast, because I don't really feel like I came to do a podcast today. I feel like, hopefully, as a father to a son and as a pastor, that I can serve what you're trying to do with this podcast by saying some of the things I know. Maybe there are a lot of kids out there who can't talk to their parents about these things, or they don't feel like their relationship's at a place or they didn't have someone around, or even if you do, I just want to be able to speak to somebody today. Not necessarily like I would on a Sunday, but like, it was me and you, and we just finished our fourth set of squats, and you look at me and you ask one of these crazy, deep questions, and then 30 minutes later, we're still stalling to do our next.

That adrenaline exercise getting us yapping.

Yeah.

And that's how I want this to feel today. So I don't look at this like that. I look at it as a privilege for me to be able to share, because I know we're going to talk to each other, but I'm thinking somebody's going to find this right when they need it, a year from now, sitting there listening all alone, and go, that was for me. God spoke that to me. So, yeah, not only is it rare that I go on a podcast, but I've never, never been able to have this kind of conversation with you in front of people. So this is a big day.

And that's crazy that you say that, because literally on FaceTime last night, we were going through all the questions and everything, preparing, and that's the main goal that we set is, like, we just want to create a space for people to be able to see the side of you that they don't get to see. You know, the side of you when we're just in the pound, chilling, just talking like that side of you that we never get to capture. So I'm fired up.

I think.

I think we're going to showcase it pretty well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's beautiful. Well, I'm So excited you're here. And just some more of the lighthearted questions. I feel like you are such a intentional and disciplined person. So I was wondering, and maybe a lot of people out there are, what's, like your morning routine? What's kind of your day to day, day to day look like? Can you walk me through that? Because I know you guys would always used to work out together in the morning and stuff like that.

And then he left me and then he went and he. Unbelievable. And so now I sleep till noon. I have no motivation. When you went to college, honestly, there was about two weeks where I went down and did my workouts in the dark with no music. I didn't even put on shoes. It was so sad. I missed you so much. And. Yeah, so that's that. The funny part, I was tempted to laugh when you asked that. Not because of your question, but a while back, I realized I'm a collector of ideas. Whether that's ideas for sermons or songs, or if somebody tells me, hey, you should listen to this or you should watch this. I'm always collecting. There's a lot of stuff out there about morning routines. Through the years, I've added a lot of stuff to my life. I was having this slump recently, and I was like, let me just write down all the morning routine stuff that I know. About 15 minutes later, I was still writing. It became the longest list, and I realized if I did everything that is on this morning routine list, it would be 3pm And I was telling you, on my morning routine, I got to do my Bible reading, my meditation, my cold plunge, my sauna, and I don't even do a sauna. But then my workout, then my stretching after my workout because I'm 43 and my body needs to have all the foam rolling it can get. And then I'll have to do my morning pages for my creativity. And then at the time, I was teaching every day to the camera just as a way of preparing my own heart and stirring up my own spirit. And I wasn't even posting a lot of the stuff, but I was just doing it for a discipline. And I realized that all those things were not necessarily everyday tasks that I had to accomplish. They were just tools that I could use to get my mindset right so I don't have a routine. This is it. Every day. Most mornings, I work out. Okay, while I'm working out, I'm thinking about this. I'm going on the podcast today. I wonder what we'll talk about.

Can I say, every single waking morning of his life. He works out. That is the biggest underplay I've ever heard. He does not know how to take a rest day.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is absolutely true. Like, if I don't get to work out in the morning, I feel anxious the rest of the day.

I feel like it's a very crucial. If there's nothing else from the morning routine, I would say, well.

Cause think about it like when you preach, most of the work you do is in your mind. You're not out like you're carrying wood to somebody's car or something like that. But I'm thinking about the mystery of potential, of humanity that meets the divinity as symbolized by the gold that covers the acacia wood in the temple. That's a very dense thing to be walking around think about. And then you're thinking about people in your church who are hurting a kid out there who might be thinking about taking their own life and just carrying all of that. So the workout becomes for me where I can get in my body, out of my head. And Elijah will tell you it looks like a chaos factory. In the little room where we work out, we call it the pound. Have you been in the pound?

I've been in the pound. Yes.

You've been in the pound.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, if you walk in the pound right now, there's yellow legal pads and white pads and there's all this stuff sitting around writing on the wall. The scribbles that are on the. The pads. You would be like, I didn't know pastor had a three year old that came down here. Like, that's how the writing looks. But that will be the sermon Sunday.

Yep.

So what I would like to say about that, and I need to keep in mind that we're maybe talking to people who aren't like, you know, I have to be at school at 7. I can't really sit there and work out all morning.

Right, right.

But the point is, for me, I want you to collect things in your life that you can use as tools when you need them. So one of those is going to be developing a habit of how you read the Bible and then how you let the Bible read you, because it doesn't do any good to sit down and just rush through. I read a verse of the day and then you never think about it again. It's good to get it in your heart for that day. Another thing that I want you to get in your mind is like, what do you do when you're overwhelmed? What do you do to Set yourself up for the day so that you don't get so overwhelmed. How do you reset? And for me, my morning routine isn't as much about anymore. If I don't do these 12 things, I'm not allowed to eat lunch because I've been there before. I'm very committed and I'm very regimented, and I have to be, because if I'm not, I'll go off track.

Right.

And sometimes it's been too uptight. So I've had to look at. These are all tools, right?

Tools.

Journaling, gratitude journals. Sometimes I'm writing down a gratitude thing in the morning. Sometimes it'll go weeks. And I won't use that tool. And then I'll feel like I need to bring it back. So you're in a season of life where you're experimenting to find what are those tools that help you get tuned up to truth in the morning?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Tuned up to truth.

Tuned up to truth.

That is literally the best answer you could have possibly given that question. And we're going to get more into talking about those tools because that's something I feel like you talk about so much. But hard topic switch for our next question. Although a lot of these young cats, they might be out here thinking they're the drippiest preacher, Right? I say you're the OG of it all. I feel like you set the trends for how pastors would dress for decades to come, even if you don't realize that as much. So my question is, how do you balance being a pastor and having such good style? And do you ever feel like you take any heat for that?

I'll tell you this. There's been so many times that I have taken something from my closet and given it to you because I thought I was done wearing it. And then I see it on you, and I'm like, that looks so good. I want it back. Like, you make the clothes look so good. I'm like, let's go. Where'd you get that? You're like, from you give it back. It's like you show me the potential.

He's not lying.

Yeah, that happens. That happens.

That's so crazy.

No, I mean, I'm going to be honest with you about this. Okay. Because I could give you, like, a patent answer that says, well, it's not about what's on the outside. God looks at the heart. Well, that scripture that says, man looks at the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. Is God talking about David versus Saul, And Saul looked like a good king. But David had the heart of a good king. Secondly, what does the first part of the verse say?

Hmm. I'm not sure.

I just said it. Man, oh, man looks at theology.

Yeah.

Man looks at that word appeared.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're often so quick to rush to the second part of that, but.

It doesn't even say that's bad necessarily.

Well, we have to be aware that people look at us. And the thing about being a pastor was, even when we had no money, I understood that I'm making people look at me for 45 minutes every Sunday, and we got all these lights and cameras. So I at least want to be intentional about what I wear 100%. I've had some terrible misfires through the years. Like, when they ever do, like, an anniversary video and they're showing, like, 2009, I'm like, can we just do this with audio? Because I cannot. Those Sworsky crystals on the back pocket of those jeans, like, what was that?

That's fire.

The real answer to you is, I was never somebody who was very in love with fashion. But I remember your mom used to go to Dillard's on Saturday and find a sale rack and get this 399 shirt. $3.99 shirt. Let me qualify this. And I'd be so excited to wear it because it was new and she picked it out. And I started at that point going like, hey, it's not about how much something costs or whatever, but when I go in on Saturday or Friday or whatever, to say, this is what I'm going to wear on Sunday, even if it's casual or even if somebody on the comments is going to say, you know, why are you wearing a shirt that says Garth Brooks on it? Garth Brooks sang about alcohol and we are blessed, Lord. He turned water into wine. It's very hard for me to understand why people pay so much attention to those things, but I know that people look at the outward appearance. I'll tell you this. There was a dude who said in a young preacher seminar that if you're getting ready for your sermon and you spend more time thinking about your outfit than your outline. In other words, like, what people are going to see versus what God wants you to say, you got it out of balance.

Yeah.

And one of the things for me is I don't really want that to be consuming for me, but I do care about it. And there's a difference between being consumed by, you know, am I wearing that? Sometimes I like to wear pieces that others gave me. I have a lot of friends who will send me this or that. And a lot of times I'll go, like, I don't know if I could pull this off, but it makes me feel the love of this friend that gave it to me. And I'll wear it, and I'll kind of feel like they're there with me. And then sometimes it's just like, ugh, I feel like I look so dumb in all of this, and I don't even know if my message is any good. And, wow. Like, what is actually going on with these gray hairs and the beard? I mean, but think about how many.

Kids are going through that exact same thought process every morning before they're waking up and going to school, you know? Like, that's why I feel like this is such an.

It's big. Yeah, it's big. It's big. In my day, when I was 16, we like to shop at Goodwill because I was a punk rocker, like Rancid and Green Day. And so if you could get your knockoff Doc Martens or your dickies or whatever like that, you could pretty much do it for a cheap price, and it always becomes a source of identity. But you know what the thing that worries me so much when we get into these conversations is? Man looks at the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. To me, it's a problem if I can't see past the costume to see the character of somebody. You know, Holly and I talk about this all the time, jt, that all of this stuff that we put on is costume. It's all costume. Like, I don't honestly understand half of the stuff y' all wear. I don't understand a fourth of the stuff y' all wear. I know that that says more about my lack of relevance than it does with your fashion. But one of the things I love about my age right now is I love to see the time. Not when you've got the fit exactly right. And the shoes, that means nothing to me. I mean, it's fine. But when I see you smile, when I hear you come through with a vulnerability and share something, when I see your character shine through your costume, you just have to take my word for it. Like, I care about this stuff, too. I just. As much as anybody. I'm like, man, I want to wear something that I like, the way I feel and the way I look. But to be defined by that, I think that is one of the saddest things about being a teenager is that you are so judged by that that people never get beneath that costume to See who you really are.

And, yeah, they never give you the time of day, almost.

And then we learn these little rules to play along with. It's like, oh, well, if I wear this, I'll be seen as that. And so then we almost learn how to crack the code.

Yeah.

And the problem with that is not so much that it makes you evil or it makes you bad, but I think it can leave you feeling obsessive about all the wrong things. I know we can't wave a wand and make it where everybody just looks past and sees, like, how God sees, but just hear it from my heart. How many times have we talked about this? That people are always impressed by the wrong things? Always. Even when it comes to crowds and appreciation and things like that. You'll hear somebody sing a great song and everybody will clap and they'll go, wow, they're so anointed. Well, maybe. Or maybe they just have great vocal cords because, man looks at the outward appearance, the talent, the thing that they can see. And God looks at the heart. So I'd say even if, you know. Yeah, I kind of want to put some effort and some energy into how I look. That's great. Like, I want to look good for your mom.

Right.

I want to look good for her. I want her to look at me and be like, yeah, Seth, Derek. Take that. Those are the boys that she talk to. Yeah, like, take that.

Those are their real names.

Look how I did. That's real names.

We get last names, too.

This is the podcast to end youth, the Youth Nation.

We're airing it out.

Yeah, we're airing it out. We're doing it all. But I want you to see the balance in that. Like, I get it, I get it. But for me, it's not about how much that cost or how much that didn't cost. It's about, is it consuming me? Because it's just a costume, Right? It's a costume.

That's crazy, man.

And knowing that, then you realize, well, that's a part of it, but it's a costume. It's not me.

Right.

It's a costume. And even if you just know that at age. At age 15 or 50, you're ahead of most people, because for some, it's not clothes. It's going to be like their house, their car. It's going to be something that you're going to use as a costume. Always something to try to set yourself apart and elevate yourself, but realizing that that's not the true you, it sets you apart in so many ways. And that actually is the most confident person you can be. Someone that knows that this is a costume. And who I really am is made up of something so much more valuable.

I don't need this almost to validate me.

Yeah.

That's not where it comes being honest enough to go, but I still like it, and I still do it. I was listening to a preacher one time, and he was like, it's not about the boots. It's not about the jacket. And he was wearing the boots and the jacket that he was saying it's not about. So I'm like, well, let's be honest with these kids and say that even as preachers, we care about things and we put it in. Yes, but I tried to teach you from the time you were, like, 12, caring what people think about you is one thing. Being controlled by it is another. I would apply that to this conversation. Caring what people think about you is good. That's what's going to make sure you brush your teeth, treat people good, make sure that they are getting a good impression of you. But if you are controlled by it, then I think it becomes idolatry, because that person's opinion becomes your God.

Jeez.

Wow.

That's amazing.

I mean, I think that's one of the most helpful tools you gave me. So just to any youth out there that's hearing this, even if you can't really process it or accept it right now, definitely tuck that one in your back pocket, because it's a good one to have.

And we struggle with it. Yeah, we struggle with it whether we're going to high school or whether we're going to our 30th high school reunion.

It doesn't really go away.

It doesn't go away. So that's part of what God uses to grow you in your life is to notice, like, okay, maybe every day, every week, every month, every year, I'm a little less controlled by it, and I'm making progress in it. But go easy on yourself, too, because people are brutal, and I know that they are. So I hope that's kind of what you were asking me. I didn't mean to take it so deep. No, that I feel like you're unlocking this deep in me, freaking out on this housebreaker, and I'm scared because we're.

On the fun quest.

We're on the fun icebreakers.

Who only knows what's coming up?

I don't care, though, if it's three parts. If it's whatever happens here. I want somebody to hear the things that we can't always break down. Because to sit there and break that down in a sermon, it would take your entire clock. But just maybe even to hear that. Okay, Okay. I always hear people say, as a Christian, I shouldn't care what others think about me. Only God can judge me, and only God matters. That's not realistic to live that way. Of course you care what people think about you, but are you controlled by it? Does it cause you to compromise your values? Does it cause you to get into addictions? Does it cause you to give away things that you really should be saving for God? That's the question.

Yeah.

I feel like oftentimes, like, we swing the pendulum so far the other way. As in, like, you know, we want to get all of our validation, of course, from the Lord and everything. And so we're like, I don't care what anybody thinks or says anymore. You know what I'm saying? But it's so true. I've never thought about it like that. It's like, well, you probably should care. Should care.

Yeah.

But we have a name for people who don't care.

What's that?

Sociopath. You want to care? I want to make sure I'm including you in a conversation. I want to make sure that I'm making you feel special. I want to make sure that I'm coming across in the best way that I can. I want to represent God well. But if I think that that comes down to this.

Yeah.

I mean, take me to Dillard's right now. Put me in a $3.99 shirt from Dillard's if they still make them. If there is still Dillard's, and I will still be anointed on this couch. I don't care.

It doesn't change a thing.

Yeah, it doesn't change anything. Well, then why don't you preach in that all the time? Because I'm respecting the platform that I'm put on. But taking that away would not strip me of what makes me valuable.

Clip that.

You know that's true. You know that's true.

I know for a fact.

But it's harder for all of us to live there.

Yeah.

Me included.

It's such a tension. I mean, that you just spoke to that in exactly the way I wanted you to.

Really?

Yeah.

That was that.

That was perfect. Okay, so next one we got hard topic switch. What does godly dating look like to you in 2024?

When I started dating your mom, we had this standard, we're not going to kiss before we say that we're engaged. And then when we got engaged, we're like, let's don't kiss till our wedding day. And I told that story everywhere, from public school rallies where everybody in the room started laughing. And that was a mistake because that really wasn't the audience to be going there with, but I was learning. I told that story to you as an example. Not that that should be a standard, but I think that the standard that you set is indicative of the value that you ascribe. So I'm going to give you an example for that. There are certain things in my life that are really locked up physically, spiritually, emotionally. And there are certain things in my life that are out in the open. Okay. What concerns me the most about if I were dating in 2024, and I know it's a broad question on purpose, because you just want me to take this wherever I feel led to take it.

Exactly.

I feel that without setting your standard, by the spirit of God, you are going to be completely and totally lost. Not only when it comes to social media, not only when it comes to different sexual things that are now way more prominent, because it has changed a lot, but inside of yourself. And one of the greatest things about standards like godly dating or back in the day, man, there was a whole movement in Christianity right before we were dating called I kiss dating goodbye. And it was, dating in itself is a sin you need to have courtship.

Yeah, I've heard there's a book about that, right?

Yeah. And it is actually a beautiful, beautiful concept. And there was nothing wrong with the idea, commitment, because the premise of it was the way that we do dating in America doesn't prepare us for marriage, it prepares us for divorce.

Whoa.

So, you know, you try it, you don't like it, you move on. You try it, you don't like it, you move on. You try it, you don't like it, you move on. The problem with that became, though, that then we got in this battle about, okay, well, I'm not dating for a year, and now I've still got all these desires and what do I do with them?

Right.

And it. It didn't really solve anything. It just basically was like, mopping up the floor rather than fixing what was busted at the pipe.

Wow.

You know the analogy.

I'm saying that's a crazy analogy.

Yeah. Because anytime we just make it about rules, rules, rules, rules, then we miss the heart of the relationship.

Right.

So, I don't know. I would throw it back on you to say, do you think that's weird? That we were like, we're not going to kiss until our wedding day. Does that sound almost like alien to y' all to hear that that's where we set our line at that point in time?

No, sir. I think that that is the ideal way to do it. Because I feel like so many of my friends or whoever that I. I hear the problems they get in their relationships is based off of kind of this jealousy of, you know, whoever their partner's past is. And I feel like that's such a thing that sort of creeps into so many relationships these days. And so I think, like, the more that you can eliminate stuff before you meet your wife, like, that's gonna be kind of awkward if you meet your wife and she's kissed another dude. Like, if anyone's honest, you'd probably rather her not do that and same her for you. So I do think that that's, like, ideally the best way to do it, 100%.

And I think when you said the word ideal, it tapped something in me. Like, our ideal of what a relationship is going to be like is usually so unrealistic. You know, there is no ideal friendship. There is no ideal father son relationship. There is no ideal marriage or dating relationship, for that matter. But I would ask this question just like, if I was looking for one guiding principle. Are we after the same thing? Are we both seeking to glorify God with our lives? Let's start there. Do we both want to be more like Jesus, even though we know we have struggles? And if you honestly know that that's not happening? How can two walk together unless they be in agreement? If you're chasing one thing and I'm chasing another, it's going to rip us both apart. So I think you start from there. And, man, I don't know how we would have done if we were dating in 2024. I think it's tougher, but I think that Jesus is still enough. And I think that a form of purity still matters. And I'm not saying don't kiss, but I'm saying. And I used to teach dating seminars. Y' all can go as deep as you want. I did. I did dating seminars for three years.

Geez.

Yeah. If I was going to preach somewhere, I'd say, now give me. Give me Saturday morning for the dating seminar.

And you would have just whoever. Whoever wanted to come. Or was it like, couples?

Like, they all had to come. Sometimes I would just get the boys, and then we went in.

That's when it got real.

That's when I Could. That is the explicit Youth Nation for Men Only podcast.

Can't find those on the vault.

But I want you to know that I think there is a great, great value on your life. And so anybody you allow to be connected with you, or especially the connections that you make that are physical, I want you to guard the treasure God has put in you. And I'm not saying that as somebody who thinks it's easy. Oh, that's easy for you. You're married. I wasn't always married. You know, we had to navigate many of the same things. It's not like, because I was anointed as some holy man of God, I didn't have the normal hormones and normal attraction. I mean, I can sit here and talk to you about how attracted I am to your mom physically. Would you like that?

No, sir.

Okay, next question.

All right, next question.

Next question.

So I feel like.

Because now we kiss.

I feel like, you know, me being here.

That was always my line. When I would do the dating seminar, I'd tell that story, we didn't kiss, and they'd go, stupid, you virgin. If you're still old school, you're a puritan. And then I'd be like, but we kiss now. And I would like, how far is he gonna take this? And then they're like, no, go back to what you. Now.

I was going to say, by proof of me sitting here, I think you guys have maybe done a little bit more than that, but.

Oh, my gosh, man.

Is this a Metallica song?

Energy?

Oh, my gosh, no. I. I want to ask you about. So obviously, a lot of people know you as a preacher, and the best, you know, if we're. If we're saying that. But a lot of people who I come in contact with who listen to your sermons love what you have to say. They don't know you're a songwriter, which kind of blows my mind, but I guess I've been in it for a little while. So. One of the memories I have with you is the first tour I ever went on, and I don't even think you were there yet. We were sitting in the stands. I think Pastor Holly was going out to do her. Her little ministry moment that she was doing. We, like, dapped up, and you told me the song story behind oh, Come to the Altar, which is, like, just a pivotal song in my walk with Christ. And I feel like probably so many people watching. I would love for you to share that story if. If you're cool with that.

Oh, Come to the Altar was originally this idea. I had something on my phone for about a year called My Life be an Altar. And it was kind of this mopey. I don't know how to put it to you, other than just kind of confusing lyric. I remember the lyric. It was my life be an altar, your life laid down my sacrifice, your name be exalted, your kingdom come, my one desire. That was lyric. And I'd show it to Chris. And, you know, just to give a little more context, I grew up playing music with bands covering Green Day, covering Hootie and a Blowfish. I wasn't good enough to cover any Metallica songs. And if we could get 10 people in a generator out in the woods somewhere, we would play for them on Friday nights. And when I started preaching, I've been preaching since I was 16. Part of what I would do was lead the songs for the kids, and then I put the guitar down and preach. When we went to college, I started a big choir. These are stories we can tell later or another time if you want. But just to know that when I became a pastor, I kind of felt like, okay, I'm going to lay down this music thing. I had begun writing songs for a church that I was at in Shelby, North Carolina. And I remember flying out to Nashville for a songwriting thing. I didn't do that much, but I was just starting, and we had decided it was time to launch the church in Charlotte. I remember going, okay, God, this is my last songwriting session. I'm going to give that up for you.

Isn't that funny?

So it's actually anointed that you asked me about. Oh, come to the altar. Because think about that song. Now. Through the grace of God, I've been able to write a lot of songs, and some good ones with a lot of amazing songwriters. Internally, externally, it's a dream come true. And I thought I was giving that up for God. I thought I was putting that on the altar. I thought I was giving that up to be a pastor. Okay, God, I'm sacrificing this for you. Well, it turns out God's like, oh, yeah, what if I let you work with some of the most amazing people in the world, give you a church that will birth songs that will go around the world? And that song specifically, oh, Come to the Altar, it's a great example for times in your life where you feel like giving up on something. Okay? Because that song sat on my phone, I would show it to Chris, I would show it to this person, and they would try to work on it. It Never went anywhere. And we were at this mountain house on a songwriting retreat, and I sent two of our songwriters to go work on that. I said, go work on my altar thing a little bit. See if you can get anything. And I was in working on another song, and they came back hours later, and I said, did y' all get anywhere on my altar song? And they both said, it's a hard one to crack. I said, yeah, I bet they're wishing.

They would have cracked it now.

One of the other guys goes, yeah, I've never really gotten it. And I kind of felt that little offense. And then I'm like, you're right. It's just too complicated. My life be an alter. It sounds like Yoda or something. My life be an altar. I said, yeah, let's just. I mean, let's don't just keep beating it to death. Like, just. We don't have to worry about that song anymore. Unless it was simpler. Unless it was. What if. Unless it was just like, not in 4, 4, but in 6, 8, which is the, like, swingy time signature. And I started strumming, you know, oh, come to the altar. What if it's just that chill? The father's arms are open wide. And the chorus came out pretty quickly. And Chris Brown says, well, if you're gonna do that, and pulls out his phone. He's like, I was singing this thing the other day. Oh, you're hurting and broken within. And it matched so beautifully. About three hours later, the song go, come to the altar was there. What I love about that story and why I'm so glad you asked it, is because how many times are you about to throw something away? Just at the moment you're like, man, I'm sick of trying to live for God. And I'm sick of trying to actually be good to my parents. And all they do is scream at me. I'm sick of trying to quit. I'm sick of trying to quit smoking. I'm sick of trying to be sexually pure. I'm sick of being alone on Friday. I'm sick of this. Just at the moment that you feel like you're about to give it up, sometimes that's when God breathes and it becomes something amazing. And it's so cool that the song is about the altar, because the altar in the scripture represents the place where they would go to lay something down and it would die. And you know when you feel like there's something in your life that's dying? God brings new life out of dead things.

Wow.

That's the premise our faith is built on.

Yeah.

That's why we celebrate Easter.

Right?

That's what. That's what Jesus does. So you asked me about songwriting, but I really feel like there's something somebody needs to hear for something in your life. It may be songwriting, it may be creativity. It may be a dream, it may be a talent God has given you, but it may just be yourself that you're about to give up on. And every time we sing it. Jt, that's why I probably turned to you and said that I didn't know that was a song that meant a lot to you. But in that moment, I wanted you to know. You see how 10,000 people are singing this right now, and they're saying, oh, what a savior. I wanted you to know. We almost threw that away. And I wonder what we almost throw away. That if we would have just one more time been patient with God, maybe it could have been something amazing.

Jeez.

So I will never forget that moment. And I will never forget, ever forget the feeling that the guy who gave up on the song had when he came back and heard what we wrote. Because he came back and he was like, what just happened?

You gotta get this guy on the pod next.

Right, Right.

You know him. On to the next question.

He's actually in this room.

Oh, man, I love that.

Before you hit the next one, though, I want you to give the direct. The actual exact way that he told it to you, because I think it's so hilarious. Like, exactly which way on tour. Like, just what he said to you when he. When he.

Oh, yeah, well, you. Yeah, we were. It was like, say hi to your neighbor kind of moment.

You gotta do the voice, too.

And does he do a good me voice?

Well, it's just. It's a voice of this moment.

Voice of the moment, I guess.

Yeah. We just.

Like a Metallica song that is.

You dab me up, pulled me in, and just, like, held me there.

Such a legendary life.

You want to know the story about this song? Because I think we had just sung it, and you were like, I almost threw it in the trash.

No, you're like, I. I crumpled this thing up.

Yeah.

I just thought that was such a.

Legendary way to tell him that.

I almost crumbled this up and threw.

It in the trap, and it was like the.

The Whisper Low voice kind of whis this up, and I'm just threw it in the trash.

I can just totally picture that moment. He tells it to me.

It was beautiful moment. It really was. But I was Shocked.

I'm glad you enjoyed the moment. I'm glad you enjoyed the hug.

Yeah, it was great. Glad you're great. So I've always kind of wanted to share this with you guys, but this perfect opportunity, I think getting. Getting to know Elijah has been, like, one of the joys and the pleasures of my life. And I'm not a crier by any means, and so I'm going to try to get through this without tearing up, because he is such a special man. 18 years old now, and I think before I got here, obviously this. This house has ministered to me so much, just through, obviously, your sermons, the songs that come out of house, both of your guys sermons. And. But obviously, I had no direct relationship with you guys. I never met you. And one of the things. So with no context, that's all I know you as, right? Like preacher, songwriter, whatever. So one of the things, just getting to know Elijah and then getting a little bit of time with y' all is one of the things that impresses me and just absolutely fires me up so much is how much you just want to be a good dad and how much I see that affect him in. In the most positive ways. And it's been, like, just a pleasure to get to watch. And something I admire about you so much. And what. What would you say? So you've been a father for 18 years now. What would you say has impacted you the most about being a dad?

Like, how did being a dad change your life?

Yeah, I don't feel like being a dad changed my life. I feel like being your dad changed my life because being your dad, being Graham's dad, being Abby's dad. But specifically, I always tell you, you're the one who changed my name. I was never dad. You made me dad. You changed my name. Much like God changed the name of Jacob and Simon Peter, you changed my name. And when we look at our relationship, you know, now I get to give back to him from my pain, my mistakes, and all of those things. And you're asking a question that's basically like, what is the meaning of life to say, how has being a dad changed you? Because if you put me in a room with this boy for an hour, he's going to talk 57 of the minutes, probably depending on if he had caffeine.

And.

In the time we're together, you know, he's going to probably tell me very random drop that's happening from a rapper on an obscure label and something about Balenciaga that I could care less about and maybe JT hadn't hit me back about this pod yet. He's getting on my last nerve. And we're gonna go in like that, but invariably, like, I will find something in my heart to give to him. And when I said a minute ago that he is an unlock for me and that our Bible club has unlocked me, I want to specifically tell you, like, nobody can really explain how much having a kid makes you realize, oh, this is not a game anymore. A person will die if I don't bring home money.

You got to lock in.

That's the foundational change. Yeah, because she's got a degree and she could go teach school again or something.

Yeah, she'd be all right.

She's got parents, little and dependent and all that. Let's skip to now. When I'm stuck on a sermon to show you how I feel about him, I'll picture, like, how would I say it to my son? You know, if I'm looking in my life to give myself advice, what would I tell him? Now can I tell me that? So it basically reparents you to parent them. And the heaviness that you feel will remind me of my own. And the times where you call me and you're like, I don't know if I can do this. And I'm like, come on. Yeah, I don't know if I can do stuff either. And it forces you to be honest, and it keeps you from getting to live in this pastoral ivory tower where you show up and tell everybody, Philippians 3:13 on Sunday and give your neighbor high five. And it puts you back in touch with who you really are. And I'll tell you something about him that don't respond to this because you're going to be like, no, no, no, that's not true. But I want to say what I want to say. He is better at so many of the things that I love. Like, I love music. He loves music. He's 10 times more musical than me. Now, I've done some good things in writing songs, and I've done some good things with music. I'm not diminishing myself either. But you get to see this amazing thing that you love. Like, when he released music two different times while he was living at the house as a full album, I'm like, I never even learned how to turn up my own distortion on my own guitar. He has released an album. He figured out how to get the publishing rights for a cover song. He figured out how to. And just watching him do that, it was very healing for me. To watch his journey. And it also keeps you from becoming complacent because you realize there's one coming up behind you, that if you set an example of talking to your wife sharp, then you're going to hear sharp talk. It's not that I take credit or blame for who he is. He's his own person, and there's a certain point at which he has to be his own person. But I've realized, like, ooh, not only are you watching me, and not only is my example affecting you, but it's kind of like, you ever go in the gym with a partner and you're like, I get more weight when I'm with them 100%. When you have a kid that you love as much as I love Elijah, and that's as talented and as smart and as loving as he is, it makes you want to be better for them. Midlife is a time, jt, you start feeling like, well, dang. So I just pay bills and, like, preach another sermon every week. And just like, I have to do this forever. It can feel really weird and endless. So Eugene Peterson says that God gives you an adolescent child in order while you're in your middle of your life, they're in the middle of their childhood. And it basically keeps you from becoming complacent because in order to kind of navigate them through life, you have to continue to navigate yourself. So I think it's one of the greatest gifts God ever gave me. I know it is. And I couldn't be more thankful for that.

And I couldn't be more grateful to have such a great dad.

W Moment. I remember one time to speak to, like, how incredibly talented he is. I've never seen somebody. If he wants to do something, he will do it, and it's going to be excellent. We were. I think it was the Maddie podcast. We were. We had flown to Miami. It was Charlie Hughes Young Adult Conference. She shot the podcast. For some reason, we had, like, a super quick turnaround or something, and we get on the plane and we.

I don't.

I have no idea where he's going. For real. You don't remember this at all?

So you flew the plane, you landed. You don't remember.

You had to make it immersive.

Amazing.

No, we. So normally we. We bring the footage back, we dump the footage. One of our editors edit the podcast, and then we put it out. We had a quick turnaround. For some reason, he's like, jt, can I get the WI fi on the plane? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, I'm just gonna edit the podcast. And I'm like, have you ever done that before? He's like, exactly, Nope. But I'm going to.

That's what I'm telling you.

We land, we touch down. I go up to him. We were a couple of rows separated. I was like, how did it go? He's like, it's done. I was like, oh, and I made the thumbnail, too. What are we talking about? Yeah, it's actually insane.

Good times.

Can I share with them a little bit of what we encountered with criticism and the lessons we walked through there together?

Absolutely.

There was a time when he put out his music that some of the lyrics created a controversy, and someone said this and that. And he came to me and I thought, oh, God, this is going to crush him. He'll never make music again. But I underestimated him. You know, he learned what he needed to learn from that. He recalibrated and he made more music. And I think if I were 16, like, it's weird. You had to grow up in so many ways, not only as a pastor's kid, but as the influence of the ministry grew. People have sometimes a weird expectation of who you're supposed to be because of your last name.

Right.

And I remember one time us going to IHOP together on a particularly bad day when you were pretty little and you came to me and you were like, why do people just call me Steven Furtick's son? Am I just Elijah, too? And we processed that together. That was so mature of you to even know to bring that up, because a lot of people would have responded to that basically, like, with total rebellion.

Right.

But we ended up at ihop, and it was one of the best mornings of my life. And I don't know if you're doing it just so I would pull you out of school because you ended up getting to skip school. I don't know. You are smart enough to pull that.

Very blessing of both, you know?

Blessing of both. But whether it was that moment when you were maybe 10 years old, or whether it was the moment when I watched people who maybe were saying things about you because of how they felt about me, and to watch you walk through that, that taught me. I looked at myself and said, if he at this age can be that stable, not that it doesn't affect us, but nobody can rock us like it's us. What God has called us to do. When God gives us correction, we respond to that correction.

Right?

But they didn't call us, and they don't get to cancel us no matter what the situation is. And I'm not talking about one individual thing. I think there is a fight in him that I admire, and there's a fight in me for him that I feel like is very unique, not only to the father son relationship, but to our bond. So it's a cool thing. I'm glad you see that in him. To me, it's very obvious because I've lived with him. I watched him go, I'm going to start a YouTube channel and show people how to make beats. I'm like, yeah, right. And then my boy, I'm like, my son's on my phone. His YouTube channel just popped up in my algorithm. He's teaching me how to make a plug R and B. I don't know what a plug R and B is. Is this legal? What's he making up there? All right, so it's been amazing is what I'm trying to say, jt. And it's still unfolding. And I always tell them, give me grace. This is your first time living? This is my first time parenting. I never sent a kid to college, you know, and I'd never changed a diaper, and I'd never done any of it for my first kid. I put a little extra money aside. I have a college fund for him, and I have a therapy fund for him for whatever he may need, because I'm making all my mistakes on him. Okay? So it's special.

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. That's great. I want to talk. We're gonna get into the book, I promise. Should we just segue now to the book?

I feel like it's such a banger question. We should talk about whatever y' all want. And if we don't talk about the book, we'll do a part two.

Okay?

I don't care. I want to talk about what you think is gonna help the most people or what you want to know.

I'm with.

I'm here for you. I'm here for them.

Let's just flow and see and see how far we get. Beautiful.

Beautiful. Okay, so obviously with Yalls Journey, you've been preaching since you were 16, you've been married, you have three amazing kids, you've grown and built one of the most beautiful expressions of the local body of church. I'm sure along the way and songs and everything, there's been some up and down, some peaks and valleys. Can you maybe speak to a moment where you, throughout this whole journey, possibly wanted to quit and what got you to the other side?

A moment that I wanted to quit and what got me to the other side, the only thing that's made me ever want to quit doing this is the feeling that I wasn't good enough to do was never that I stopped caring. It was never that I thought it wasn't worth. Was never that I thought, oh, it's so hard. Poor me. It's the feeling that I've had over and over again that what I've been called to do, to speak to people's relationship with God, on behalf of God to people is so overwhelming to me. And you think about this. If your job is to speak for God, how many times out of 10 are you going to fail in some way?

Probably a lot.

The answer is 10. If your job is to speak for God, if the standard is tell the people what God wants them to know about the eternal mysteries of his kingdom and his love for them, you're going to fall short by at least a lot every time. So I won't answer you with a time because there's too many to count. I'll answer you with what I think is behind those times is like, remember? And we kind of can merge into this because in the book do the new you6 mindsets to become who you were created to be. Available now available right now retailers.henewyou.com I tell one of the main stories about Jeremiah 1:6, and pull that up real quick, Jeremiah 16, because I want to make sure I get the context exactly right.

You want the niv?

Yeah, niv.

Got it.

Read it for me.

Then I said, but Lord God, I don't know how to speak. I am only a boy.

And then what does verse seven respond with?

But the Lord said to me, don't say I am only a boy. You must go everywhere I send you and say everything I tell you to say.

Do not say I am only. That's a really key phrase because that's the language of limitation. Do not say I'm only. Now, for Jeremiah, it was his age and his ability to speak. Remember, I started the church when I was younger than you are, jt. So how does that sound to you? Like tomorrow I'm going to drop you in a city with some families. We had great core team. But I'm going to drop you in a city and with God's grace, you're going to produce a church. I felt constantly not only inadequate, now the reason I'm sharing this is because I know you do too. I know that you feel inadequate to do some of the things that you see other people doing, and you compare yourself and you judge yourself, and you feel like you're falling short. I feel like that and have felt like that from the day that I started this ministry and before. But let's just talk about. You said, when do you want to quit? There is never a week that goes by that I prepare to preach that I don't go, I can't do this, God.

Wow.

I can't.

So it's almost more of a constant battle with that idea.

Like, let me tell you, the times that I don't feel like that I'm not worthy, that would be easier than the times that. That I do, because I do have a confidence that comes from God when I do what I'm called to do. I have moments. Even today, driving in, I listened to a song that we wrote with some folks this week that I really liked. We were getting out to come in and do the podcast, and we were pulling in. Your mom went to get out so we could be on time. And I was like, no, no, no, no, they can wait. I don't need to hear the last two minutes. I said, this is one of the best songs I've ever been a part of writing. And I always feel that way right after I write a song, and we'll find out if I'm right. But there are moments of pride. There are moments of godly pride, of saying, that was amazing, and that was incredible, and I feel very good about that work. And, wow, that felt like God flowed through me. But I don't want you to think that doing something for God means that you're always going to feel that you're the best candidate for the job. And this is where Pastor Holly's amazing, because three years into the church, thousands of people are coming. The staff. Now the staff is larger than the core group was when we started. And I've got all these people that I'm responsible to lead. And I said, I don't feel like I'm the leader that is needed for this. And she goes, well, you're the one we've got. And that has gotten me through so many times. Like, do not say, I am only a boy from Moncks Corner. I put you in a small town. I grew up in a small town. The town I grew up in had less people than the church that I pastor today. So I'm no stranger to that intimidation. It's not so much that I want to quit on God or quit on the people he's called Me to serve. Sometimes I want to quit on myself because I'm like, really? I'm still struggling with this. I really have been preaching that long, and I couldn't preach any better than I just did just now. So I'm very hard on myself. And that's something that, again, God is dealing with me about. And I'm distracted because Abby just walked in. Hey, baby. Yet at the same time, something in me won't let me quit. Something in me just in the moment. God is so good that just at the moment, you think, maybe I'm not the one for this. Maybe. Maybe I have used all of the fuel and the anointing that I have, and maybe my best sermons are behind me. Or maybe my leadership can't take us to this level. God will send a little confirmation. God will send somebody to say, when you did Elevation Nights in Kansas City, I need you to know my wife had been not only battling with clinical depression, but had had suicide attempts. And that night, she was set free from her depression. And that was a year ago, and she still has some lows, but everything changed that night. God really broke through, and she's not the same woman. And you'll go Kansas City. I remember Kansas City. I thought that was the worst sermon I've preached the whole tour. So you don't know when God is using you. You don't know when the song you're about to throw away or the thing you're about to give up on or the relationship that you're about to sabotage. You don't know when that thing is going to produce something amazing. So please, please, if God put you in that position, that church, that family, if God put you in that youth, if God put you in that season that you're in right now, please don't think that those of us who preach and teach to you to encourage you don't have moments where we go, I suck. I suck. I'm awkward. We deal with those things. But I think the thing, jt, is.

That.

My commitment to my calling up to this point has been greater than my temptation to quit. And God kicks in. He does it in many ways. And I'm grateful that he does, because if it weren't for him sustaining me, I wouldn't have made it to this couch today. Hmm.

That's beautiful.

Wow.

I want to stay on this because I feel like this is a perfect way to get into the book. A couple weeks ago, you preached a sermon knocking through the know, and at the end, you brought up a box, and in that Box was the final copies of do the New youw, which.

Is out now, available now all major retailers. Do the New you dot com. That's N E W. Do the new you.

Yes, sir.

Beautiful.

What a dog.

That was. That was perfect. You had, you had that box with the books, and you shared a little story about how you didn't want to do it. You wanted to quit. Can you just run us through that story again real quick? Because I think that's.

Yeah, I wasn't gonna do it. I, I, I hadn't put a book out in eight years. This is my first book that's come out in eight years. And the reason was because the last book that I did, I don't know, it was good and I put my heart into it, but maybe it didn't do as good as I thought it was going to do. And I remember going at that. I guess I'm just not an author. Remember, do not say I am only. And I basically had talked myself into, I'm just a preacher. I'll just preach. And that's fine if that's all God ever lets me do. What a privilege like, that's not small.

Right, Right.

But it was Pastor Holly who was saying to me, I'll support you whatever you want. If you just want to write songs, if you just want to preach sermons, if you just want to go fish, if you want to move to monks corner and, and, and fish. And I don't, I don't like.

Sounds like a dream.

Yeah, you love.

That's his dream.

Yeah, that's your dream, not mine. The spirit of JT is getting on me right now. I'm fishing. And she said, but I do believe there's more in you, and I believe that there are more books in you. When somebody sees something in you that you don't really see in you, you think that's going to feel amazing. It can actually make you angry or afraid or shy. It's the reason if I looked at you long. How long can we do this before one of us turns away?

We used to do this when I was younger. Staring contest.

Yeah, we've had many staring contests. And I think I just broke eye contact.

We do staring contests differently in the Frederick household. We do break eye contact, not blink. It's a much longer form of the game.

Various forms of torture I can teach you about in my parenting seminar. That'd be my new thing. Dating seminars to parenting seminars. I think I'm ready for it now. And when your mom sees something in me. Sometimes my first Response is like, but you don't know what it's like and you don't understand. And I know you say this, so we were joking recently, she said, I think more people are thanking me for having you write this book than they're thanking you for writing it. I'm like, I know, and I'm sick of it. This is ridiculous. I write the book and you get the. The things. But she deserves all of it. Because the thing I was trying to illustrate is that sometimes maybe God will speak something to you and you'll think, like, when God speaks to the proof that it's God, it'll feel good. Oh, yeah, I agree with that. No, I want you to look for the places where there's something that's being said and something in you knows that it's true. And your first instinct is almost like, defensive. That is usually what the voice of God makes you feel like. When Jesus came to the disciples on the lake, he came walking out to them and they were like, it's a ghost. And they were afraid. So you'd think, if Jesus is coming and you're in a storm, you'd be encouraged. This is awesome. He's going to save us. It's Jesus. They didn't recognize him. A lot of times God comes in a way you don't recognize, and your first instinct is fear. Your first instinct isn't to feel relief. Your first instinct isn't to feel encouraged. Sometimes God is going to show you the thing he has for you, but it's going to be straight through your fear. It could be through speaking out, and you're used to being quiet. It could be through God calling you to give up something that you think you can't live without. But sometimes that's God pushing into the place you feel afraid of. It is true that I wrote this book not for myself, but to myself.

Wow.

Yeah.

I wrote this book to myself saying, there are two you's. Not that I'm schizophrenic, maybe I am. But there's the old me, the old way of thinking, plot twist. And then there's the new me that's being created in the image of Jesus and conformed to the image of Christ and changed by the spirit of God and is controlled by the purpose of God. So do the new you. Is a way of saying, this like me is a moving target. Right. How much do they say, just be yourself, just do you, as if that's actually practical life advice.

Right.

Because the question I want to follow up with is, what?

Yeah, Exactly.

Which me should I be? And not that I'm a hypocrite and that I'm over here living a lifestyle that would shame Christ and over here trying to pretend to be a Christian, but honestly, which me should I be? I'm going to be a different me when I show up for my role as father than I'm going to be when I show up at my role as husband. Then I'm going to be. As I show up in a role where I'm meeting someone for a business lunch, there's going to be many different me's. Now here's another analogy I want to give you and I'm way off your question, but I don't care because it's good when someone says, do you? And I know that saying itself is a little old, but you still hear it. Do you? Do you? When someone says that or something like it, what's another way of saying it?

Just do you?

Live your truth.

Live your truth. Live your truth. Okay. What if the truth that you think is the truth of you. A trap. What if what you call the truth is a trap? And what if what you say is the truth? Like, this is how I am. This is who I am. This is who I'm always going to be. I can't help it. I can't stop this. I can't change that. I'll never be able to. What if all of that is not true? What if that's just your experience up to this point? So a lot of people are stuck in a story. Here's an analogy that came to my mind. When someone says, do you? That's vague. That's a little like saying, let's watch Netflix or let's watch Hulu. Okay.

Yeah. What are we watching?

What are we watching? Because there's a lot of different.

Which me am I picking today? Yeah.

And I want you to think of you as a menu. When I click on Hulu, when I click on Netflix, we need to get this sponsored.

A free promo.

When I think of.

Free promo.

See that?

No free promo.

There's not an essential bottle.

Go take that label.

Because on Netflix, I can watch a documentary. On Netflix, I can watch something that's going to keep me up till 4 in the morning. Scare. On Netflix, I can watch something that's going to entertain me, something that's going to inspire me, something that's going to tempt me. Netflix is a menu. You are a menu. In you, there's potential to be kind of. I've seen you be a big brother To Abby in a way that's like, man, I'm so glad that she has you as an example.

And you've seen me.

And I do the opposite to torture her to the point where I'm like, I think.

I actually think my son's a psychopath.

I actually think I'm gonna put you in the dog's room, you know? And I've seen both extremes, which lets me know that you is a menu. So which me am I going to be? Am I going to be the one that's kind? Am I going to be the one that actually listens? Am I going to be the one that actually takes time to see that other person? Or am I going to be the me that's just so obsessed with how I'm coming across that I can't even see there's a human being in front of me? Am I going to be the me that is absolutely justifying my addictions? Or am I going to be the me that's like, I don't want to live my life as a slave to anything. Christ set me free. So I'm writing this book to me for you, so that you understand that you is a decision. It's a choice. God already chose you. He chose you before you were born. That's what he told Jeremiah. Before you were born. I chose you. I appointed you. I set you apart. But now you have to choose you.

Will you.

That will preach. Say that again.

Well, God chose you. Will you?

God chose you. Will you? That could almost be one of the last chapters in the book.

Maybe it is.

And the fact that you just said the title of the last chapter of the book lets me know you finished it.

Let's go.

And I'm very proud of you for that.

And it wasn't intentional.

You did not skim. That is impressive.

Let's go.

Do you understand what I'm saying and what I'm getting at?

Yeah.

Because there was the me that I could see at that moment that was like, I'm not an author. And then there was the me that Holly was speaking to that I believe is the me that God saw that. No, your words can help more people push past that. So if this book speaks to you, it's because I wrote it to me, and I wrote it for you. Because we're all choosing at all times. And I'm really thankful. Not everybody has a wife like that. Not everybody has a friend like that. But hopefully I can be a friend and a voice to you like that. And that God can use me to Speak to you to say, like, there is more to you than just what you see right now. And please don't think that this is all you're ever going to be. And please don't think that because good things haven't happened to you yet, or you don't have a lot of friends right now, or you're not popular right now. That in no way defines you. You are unfolding. You are a story God is telling. You are a messy masterpiece in the making. I want you to see. There is an entire menu of things, an entire menu of fruit of the spirit, Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. The you you get a glimpse of sometimes, you know, when you're really patient, or you know, the you that when you're kind, or, you know, the you that when you're able to just be still for a minute, that you, that's the true you. That's the real one. Everything else is a costume. Everything else is a decoy. Everything else is a distraction. So this book is, to me, for you, right? Yeah.

It's amazing.

To you. For us. To us. There's a lot of overlap.

Wow. It's very. This is a very meta audience, but it's all true. Do you know what I mean, though?

Yeah. Yeah.

Uncle. Uncle Eric. One of my best friends from way back, shout out Uncle Eric. He read the first chapter and he's like, I read it and I cried. I felt like you were writing it to me. I was like, I'm glad you felt that way. I was writing it to me for you.

For you.

And I hope everybody gets that to know, like, because I started off by saying this. All right. You hear a lot of stuff about. Do you? That's a trap. It just basically says, like, you are. The habits and patterns you have right now. Just express them. If you want to just be, you know, late to stuff, I'm just a late person. If you just want to sleep in all the time. I'm just not a morning person. If you want to be basically, like, I don't know, rude and disrespectful and everything, that's just how it is. I tell it how it is. Exactly. Exactly.

Another good one. That's.

I just. I just tell it how it is. I'm just saying what everybody else is thinking.

Right?

Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe there's a reason they're thinking it, not saying it. There's a filtration process.

Right.

For crying out loud. But then here's another thing. We really need to Talk about. And I want to know what both you think about this. I think just as dangerous as the trap. Just do you this is who you are. Don't worry about it. Okay? Self acceptance is good. I believe in that. I believe in being unique. I believe that God made you in a certain way. I believe you're allowed to like certain things and gravitate towards certain things and have a certain personality. I just don't want your personality to be seen as something permanent because I want God to be able to grow you and change you and expand you. And I think all of us want that. But if do you is a trap, then there's also another extreme. And I call this future you, which is like a treadmill trap of the treadmill. The trap. Do you the treadmill future you become this person and then you will be lovable, then you will be successful, then you will have made it. Future you is like you with an eight pack reading 17 chapters of the Bible every morning before 6am, grinding your own coffee before you go to grind on your startup. This is future you. You could do it for like three days and you collapse. What I'm trying to get you to see is that there's a way out of the trap and off of the treadmill. It's not do you just as you are right now forever and ever and don't change. Raise hell over the summer and never change. That's what we used to write in each other's yearbooks. It's not the treadmill of yeah out there. That's the version of you that will be worthy. That's the version of you that will be successful. That's the version of you that will be okay. That's the version of you that is actually worthy of having friends. That's the version you don't have to be ashamed of because Jesus accepted me right now and he loves me like I am. And he loves me too much to leave me that way because he knows the me that existed before any of these other things set in. So like, you go through life and you start to define yourself by ways you were hurt, ways you were disappointed, ways that you struggle, things that people have spoken over you, things that people have withheld, things that happened intentionally and unintentionally. And it becomes like layers and you define your life by it. So now you're either in the trap or the treadmill and either way is going to leave you exhausted and discouraged and stuck. But God says, before you were born, Jeremiah 1, 6 and 7, I knew you k N E W the new you. The new you, the one that you want to become, the one that you get glimpses of sometimes. It's not something in the future that you have to work to be. It's something that God already saw and created you to be. And all you have to do is live into it.

Wow.

It's beautiful.

That was the shift. That's why I wrote the book. Once I saw that. Oh, it's not just like, do the new you get your running shoes, join the gym, you know, subscribe to my.

It's already in you.

It's in you right now.

Right now in this moment.

It's a seed. It's in you right now. Everything that God wants you to be is already in you. And I did an illustration with Elijah one time, and before I went to preach, I said, hey, hold this for me. And I pretended like I needed to get stuff out of my pocket and I threw it to him and I went and preached and I preached a whole sermon. At the end of the sermon, I called him on the stage and I said, Give me $263 or something. He said, I don't have it. I said, I need $263 looking at me. I said, you can go back and watch the sermon, I think it's called. It's always been in you. You can watch his eyes at the moment. He goes. And not only did he have the exact amount, but he realized that the only reason I asked for it is because I already gave it to him. It was a beautiful moment for all of us in the room because we realized that what I was illustrating with my wallet and Elijah is true of us and our Heavenly Father. If he asked for you to do it, if he's leading you to do it, if he's calling you to do it, he already gave it to you. You just forgot it. You haven't discovered it yet. You don't realize it. He will never ask something out of you that he didn't put in you. And that's how you can become it. And that's what sets this message apart from some of the things I see people, which is almost like, I don't know, it's not just stoicism, where you're going to be so disciplined, and it's not just self improvement, where this is your year, where you're really going to make it all happen and manifest it. That's all great. Whatever, whatever. I'm just saying let's make sure as believers in Jesus that we know that we're not on a treadmill trying to get God to love some future version of us more. Like he's going to love us more when we quit the addiction. No, he loves us so we can quit the addiction. He loves us so that we can reach the goal that he set for us and give what we're supposed to do. Give to the world.

Yeah. I mean that. Okay. I feel like we're so deep into it, and I realized we forgot a crucial thing that we meant to do at the beginning.

What did we forget?

So I say we take a quick pause.

Okay.

And since. Since we're trying to come into your world and in your mind, I think we need to sip on your bev. So we have some. Some DCs prepared, and we meant to.

Be sipping the whole time.

Dc, as you said.

Diet Cokes. Oh, yeah. Give them the cans and give me the bottle.

Yeah. Until these chemicals get in us, we can't really. We can't really understand what you're saying.

To the greatest podcast of all time.

Cheers. Cheers. Oh, yeah.

How do we feel like we're doing?

It's so good. There's so much content already. And we had, like, so many more questions.

We've hit one what? One book question.

Literally.

We. And we still have. How many more book questions left are.

We hit on the level that you think will really minister to the. The kids and everybody who's going to watch it to give them what they need for their life?

Thousand percent.

Zero question.

What did you want to ask me when you were reading the book that you would have asked me if you had been home talking to me in the pound? That's.

Well, that's kind of where I wanted us to kind of, like, start after you. After you gave the story of, you know, the actually writing it and getting over that was. I wanted to go back because in the introduction, you talk about when you all were in the pound and when he asked you the question, what's one thing you tell me before I go to college? I wanted to go back to, like, that space for a second one. Yeah. And, like, when he asked you that question, like, what was kind of going through your head and maybe explaining that both, like, you guys dialoguing about it and what was going through your head when you were asking, like, did you want to know? You know what I'm saying?

No.

Was it a courtesy?

Like, I feel like you gotta take me back because I don't remember it as clear as you. Like, I remember it through the story, but I'm sure it's a lot more vivid for you.

Well, it's a very powerful moment because you're like, I'm going to college. Out of everything you taught me, what's the one thing you would tell me now?

What day were we hitting?

I believe it was between tricep extensions and bench dips. And you said, what would be the one thing? And I needed a way to start the book that was telling people not just this is a collection, because I built the book around six mindsets. That's okay. And they go like this. I'm not stuck unless I stop. And put these in the comments, too, if you're watching on YouTube. I'm not stuck unless I stop. Christ is in me. I am enough with God, there's always a way by faith, I will find it. God is not against me, but he's in it with me, working through me, fighting for me. My joy is my job. And God has given me everything I need for the season I'm in. So rewind that and then tell me which one you think that's the one I need. I feel that one because I wrote all of these for myself. One of them I wrote 11 years ago. One of them I wrote 14 years ago. One of them I Wrote 14 months ago. I remember one day going into a store and the girl was telling me her mom was sick and she was working a double shift and all these things were going on. I said, hey, there's something I've been saying myself lately. I want you to start saying it. I said, repeat after me.

With God, with God, with God.

There's always a way.

There's always a way.

By faith.

By faith.

I will find it.

I will find it.

And I'd been saying that to myself. And she goes, I like that. That's good. And I'm like, I want you to put that on a post it note, and I want you to look at it and I want you to say it out loud as you're going through all this. And I saw her later, and she's like, I still been saying the thing. And it had been a few months, and I realized that. But if we just accept our default, right? I wake up in the morning, I have no practices, no tools, no routines, no connection with God, no stillness, no anything. No Diet Coke. I'm basically just going down to the lowest level of what I call me, and I'm going out in the world that way. The mindsets that I give you in the book, they're not just so I could have chapter and section Titles. This is the way I have to talk to myself. I have very, very harsh self talk, naturally.

Oh, we're going to get into that.

Okay, let's get into it right now.

Because you want to hit that one.

Well, that's what the book is for. It's for your self talk. And I know you and I have had so many conversations about that.

Yeah, yeah. So sorry. Let me just find it.

Dig your dog.

We moved it to the bottom.

I don't think there's anything more important than how you talk to yourself.

Yeah.

And you're like, well, isn't it more important how I pray to God than how I talk to myself? The way that you talk to yourself can keep you from hearing what God says back to you.

Yeah. So, okay, so I got it now. So in chapter nine, you kind of talked about how we tend to carry a scarcity mindset into seasons where we no longer need it. And one of the best lessons I feel like you've taught me is how important it is to kind of force your mind to speak positively about yourself. So I was going to ask, like, could you share some of your, like, practical strategies and like, maybe routines that you use to keep that negative mental critic in check.

It is just making these things that I feel like are God's truths and then saying them. I. I made a prayer for anxiety for myself that says, I breathe you in, Holy Spirit, and your strength comes suddenly. And your peace fills me completely. The reason I made it is because I was feeling this anxiety come up on me at times where I needed to do something important, Minister, be there for my kid, make a decision that was really important to the ministry. Sometimes I just needed God to flood me with this peace. So I just start thinking, I breathe you in, Holy Spirit, and your strength comes suddenly. I need it right now. And your peace fills me completely. And that got me through some really, really big moments. The thing that's important about saying it to myself though, isn't that I got the words right. It's that to quote Martyn Lloyd Jones, most of us spend too much time listening to ourselves and not enough time preaching to ourselves.

Wow.

And if you just listen to yourself, just do you, I'm going to end up in prison. I got some road rage issues. If I just listen to myself, if I just do me, I'm going to run you off the road. I got a big jeep. I will run you off this road. And so I have to preach to myself to align myself. And I hope that encourages somebody because I'm not the most naturally peaceful person. I'm pretty uptight. Part of that's a strength that I really get things done when I decide to do them, like you. And then, like the theologian said, that an unguarded strength becomes a double weakness. Whatever there is in your life that's of great value if not protected, it becomes your vulnerability. So now you see how my drive sometimes can work against me and just. I can start thinking it's all in my own strength. So I really have to interrupt myself. And that's why with God, there's always a way. By faith, I will find it was born because I'm sitting there feeling like, well, there's no way that's gonna. I mean, there's no way. No, with God, there's always a way. And by faith, I will find it. Now then, you and I got to make a track with Josh Holliday.

It's the only one in the book that has a theme song.

If you think about it, that mindset has a theme song. Because you brought me a track, and I used to make these motivation tracks, you know.

Oh, yeah.

And I quit making them. And he brought me out of retirement because it was so. The track was so disgusting.

Oh, yeah.

Amazing track. Then you brought it up to me one night, and you're like. You're like, we worked on the track. Do you want to hear it? I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm kind of half asleep. And you're like, do you want to play it on the good speakers? We have some good speakers downstairs. And I said, just play it here, man.

Okay.

And I heard 30 seconds. And I said, let's take it. Let's go downstairs. And it was on, and we made a whole track for it. And it's actually a part of the audiobook. I don't know if you know this, but I included it for the audiobook.

That's sick.

But the point of all of this isn't saying, like, that we have to make these songs or make these tracks. But, you know, your soul has a soundtrack. There's a conversation, there's a dialogue happening within you. There's a way you explain your life to yourself. There's a way you explain yourself to yourself. There's a way you process your losses. There's a way you process your fears. All I want to get you to do is to start. What's something that causes you to spiral that you can relate with? A thought process that sends you down.

A thought process that sends me down. I feel like the thought process of Thinking that I need to just chill all day. And then whenever I do that, it always sends me spiraling, like, when I don't keep myself busy. So when I get into that mindset of, like, oh, like, I'm tired, like, I need to just chill today, I need to just, like, kick back, I feel like that's, like, a thought that, like, often kind of sends me into that spiral.

So then you need the mindset. I'm not stuck unless I stop. Because a lot of times you just need movement in your life, like, moving through the next thing in your day, and you feel stuck, you feel tired, you feel deflated, you feel all these things. You're like, I just actually need to move into the next thing that I'm supposed to do. So, see, the mindsets become a way that I move myself. The mindsets become the word of God spoken over me, the promises of God that I can put practically into my life.

Even when you can't feel it in that moment, like, you're just acting on almost.

Especially when I can't feel it.

Right, right.

Especially when I can't feel it. Because that's the moment when I need not only the power of, okay, I'm inspired to do this. I'm inspired to be this kind of person, but I've actually committed. This is my identity. This is who God says I am. I'm going to align with that in this moment.

Right. Geez, that is so good. And that's actually the first. That's actually the right. The next thing we're about to ask about is that mindset.

Yeah, you're not stuck unless you stop. I want to know, like, has there been a time recently in the past where you feel like you failed, but it taught you something about yourself?

I think that most of my growth is through reflection on what I called a failure. So let me say that again. Most of my growth comes through reflection on what I called failure. And whether that's a way that I acted toward my family that I don't think was the best example, whether that's the way that I interacted with somebody that just pushed my buttons, or whether it's something that I tried to make or do that I didn't feel like came across the way I wanted to see. This is one of the little sauces. I want to give you this. If you're not like, sitting down with those failures that you think, like, what was that? And taking them to God and just asking him very simply, God, show me what? Show me what I'm not Seeing here, right, you're missing the classroom by which God prepares you for the next test. That's where you get to take it. Did you ever take a test in school and the teacher's like, y' all all did horrible on this test. I'm going to give you a retest because you all failed it, and I'm going to teach you the material again. You get to do that with God when you bring him something where you're like, okay, I feel ashamed of myself here. Okay, what am I going to do about that? Well, first I'm going to say, God, I thank you that you forgive me. I thank you that Jesus covers all my sins. I'm forgiven. I'm not what I did. I'm who you say I am. And I know that you forgive me. But now I want to move past just the forgiveness, and I want you to show me what I'm supposed to take from this for the future. You will be shocked what God shows you. I'll sit down with a notebook sometimes and do that. Sometimes I'll just reflect on it. Some of my best sermons came from leaning into my losses. Why did I feel that way? Why did I respond that way? And people will sometimes thank me for my sermons, and it'll surprise me what they'll say. Not, thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for your depth. Thank you for your scriptural knowledge. Thank you for being real. And I'll go, you're welcome. What else am I supposed to be? No, no, no, no, no. You actually tell us the times where you blew it. Embarrassing stories I've told through the years when. Remember the packing peanuts on Christmas? And your mom took some boxes out and they were packing peanuts in them, and then she left and the packing peanuts blew all over the yard. And I've been preaching all these Christmas services telling people about Jesus is the Prince of peace. And I'm out there in the yard cussing a day after preaching about some packing peanuts. And I looked down and Graham was there listening to me. It was a bad feeling.

That was in Crest Chatterbox, right?

I put that in a book before, too. And I shared it on stage one time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And shortly after I shared it, I got a message about someone at our Toronto campus who had lost her husband suddenly. And I felt compelled to call her. And I said, I called just to tell you I'm sorry you lost your husband. And then I'm praying God's peace will cover you, and I'm really sorry. And she said, I'm so glad you called. Thank you for telling the story about the packing peanuts. My husband wasn't a really religious man, and I had to drag him to church, and that was the first time he ever went. And when you shared about the packing peanuts, he was like, okay, I'll listen to this. This is real. So what I learned, jt, it's not just like, I fail. I learn from it, and I never fail again. It's even.

You use that failure. Yeah.

Through using the failure that I even bring into the conversations, I will notice people in the congregation going. When I'm up there talking about how strong and courageous Joshua was and all this, and then I go, now, me, strong and courageous. That is not in my bio. Let me tell you how strong and courageous I am. The other day, there was a rat in the house, and I heard Holly scream, and I went and pretended like I was taking a shower. I turned the shower off because I wouldn't do it either.

That'll get him.

Everybody's there. Why? Because, like, okay, now, so you can.

That's something I can get. That's something I can relate.

So you can have weaknesses and still be mightily used by God.

Not even in spite of those weaknesses, but, like, through them.

Through them?

Yeah.

It's in my weakness that I'm strong. There's a verse we misquote from Paul. I might have showed you this before, but he says, when I am weak, then do you not goes, then you.

Are strong, you are strong?

Yeah. No, no.

When I am weak, then I am strong. Because I always thought, when I'm weak, God's strong.

Right?

But he actually says, when I'm weak, then I'm strong, then I am strong.

What?

Whoa.

And I think what he's saying is, that's the point where I know I need to rely on God. And as long as I'm thinking I've got this, I'm going in my own strength. But the moment that I realize my weakness and confess it, wow. God's like, now you're working with me.

Wow. It's not living in denial of that weakness. It's actually. That's when you become strong, is when you actually acknowledge it.

Well, yeah, because think about in a workout, when is the moment in a set of. And we work out together all the time. This is our bond. So please forgive us.

You even talked about this in the book. I don't know if you remember, but.

Well, I remember when you brought Alex over and he was lifting, and he kept telling his spotter, help me fail.

Yeah.

He'd get to a certain rep. And I thought that was a strange way to say it because I've heard before, help me get one more rep.

Right.

But what he was saying is, I can only push so hard by myself, and if I don't get to the point of failure, then I'm not going to grow. Right. And so I think a lot of you probably quit too quick right before you hit the growth moment. You quit when something makes you feel uncomfortable. You quit when you feel like you can't do it. And whatever that failure point is for you with God, he's your spotter. So God is going to get you through that failure in a way that makes you grow as long as you don't leave the gym. And what do I mean by that? Because it's just a metaphor. I'm saying if there's something you're struggling through right now, you're trying to quit porn, you're trying to quit this, you're trying to quit that, or you're trying to start doing something that you know is productive for you. Don't just let the failures happen and then the devil beats you up and you feel like you are a failure. Remember, failure is never an identity, it's an event. So you are not a failure. Do not say I am a failure. I failed. And guess what? Through my failure, when I am weak, then I'm strong.

Yeah.

Because the moment that you're growing the most, lifting weights, is the moment when you're going the weakest and you look ridiculous. And your visuals, that's your growth rep.

That'S where you're growing.

And it's like that in life. And with God, it's the moments where we're like, like, man, I feel just absolutely out of my mind right now. But I'm gonna do what I'm supposed to do anyway. I'm gonna, I'm gonna focus. I'm gonna show up at church, I'm gonna show up in my E group. I'm gonna do this anyway.

And that's where you let God kind of. Kind of push you there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's great. And that's so helpful for me too because I feel like one of the. I'm gonna choose my words carefully because I'm trying to apply the book to my life. But. But I feel like one of the default me would say that I'm bad at self reflection and I want to just keep pushing past it because I don't want to deal with it and I don't want to sulk and sit. And one of the things that I can get stuck with is just thinking that that's just who I am. And so I feel like as you're articulating this, I'm seeing probably so many lessons that I could have learned with God if I would have just sat there with him and not denied the failure, but actually brought him into it.

Well, try this. Have you ever done a walking meeting?

No.

For work.

Oh, like, yeah, like, hey, we need.

To meet, but I want to get some exercise. So do both. Keep it moving. Don't sit and sulk. And sit there and go, oh, God, show me my sin. My sin is great, God. Oh, God. But, like, just kind of take that thing on your mind and say, okay, God, I'm not going to fixate on this because it's going to make me feel worse. I'm not going to sit down for an hour, light a candle, burn some incense. I'm just going to, like, as I go through my day, God, I want to kind of think about that with you and that phrase right there. Think about it with God. Like, God, help me think about this and watch what he puts in your life that day to speak to you as you're moving through it. See what I mean? It's not just sitting down at a kitchen table or kneeling down at a prayer bench. It's going, God, that way. That. That's sitting with me. It's just not going away. It's sitting here. So would you show me how to interpret this and then do both? Because I would add, jt, that sometimes sitting with it and living in it isn't reflection. It's rumination. Rumination is when you turn something over and over in your mind, and that can actually be where the enemy can show up and cause you to go blind to all the good stuff that's around you. Because it would be basically like if we were playing. What sports did you play growing up?

Soccer? Baseball.

Yeah.

I mean, it would be like you are still looking at the pitch that you just swung at and missed. You know, still looking at the pitch that you just swung at and missed and then you struck out. So I don't think it's a bad thing that you're feeling is okay, next pitch.

Yeah. In a way, that's a strength.

It's a strength.

But like you were saying before, sometimes that strength can.

Can get flipped, can become a weakness or a strength can become a weakness if it's not guarded. A weakness can become a strength if it's submitted to God.

Jeez Wow, that is deep. That is deep.

And do that in your life, everywhere. What we just did, that was like a therapeutic exercise. You're like, honestly, I feel like my tendency is like, just go get around people. I'm social because I know enough about how you are. I don't know you that well, but I know you probably don't want to be alone with yourself that much. And you're like, that's a weakness. I'm like, are you crazy? That's one of the greatest strengths people would kill to have, the people skills that you have. Right. So we're not trying to eliminate that from your life. We are just trying to join that with the part of your life that can sometimes tend to use that as a substitute for actually working through an issue. And the more we start seeing ourselves that way, how God sees us, it's like, oh, old you, new you. It's not like all of that is bad, and I need to just hate who I've always been and change it. Future you. Treadmill, treadmill, treadmill. It's just integrating it and saying, like, God, why did you make me like this? How can I bring more of this in here? And then you get to partner with God in finding out who you really are.

So it's almost. Yeah, it's exciting. It's like you get to do this new thing.

It's like an experiment. It's like, the other night she was cooking some soup, and it was just me and her eating. And I was like, don't you love just cooking for two people? And she's like, well, yeah. I mean, I wish kids were here. I know this is making you kind of lust right now after the food that you're not getting while you're at college, because I know you've been on Steady Ramen. She's like, the dinner will be ready in such and such time. And it took a lot longer. When I came out, she was like, I know it took a little longer. But, man, I had fun playing around with the soup. I put a little of this. They didn't have this. I had that. Then last time, I did this and I did that. And I'm thinking like, you are kind of like that soup. And it should be a feeling sometimes, not just of like, I gotta get better because I suck and God hates me, and I'm gonna burn in hell if I don't fix this, and he's never gonna be able to use me. It's like, okay. Or just like, this is an experiment. I like to think of like myself as I'm a beta version, not beta, like alpha beta.

Not that the pre.

Right. The version that's like, I know I still got bugs, but there's going to be updates.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so for everybody who doesn't see the potential in you because of your.

Bugs, there's going to be updates.

Gee, that's crazy. Touch.

Three people say, there's going to be an update.

There's going to be an update.

Yeah, put it in the comments. There's going to be an update. And the thing that we're updating. Right. Is our mindset. That's how we update it. We set our mind on things above update. Set your mind on things above update. That's what I want to get you in the flow of at a young age in your life. I know. Not just youth. Watch this podcast. I know you'll reach people of all ages. This could be as true if you're 60 as if you're 16. There's still updates. Abraham became the father of many nations when he was 99.

Crazy.

So there's still updates available for your life. It's not over, right?

It's never too late for an update. Come on, is that corny or cool?

There's a fine line. Right?

Right?

It's never too. It's all about context. If you were like, it's never too late for nothing. But what I would do if I was preaching it, I'd be like, you know, there are a lot of people in your life, so. So you could say, like, God will use your haters to be your updaters. Oh, God will use Judas to get Jesus to the cross. Because if Jesus stays on the earth, he's limited to his physical body. But if he dies on the cross and he goes down into the grave and he rises from the grave and ascends to heaven, he sends his spirit, and his spirit can live in all of us at the same time, and greater works shall you do. So he used Judas to bring Jesus into the earth in the form of the spirit.

Spirit through his hater.

Through his hater. Your haters are your updaters. And some of you would think, yeah, that would have been great if I could have heard this when I was a kid. But I'm not a kid anymore. And I wish I could have, but you need to talk to Abraham, because Jesus spoke about a man named Abraham. And Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am. And that's when they wanted to crucify him. And Abraham said, God, will you give me an heir, seeing that I am childless and Eleazar is my servant and he will inherit everything. And God said, you shall have a child, and it shall be your seed. And when he was holding Isaac, he realized it's never too late for. And then hopefully everybody would say, and.

Then you just got a masterclass.

And then you do it.

He just took the book. Some real random things.

That thing about, is it corny or it's cool? I noticed that shows up in creativity. We were right there a song this week, and we were being real serious. Oh, this is serious. And then there was a moment where, like, bathroom break or whatever. And I did something just that I thought was. And I'm going to show it to you because I'd like you to put some production on it.

Oh, shoot.

And I'm going to show it to you. But it was something that I was like, is that corny or is that awesome?

Yeah. Yeah.

And that kind of goes to the thing like, we are so. Can I speak to this?

Yeah.

We are so consumed with cool. We are so consumed with acceptance. We are so consumed with being guarded that some of our best stuff never gets shared, whether that's how we show up in our friendships or who we really are deep down. And we cover all that up for the sake of cool. And the friends that we win by pretending to be something that we're not aren't friends with us because we're pretending.

Right.

They're friends with some pretend version.

You're friends with the pretend version. So what did you gain?

You gained nothing.

You've gained nothing.

And it's not their fault either, because.

That'S what you presented.

Yeah. Okay. In chapter two, you talked about how we have the choice to either argue for our limitations or agree with God about our potential.

That's my favorite.

It was banger. Banger line. What advice do you have to the kid out there who maybe can't figure out what they want to do in life where their potential is? How would you speak to that? Because I feel like that's a very pressing issue with, like, this age range.

You are accurate if you say that we have no idea what our potential is. That will always be true. But think about the first part. I think you hit my favorite line in the book. And I don't know who said it first. I heard Les Brown say it. You have something special.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Somebody tell Les Brown to hit me. I love Les Brown. Somebody tell Les Brown. He gave me that line, but I don't know if he made it up. But he said, if you agree, if you argue for your limitations. Let me start it all over. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. Do not say, I am. Only then I added a back half to it. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. But if you agree with God about your potential, you get to grow into it. So I'm going to say the whole thing again. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. Put this in the comments. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. That means if you go, yeah, I'm bad with people, then you get to keep being bad with people. That means if you say I'm not disciplined, then you get to keep not being disciplined. And then you get to flunk out of school and then you get to be homeless. I'll just take it as dark as I can.

I'm like, I hope this isn't my path.

You're not undisciplined, disciplined. But if you say that, if you say, I'm not disciplined, I'm not good at focusing, I'm not good at music. I am not good at this. I am not. My thing was that I shared in the book, I'm not a workout person.

We literally have that in a question.

Yeah, I'm not a workout person. And that's what I told Buck when I started having him work with me and show me stuff. I'm like, I'm not a workout person. I don't do legs, I don't do chin ups, I don't do cardio. So you just bench? Yeah, just bench.

You can't make this up. That was literally the next question about. I love the story from chapter four where you said you weren't a lifting person.

We're in the flow. We're in the flow.

We're in the flow.

We're in the flow because look, if I say that and I argue for it, it will become self fulfilling. I'm not a workout person. I don't work out. I'm not a workout person.

Right?

But if I agree with God, I'm using working out as an illustration about my potential. I get to grow into it. The first part of that is just to agree with God that I don't know everything that's in me and most of us won't even do that. We have such a made up mind about who we are, who we're not, who we could never be.

Right for sure.

We all do. We all do. I told your mom I'm not Writing any more books.

Right.

Here we are.

I am telling you on the podcast about my new book about when I said I am done writing books. And as long as I argued for my limitation, you could have easily never.

Dropped another book again. Easily.

But it was in me. And I believe. I believe somebody's going to watch this today and they don't even have to buy the book. And they're going to get so much out of this. It's going to propel them. But it almost didn't happen. My first step, though, wasn't to know what my potential is. This is what I think you're asking. I don't have to know what it is to agree with God that there's more there.

You get to grow into it.

I get to grow into it.

Wow. And it's just taking that first step of basically, like, saying it just.

It's always taking the next step. There's nothing but the next step. There's never anything God calls me to take that is not just the next step. He doesn't promise that he will give us the headlights to see 100 yards away. He promises to give us a lamp unto our feet. And how much light does a lamp give? Enough for the next step. So just put in the comments. Next step. Next step. Thinking that way is way better than. I see a lot of kids getting this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do in my life. What am I supposed to do in my life? You're 14. Play a video game.

Exactly.

Play a video game game. Read a Bible verse. Play a video game.

Right.

And you know what I'm saying, like, we can get so overwhelmed by the destination that we don't really commit ourselves and devote ourselves to what God has revealed because we're so consumed by what he hasn't revealed.

Right.

And I just think you need to take that quote and think about it a little bit, because it is so powerful. If I agree with God, okay, yes, God. I'm limited. Yes, God, I'm maybe nothing special in other people's eyes, and I may not play professional sports and I may not do all these things, but I agree with you that you've put more in me than my mind can comprehend. And I agree with you, God, that you're going to show me what you put me here for as I take the next step. You get to grow into it. And that's really the privilege of walking with God, is that he shows you step by step. You're like, wow.

It's almost like the other Side of that coin, of the fear that comes with that is the excitement of, like, you could either sit there and be scared of, oh, my gosh, there's so much. I don't know what I want to do with my life. Or, like, oh, my gosh, like, there's so much potential for me to grow into this. I don't even know what I want to do with my life. Like, there's nothing but potential. That kind of unlocked that for me. Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. So in other words, you're flipping the unknown from being something so scary and something that can almost be paralyzing to something that's just endless possibility. And. And I taught you this. I don't know if you remember. Psychologists teach us that there's really not that much difference what our body experiences when we're nervous or anxious and when we're excited. And sometimes I'm worried about the way we throw around the word anxiety. Not for people who actually need medical treatment and psychological help. Please get that help. But when you just say, man, I'm so anxious about the podcast today, it's great. I'm nervous about it because I'm excited about it. That's not anxious. That's. I care.

Right.

And I'm going to invest my energy into my preparation.

Right.

Rather than allowing it to consume me.

And just sit there and soak in that. Yeah.

Sitting there and letting it sour the experience. And so that's true with anxiety and excitement, and it's true with. I want to act it out for you. Watch this. Watch this. I just don't know what God has for me in the future. That's the old you. New you. I just don't know what God has for me in my future. And that is the new you. So we took the same uncertainty. Right?

You said, it's already in you.

It's already in you. And we acknowledge that. I don't know. And if God is the author of my life, he's a pretty good storyteller, right? You ever sit down and watch a movie and you're like, I'm not sure where this is going, but you like the person who made the movie, who wrote it or directed it, and you're like, I always like their movies.

See it through.

And if you've seen God see you through some things in your life and you believe in him and that you're in his hands, you can get through parts of the story and the plot where you're like, this is confusing right now. But he always makes it pay off. In the last scene, I think that's what Joseph was in the scriptures, where he said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. I think Joseph was basically saying the story was really confusing and it sucked and it had some really hard years. There were many scenes I would have skipped. And you might be in one of those scenes right now where you're like, you don't understand. My dad walked out on our family. You don't understand. I'm actually in a part of my life that is very abusive and confusing. And that's not only heartbreaking to me, that's heartbreaking to God. He's still the author, and this is a chapter of your life. And now it's time for us to see how he's going to work this chapter into the story he's telling, because he's not finished telling your story yet. And I want to encourage you with that, that the story isn't over and learn to view that as a positive, because it's like, well, that's kind of cool that you don't know what God's going to do with you. That means it could be anything, right?

And you know what? I love that you've preached on before. That I feel like ties into that is the idea of when you did the illustration with the piano and how what note comes after, changes the story. It's like almost as God's writing your story, you get to choose. Okay, let's say, like, what you were saying. You're having terrible stuff going on with your family. You get to choose whether that in the plot, whether that breaks you or whether it's makes you stronger. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's almost you. You get to walk in. It's as the story's being written and it's all based off of what. What comes next in that next move.

I think it was Miles Davis, but I don't remember which jazz musician, because I'm not a jazz guy. That said there's no wrong note. It's the note that comes after.

Right.

Can somebody grab me that guitar, please, real quick? Yeah. I think it's worth illustrating because. Thanks, Josiah. I think it's worth illustrating because it works better on a piano. But I think this will be cool for everyone to see where basically he's saying, thank you. That there's no. I hope it's in tune. There's no.

If it's not, he's tuning it.

There's no way to tell if that's a good note or a bad Note. And I want you to compare a note to an event in your life. It's just a note. If this comes after, it's dissonant. You know, it's the note I'm putting after. So you say, oh, that's a bad note. Well, not necessarily if I say still, but.

Oh, shoot.

Same starting note. What makes it good or bad comes after is what comes after the next note. So something really horrible just happened, or you made a really bad mistake and you're like, man, I'm stuck on this note. It would be a real mistake for you to just go deeper down into the spiral. Like, just make it even worse. Like, now you're just running through all kinds of girls or you're running through all kinds of boys and just trying to fill this hole. No, no, no, no, no. The note right now, it might not be a note that you understand out of context, but it's amazing grace I'm trying to play.

Oh, yeah.

And it became grace because of what came after. It became amazing because of what came after. And let's learn to do that more in our lives. Let's go. Okay. I absolutely wrecked that moment. But the next moment, the next. The next. The next step, I'm learning from that. I'm moving forward. And that's how you get out of the trap of, like, all this condemnation. You could take this before I start playing James Taylor, but it's just this idea of saying, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not the last note. This is not the last chapter. This is not the final word. This is not the last relationship. This is not the last friend. This is not the last opportunity. This is not my final note. Just put that. That in the comments real quick. This is not my last note. There will be more grace after this. And that's what I love about the new you. The new you is the next note.

Yeah.

And the next note and the next note. And who's deciding what that note will be? Is it always God, right? Or does he sometimes put it in our hands to say, yeah, do you want to forgive this or do you want to stay bitter? Do you want to learn from this, go back and apologize and then get better from it? Or do you want it to keep you stuck here? And that's a decision that we make until you realize you have that power. You're thinking like, oh, well, my life is bad and theirs is good. He said there's no bad note or good note. It's the note that comes after that makes it a good Note or a bad note. And I think that's true of a lot of things that happen in our lives.

Yeah. Yeah, it really is.

I think that's going to set a lot of people free, including myself, because I feel like, especially for young people, it can be easy to get into the thought of, like, okay, I messed up. I made this bad decision, whatever it might be. Exactly what you said. Well, then I'm just gonna. This is who I am. So I'm just gonna keep doing the same thing over and over again where you do have the choice, like, of that next note. Can you learn from this? Can you grow? Can you move? Can you continue to become the new, new you, which is so incredible. In chapter five, you talked about the idea of working with what you've got and using what God's put in your hand. What would be your advice to a youth today who is so inundated with everything they see on social media in comparison to continue to focus on using what God's placed in their hand?

Do something for somebody else. Do something for a kid that nobody else cares about. Do something that's not going to get you any status quo. Walk over to somebody that smells bad and tell them, hey, I'm going to bring you with me to church. I'm going to pick you up. I hate the thought that a lot of people would think that influence is the end goal conflated with popularity, meaning that the ultimate goal for my whole life is to be famous. I want you, jt, and I want you to tell all the young pastors you come into contact with is that the desire for fame is not only a unstable foundation to build a ministry on, it's a fatal one. It will kill joy, it will kill peace, and it will actually kill effectiveness. The way my ministry started when I was 16, Pastor Mickey White believed in me. My mom helped me learn the hymns so I could go lead music in his church. She would teach me the hymns. On Saturday night, she brought me up in church, but that was the moment where I became a minister. Pastor Mickey then said, would you work with our youth? And this lady named. And you can't make this up. Her name was Delilah, but she was a good Delilah, not like the one in the Bible. Would take the van because I wasn't old enough to drive the church van because of insurance. Pick up some kids that couldn't get to church any other way. They would come in and they would get snacks and stuff. Nothing fancy sandwiches that Ann Johnson would make and snacks and fudge rounds and stuff. And like I said, grab the guitar, try to tune it up. Try to get them to sing some corny songs. Romans 16:19 says, yeah, yeah. Romans 16:19 says, and they're all just looking at me.

I've never heard this banger before.

It is the excellent in what is good? The innocent. Come on, hall of evil. And what will he do? And the God of peace will soon crush. We know different versions. Mine has melody. God will crush underneath your feet. Huh.

Wow.

Everybody say, huh. So I'm up there huhing in front of some kids, and I'm telling you, there was nothing in my mind thinking, like, yeah, but if I could get that Instagram account to a million.

Right?

Yeah.

Jeez.

I wanted to God to use me. I wanted God to use me. Is that what you want? Or do you want for people to see you? Because being seen by people is overrated. In the end, they're probably going to find something imperfect, and they're probably going to find something flawed. I say this as somebody who now pastors the church. Sure. It's big. Big compared to what? Compared to the number of people that still need Jesus. We're just getting started.

Wow.

So I don't see myself as having arrived or any of that. It's always been the same, whether it was me and your mom going to a little church out in Loris, South Carolina, and doing a backyard Bible club in the morning, and then everybody at the service at night was over 70 years old. Whether it was me trying to, in the early days of Elevation Church, you know, hide in the back closet while they started because there were only three people in the seats, and I had to lead the worship and preach in a $3.99 polo from Dillard's. The heart of it was never so we can have really nice microphones one day and have our own professional studio. I thank God for all of that, obviously. I think it's wonderful, and I'm thankful for it, and it's amazing. But I wonder if the reason you're struggling with feeling frustrated is because you are chasing something that even if you get it, it's not going to really fill you. So my feeling is that the most foundational mindset in the book is Christ is in me. I am enough. Because that's present tense. Not Christ will be in me. I will be enough. Not Christ is in me, and I will be enough. If you don't start from enough, you never get there. And if Christ doesn't make you enough, what will? So close will.

And what's the Action. Step on that one again.

Well, I'm not stuck unless I stop this. Commit to progress. Christ is in me. I am enough. It's accepting yourself. Yeah, but not accepting yourself in a way that says, I'm going to stay this way.

Right.

Accepting yourself in a way that says, the seeds of everything God wants me to be are in me and he'll water them. All I've got to do is follow him. All I got to do is when I mess it up, I come to him and he coaches me. See, I know what you're asking me, jt, if there's a kid, if there's even an adult listening to this and it's like, yeah, but I'm not feeling successful. I've met people who are so successful and still so sad. People who are so rich and still so miserable. I've met people who work jobs that we might laugh at that are full of joy. I don't want you to chase something that is ultimately empty and miss how full your life really is. Miss the friends you really do have and miss the opportunities that you had. Because my ministry was built on picking up kids that didn't want to go to church and taking them. So when people say now, oh, mega church pastors. I'm not saying I want to slap them, but I do want to school them. I'm like, you don't know what the heart. I know a lot of pastors and very few of them are in it to be in front of crowds. We started doing what we did because we loved people and we wanted God to use us. And you can start there, too. I mean, there is somebody that for them in their life, you could be a lifeline to lead them to Jesus. And here's an example. Cody McSwain brought me to church. Then I met Jody, Jody's Elijah's uncle.

Shout out, Uncle Jody.

Shout out, Uncle Jody. And Jody led me to Christ. I would say that not only with my parents influence and different people who were in my life, but Cody taking me to church and showing up and throwing me in his truck because he's bigger than me. You're going it set a cha.

What if.

What if God used you? Like, think about the circle of this. I'm here talking to you about this book because somebody cared about me. What if there's something God wants to use you to do that's not even about you? It's about a bigger picture than you. Like, that'll get you out of your misery too. We're just so focused on ourselves. Sometimes like, there is somebody else that needs what you have.

Right.

And I really want you to defy the devil, the one that's got you scrolling through stuff like. Like, oh, I'm not there. I didn't get invited to that. They're doing that without me. Yeah, go invite somebody else who's sadder than you are and then you both be a little less sad together.

Right.

You know, I really encourage that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's really good.

That's great.

One of my favorite ideas in the book. Book comes from chapter seven, and it's all about doing the thing. Doing the thing you would do if you knew God was making a way forward. It's kind of one of the more central ideas of the book, obviously. But since the first time I heard you preach that, I've really been trying to apply it in, like, my life day to day. But one thing that I find is I feel great when I'm on a roll and when I'm kind of hitting everything I need to do, kind of doing the thing that you would do. You know what I'm saying? But then when I.

That's one of your favorite sayings too, though, that. Do the thing that you would do.

You love that. That really stuck with me, too. But the. What advice do you have for, like, those moments when you slip up? I tend to find it so hard to get back in that flow. It's so easy when you're in the flow, but the second you kind of have, like you say, like, when you have that conversation with someone that you love and maybe you weren't kind of. You know what I'm saying? Maybe you did spaz out on them. Can you give us some of the practical things that you use to kind of reset and get yourself back centered in those moments?

The reset is the key to it. It's not, are you going to slip up or you're going to lose your momentum, it's how quickly will you reset? How low will you let it take you? So if that means I'm going to bump up on this thing that makes me explode, then instead of admitting that it was wrong 10 minutes later, when I get my mind back, I'm going to actually cover it up and defend myself for the part that I was right about rather than owning the part that I was wrong about. Now I'm just multiplying the negative momentum. So you kind of answered a question with a question because it's like, how do I recover? That's a question you should ask God in that moment. Like, God I want to recover more quickly. And the quicker you get at recovery. I always like the illustration. I won't mess up the video. I would stand up and illustrate it. But I talked about how you can stumble your way forward if you catch yourself quick enough. Even if you're falling, if you catch yourself quick enough, you can still maintain.

Momentum, still forward momentum. Geez, that is mind blowing.

And if I acted it out, you would really love it. I mean, if I acted it out, it's like the stumble, you know, every time you take a step like that, some of your steps forward will be stumbles, and that's okay. The thing that you don't want to do is fall down, stay there or fall down, dig a hole there or fall down. Okay, well, now, I mean, I do this with food. Like, I used to go, well, I already ate one chip. Might as well eat the whole bag.

Or like, for me, I already missed one lift this week. Might as well not lift at all. It's like, it's so. It's such a.

That's part of church one Sunday. I might as well watch. I didn't watch online this Sunday. I already missed E group three times. I might as well not go this month.

They probably don't even want me to. And there's so many.

And then you go to pray, right? You're like, I haven't prayed in five days. And then you feel like you're checking in with the prison warden and he's going to bust you or something. It's like, well, you better pray. Because I realized this. You can start a street anytime.

Yeah.

If I pray today, I am a person that prays until you.

Until you don't. Yeah, Yeah.

I have perfect prayer attendance today. Starting today.

I actually. Okay, this is super random, but tell me if you think this is healthy or unhealthy. I actually, when people ask me, like, how's your quiet time been? Or something like that, I always, always answer with good, because I read my Bible every day and I pray every day. So to me, like, that's good. And so I'm like, yes, obviously it's important to, like, track for yourself. Like, if maybe you're not processing what you're reading as much. But I feel like so many people, I always hear them just yapping about.

Oh, I didn't read my Bible this week.

And like, every time you ask someone about it, they're just like, saying that. So I'm like, I really like that idea of just like, nah. Like, I'm the type of person that does read my Bible. And so, yeah.

So then we're getting into the balance of, like, self discipline and self righteousness. Right? Right. It's not a bad thing for you to say, hey, in this area of my life, I feel like I'm building the habits. And sure, I could always be better, but I'm really thankful for proud of the habits I built. Okay. It becomes pride when you think your progress makes you a better person.

Yes.

Wow.

So what you don't want to do is go, what's wrong with y'? All? I read my Bible every day.

Right.

Why are y' all not reading your Bible? Because if we look at your life.

Oh, yeah.

A little closer, I can find something that you don't do or you do that I don't do. So we don't want to play that game. What we do want to do. I think what you're saying is, let's give ourselves a little bit of credit for the momentum that we do have and then build on it.

And why would you even want to speak that over yourself that you're struggling to have?

Good.

Quiet. Just go read your Bible.

Well, that's a good point, too, because sometimes. Are we using confession as a substitute for obedience?

Yes. Yes.

Are we saying, great question. You know, hey, let's just all sit around and talk about how hard it is as a teenage boy struggling with lust or teenage girls. We all have eating disorders, and everybody does it. It's like, well, let's get help. Start making a game plan. Let's just don't keep walking into the same battle with absolutely no defense.

Exactly.

So I'm with you in that. And I think one of the things that I would have you look at your life for today is where are the areas where over and over again, you keep discussing defeat, but you never develop a strategy to do it differently? And then I can show you some areas for growth. Not to make you feel bad.

Right.

But to go, you've been talking about writing a book for the next last six years. Are we going to do this for six more? Or are you going to get something and do it? But that feeling.

Scary. It doesn't feel good at first. It's like that feeling of like, oh, oh, I forgot about that.

It's like Jesus walking to the disciples as a ghost.

Yeah.

It feels like fear.

Yeah.

It's like the moment where God tells Gideon, go in the strength you have.

Yeah.

And the only way for you to find out the strength that you have is to go in the strength you have.

Right.

Stronger and stronger and stronger. So let's say, for instance, if you are battling so much with. We'll go back to anxiety. I need you to try one time where you feel the anxious feelings. Okay. And you say, okay, that's an anxious feeling. But I still have the peace of God, and I'm going to move into the next thing that is right for me to do. I'm not going to do something destructive like I'm not going to smoke that away, or I'm not going to let that be an excuse for me to go do something destructive. I'm going to move through that feeling of anxiety with God's help. It's not going to feel good. It's going to feel terrible, But I'm going to move through it. And that's going to start retraining you to know that you do have options through it.

And, you know, and you're going to start getting that positive reinforcement of seeing that every time you do it, it's kind of better on the other side.

And you faced it and you didn't die.

Yeah, right.

And you faced it and it didn't kill you. And you faced it and. Wow. It turns out that it wasn't a ghost. It was Jesus.

Right?

It turns out that the storm actually bows to him. He doesn't bow to the storm. Just because the storm came doesn't mean I got out of the boat. I stayed in it. I want you to do that. I want you to stay in it because I believe there are things God sees about you that you don't see in you yet. I believe Jeremiah 16, before you were born, he knew you, and he's developing you and he's growing you, but he's growing you into what he's already called you. So that's encouraging because it doesn't leave me going, like, in the meantime, I'm a terrible person. It lets me know I'm a child of God and I have a father and he's committed to me.

Right? Yeah. That's so good.

Is anybody still watching? Is anybody still watching?

I feel like we should just run through. We got six more questions. I feel like we just run through everything, and then that way we do lightning round.

Yeah, lightning round. I'm horrible at lightning round. All right, I'll try, though.

Okay.

My lightning rounds are.

So we're just. We'll ask.

You just give.

Give you the. You give the fast answer. Is that what we're doing?

Well, I mean, I can try.

Let's just go boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

I mean, let's see. Let's see if I can do a lightning round.

Okay. To move through this question, we're on 14, right, Elijah?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Help me, Lord.

Okay. Your strength comes suddenly. You talked. You talked about coming into your day from a place of abundance. What does this look like for you personally and practically when you step into a day that feels overwhelming?

I make a list of my resources. I do it by hand. The list is things that I have in my life that basically, it's backwards. I say, imagine that today I didn't have a place to live. Imagine that today I couldn't get out of the bed. Imagine that today I didn't have a wife that loved me. And you could put in your own things here, right? If you don't have a wife or you don't have kids or whatever, you can fill the list up. Imagine that I was going to hell and I didn't know that I had a savior. Imagine that I didn't have a Bible. You can do as many or as few as you need to. And then the moment you shift and you realize, okay, so today I'm not getting out of this bed because I can't. I don't have a place to live, so I don't have to find somewhere to sleep tonight where I won't be cold. And then you realize I'm already there.

Right.

I'm automatically in abundance.

Yeah.

So I do it as a reverse exercise where I kind of subtract the things out of my life. I don't remember who taught me this, but it really helped me.

Is it Tony that said that?

No, it's not a Tony Robbins thing, I don't think. But he would definitely be able to explain it better than I just did. And he would know what it was called, and he would be able to break it down and cure you of, you know, every problem in your life. And I can't do that, but I do that in my life to go like, oh, I'm actually overwhelmed, as if I don't have what I need. But if I start from a place of what if all this was gone? And I subtract it out and put it back in. Boom, momentum. And I'm in my day.

Wow, that's great.

Okay, lightning. Let's go. Chapter 12. You talked about having a weasel free mentality, which I literally have a poster of in my dorm. Brought it here. If. If you're a real one. You recognized it. Okay. So you said, even if the enemy has made an inroads into the garden, of your heart and life. Even if that weasel tried to steal what God put there, even if it seems like something died right on top of your dreams, it doesn't kill the seed. I feel like a lot of times kids slip into this trap when they slip up in the area of purity, which is one of our core values for this pod that we always like to talk about. Psalm 119. 9 says, how can a young person stay on the path of purity by living according to your word? How would you speak into the importance of that verse? And what would be your advice to that kid who feels like they might be too far gone?

Too far gone. I mean, for you to be too far gone, you wouldn't be breathing watching this podcast for you to be too far gone, you wouldn't even want to listen. You are 17 hours into this podcast interview. Too far gone. There's something still in you that's reaching for God, because God's still reaching for you. I'll point you to all of the stories in the Bible where we would have said somebody is too far gone. Like a prostitute named Rahab. She probably seemed like somebody God couldn't use. Or if you don't like that example because you're like, that's kind of weird. You're talking about prostitution on the youth podcast. I don't know what you're trying to say. Okay, when Moses killed an Egyptian and hid him in the sand, is that too far gone? Buried an Egyptian in the sand, killed him. Oh, no. Was it too far gone when David slept with a man's wife while that man was out fighting for him as a soldier and then had the man killed on the front lines and then the baby dies. Is that too far gone? Or do we still read David's psalms?

Wow.

So the Bible is your book if you feel like you're too far gone in any area, Any area. If it's an area of purity, if it's an area where you feel like, you know what, this thought pattern, I've just been thinking this way so long. I absolutely love that starting place of too far gone because that gives God a chance to really raise you up. I don't mean you should go ruin your life, because I think the better strategy, if you can, is try not to get out there so far that it's going to be too hard for you to come back. I would say today, if you hear his voice, come on back, don't make it harder on yourself. He'll still love you. Don't make it worse for yourself. He'll still love you.

But the deeper, painful end of that.

Well, yeah, I told you the story. When you were turning about 14 or 15, I sat you down and said, as you enter middle school, high school, whatever it was, and these temptations become greater. I said, there's going to be some things that are going to try to pull you out. And we happened to be at the beach on a family vacation, and we had just been out swimming where the undertow, the undercurrent kind of got us out there further than we wanted to be. And Elijah was out farther than all of us because he's so adventurous, hard headed, and he wouldn't come back in. And then the undertow hits and he's just so far out. And I wanted to go get him, but I couldn't because Graham's on one arm, Abby's on the other. And we made it back in by the grace of God. But it gave me an illustration. I said, hey, there's going to be some temptations that are coming your way in these coming years that God will love you if you succumb to those temptations, if you give in, God will still be here for you when you come back. But some of them, you get so far out there, they take you way farther than you want to go. So I say, you're never too far gone for God's grace to reach you, but don't go any further than you have to. So if you exhaust yourself and miss out on what God has for you, like, why not now? Why not take this as a word from God right now? Right now, Right now, start coming back and you'll find that he meets you with that grace, because he's right there.

All you got to do is just walk towards him.

Well, when Peter was walking to Jesus, we talked about it's a ghost. But when Peter was walking to Jesus and he slipped and fell, it says immediately Jesus reached out and grabbed him, right? He didn't make Peter tread water for four minutes. Peter went like, I got it. Hold him.

He's never gonna punish you for trying to come back.

Reach out for him right now, right? Yeah, you can reach out for him right now. He's right there.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Wow.

That's great.

Okay, lightning round. Let's keep it going.

Okay, let's keep it going. Okay. In mindset four, you talk about the lizard brain story with Abby, which she's still in here. What are some practical ways you can overcome the lizard brain when it seems to be louder than any other voice?

All right, so Quick recap of the story I told Abby. It's actually neurologically inaccurate, but I told her that the survival part of your brain, they call it the lizard brain for years. It's just like the fight or flight part, the amygdala, whatever. Yeah, so my terminology was all off, but she was trying to swim from one end of the pool to the other without coming up for air, and she wanted to show her brothers that she could do it. And I said, okay, well, go ahead. But there's a part of your brain called the lizard brain because it's like the least evolved part of your brain. But I didn't tell her all that. I said, it's called the lizard brain. She goes, there's a lizard in my brain? I said, no, it's just called the lizard brain. And when you get down there and you start swimming across, the lizard is going to be lying to you, saying, you can't make it, you're going to die. You can't breathe. Get up right now, but you have more air in you. The lizard's a liar. Keep swimming. So she swims across first try, comes up out of water and says, man, that lizard is loud. I said, what was he telling you? She said, he was telling me not to keep swimming. And I said, and what did you say back? And she said, shut up, lizard. I'm doing this. She said, shut up, lizard. I'm doing this. I think you have to learn how to talk to your fears. Maybe you don't even have to say shut up. You just like when you notice that fear pulling you and saying, like, you know, you can't take it. You can't make it. You know, you're not cut out for it. Go. Appreciate that. I'm doing it anyway. And sometimes it's not telling the lizard to shut up. It's just telling the lizard to sit down. And I like to quote this thinking, fear, you can sit in the car, but you can't drive. That means you're not gonna make me make the wrong decision, right? You can sit in the car.

That's what you're telling to fear. Okay.

Yeah. Fear. Fear. Hey, you know you feel something come over you, like, yeah, like, oh, hey, hey, Fear. Hey, Lizard.

Hey, Fear.

Good to have you. I understand that you have a job to do to keep me from, like, jumping off a building. Fear can be a good thing, right? Thank you. Your services are not needed in this situation. I'm good. I'm just, like, actually just going to school. I'm actually just going. Placing an Order for food. This is not life or death. But you can stay in the car because I know I might need you in a minute while I'm driving the car, and there's another car coming at me, and I get afraid. So you can sit here. But I'm driving right now. And however you need lizards or cars or whatever. I use a lot of metaphors.

Weasels.

Weasels. We got weasels and lizards. And. And I did actually tell my editor for the book. I'm like, are there too many critters in the book?

We were just talking about that.

There's a lizard, and we left them all.

The joke was Josiah said, JT is going to get the lizard confused with the weasel. That was. We were placing bets on that.

Yeah, there's a lot of critters going on. Science book as well as a spiritual book. So we have the weasel brain. You know, we all have this need, though. Like, I think. Actually I'm glad we're talking about this, because calling it the lizard, calling it the weasel, it actually goes like, oh, but it's not me. That's not me. It's the fear. It's not me. It's the pressure. It's not me. When you feel depression, oh, that's the depression, but it's not me. I am the righteousness of God. I am a new creation. This is something I'm experiencing, and God can help me through it rather than feeling like it's who you are.

Great.

That's so good. Okay, mindset number five. My joy is my job. You've talked before about how you're not. You're not really the most naturally joyful person. I mean, you even mentioned it earlier, like, you're not naturally the most peaceful person. Obviously, I relate to that. Got a lot of similarities. But what's the biggest lesson you've learned about getting into your headspace or getting your headspace to a place where you can really experience that joy?

That it is my job. I mean, I'm not trying to cop out, but. But everything that I'm learning about that is in the statement, my joy is my job, because a job means it takes work. So to think that happiness is just my right, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it's a pursuit, right? So I need to be the kind of person that can experience happiness. I need to be generous so that I can feel joy. All of those things are very different than waiting on someone else to make you happy.

Wow.

And the other thing about that is it lets me Know that I need to take ownership of my emotions and saying they made me mad. That may be true sometimes, but sometimes they didn't make you mad. You basically allowed them to trigger you in a way that accessed the worst part of you, but they didn't make you mad. I heard somebody say one day they put me in a bad mood. And I started laughing, and they were like, are you really laughing at me right now? I said, yeah, because I just had a picture of somebody picking you up and carrying you over to this place called Bad Mood and putting you in it.

Bad Mood City.

Bad Mood Ville. Bad Mood. Bad, bad, Bad Moon Village. Bad Moon Estates, right? Like, where is this place called Bad Moon? So I think. I think taking responsibility for it is important because it's knowing, okay, I'm not supposed to be happy all the time. First of all, I'm allowed to have some sadness. I'm allowed to have some valleys. God is there, too. All of that is a part of it. But getting out of it with God's help is not something I'm going to wait on somebody else to do for me or wait for something good to happen. So basically, understanding that God gave me emotions, right? They're a gift. I have emotions, they don't have me.

And you don't have to have those emotions, right?

Because it's my job to employ those emotions. It's my job to access those emotions. It's my job to find that place inside of myself. Waiting on someone else to do it is a trap. It's a setup, right? So it's a complete shift from how most of us think.

And you know what, What I think of when I think of the job is something that you, you must do. And that's. That's what I liked about the verse that you shared with us. Because in response, God literally says, you must go. So it's almost like I asked you, like, you know, what do you do to get that joy? It's like, no, I have to work. I have to force myself to, basically.

And it's not like I'm going be happy, feel good, have, endure, have serotonin. You must. You must smile. You must.

I mean, positive affirmations are good, but.

You know, I think that's like the happiness joy continuum is where we realize that sometimes the way we use a word, you know, how words change over generations, like sick does not mean I need a doctor to you.

Right?

Right. And happy. It didn't always mean in the Bible that I have a positive emotional state. It didn't Always mean that everything's just like I want it to be. It didn't always mean that I'm feeling blissed out. It meant that I'm basically content with what God gave me. And now we've got a definition of happy that just completely revolves around our sensory experience. I feel happy. I feel sad. So maybe joy is the better word to use to say that the joy that I find in God is a state of knowing that in him he's got me and I'm good.

And it's my job to channel that, basically. Yeah.

It's my job to bring it forth. It's my job to access it, and it's a gift that God gave me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's great. Last one, last question.

Closing it out.

Of course, all of these mindsets are important. But if you had to tell a young person, there's one in this season of your life that you should at least try to master, I don't even know if that's possible, but one that's important for you to focus on, which one would that be?

And specifically to the youth. Yeah, teenage.

God is not against me. The way that you maybe heard God preached about. God was trying to keep you from having fun. God was trying to keep you from sex. God was trying to keep you from having the wrong friends. God is trying to keep you from expressing yourself in this way. God is trying to keep you from all of these things that seem so amazing. Then one day you wake up and realize that every boundary God put in your life was a blessing. Anything that he said, don't touch, don't eat, don't do it, was because he had something better that he wanted to give you. I continue that mindset by saying, God is not against me, but he's in it with me, working through me, fighting for me. And those three things are all important. To know that God is not waiting on the other side of whatever you're going through. And neither is your joy, and neither is his presence. He's in it with you, whatever it is, whatever it is, good or bad, wicked or righteous, God is in it with you, either waiting to lift you out of it or waiting to work through you in it. So he's in it with you, working through you. He wants to use you. Don't just make your whole life about what you can get. Don't just make your whole life about being noticed or being known. Make your life about being an instrument God can use. There's nothing better. There's nothing more satisfying. I'm telling you. He wants to work through you. And I think my favorite one is he's fighting for you. Because whether you have a natural father or not, you have a heavenly father. And some of the things that you're trying to figure out, let him work on those things. Do what you can. Stay where you are in the season that you're in, faithfully as you know how, and let God fight the battles that are too big for you, because he's good at that, and he'll step in and have your back. If you believe that at the core, it doesn't matter who or what comes against you in life, you go, God is not against me. And if God is for me, whoever likes or doesn't like me, whoever breaks up with me or stays with me, whoever comes, whoever goes, whatever I face and wherever I fail, I know one thing for sure. God is for me. Wow.

Come on.

I feel like there's not a better ending than that.

Not a better ending.

I love y'.

All. I love you. That was insane. The book is out now.

Yeah. Before we cop the book, do the new you out everywhere.

Links in the description.

Longest podcast you've ever done.

Easily three hours.

Are we keeping it all?

We'll. We'll figure all that out in the end. But it before we wrap up. Is it anything else you want to plug you got coming up I than the book.

I'm going to be watching some wrestling in a high school gym somewhere near you soon. There we go. And maybe me and you'll have the song that I mentioned cooked up to put on the elevation youth Instagram soon. The one that I told you. Maybe we'll put a little 30 second snip it up. Be on the lookout.

Let's do it.

Proud of y'. All. Thank you for having me.

Of course.

I love you. We love you. And is there a motto for the podcast?

Do we have a motto?

No, I don't think we have. Motto Youth nation. Your station for inspiration, elevation, perspiration and coagulation. There it is. We got a motto.

I knew like 50% of those words, right.

Sam?