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(Auto-generated)Welcome back. It is the 25th episode of the Laughing Matters podcast, which may not mean a lot to you, but that means a lot to me.

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So happy 25th episode, everybody.

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You know, what's funny is I actually planned to talk about this before I realized this was the 25th episode.

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So that's kind of cool to me.

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And the thing I wanted to talk to you guys about was that I realized recently that I've done a lot of talking about God,

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specifically a non-specific God, in a general sense of.

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And I haven't really talked much about specifics of other religions.

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You know, I was going to talk about heaven.

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I haven't really talked about many of the prophets and talked about Christ.

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I would quote him more to illustrate another avenue of thought on what he had said based off of something that I had found.

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And I don't think I'm going to ease you guys into it.

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I don't think I want to hang back on that in the in the time of this recording.

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I've made a split second decision to not do that.

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Each person's journey and their decisions are exactly that.

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They are their journey, their decisions.

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It has to be their relationship with them.

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It has to be their belief in him.

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And so they've got to come to that.

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That's not something I mean, with some people, I guess it is something, but I can't I can't do that.

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That might be nice if I could just believe something, but no, I have to understand it first.

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So that's a journey that can't be told.

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It can only be found, but I wanted to share with you mine.

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So in my journey, I come to an understanding that I needed to choose my prophet.

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I needed my human connection to this world.

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And I I elected to pick Jesus Christ because his big asks mirrored what I found to be true.

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And he's the one whose messages resonated the most with me.

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You know, he asked the two big ones which were lined up with my two big ones, you know,

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belief, faith in and loving of God and treating your fellow man well.

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And it seems all over the place.

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But why am I sitting here in front of you at 428 a.m.

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looking ragged and strung out tired?

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Well, tonight, when I thought about Jesus, which sadly really does not happen as much

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as it should, I heard the words, will you already did the big one?

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You believed in God.

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The rest is so much easier than that.

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And God was absolutely right.

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You know, I had a really, really tough time arriving at a belief in God throughout like

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my entire life.

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My biggest hurdle when it came to believe back when I was much, much younger, that would

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have to be understanding.

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It's the way I'm wired.

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You know, I have a harder time than most because if I don't understand it being an autistic

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man, that's one of the requirements for integration.

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If I'm going to believe something, then I need to be able to understand what I believe.

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I was seven to nine years old.

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I was brought up in Catholicism.

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It was kind of this hang on tight because here's all this stuff that happened BC and

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you know, here's all this stuff that happened in the first 98 years of AD.

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My brain was collapsing and the whole, you know, this is my body, this is my blood communion.

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That didn't help.

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There were a lot of rituals of worship in the Catholic Church that were never explained

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to me or never explained in a way that I understood them.

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You know, I partook in them.

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I was there, which I kind of figured counted for something, you know, because I wasn't

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completely into them the way that the priests were, you know, some of the congregation

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were, they just didn't hold special other than, you know, being the things that I'd

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seen my whole life.

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They had a nostalgia to them, but they just didn't do it for me, I guess.

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I don't know how to describe it.

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I didn't understand them.

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So they weren't, there wasn't a big connection to them.

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That isn't to say that they don't have greater meanings behind them.

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I just assumed I was never let in on what those great meanings were.

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Ages 10 to 12, I started really trying to think critically about God, you know, trying

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to make that connection through asking questions, you know, and make that connection between

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the figure that I kept hearing about but never met and the world that I was living in made

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up of my, you know, made up my entire frame of reference.

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And I tried to reconcile what I didn't understand with what I thought I did.

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At age seven, I was just trying to absorb what was being told to me at a rapid fire

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pace and from about 10 on, I had questions.

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I didn't always know what those questions were, but I knew that they were there.

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I could feel them.

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I wanted to ask them.

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I just didn't quite know how or to whom because I didn't feel the same way that so many of

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my congregation did about God and Jesus.

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So, you know, number one, the first people that you would think do to go to about questions

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about it that, you know, that I'd known for most of my life are out the door because I

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don't relate.

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I didn't relate to it.

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It wasn't where I was finding God.

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Prior to my own search, my belief had been told to me and not found.

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It was only really there because it was installed in me by somebody else.

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I didn't grow it myself.

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It was a clothing that I wore, not my skin.

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And even then, I seemed to understand on some subconscious level that if I wanted to believe,

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I needed to feel it so that I could start to understand it.

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At my core, there was something that knew that there was something, but that's where

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it's certainty ended.

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So I'll skip ahead in the story of a few years and speak to what I've come to understand

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about Jesus.

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I've never really talked about him on the show outside of quoting him a few times.

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I think that has a lot to do with the desire for what I'm talking about, not to be seen

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as having any kind of specific religious sect that it's tied to, as these concepts that

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I found are non-religion specific.

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And far too many people are used to immediately jettisoning info and turning away from the

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speaker the moment that Jesus is mentioned.

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So please take what I have to say here unaffiliated from honestly anybody out there.

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It's just take it as it is.

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If it resonates within you, then it resonates because truth resonates.

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We know this.

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I don't have to convince you.

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I just need to tell you about it.

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So that's what I'm going to do.

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Yes, I believe that he was a man that pretty much did what the stories of the New Testament

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told about him doing, leaving, of course, a margin of error for the possibility that

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maybe one or two words were misquoted, not quoted exactly correct, because it was for

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several of them.

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It was several years before it got written down.

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And I'm sure their understandings of what he said changed in growing into the information

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and because they're constantly learning.

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Once you have the truth pulled back for you, can't help but learn from there.

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There's too much new stuff that it reveals.

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And I could totally see one remembering him saying it one way.

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We're human.

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We've already proven the guy walks in and robs somebody with a banana and there's an

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ape that I don't remember the experiment exactly.

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But we've all heard about the experiment where they show them something crazy happening and

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then nobody notices that this other thing happened because everybody was focused on

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this one thing.

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So I leave that margin of possibility open because we're human and we make mistakes.

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But I also believe for most intents and purposes that Jesus was a halfway point, like a conduit,

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a tunnel between two planes of existence, that which has form and that which doesn't.

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Halfway to God, halfway to man.

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He's the walking guide rope through an arctic blizzard.

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He's the only guy at the party who knows where the bigger, much better after party is.

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He's got one foot in the afterlife and one foot on earth like a ship captain straddling

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between the dock and a schooner so that the passengers don't fall in while boarding.

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Anyways, that's what my understanding of Jesus is today.

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And I have to say that outside of, you know, choosing a prophet, choosing to follow someone,

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I believe that it was an important decision because I didn't quite have Jesus figured

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out to the point where I would be even comfortable just out now believing in him.

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And that had lay in that position for many, many years until the day that I had my moment

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of finally turning my eye to God and making my decision.

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It happened on the day that I concluded that no matter how long I studied physics or the

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natural sciences, I was only going to find evidence, you know, always enough to support

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but never enough to prove the existence of a creator slash designer of our reality.

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I was never going to know for certain.

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And that happens to be pretty much the main requirement for faith.

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So I took a deep breath, I said, okay, here we go. And I craned my neck like somebody

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that's about to call a parent that they've actively avoided for years.

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And I looked up and I said, I think I get it now.

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God, I'm going to believe in you.

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And it was the strangest thing my mind immediately snapped to every selfish act I had ever committed

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against anyone.

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Like every shitty thing that I'd ever done emotionally to anyone.

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I wasn't thinking of them individually.

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They weren't flashing through my mind like I was entering death.

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I just felt the weight of all of that guilt at once.

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And I showed God that I saw and I genuinely apologized for it.

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I was on the verge of crying.

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I was probably crying.

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I was telling God how sorry I was that I'd chosen self-serving decisions without giving

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any thought to what it was doing to others.

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Because I had found the concepts at this point.

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Like I understood they're all Him.

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We're all Him.

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I've been doing this to the whole.

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We've been doing this to the whole.

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All of us.

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I had been previously educated on what the best next step in exactly this situation was.

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Even though I wasn't super connected to the way that I had been told, I had been told

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what I was supposed to do here.

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So I gave it a try.

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The first time in my life I genuinely asked for forgiveness.

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And as I asked with my voice filled with genuine sorrow for all of these things, I suddenly

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felt directed to a question.

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And it wasn't something that was necessarily said to me, but I felt the words course through

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me.

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Which of the prophets would I follow?

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I had recently been studying passages in the New Testament, making note that several statements

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made by Jesus took on way deeper meanings when the concepts that I'd find were applied

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to them.

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The concepts that I wrote my book, podcast, and show about, of course.

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And it brought me much closer than I had ever felt to Jesus, a man that I had never met.

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But I'd heard about all my life.

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I'd never had any beef with Jesus.

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In fact, I think I pretty much always believed that He was more than a man for most of my

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life anyways.

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I just didn't always think that the people speaking of Him and acting in His name were

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always the best spokespeople.

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So I dropped all of that and I said to God, I will take a leap of faith and believe that

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Jesus was the Son of God.

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And that in some way that I can never hope to understand while I'm alive, that He died

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for our sins and that He was a way to return to God, to heaven, once this is all over for

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me.

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A moment after I uttered those words, though, I felt the oddest sensation.

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It was as if this large drop of oil had landed on the very top of my head and began to spread

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out over my scalp and moved evenly.

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The cessation it was leaving behind was like that crazy pins and needles feeling that you

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get when your limb falls asleep.

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It was like that, but it was deeper, but more pleasant.

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You know, it was just a strong, not that, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no feeling, but something

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you really want to lean into.

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It made its way down my face and my neck, and it was evenly flowing down and outward

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until I was covered from head to toe, every inch of me made of buzzing nerve endings.

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And I stood there and as that feeling began to recede just ever so slowly, I suddenly

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became aware of something else.

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You see, for about three weeks, I had felt this panic push forward to write what I had

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for the book.

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I took an extended leave of absence from my work, and I was up for days at a time trying

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to write down and riddle out what I could.

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And I missed quite a few meals.

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Probably can't tell.

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I've made up for it.

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Often, I would pass out for like 45 minutes or so and wake back up and then start back

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into it.

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And by the time I told God that I would take that leap of faith and believing in Him and

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Jesus, I was significantly weak and weary and swaying quite a lot while standing.

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But my head during this entire marathon was clear as a belt.

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It's the strangest thing.

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I felt exhausted, but I could think clearly at any point.

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And as that pins and needles feeling faded, suddenly my body was clear as a belt too.

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It felt like my body had undergone some kind of drastic reversion.

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I felt as if my physical body was new, fresh out of the package, as if all those years

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of putting tears in my muscle fibers and bursting capillaries and getting knee injuries and

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just they all vanished.

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And my issues that had had all my life with my knees were gone.

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And all of that wear down that I put my mind and body and emotional core through and all

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that weariness that had mounted from too much work and stress and way too little rest.

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Like it had never been there to begin with.

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I tried to put it into words for you, but as those of you that have experienced an intense

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moment with God, words can't ever do it.

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It's like my old friend Jay Seals once confided in me.

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He told me that in his experience, miracles and moments in God's presence are only miracles

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and moments in God's presence to those that they happen to.

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They can never be properly told or emotionally conveyed.

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They are beyond words.

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You alone were in the vantage point to understand exactly why that was a miracle.

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So on that note, I can only pass along what has happened in my life.

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What I came to understand and how I came to understand it and hope that it resonates within

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you when you hear it.

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Because finding the concepts and finally believing in God finally led me to real consistent happiness

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and contentment for the first time in my life.

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I finally felt full and I finally felt like I was really living for the first time.

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And I felt a bit dismayed that I never realized how much I was missing out on before all of

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this.

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How good that genuine laugh is.

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So at the end of the day, when it comes to picking a profit, don't ask me.

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Ask Him.

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No matter what you choose to follow, follow that kindness and that strengthening of bond,

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that generosity of time, energy and focus.

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And yes, that includes your money as you sell your time, energy and focus to others for

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that.

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I don't know which profit is the right profit for you.

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I don't know if Christ is the only way to get to God.

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I only know which profit is the right one for me because not a single one of us knows

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for certain.

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Only He knows.

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So ask Him.