This is Jimmy in a net and oh well with Mr.
Chevy of course he's always with us. He's in fine form today as he's actually awake right now.
He's going to jail tomorrow. I know puppy jail. Don't say that out loud. He saw us packing our bags.
I know. He gets funky. Yeah I'm sure he's like oh no. Here I go again. Where am I going? I'm being banished to
Siberia. It's gonna feel like Siberia now because it was 30 something degrees today. It was cold.
I made it up to 45 I think. And I drove in the rain and cold. I had to have my seat heaters on.
I never, you know I don't like to drive in the rain. I know you don't. It was a nice rain. It
wasn't a thunderstorm. I had to get out. I had to go get my nails done. You need to give him
some attention. I know. He's standing up. If people could see him standing up in a chair, he stands up.
Picture a gopher or a meerkat. It's weird. How they stand up on their haunches. I've never seen a dog like this. I know.
And he's not standing up on his legs. He's sitting on his rear. On his rear. Like his haunches. And he'll do this.
He'll get up on the top of the couch and do that. He's a lot of a gopher. He's really needy right now. I know.
It's because he knows we're leaving. I know. I know. He's clingy. Well we want to welcome you to
Living Up in a Down World. My name is Jimmy and this is... What? Oh sorry. You're messing with Chevy.
Well I didn't know you were doing that. Well I'm cleaning his little eyes. I know. Okay. This is my wife Annette.
Annette. We've been married for almost 31 years. We have an anniversary coming up. I know.
And we got blessed with a gift didn't we? Yes. An anniversary gift. I am so stoked. I know.
You're kind of off mic right now because you're messing with Chevy. Oh I'm sorry.
Here Chevy stop. Focus. Focus. Come back to me. Yes we're going to Pagosa Springs the week of Thanksgiving.
I'm so excited. I hope the weather's going to be nice. Yeah you never know. You never know there.
So it's close to Durango. Beautiful beautiful area up there. I've been up there many times.
Growing up in West Texas in the panhandle of Texas when we did vacations we always took off to the mountains.
And so we spent a lot of time up in New Mexico and the mountains and obviously Colorado and Wyoming.
So all through my childhood. So we're going to be gone tomorrow for almost a week and then we come back for what two weeks and then we leave again for a week.
I know. I know. It's just we fall is usually that way. Every fall is a lot of travel because we also have a lot of conferences.
So we're going to a really really big conference that we're excited about. It's been a long time since we've been to Bethel.
We're going out to Bethel Church in Redding California. Pastor Bill Johnson is the lead pastor there.
He wrote When Heaven Invades Earth a number of years ago which was a game changing book for a lot of people.
Yes. So we're going to go out there. It's a pastor and leaders conference.
And so we fly out tomorrow. We come back Saturday and then I get to step up and preach on Sunday.
I'm super excited. I'm excited too. I'm excited to see what God's going to give you to preach on Sunday.
I'm open and I'm like a big antenna. I'm just receiving and just saying speak Lord and whatever you want your people to hear.
I'm here. Am I? Send me like Isaiah. There you go. So yeah. So we'll be flying out tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to it. But it's going to be like in the 30s in the morning. I know.
And so for people that live in other countries and anywhere north of Tennessee, they're laughing at us right now going you are such whips.
We are. But we are because we live in the heat down here. So we live in the Texas Hill country.
We don't get a lot of cold spells out here. No. But I heard this year is going to be.
I know we could have another snow. El Nino. Correct. El Nino or La Nina.
I get El Nino El Nino. Supposedly every seven years.
This seems like every year they're talking about this stuff. I don't know. I know.
It's weird. So supposedly we're going to have a very cold winter and then up north in the northern United States where typically it's colder.
They're going to have above average temperature. We should go to Canada.
Oh, I've always wanted to go to Canada. I've heard there's some beautiful.
I know up around. Where was it? Where the Norwoods lived up in.
Up north of Washington state. Yeah, I don't know.
We cannot recall that. Yeah, I don't know. It was like stunning.
Columbia. British Columbia. Oh, OK. OK. Yeah. Beautiful up there.
And I was jealous when they lived there, but we never got invited.
No, we never and we've never been to Canada. No, we've flown over the edge of it.
Many, many, many states, but never Canada. I know it.
So I'm excited. I love traveling with you. I do not like traveling alone, but when we're together, it's like honeymoon and it's joyful and it's fun.
And you're my best friend. And so I just love, love, love traveling with you.
We have a lot of fun. We do. It's always fun watching dudes hit on you in the airport.
Oh, my gosh. They are not hitting on me. Oh, hello. You're funny.
That's because you're gorgeous. Now, I turn around and they go, oh, she's the old one.
I'm sorry. I look at it like this. It's flattering to me.
It's like, dude, I won. So, you know, you're so I'm not threatened at all.
You're hilarious. I'm happy. I got flirted with you at the gym the other day.
I know that was kind of weird. Yeah.
But you missed your moment because he said you looked really good and you should have said, you should see my husband.
He's right over there. That would have been a perfect segue.
Well, I think I was just kind of shocked when he said that a younger man was flirting with you.
I'm too old to do this. And I said, I'm quite a bit older than you.
And he goes, no, I can guarantee you're not.
And when I told him my age, he goes, oh, you are five years older.
I could be your mother. Oh, I'm only five years older.
I could be your aunt. No, I just know.
There's so many comebacks you could have had, but I think you were just kind of taken aback.
I think you were flattered. Well, I think it hadn't happened to me in 20 years.
Well, once every decade or so, it's nice for somebody to pay a little attention.
Yeah, it'll probably be my last time.
So when you when you text me, did I just run over there and stake my claim?
No, no, I didn't. I just got hit on by a man.
And I said, congratulations. That was my text back.
Congratulations. You're not jealous at all.
Not at all. Maybe you should be a little bit.
No, no, I am so secure because you've made me feel secure.
Oh, OK, good. We're safe with each other.
And that's the way marriage should be. Absolutely.
Because we always say this to people that it's Jimmy and Annette, not Jimmy or Annette.
Exactly. And we just present a united front.
In fact, in our church, what did I what I say I want you to start doing after the prayer night?
You want me to come up with you?
Anybody who's listening who's new needs to hear.
We did this big prayer night like a week, two weeks.
Well, we could go. It's been two weeks.
Has it been two? OK, two Sundays ago on an evening.
And we're praying for revival and spiritual awakening,
because if there's ever a time when the world needs spiritual awakening, it's now.
So we're calling some prayer meetings to do that.
We had a couple of hundred people showed up. We had worship.
It was amazing night. Powerful, powerful night.
And I brought you up on the platform to pray for one of the movements.
We did eight movements and you did one of the movements.
And when you were up there standing with me, there was something I was like,
this is as it should be. You should be with me up here.
I'm not preaching with you.
No, I didn't say that.
It would be like this program where we're talking on top of each other, each other.
Exactly. Although I thought about us doing a panel discussion.
You and I talking about.
We've done that before on different things.
We've done it with the whole family.
But I actually thought it could be good for us to bring up a topic.
We could do that. That would be I would love to do that.
So we need to plan that.
So in light of all that, with you standing up there, I thought,
I need to have you up here every Sunday just as kind of to greet the church,
because we have a lot of our church is growing right now.
We have a lot of new people, a lot of new people.
So it's impossible to get to everybody.
So not everybody knows that that pretty blonde on the front rows.
But they do, because you bring me up every service.
Well, I do talk about you a lot because remember, it's Jimmy and Annette, not Jimmy or Annette.
Right. And there's a reason for that.
I know. And it's warred off any potential weirdness.
So, yeah, present a united front.
But that's just the way we roll.
And we've rolled this way for almost 31 years, November 20th.
I can't believe you can remember the date.
I can't remember my phone number, but I can remember our anniversary and your birthday.
So, wow, I'm impressed.
Thank you. I'm married up.
I'm married up. You always say you married up.
But I'm married up. Well, we both married up.
How's that? There you go.
That's how it's supposed to work.
We both we both when you both feel that way, that's a good thing.
Good thing in a marriage.
Well, the name of our podcast, like I mentioned earlier, but it's living up in a down world.
And really, that's the heart of what this is about.
We recognize that sometimes the world can be very dark.
And right now in the in the season or in history that we're in right now,
it seems like it's darker than it's ever been in my lifetime.
Now, I could be wrong. I could have forgotten things.
But it just seems like a lot of things have been a lot of older people that said
they have never experienced anything like that in their lifetime.
And I mean, you know, the pandemic scammed in it,
scammed in a pandemic, whatever it is, whatever it was when that came.
I mean, that's nothing that was unprecedented in our time.
We've never had government mandated lockdowns and stuff.
It was like, whoa, this just we just turned into a dystopian future.
And that was really freaky and unsettling.
And it really traumatized our the world.
And so coming out of that, we've had cultural trauma.
So it's a dark world. It's a down world right now.
It feels that way.
But there's always bright spots and there's always amazing things going on.
And God's everywhere working in all kinds of things.
We say as lands on the move.
And as a Christian, we don't have to live that way.
When you're not a Christian, you don't know any better.
You don't know that there's there's something better out there
that can give you the hope that can give you joy, that can give you peace.
You're kind of a victim to your circumstances.
But when you have Jesus, it changes everything.
Let's talk about Jesus for a minute.
Because really, that's what we're about.
That is the core of who we are.
We cannot not talk about Jesus.
Oh, we had Tina and Adam over last night for dinner and all we talked about.
I like three hours of talking about Jesus and what God is up to.
And for those of you who don't know, Adam and Tina Curry are two dearest friends on the planet.
We've been walking together, all of us together on our spiritual journeys.
They began walking their journey, what, two years ago?
Was it about two years?
A year and a half, two years.
A year and a half to two years ago.
And then they moved to Fredericksburg.
And then we met.
It's a long story, so I'll keep it short.
But we've just become best friends.
So we hang out and we do life together.
And we threw some steaks on the pellet grill and did a carnivore dinner for us meat eaters.
And then we had some food for them as well.
But we talked.
It was God talk.
It was wonderful.
God conversations.
We have such a good time when we're with them.
We do.
I think I'm the most relaxed with them.
I had my house shoes on.
Girl, you had the fuzzy house shoes on.
You were rocking those.
And I was wearing a hoodie.
I know.
Well, so was Adam.
We're finally getting so comfortable with each other that we can just...
We don't have to...
Well, of course, she was all dressed up, which I didn't understand why she stayed in her
Sunday clothes.
Well, talk about Sunday, as a matter of fact, in terms of Adam and Tina.
Because Adam, this was week two for Adam.
He gets to come to church.
To actually be in services with us.
We have two services back to back.
We do a nine o'clock and a 1045.
And Tina has been coming for a year and a half.
I mean, she's been committed and involved.
And she sits with you on the front row.
And so we always see Tina in the second service.
Always.
But what Adam does, because he does his podcast, No Agenda, by the way, if you want to know
what's going on in the world right now, three and a half hours, two dimes a week on Sunday
and Thursday, look up No Agenda with Adam Curry and John Dvorak.
Fantastic, hardcore podcast.
No, they don't pull any punches.
They do poke a lot of fun at media and they do a lot of media deconstruction and what's
going on in the world.
And it's just, it's a great viewpoint.
I love listening to the show.
I can't do the full seven hours a week.
So I spot listen to it here and there when I'm driving and whatnot.
But I've learned so much from Adam just about how the just how things are going on in the
world.
Very helpful.
It's a great viewpoint.
I love that.
But he does that show at one o'clock on Sunday and he's done this for 15, 16 years.
He stood at 11.
They bumped it back to one few years ago.
So they've been doing this 15, 16 years.
They've had 1600 plus episodes.
Can you believe that?
Wow.
All long.
I mean, all three, two, three hour.
Unbelievable.
But it would they do it two times, two times a week.
Like I said, Sunday and Thursday.
Yeah.
So that's a lot.
Yeah, it is a lot.
A lot of air time.
So he has been feeling like the Lord has kind of been drawn him to try to reconfigure his
schedule again.
He's been in this group for a long time so that he get to church.
And he was a little concerned about him.
Can I get my prep time in?
Because he has a lot of preparation to do this show.
It's a fast moving show.
Lot of content.
And so he and I did a bro date a couple of weeks ago.
And he said, yeah, he said, I'll see you tomorrow.
I thought, what?
Okay.
And he did.
So anyway, this was week two and it was so cool to see Adam and Tina together on a Sunday
morning.
Maybe the first time, second time I've ever seen them there together.
On a Sunday morning.
First time.
So anyway, that's just a huge win because and he said he feels like he's doing better
at his show because it feels like God's compensating and whatever he sacrifices to be there, it's
like it's all good.
So cool.
So good.
We love those guys.
We talk about them a lot because you talk about the things you love the most.
And so we talk about them a lot.
That's a good way to put it.
It's true.
I mean, don't we?
That and Carnivore.
Yeah.
Carnivore.
Of which?
Of which.
You got asked to be on a podcast.
It's Adam.
What's his name?
I'm going to look up his name.
His name is Adam, but it's not Adam Curry.
He's a big time Carnivore guy.
And man, I love this guy.
He and I, we connected on a platform for Dr. Ken Berry that we're a part of, we're members
of that.
And we connected through that and just turns out he's a believer and we just have just
hit it off.
Can we look him up right now?
But his is a, is his podcast video?
Yes.
It's a video.
Okay.
So you're going to be on a video.
It's a YouTube channel.
Okay.
So.
So you're going to be talking about total life wellness.
So you'll be talking about Jesus.
Super stoked.
You're going to be talking about Carnivore, what it's done to us, you know, for us physically
and mentally.
And what else are you going to be talking about?
Mind, body, spirit, mind, mental, mental health, and just balance.
So his name is Adam Lacey and he has a great YouTube channel.
What's it called?
I'm going to look it up.
I'm juggling a lot of things here cause you caught me off guard with that.
Sorry.
It's okay.
Well, you just brought that on me.
So I was like, okay.
Well, I just talked to him today and so we scheduled, I think I'm going to be on a show.
We're going to do the interview next Wednesday.
It's an hour long and he just wants to hear about our carnivore journey and you and me
and our progress and what we're learning along the way and just to encourage others.
And I was going to look up his.
I know Carrie talks about it a lot, but I can't remember what.
Yeah.
From home said how is it called a handle?
Is that what you call it?
Or is it just the name of your show?
Just the name of the show.
Okay.
Name of your channel.
Oh man, I'm really do not like that.
Well, that's okay.
You can figure it out.
Yeah.
It's carnivore something.
Anyway, Adam Lacey's name.
So I'll get the name.
Yeah.
Cool.
I'll talk about it.
It'd be good for our listeners to listen to that story.
Yeah.
It's just a journey that we're on and it's kind of an elimination.
We're kind of on an elimination diet of our whole total life.
Total life.
And it kind of leads us into our topic today, doesn't it?
Exactly.
And so I want to share some scripture with you.
Just two verses that have been this morning when I got up, I always do a daily devotional.
I've written it for over 20 years.
I have about five to 6,000 entries that I've written independent.
I write them every day, maybe two or three, four times a year.
I might find an old one and refurbish it, but typically, you know, most every 360 out
of the 365 are all hot off the press every morning.
And I've done this for a long time.
So today I wrote one called Monday Momentum, or Momentum Monday.
And as I was looking through scriptures, I calmed the word.
I get my Bible and I just different ways I'm looking for scripture.
You don't get a Bible and point to it and say, okay, this is the scripture that I'm
supposed to do.
Not quite, but not far off.
Sometimes I'll flip through my Bible.
But if it says, you know, like, go sacrifice, you're not going to.
No, no, no.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Some crazy stuff.
No, I just flipped through my Bible.
My Bible's all highlighted up.
I was going to say you have a lot of highlights.
Things that stand out to me.
So this morning I was looking and I found, I just came upon the scripture.
It really jumped out at me.
It says this.
Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 and 14 says, enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate
and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it.
That's pretty heavy.
It is.
Talking about the road is narrow, the gate is narrow, the path is narrow.
And, you know, you hear people use that in their language about, yeah, I'm on the narrow
path, you know.
Yeah, I've taken the narrow way.
So what does that mean?
Yeah.
Well, let me read the second verse because that'll give some, shed some light on the
first.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.
So you've got a narrow gate that leads to life.
You've got a wide and broad road that leads to destruction.
And what that speaks to, it speaks to the things.
Okay, I was talking about an elimination diet, right?
And so in terms of carnivore, doing a carnivore, keto or whatever, you begin to eliminate things
that you deem…
Any kind of diet you're eliminating.
Yeah, any kind of diet.
You're eliminating things that you think are not good for you.
So I just call it eliminate and concentrate.
So you eliminate the non-essentials, concentrate on the essentials, right?
Well, we do this spiritually too, mind, body, spirit.
And so what we have been doing starting last February when you came back from a conference,
we cut out, we just cut something away.
And it's sort of like if you're in a hot air balloon and it's not getting any altitude,
they cut sandbags.
You know, they can increase the flame, but they also can have…sometimes have dead weight
on that and they can throw off that weight and it'll, you know, it'll get more altitude.
And I feel like what the path that God's had us on is a narrow path.
It's not for everybody and we wouldn't tell everybody to do this either, especially
the things that we feel like God has eliminated out of our life.
Because for one, the Holy Spirit needs to be the one to tell people, not us.
We just share what God is doing in our life.
And then hopefully, you know, people will ask, Lord, what is it that you want to eliminate
out of my life?
Exactly.
So that's what we've been doing.
And then we had our sabbatical and that was a good time to kind of eliminate and say,
okay, Lord, what is it that's this non-essential?
And it's not even bad things.
You know, we were watching a lot of TV back in the day.
I mean, that just kind of became our evening.
TV was always on, buzzing all the time and it just was just noise, background noise.
And so when you came back, we eliminated that and we suddenly discovered we had way more
time than we thought we did.
We had hours and hours and we were always going, okay, we need to watch our shows.
We need to watch our shows.
Now it's like, what do you want to do?
Hey, let's do a podcast.
It's almost nine o'clock, you know, it's late at night, you know, because we're traveling
it, we're day off.
But yeah, but we have time to do it.
Normally we'd be in there fighting over which show we're going to watch.
And so this elimination, this carving things out of your life.
So when I look at this scripture, enter through the narrow gate, and then it says, for wide
is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it.
That's a wide path.
It means there's a lot of people going down that path.
But isn't it talking about heaven and hell?
I mean, it is.
It's righteousness and unrighteousness.
It's right and wrong, up and down.
Because narrow is the road to heaven.
And there's a lot of people that think they're going to heaven because they go to church
or they, you know, have memorized John 3 16 or whatever.
Yeah, they went to Sunday school and they were a kid.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And you know, I think that what's happening in our world right now, so we got a lot of
crazy things happening, right?
I mean, with Israel, Hamas, you know, the Ukraine debacle, all this stuff, Afghanistan
debacle, all these things that happened, the political gameplay and I call it the clown
show.
I mean, you might as well just get some popcorn and watch it because it's crazy right now
and dramatic and just out of it.
Popcorn's not on our carnival.
It is not.
We would not.
We would get bacon chips.
No, we'd fry up a whole pound of bacon and little chips and eat it like candy.
So that's the world we live in.
It's a clown show.
It's crazy right now.
And so this idea of getting away from that and pulling back from that to say, I don't
have to participate in everything and all the craziness of the world.
There's got to be a better way.
And so this narrow gate, this narrow road means that you may not, it may not be highly
populated.
There may not be that many people who want to get that serious about their walk with
God.
And this is not to beat anybody up.
It's that we need an awakening.
The church needs to wake up.
Right.
And I think that we've kind of used God like an addendum to our life instead of, you know,
He's throughout our life every day.
I mean, He's the center of our life.
But a lot of times it's the addendum.
It's like, oh, we got to go to church.
So, oh yeah, we need to.
Let me find my Bible.
You know, because I don't know where it is because I don't read it.
Or you know, I mean, so many people are caught up.
They have so much stress in their life and with work, with family issues, addictions,
so many things.
Overwhelmed.
Yeah, and they're overwhelmed.
It's a hard life for people.
You and I have had many, many conversations through the years.
I remember, I won't say their last name, but a lady named Kathy.
Back when we were in another town pastoring, I remember her at one of our small groups,
we were talking about, you know, worship music on in the house and having the word, maybe
playing, you know, the scripture.
And she said, I have to do this.
If I, I literally have to have the word of God worship 24 hours a day.
If I don't, I can't make it.
Because she had been through some horrific trauma and abuse.
And she was out of that situation.
But the residual pain and suffering that she continued to deal with, because it was so
bad.
She said, the only way I can survive is to stay close to Jesus.
There's no other way.
And the truth is, she's right.
But she's not right just for someone who's been traumatized.
She's right for everyone.
All of us.
I know for me, you and I, we can barely, we have to listen to worship music all the time.
I mean, we need it because I need mine.
I can't, let me put it this way.
When I became a follower of Jesus, I went all in.
I didn't want to play games.
I didn't want to be a hypocrite.
Because I'd met a lot of those folks before I was a Christian.
So at 19 years of age, when I stepped over the line, I went way opposite.
I'm never going back.
This is it.
There is no plan B. This is only plan A. No B, no C. No options, no trap door.
I'm going all the way in.
And so that's how I have lived my life since that time.
And it is a narrow road.
It can be lonely sometimes because not all your friends want to talk about Jesus all
the time.
Not all your friends want to talk about the kingdom of God, the strategy for winning the
world to Jesus Christ, which is what we're all called to do.
But it's remarkable how few people really have gone all in, to be honest.
And so it is a narrow path.
And sometimes it feels like during COVID, when you would go somewhere and there were
no cars on the road, you're like, oh my gosh, has the second coming happened and I missed
it?
Jesus airlift everybody out and I got left behind.
It's creepy sometimes because I've been in a grocery store where for whatever reason
in that moment in time, there's hardly anybody in the store.
And it's a weird feeling.
But that's how sometimes life has felt for me, to be honest.
I've got a lot of surface friends.
I've got a lot of acquaintances.
I love doing life with people.
I'm a people person.
But in terms of going deep on a consistent basis, very few.
It is a narrow road.
It really is.
It really, really is.
We've had people that wanted to hang out with us and be our friends, but when they were
around us a few times and all we wanted to talk about was God.
You know what I'm saying.
We have other conversations.
Of course we do.
I'm looking around your room and you have what, 10 guitars hanging up in the studio?
Nine.
Oh, okay.
Nine.
Only nine.
So you have, it's not like every minute you're in the scriptures, but you weave God into
every conversation.
Because God created the world.
He created music.
Oh, did He create music?
I can't not do that.
Exactly.
So it does make you, it is a narrow road.
I mean, when I look at that scripture, I go, I get that.
I think we've lost our wonder.
Our sense of awe and wonder.
Yes.
Wow.
Explain that a little bit.
That's a beautiful thing.
It just came to my mind.
Because I remember Tina was talking yesterday about her trip that she just got back.
The Narrows.
From Utah.
And she said it was just, it was so breathtaking and so spectacular.
The beauty.
Right.
And it made me think about where did that come from?
Well, obviously it came from God.
And where is our wonder of the things that God has created?
You know, I think about just even today, we were talking about our marriage because we're
about to go on this week trip in Thanksgiving.
That's just you and I.
It was a gift.
And so to me, I'm in awe of having a good marriage because of what we've had in the
past.
Right.
I relish in the fact that God has given me a wonderful man and wonderful children, wonderful
family, and I don't take for granted what we have together as a couple.
It's because we put God number one.
And if we didn't, I don't know where we'd be, honestly.
If we would be.
Exactly.
It's that critical for us.
It is.
Yeah.
Gosh, I agree with that.
And when you lose your awe and you lose your wonder, you lose that childlike innocence.
And the world can do that.
Man, it's a hard world out there and it can.
It can beat the crap out of you.
It can make you hard.
It can make you jaded.
How many people have we met that are jaded against life?
And it's tragic because they can't find joy.
They can't find life and laughter and kidlike.
And I was with our worship team on Sunday morning.
I played on Sunday morning on the worship team and I was real excited.
We had great songs.
It's a great set.
So I was really pumped about it.
But I was telling our team, we gather for prayer before the first service.
We do two services back to back.
And I was like, guys, let's just play in the presence of our Father.
Let's just play.
Be playful.
And one of the songs we sang yesterday is so…one of my favorite songs, Brandon Lake's song,
Gratitude.
And here we are coming up on Thanksgiving, which I don't think about gratitude and
Thanksgiving only on Thanksgiving.
But we are coming up on that.
And if we could just have gratitude and Thanksgiving at this time, that is the key to happiness.
Oh, it is.
No doubt.
Having gratitude in life, if you have to look for it, even in the midst of turmoil and horrendous
circumstances, find that one thing that you can be grateful for.
If you can't find anything else, then just think about that.
That's all you need to do is think about that.
And God will give you more things and He'll put them into your heart so that you can think
on those things.
And to me, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because I think gratitude is the
key, period.
You know, I think something you said, I disconnected the dots on this, but just in this conversation
is that awe and wonder, actually, gratitude is a part of that.
You can't be in awe of something without saying, oh, God, this is amazing.
Oh, thank you, God.
I mean, I'll step out on the back porch at night, you know, let Mr. Chevy do his thing
before we go to bed.
And there's a massive cross on a hill across the highway from us and it's on a way high
hill.
You can't see the highway.
All you see are trees, hills, and this massive cross.
And it's called the Happy H Ranch.
And everybody who comes to Frederick's, we're, hey, there's a big cross on the hill out
there.
We live out by that cross.
And so when I see that at night and it's lit up two nights ago, three nights ago, I took
Chevy out and the moon was a full moon.
I mean, full bore.
It was as full moon as I've ever seen.
And there were some clouds around it, but it was clear where the moon was.
And so it was coming through really strong.
And there was a big planet right next to it.
So and it was all right over the cross.
Wow.
Almost came and got you because I'm that way.
Did you not take a picture?
I didn't have my phone in my pocket and my iPhone doesn't take good night shots of me.
I got to figure out how to do that.
I don't know.
So for whatever reason, I'll take one.
It's like, that looks terrible.
Doesn't do justice.
But anyway, I captured the thought in my mind and I was so full of wonder and I was all
I could say was, thank you, Lord.
This is, I just kept going.
Wow.
I mean, because literally out loud, because what I do when I step out on the back porch,
I don't know if you ever heard me do this.
I'll say good evening, Holy Spirit.
I've never heard you do it.
Good evening, Lord Jesus, Yeshua.
And then I'll say good evening, Abba Father.
So I do that every night when I'll go out and take him out there and I'll just say a
prayer, a brief prayer, just usually as I'm looking up at that cross.
And when we were looking at this house to buy four years ago, I stepped out on the back
porch and I saw that cross and I thought, if for no other reason.
Well, it's funny because where we came from was Cross Mountain.
I know.
And that was the area we lived in and there was a cross on the hill in Fredericksburg
and then we moved out here and there was a cross on a hill right across from us.
And when we lived in Abilene.
We lived on King's Cross Street.
I know.
There is something about that.
I don't know.
It's just wild.
It's uncanny.
And yet when we're looking at houses, we're not thinking about the cross.
It just happens.
No.
It was there.
It's just amazing.
And every night I walk out and every morning it's such a reminder.
It's the wonder of God.
It is wonder.
There was a picture that Tina sent from the Narrows.
Do you remember the one where she's looking up and she looks like a little girl?
She does.
She looks like a 10 year old looking up.
She is awestruck.
I love that picture because I see that on her face in worship too.
And I love people that have that childlike gaze that when something amazes them and they're
awestruck, they have that look.
And Tina does that a lot.
She does.
She's just a childlike, not childish, childlike in a beautiful way of being awestruck.
And so it's true.
The awe of God.
But awe of God, it precipitates gratitude, doesn't it?
It does.
But it also precipitates joy.
That's how you live up in a bad world, a down world.
And I'm not negative like, oh, the whole world's going to hell in a handbasket.
No, I'm not that.
I'm not that at all.
When I say down, I just mean we live.
It's a playoff of the Genesis narrative that we live in a fallen world.
So that's why I call it a down world.
It's fallen.
And so it's not a knock or a critique of the world.
It's just a biblical expression.
It's just saying it in a little different way.
So but the idea is that we can live up and the way we do that is through awe.
It's through wonder, which leads to gratitude and joy.
Don't you just love being around joyful people?
Yes.
And I love that word joyful means full of joy.
And when you get around somebody like that, you want to stay around them.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
I think that's why I like hanging with Adam.
Yeah.
He's joyful.
All the time.
Oh, man.
I don't think I've ever seen him in a bad mood.
Ever.
Not for more than 10 seconds.
Yeah.
He's just a joyful guy.
It's an interesting guy.
Yeah.
He really is.
Love it.
Very good.
What do you think?
What do you think in your mind's going?
I'm looking at these scriptures as we're talking because of it's so many.
It's just the golden rules right before that.
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you for this sums up the law
and prophets enter through the narrow gate.
It's all part of the same flow.
Narrative.
Yeah.
I think my heart is broken for people who are entering the wide gate and going down
the broad road because it's easy to go with the crowd.
It's easy to go with the flow of people and just get in the flow.
It's like when you're driving in fast traffic in Dallas, Fort Worth or Houston or San Antonio
or wherever and you get in that fast track lane and you normally don't drive that fast,
but you suddenly find yourself doing 87 through town because the whole flow of traffic is
going 87 miles an hour.
You just get caught up in it.
You look down at your speedometer, you're just going with traffic.
You're like 87 miles an hour.
We're going, whoa.
No wonder I got through Dallas so fast.
But you get caught up in the flow.
Get caught up in that stream.
But it happens in every arena of life.
We get caught up in things.
Right now, a lot of the signals that we're getting from the world is saying down is up,
up is down, left is right, right is left, good is bad, bad is good.
Everything is topsy-turvy right now.
Cancel culture.
Oh my gosh.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
Ghosting people.
I mean, there's so much darkness happening and it's confusing and it's chaotic.
It's like the world's in a frenzy right now.
Spun up.
Everybody's spun up.
Gosh.
You've got to find, you've got to get out of that flow.
You've got to get out of that stream.
You've got to take a step back.
You've got to find Jesus.
That's it.
You've got to find Jesus.
There is no other way.
There is no other answer.
We're looking for something that we don't know what we're looking for.
So we're finding things in the world, but that's not making us happy.
No, it's all temporal and it only lasts for a short time.
Remember after you went through your divorce and you went through a period of time, I did
the same thing because we were young.
We were damaged.
We were both 29 years old and you separately from me because we didn't know each other
at the time, decided, well, let's go.
I missed out.
This was my thought.
I missed out because I got married at 16.
So I missed out on the bar scene.
I missed out on going to get drinks with the girls after work.
I mean, literally, I told myself, okay, I am going to not go to church on Sundays.
I didn't go because I spent time with my friends.
We went out to the lake every weekend and I remember doing that for a couple of months
and at first it was fun because sin is fun, I guess.
Not that it was sinful, but-
We wouldn't want to do it if it wasn't fun.
Exactly, but it was a sin against God because I totally took him out of my life, period.
But I remember after a couple of months, like you, you brought God, you were like, okay,
I did all this with you to your friends when you did the bar scene and all that with them
and you're like, okay, now I want you to come with me.
I made him come with me.
And you did.
And then we ended up, you and I ended up meeting.
But the thing is, is for me, I remember being, I was just, I was a shell of myself because
I was trying to be something I really wasn't because God didn't create me that way.
I had lived a life serving and loving God, but I totally put him on the shelf for two
weeks, two months.
And I'll never forget when I said, I'm not going to go to the lake anymore.
I want to go to church.
And it was so awesome because my friends that I was going to the lake with every weekend
said, well, we'll come to church with you.
If I would have known that I would have not gone.
It was Karen and Becky, Becky Furrow, remember?
But I remember going back to church and really rededicating my life and heart and saying,
God, I am sorry.
Okay, I have to ask a timing question.
How long did, what was the timing of that and then when we met at church?
Well, very quickly.
I mean, we, the timing was probably a couple of months of not going to church and just
totally going out with the, with girls and the guys.
And it was probably a couple of months.
And then, gosh, when I started going back, I would probably say I met you within a month.
Wow.
Yeah.
It wasn't long.
Yeah.
Because God was doing the same work in me.
Mine wasn't a two month run from God.
It was about a three week run from God.
I couldn't run that far and that fast.
Well, you were a pastor.
I could see that.
No, it wasn't that.
I know.
It's just that I really, I was all in with Jesus and then I tried to ignore that.
But what was your thought process of why you did it in the first place?
For me, it was like, oh, I missed out on my childhood, you know, in my dating life because
I got married so young.
Wasn't missed out.
It was more, I was just...
Were you angry with God?
I probably was.
Probably never admitted it, but I'm sure I was just angry.
Like, how could all this happen to me?
How could I lose everything so quickly?
And yet I was going to seminary.
I was a youth minister.
I was winning kids to Jesus and we had a huge youth ministry.
So you were numbing out.
So I was numbing out, totally numbing out.
I was just depressed and yeah, angry.
But I don't know that I ever told God that.
I was so in awe of God.
The fear of the Lord was real with me.
You told him years later.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Years later.
We've had lots of conversations since then, honest conversations.
But yeah, I was...
It was so bizarre because when I did do that, I went to this place with these guys, these
friends, friends, these dudes from the gym.
They're not even friends because we don't even see or talk to those people anymore.
But anyway, I remember going to this club, big popular club in this town and I saw a
bunch of my high school guys.
Really?
And I'm like, oh, what are you doing here?
And they're like, what are you doing here?
I'm just hanging out.
We were all embarrassed to see each other.
We saw each other and we're like, what are we doing here?
Like I said, that only lasted a couple, three weeks for me because I ended up ministering
to people there because I couldn't turn it off.
I totally believe that because I know you.
I ended up talking to people.
Even you and I, after we met, we went I think once or twice to go dancing.
And I was like, no, you're just not a good dancer.
No, I'm just kidding.
You were a good dancer.
I was throwing down.
I had some moves in that 80s, 90s.
I actually don't remember now that because I just remember that wasn't the scene.
It just didn't feel right.
I felt better going to church with you.
And that became the center of our life very quickly actually.
And we did Bible studies together.
We ran back to God big time.
We became church junkies.
I wasn't on staff at a church at that time.
I was working at Butner Children's Home in Lubbock.
But we went to everything we could go to.
We were in small groups.
We got in the choir.
I remember that.
I can't believe I sang in a choir.
But anyway, we did that.
We were involved in everything.
And we got married very quickly.
We did.
And then we'd go to two churches.
I was on staff at a church and on Saturday night we went to another church.
We couldn't get enough.
And I'm sure the listeners are going, what?
I don't even like my church.
You don't like your church?
Find a church that is vibrant, that preaches the Word of God.
Or ask why do you not like it?
Yeah, why?
What is it?
Is it because you're being picky or you're being nitpicky?
Or you're in sin?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, there's things that taint your ability to like something.
It may not be the church's fault.
We were just, we just needed God and we wanted God in our relationship to be number one.
Hungry.
And you know what?
It's not changed.
We're still the same.
The only thing that's different now is we don't go to another church.
That would be very, that would be weird to go to another church.
But we do go to a lot of conferences at other churches.
We love our church.
We love the church.
Yes.
And the bride of Christ.
And I like the church in all its flavors and forms and colors.
I just, I get along with everybody.
And so it's still, the bride of Christ is still the center of our world.
Jesus is still the center of our life.
And if that makes us weird and alone on a narrow trail, then so be it.
I'm happy.
The joy of the Lord is real.
It's our life.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's good.
Girl, you're awesome by the way.
I love you.
Thank you.
I just, I love reminiscing about our past because I just, it just, it's how it's the
foundation of our marriage.
It was built on a solid rock of Jesus Christ because that's what we did.
We put him right where he was supposed to be and we have never taken our eyes off of
him.
Even when we've had tragedies in our life, we have not taken our eyes off of God.
Yeah.
I told God, I'm like Jacob, you're not going to shake me.
You have to break my hip to get me off because I'm all in.
And I love that we've done this journey together and there have been forces against us to try
to separate us and try to destroy us and destroy our family and things that I've watched destroy
other families.
And so God has kept us, you know, we're called, we're loved and we're kept by him.
And so man, I love it.
And I love doing this life with you, whether we're doing a podcast or we're rocking some
steaks on the pellet grill or we're at the gym pumping iron or we're at Sunday morning.
Which we've done all that today.
Today and packing.
And that's another thing.
We love going to the gym together.
We do.
We do life together.
It's Jimmy and Annette.
I love you girl.
I love you too.
Well, listen, our show, our show, we're going to land the plane.
We've got a plane to catch.
We still got a little packing to do.
I got to get some sleep.
I know.
Okay.
Hey guys, thanks for listening in.
I mean, we just kind of brought you into a coffee conversation when I was sitting at
a coffee table, but we love you guys and so appreciate you.
The notes and different things that we get.
We just appreciate it.
We I mean, I do talk about value for value every week.
I don't want to spend a lot of time on that, but if you value what we're doing here and
it brings value to you, one of the ways you can show value is to send it to a friend or
send it to somebody you think, you know, they might appreciate hearing from a couple of
raw real pastors who you talk about their stuff, you know, I mean it might help and
encourage them.
And if it would just send a link to somebody and say, Hey, check this podcast out.
And if you listen on a platform like found or cast a medic, you can always boost us and
do boost grams.
We appreciate that this week.
It was a little thin.
That's okay.
But we had Adam Curry, of course, with this 77,777 striper boost.
There's a striper boost file for you.
Thank you, Adam.
Love you, man.
I'll come back at you this week.
But yeah, and or you can go to our website, living up in a down world.com.
I put daily devotionals on there.
So there's something for you to read every morning.
And then you can write us.
You can email.
You can leave a review.
We've got some beautiful reviews.
So we'd love to hear from you.
And really, I mean, our heart is I'm sitting here.
I feel like I'm sitting in your living room.
I do.
I really I feel that sense of being close to people that are listening.
And we want you to know that Jesus is the way.
He's the truth.
He's the life.
And the scripture says, there's no other way to come to the Father through Jesus Christ.
And we want to help you do that.
We want to encourage you on your journey, knowing that it is a narrow path.
It's not a wide path.
It's narrow.
And there's things along the path that can try to knock you off the path and get your
attention and distract you and take you off.
And yet, you're called, you're loved, and you're kept according to the book of Jude.
And so just know that.
And God's for you, not against you.
And we're for you, too.
And so listen, we want you to have an amazing week.
We'll be doing some traveling.
We'll have a lot of stories next week.
So let's show about probably be packed.
God bless each one of you.
Annette, anything you want to say as we land the plane?
Thank you so much for tuning in and just hope that we're bringing hope to you.
That's it.
We're going to bring hope in life.
God bless you.
Have a great week.