.
Don't get down when you're seeing the worst
cause the last will be the first
what a day I'm telling you
all things will be new
living up in a down world
yeah we're living, yeah we're living
living up in a down world
Oh
This is Jimmy Nanette and we are
Living Up and a Down World, show number 53.
We want to welcome you today to Living Up and a Down World.
And if you're listening in for the first time,
my name is Jimmy and this is...
Annette.
My amazing wife who's having the best day ever.
It's been a crazy day.
She's having a day.
What time is it?
We all have a day.
11.30 in the morning and I'm ready to go to bed.
I am living up and a down world though.
You're right in the middle of it.
We've just had things at the office.
Technical things, just accounting things
that have nothing to do with us.
It's the companies we contract with
and just weird stuff that just feels like a domino effect.
And then I went to get coffee
and I hit my hand on the microwave.
I know you have like a literal bruise.
It literally burst a blood vessel.
Yuck.
I know, that's what I see when I see old people.
I'm like, I hope I don't ever get that.
Well, it'll go away, sweetie.
I hope so.
We'll cover it with something.
So weird.
What a day.
We're just having a day.
And you know what I love though about you Annette
and appreciate is that even though you're having
one of those days, you were like, let's do the podcast.
Let's do it.
Let's jump into it.
Thank you for doing that.
Cause in the back of my mind,
I thought she's gonna bail.
She's gonna say, I don't feel good.
I'm not up for this.
I'm in a mood.
I mean, I did think about that.
It crossed your mind.
It crossed my mind.
But here's why I'm glad you did it
and why I think it's important is that
people need to listen to us
and people who listen to us regularly
may think that every day is Friday for us.
That we're living our best life every day.
Living up in a down world is an ideal we all aspire to.
It's not necessarily a reality every day
because things happen, life happens, things break.
But we don't let it take us so far down
that we don't wanna live anymore.
But we still gotta be, I mean, it's okay to not be okay.
It's okay to have a moment.
A down moment.
Yeah, or down.
That's why I'm wanting.
And doing the podcast took my mind off
of all the business stuff.
Beautiful.
And then I just brought it all back up.
Well, it's all right.
It's all right.
But it's only to say because people need to know
that we're pastors.
We pastor Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.
We love what we do.
We get to do this is our motto.
But the reality is is that life happens
and sometimes things break and things don't go your way.
Things don't work out like you hoped
and you gotta deal with it.
And we're just like anybody else.
We don't get a free pass.
It's funny because sometimes people think pastors
have the red phone to God.
Well, and I think all you do is sit around
and just drink coffee and pray and read your Bible.
And smile and laugh.
We have a business to run too.
There's a business side of what we do
because what people don't realize is there's HR,
risk management.
There's hiring and firing.
There's dealing with people.
And then we work with a volunteer army.
We don't have positional leverage on anybody.
We have to get people and motivate people to go
and inspire and we gotta pay bills.
I mean, we have a large, large facility
and we've been adding to it and doing a lot.
So there's that side and we wanna do it with excellence.
We wanna be better than any business out there in the world.
We wanna do it with excellence to the glory of God.
Exactly.
So there's a lot of moving parts here
and it's not just preaching on Sunday morning
or playing guitar on a worship day.
Because we have overhead
and we have people's lives at stake.
That's what keeps me focused.
My why is bigger than the why nots.
And so I'm always focused on the bigger thing.
Even though these things like got you frustrated
with a certain organization, I'm not gonna mention.
I guess I could.
No, don't.
Okay, don't?
No, no.
So a certain organization that we work with
on their end is having some serious breakdowns
and it's creating havoc for us.
But we could either just swim in that
and be frustrated and angry, which it's okay for a bit.
You gotta give yourself permission to be real,
to be human.
But then we have to back up and go,
wait a minute, what's the bigger thing here?
The bigger thing is I'm gonna be talking
to somebody later today or probably tomorrow morning
whose wife is passing away from cancer.
And it's a heartbreaking and heart-rending situation.
She's in her 50s, I believe.
60s.
She's 60s?
Well, that's what I was told.
Okay, so right around our age then, which is young.
And I mean, really, there's no reason why,
if you live a healthy life,
you shouldn't live to be 80, 90, 100 years old.
So anyway, just to be at the bedside of this
and be in this situation is heartbreaking.
It is.
And that's what keeps me focused on
and not just dwelling and swimming in the waters
of what we have to deal with on the admin side of things.
So I'm super proud of you.
And by the way, you're gorgeous and you make me happy.
Oh, there you go again.
You know this week is Valentine's week.
What'd you say?
It's Valentine's week.
It is Valentine's week.
Can you believe it?
It's Valentine's.
I know, I have to keep it.
It's Valentine's.
We went to HIV yesterday
and I don't think I've ever seen so many heart balloons.
They had chocolate-covered strawberries
all over the front of the produce.
They're out of control.
I mean, the minute you walk in,
you're bombarded with Valentine's flowers.
Did you see all that stuff?
All the chocolate-covered strawberries.
Yes, that's what I just said.
I know, that's what I'm saying.
No, no, no, I heard you, baby.
I'm jumping off of your platform.
I've never seen them do that.
But what I was gonna say about,
I know I haven't either, not like that.
Never.
But what I was gonna say about it
is I walked by it and it didn't even tempt me.
I was like, ugh.
No, I was thinking about those strawberries.
If you eat, wait till Wednesday and this was Monday.
They might be a little on the soft side.
They're gonna be yuck.
So I just, yeah.
It didn't appeal to me.
That stuff doesn't faze me anymore.
Yeah, carnivore life's been good to us.
It has.
225 days, nearly eight months,
of carnivore. we've been on this journey.
And we're having a blast with it.
People think we're weird.
We've become social pariahs
because nobody wants to go out and eat with us.
Like, oh, they can only eat meat.
Well, everybody has meat.
They're afraid that if they eat in front of us.
That's a real issue.
That doesn't bother me.
It doesn't bother us at all.
We're not judging anyone.
No.
But people feel self-conscious.
And so it seems like the invitations to go out
have been a little fear than normal.
Well, we are going out for a very nice dinner tomorrow night.
I'm looking forward to it.
And it's not all carnivore,
but we're going to have a little treat,
just treat meal, little bit.
You more than me.
Right.
Just because it's Valentine's and it's once a year.
Yeah.
We really didn't do much of that over the holidays at all.
So.
I'm looking forward to this.
You and me going to a really cool place called Sage
here in our town.
It's a beautiful, stunning place.
And we've heard really good things about it.
But you have to get dressed up.
Hey, I'm all good with that.
I dressed up today.
Wait, wait.
I'm wearing a nice shirt today.
Okay, I'm talking nice pants and jacket.
The whole works.
Oh wait, really?
Not a suit, but just dressed up a little bit more
than what you do for church, please.
Okay, I can do that.
It's one night for me.
I'm super excited.
If you were presenting me with an engagement ring
on Valentine's, which that would have been nice.
I got your back.
Then yeah, you would have been all dressed up.
Let's do this.
We get to do this.
Right.
Let's do it.
We do.
Just had a sip of my black raffle coffee.
So I'm good to go.
Me too, I'm on my third cup.
Today you're like, I don't care.
I'll show them.
I'm gonna have another cup of coffee.
But it's all decaf.
It's all decaf.
I know, it's kinda like, yours is.
Mine's the real deal, but I'm sipping very slowly.
Hey, welcome to Living Up in a Down World
where today I'm living up and Ness working on it.
She's getting there.
I'm working on it.
I'm super proud of you though, like I said before.
So this is the reality of where people live
and where we live.
And we wanna invite you to do something.
Go to our website.
It's livingupinadownworld.com and subscribe.
You can hit the subscribe button
and just all you're doing is leaving your email.
That'll get to me.
I'll put you on our email list
and then you'll get an email before we do the next show.
Typically the email go out sometime on Tuesday,
sometimes Wednesday morning,
but we don't try not to make it too hard and fast.
But we'll send you an email that says,
hey, they're about to drop a new show.
So be ready to be looking for that.
So do sign up.
You can also go to bridgefbg.com.
This is where we pastor, the church we pastor.
We've been here for eight years.
And you can watch messages.
We're doing a series called Mind Wars,
dealing with the battle of the mind,
winning the battle of the mind.
And it's been really helpful for people.
I do have to say this.
Go ahead.
As we're going through this,
I think my mind is more bombarded than ever before.
No doubt.
So that needs to be communicated to the body,
to the church as you're preaching that,
because I think it gets worse,
because you're more aware of what is going on in your mind.
The phrase that really we've pulled out of this
and that I keep saying over and over
is we have to start thinking about
what we're thinking about.
In fact, Adam Curry wrote me, Adam, my bestie,
he wrote me a note.
He wrote us, he did a striper boost.
So go ahead and throw that in there.
77,777 sats, satoshis on value for value.
And he wrote this, think about what you think about.
He put that in quotes.
Thank you for another great tool in our belt
in the mind wars.
Bless you both and all the uppers.
So thank you.
Thank you, Adam, my bro.
But that statement there,
you have to start thinking about what you're thinking about.
Now, when you start doing that,
it's like things that have happened, for example,
this whole back and forth you're having to do
to try to get this situation fixed on their end,
your mind's just going because you're frustrated.
You're like, why is this happening?
You're like, I don't have time for this.
This is a waste of my time, but yet I gotta do it.
Help them fix their issue.
And it can take you out.
It can spin you up.
But now you're really thinking
about what you're thinking about.
And it's almost like when you tell yourself
to stop listening to a clock ticking
in the middle of the night when you can't sleep,
the more you say, don't listen to it, the louder it gets.
It's just weird how that happens.
That's true.
But because it shifts your filter.
I also think there's a spiritual component here.
The enemy hates this.
He hates that we're actually beginning to lean in
and become the gatekeepers of our mind
where we're saying, no,
I'm not gonna let that stay in my head.
I'm not gonna let that dwell there.
I'm not gonna let that be there.
He hates that.
And I love, Pastor Brian got to preach this Sunday.
Oh, he killed it.
It was fantastic.
He just kind of started where you left off on Sunday.
And I love how he ended
with us declaring the word of God over our lives
because that's the way to bombard and demolish
these strongholds in our life, especially in the mind,
is by speaking out loud what the Bible says about us.
And I love that.
That was so on point.
He made the point that we have
that the power of our words and declarations.
What's interesting is we served together for years
in Abilene, Texas at Grace Point Church.
And so we've all been together for years
and we have a lot of the same DNA
and we have the same spiritual theological DNA.
So a lot of things I'll say, he'll say and vice versa.
And so that's another thing I'm really strong about
is the power of our words, the power of declaration.
For those of you that are listening,
there are times when just your back's against the wall
and you're like, I don't know what to do.
And one of the best things you can do
if you wanna demolish the strongholds
that the enemy puts into your life,
which we've defined stronghold as anything
that has a stronghold on you, anything.
Now it can be a good thing.
God can have a stronghold on you.
That's a good thing.
But oftentimes it's something that's malevolent and dark.
Could be trauma issues.
It could be triggers from the past.
It could be something very spiritual
and dark and demonic or satanic
and where you're under attack.
And we have the ability through speaking the truth.
The truth is light.
I mean, we know that and God says he's light.
He says we're salt and light too.
So when we speak light, when we speak truth,
it drives out darkness and eradicates the lies.
Does that make sense?
It does.
So how many, he led us through what?
22 Bible scripture declarations.
When he said 22 at first, I was like, what?
We'll never get, we gotta go.
Two minutes, two minutes he did it.
Oh my gosh.
It was really good.
It was rapid fire, powerful.
By the second one, I was like standing up taller
because he had everybody stand up and do this together.
And started off kind of quiet and awkward at first.
By the time we got to the end of it, people were shouting.
It was like just declaring God's word,
declaring the power of God's word.
Super, super powerful.
And so I wanna encourage you
when your back is up against the wall
and you don't know what to do,
take God's word and speak it out loud.
Say things like, I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me.
I have been given a future and a hope.
God's not here to take me out.
He's here to bring me in.
I mean, speak God's word.
God's blessing is on my life.
I'm blessed coming in, I'm blessed going out.
I mean, you can take the word of God
and turn it and speak it and declare it.
And the question is, who are you declaring it to?
But let me say this, for our new listeners
or our listeners who are new to the faith,
there's a book that really helped us in our darkest times.
I remember when we were trying to sell a house
and we needed it to sell really within,
I think we talked about it within 30 days
so that we could move.
And it was at a time in our life
where houses in this area in Southern California
were not selling.
I mean, the average time was two years
because of the economy at the time.
And I remember we went to a conference
and the speaker had everybody turn around
and pray for one another.
And he said, I've never done this before.
That was huge, that was in Anaheim.
Anaheim.
That was huge.
And he said, but I feel like people
are supposed to turn around and pray for the one behind him.
And this couple prayed for us
and he asked us what we wanted in prayer.
And we said, we need a house to sell.
We've got to move in 30 days.
And I don't know how this is gonna happen.
And he said, oh my goodness,
of all the people God put me with,
that is where I shine the most.
I've needed to sell a house many times
and know other people who have.
And I've prayed and God has come through.
Well, for one thing, that built our faith up,
just hearing that.
But then we were told about a book by Jermaine Copeland.
And I believe we've talked about it on this podcast before.
It's worth saying again.
But a lot of people, they don't know how to pray
or where to go for a scripture.
This book has many chapters in it.
And what it is, is you can look at a chapter
on needing to sell property
or wanting to adopt a child
or how to deal with a child with ADHD
or autism or whatever,
whatever situation you find yourself in.
And you can go to that chapter
and you can read the scriptures.
It's a prayer form that's scriptural.
It's all scripture.
So when you're saying it,
and it's usually just one page,
it's really short.
And you speak that scripture over that situation.
It is empowering.
And I remember us looking at that
for about on selling our home.
And we began to quote that.
And we would declare that every day
while our house ended up selling.
23 days in an economy in Southern California.
It was a miracle.
And during this massive depression,
it was terrible.
It was unbelievable.
Houses were sitting for years.
We even had people on our staff at that church saying,
there's no way.
I hate to say this,
but man, the chances y'all sell.
And we're like, we have a supernatural God.
They thought we were young and dumb.
And then when we moved to Brownwood,
because we were moving there to plant a church,
it looked like it was falling through after 30 days.
I remember that.
It was like, whoa, not gonna happen.
We'd already moved.
Because something happened with the owner's funds.
And I remember just being like, really God?
We've prayed.
We've contended.
We've already moved.
We moved by faith, left our house empty,
left it in the hands of the real estate agent.
And then miraculously, within two weeks,
this back and everything broke.
And we sold.
And it was, but I'll never forget that book.
And then the time when we wanted to adopt a child
and we were desperate to,
because we knew we didn't have the money to adopt.
It wasn't like we can go to an adoption agency
and throw down, you know.
$80,000 or a hundred.
Yes, we knew we desired a child.
And we asked the Lord to bring it in a supernatural way.
Only He can do that.
And we began declaring the scriptures from that chapter.
I'll never forget that.
And then God ended up.
It was a game changer because what happens
when you begin to pray the word,
declare the word of God,
is something rises up inside of you.
It stirs your faith.
It builds you up on your most holy faith.
It does something inside of you where,
I've said it this way,
you become larger on the inside
than you are on the outside.
Something happens spiritually where your inner person,
that inside person that's in you,
is bigger than the person that we see on the outside.
So I may look at you and say,
yeah, you're this tall, you're this size, you're this shape.
But spiritually, you're a giant.
You're a rock star.
And you can do that because the word of God does that to us.
It builds us up.
It does.
I'm gonna put on our,
I'm gonna send out our newsletter after the show.
I'm gonna do that this afternoon,
which means I can put that,
I'll put a link to the website,
Prayers That Avail Much.
You can click on that link right out of our.
You can look at it online too and get the book.
Exactly, that's what I was gonna say.
You can click on that link.
You can put in the search feature and it'll,
you can actually,
what is the topic you need to pray about?
And it'll take you to prayers
or it'll show you a list of those.
Or you can get the book.
So I'll put the book in there.
I'll put the link to the website.
And that way you can right now, today or tomorrow,
when you get that email tonight.
So go to livingupinadowndworld.com,
subscribe to our email list.
You'll get that email.
And in that email, we'll have this resource.
We wanna do what we can to help you.
Thank you for bringing that up.
Well, I just remember it being so powerful in our life.
And there's so many circumstances that come up in our life.
And we need to be,
it's running to that book is like running to the Bible
because it's all scripture.
She doesn't embellish.
It's just scripture.
You're just praying the word of God.
I wish I had it sitting in front of me.
I'd read one to you.
I know. I could put one up online.
We probably have one here.
No, I'm going up online actually.
Another part of the church.
I've got my computer here.
I love that book.
It was life-changing.
I bought that book for Tina.
I bought it for Tina when she was going through.
Oh, right.
She was about to go on her trip.
And I said, here's a book of prayers for you.
I hope she's in it.
A lot of times we'll get into something
then we'll put it down for a while.
And then we just gotta pick it back up.
And I think this is the season
that we need to start picking it back up.
There's so many topics in that book that are so helpful.
So the website is prayers.org.
That's pretty simple.
Oh, wow.
prayers.org, prayers that avail much.
And you go to that website and then you can find...
Find a prayer.
Okay, yeah.
There's resources.
Let me see.
What's a good topic?
Well, let me...
Here's the top three requested prayers.
Prayer for a teenager.
If you're a parent, oh my gosh.
That will teach you how to pray.
Pleading the blood of Christ.
Beginning each day.
So let me just go to that beginning each day.
I think that'll be a way to kind of teach you how that works.
So the way it works is it says, father as the blank, the owner, president, chairman,
manager of...
This is like beginning of day of a business or work.
Father as the blank of whatever your company or whatever...
I come before you rejoicing for this is the day which you have made and I will be glad
in it.
I'm even a boss praying that over his employees.
To obey is better than sacrifice.
So I'm making a decision to submit to your will today that my plans and purposes may
be conducted in a manner that will bring honor and glory to you.
Cause me to be spiritually and mentally alert in this time of meditation and prayer.
Now I'm gonna skip down to the last part of it because just so you hear how it ends.
I especially thank you for the co-labors with whom I will be interacting today.
Now you're praying for the people around you.
Give me words of wisdom, words of grace that I might encourage them and build them up.
Father I kneel before you from whom your whole family in heaven and on earth derives its
name.
I pray that out of your glorious riches you may strengthen each one with power through
your spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in each heart through faith.
Here's the last one.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according
to his power that is at work within us to him be the glory in this company and in Christ
Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever in Jesus name I pray amen.
So it's just taking the word of God.
All those were scriptures and at the end of each of these prayers it gives you all the
scripture references.
So you know where that's coming from.
So again that is called prayers.org and the website's prayers that avail much.
And I encourage you to jump in that that will demolish the strongholds.
That's 2 Corinthians 10.
The strongholds that come against you and have a stronghold on your life.
Absolutely.
So glad you brought that up.
It just well it dawned on me because that's the way he ended his message on Sunday was
with declaring the word and really that's the only way to demolish these strongholds
in our mind is we've got to replace those thoughts that come into our mind that tell
us that we're failures that we're no good that we're ugly that we're whatever the enemies
telling you at that time and we've got to demolish them by speaking what God's Word
says.
Listen to this passage it says for though we walk in the flesh we do not wage war according
to the flesh.
You don't do hand-to-hand combat with the devil for the weapons of our warfare are not
of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
So we've been given divine power by God's not our power it's God's power.
God's word God's word working through us.
Here's how I say it.
The word works but you have to learn to work the word.
Read the Bible but make sure the Bible is reading you.
It has to become a revelation in your heart.
I can say things all I want but if I don't have a revelation of his word that I'm not
going to believe the truth and a lot of times you'll get a revelation by repetition.
So the more you say the word the more you'll believe it.
Beautifully said as though I said that myself.
You probably have.
I'm probably repeating you.
Yeah but you're right I mean and I have said that many times when I'm preaching and teaching
of course that God's not just trying to get information to us or content.
It's not about information it's about revelation.
Revelation is a higher level of knowledge a higher level of understanding.
The word revelation means to reveal as though to peel back layer by layer so you're actually
seeing deeper into something.
And so when we're learning about spiritual matters and how to fight the good fight of
faith how to how to demolish these strongholds or this in this translation the ESV it's actually
destroy strongholds.
It says we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God
and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
I mean that's what we do.
This is what we are gifted to do but you got to have a revelation and understanding about
that and the only way you can do that is to spend time.
You spend time reading the Bible and then spend time letting the Bible read you.
And to me the best way to read the Bible is to is to read it in prayer form like that.
Absolutely.
It's a great way especially for new believers to get started in the Word of God and to begin
to understand the Word of God but also be able to repeat it back and just remember it.
And for old believers like us to use that term we have returned to this to this beautiful
prayer book.
We've got the actual book because I like it because you can just look these up as opposed
to just doing it online but we've returned to it many times when things come up in our
lives because it's listed topic by topic and that's really helpful.
So again can't recommend it enough because what we're recommending to you is the Word
of God put in prayer form.
Stormy O.
Martin has a series of books that does the same thing.
Prayers of a Praying Wife, Prayers of a Praying Husband, Prayers of a Praying Teenager.
I mean she's got a whole series of these books that by the way Pastor Brian who we just brought
from Tennessee and on her staff his wife still works for Stormy O. Martin.
She's her kind of managers and assists her even from a distance.
She did it when she lived in Nashville and now she does it still doing it since she's
here so but that's another series of books that does the same thing and is listed by
topic.
So there's lots of resources just because you don't have the Bible memorized who does?
Exactly.
Yeah.
So we need a resource that helps us and it's no less powerful to read a prayer if you mean
it if you lean into it and that's what I do.
I want to stand on what I'm reading so when I even when I was reading that from the website
it started to build you up.
It stirred something inside of me.
It got me excited and also gave me better perspective on the stuff we're dealing with
with this company to go okay don't get spun up about that.
God's got this.
We need to pray that God will expedite all of this.
Absolutely.
So that we can get on with our business because our mind is being corrupted by thoughts of
I can't even tell you.
Yeah it can take you down.
And listen the reason why we have massive compassion for you that are listening about
the stuff that you're dealing with in your life because we deal with the same stuff.
Just because we're pastors and have jobs that are maybe different from yours the dynamics
of living this life is the same for everyone.
Nobody gets a pass.
Nobody gets a free pass.
Nobody gets a you know a shorter trip to the destination or a you know you can't hop or
space to wherever you're going.
You literally have to go through and so we do and we have our whole lives but we've been
given and we've learned some tools along the way that hopefully you can take those same
tools and they can help you.
That's why we do the podcast right?
Absolutely.
Yeah we want to help people.
That's it.
And so anyway thank you for bringing it up.
I think that's powerful.
I think it's helpful.
And so do go to livingupandadoworld.com and hit that subscribe button.
If you'll do that now soon as well it's going to come after it just dawned on me.
That'll come after but it'll be there and you can and we'll put it in subsequent.
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to you because we want you to have the tools you need to live up and down world right?
All right let's thank a couple people.
Already read Adams.
Oh by the way we had a wonderful dinner.
I won't go into detail about this but again we got some hang time twice.
Yeah twice in one week.
With the Currys this week.
I know that's like a new record.
And she says I'm too busy.
It's never enough.
I beg to differ with that.
I think she's busy during the day.
She's busy at night.
We're all busy.
Life is happening in real time.
But it's always a blessing when we get time with Currys.
Absolutely.
So we got to and also some friends.
One new friend Timothy.
Man I really enjoy getting to know Tim.
Tim's from Chicago.
What a great guy.
In his retirement he did banking his whole life.
But in his retirement he worked for the Chicago Cubs.
He's like a host.
Dream job.
It is.
He grew up right there next to the ballpark.
So I mean he grew up a Chicago kid and a big fan.
So now he gets to do in his retirement he does this for fun.
What a cool job.
But he's invited us to Michigan in 2025.
He's got a ranch or like a farm because of the farmhouse.
I would think that's gonna be a long way off.
But the way everything is going.
It's gonna be here before we know it.
So I've been riding Peggy and I've been riding.
So Peggy was with us.
Peggy Layden another dear friend of ours.
We love her.
We all got to hang out together and we've been going back and forth even this morning.
But I've been hashtag Michigan 2025.
We're gonna go and hang out with these guys.
But anyways a beautiful time of just spending time together and doing life with some folks
that aren't in our life all the time.
But now Tim's a new friend and then of course Peggy's just a dear miss become a dear dear
friend.
But anyway wonderful time.
Love these guys and just thankful for good people around our lives.
We are so blessed.
So survived with...
We have to talk about Jason Carter.
Our new friend from San Antonio.
Yes.
Oh Jason.
Thank you.
Sorry man.
Because he's gonna start listening to our podcast and I want to bring him in.
So yeah.
So I got my wife a new car.
New to us.
I'll say that.
New to us car.
And I got rid of my car which was getting a lot of miles and some issues with it.
So we went ahead and got rid of that and got an SUV.
But in the middle of all of that, for those of you who've ever bought a car, it can be
traumatic.
And first of all, I'd rather go to the dentist, which I don't like to do either, than to
go buy a car.
It's like selling your life.
It's almost worse than a house.
Every time I walk away, most every time I drive away from a car lot, I feel like there's
a group of guys over in a corner laughing.
Like, oh man, another sucker.
Suckers born every day just walk in.
And yet I'm a pretty discerning guy.
But we didn't feel that at all at this dealership.
It was a wonderful experience.
And Jason was delightful.
He was fantastic.
I loved visiting with him.
Humble, open, transparent.
He's a podcaster.
He and his wife did some podcasts during COVID and he does some stuff.
He's written a book called To Hell I Ride, which is a testimony of how he found Jesus
in Telluride, California.
California?
No, Colorado.
Colorado.
Telluride.
To Hell I Ride.
And man, he is a phenomenal writer.
I was just reading the back cover going, oh my gosh.
I know.
He's got chops.
I'm really looking forward to when we have some downtime to be able to read that.
So he and his wife are going to come hang out at the bridge.
His family loves Jesus.
He had a massive come to Jesus and was completely healed of alcoholism.
I mean, he was delivered and set free.
That stronghold got demolished.
It got torn down in his life.
And he's one of those now forever grateful guys.
We just hit it off.
And man, even though we were stuck at a dealership for four or five hours, it was a great experience.
It was like God ordained the time for that.
Yeah, absolutely.
It was just, it was beautiful.
I feel like I have a new friend, a new brother in Christ.
Even the sales manager there, the general manager.
We felt when we walked out of there, like we had bought a Maserati somewhere.
That's the way they made us feel, even though our car wasn't anything like that.
Well, we made a good decision.
We went to a Know-How-Go-Car dealership.
So you're not like going in and throwing numbers back and forth.
I had to test it.
Oh, I did too.
You either go in, you buy the car you like or you don't.
And what they have at price as well as price that it was fair.
We agreed and we did it.
So we didn't feel that, I didn't feel that angst that I normally feel, other than it
just taking still forever.
Even though we walked in pre-approved, pre-ready to go, we brought our own paperwork in.
They were like, you're like the best customers ever.
I took pictures of our drivers license.
We even photocopied our license.
Everything.
They were like, nobody does this.
I said, well, we've done this a lot.
This is get it done.
But anyway, Jason, man, what a cool guy.
Give him a shout out.
He says he's going to listen to the show.
So Jason, if you're listening to the show, bro, you are a blessing.
And really it was a pleasure to meet you and looking forward to meeting your wife and maybe
some of your family.
Come see us at the bridge.
We're just down the street.
So anyway, thanks for bringing that up.
That was a great, great experience.
Sir Brian with an I, love Sir Brian.
He's a big no agenda guy and a big Korean, the keeper guy.
And then he's gotten to know us and he's been to our church a couple of times.
Great guy.
He says, I love the last episode so much that when I reached the end, I slid the slider
back to the start and listened to the whole thing again.
I wanted to make sure everything stuck so much insight.
Also, Damon net has great taste in music.
The first piece of music I ever owned was deaf leopard hysteria on cassette tape.
Love you both so much.
I slack on showing up to church in person, but thank you for helping fill my bucket through
podcasting and live stream.
K Y B O y'all.
Even Pastor Brian talked about buckets.
I know that whole idea of getting your buckets filled and overflowing is just really taken
off.
We also got a boost from John McPain.
I didn't get a note with that, but Hey John, thanks for listening to the show.
It was on a, it wasn't on, on fountain like we usually get.
So we're super thankful again, living up in a down world.com, write us with questions,
comments, sign up for a newsletter, share it with your friends.
That's a huge thing you can do time, talents and treasure.
And we'd love to hear from you and bridge FBG.com for any messages, mind wars, look
it up.
These will be helpful.
It's very practical and it will, it will help get the word in you.
God bless you.
We love you.
We're thrilled to be hanging out with you.
Have an amazing week on purpose and keep living up in a down world.
God bless you.
Thank you.