Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast, where our mission is to encourage as well as highlight
God's Goodness and modern-day miracles.
We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins.
I'm going to start off thanking you, Father.
Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to come to you, for the opportunity that you
have given us each and every day that we can speak to you, that we can learn from you,
that we can share our experiences with others and tell others about the goodness of you.
Jesus, we want to thank you so much for what you have done for us.
We ask that you continually bless us and all those who listen to us daily.
Help us to find new understanding in you.
Help us to identify the areas of weakness to reveal to us our hearts and help us to
lean not onto our own understanding, but to trust in you for everything.
In your mighty name, Jesus.
Amen.
All right.
In this episode, we are going to dive deeper into Josh's history, which is pretty interesting,
some might say.
It has some twists and turns.
And let's start with where you started.
All right.
Well, it started 47 years ago in Las Vegas, Nevada, where my father was a Vietnam vet
and a Buddhist that he picked up in Vietnam.
And my mother was an alcoholic and heroin addict.
And as I was raised, I was raised by just a chaotic kind of family.
They would go back and forth in punishments.
By all rights, all the odds were stacked against you.
Yeah.
So my sister, I have an older sister and she was born obviously before me.
And after her, my dad decided to have a vasectomy.
And I don't know the exact odds, but I know my dad always told me it was 100 million to
one that they would heal.
So surprise, here I am.
And I can't imagine what the conversation at the dinner table would have been like when
that was announced.
But that was a miracle right then and itself.
My dad had told me that my mom was drinking heavily when she was pregnant with me and
did drugs as well.
And I was born addicted to nothing.
I had no issues.
It's just an absolute stunning, miraculous miracle.
Second miracle.
That's amazing.
And then my mom was not stable.
My father, he had a main streak for sure.
He was a loving father.
He was a firm father.
And he had some other issues that were stacked against him because of how he was raised and
how his father was raised.
As a result, he was racist.
He was easily set off and angered mostly because that's who he is.
But some of it PTSD from Vietnam, he'd seen some things.
He'd experienced some things that really set him apart from his contemporaries and the
workforce.
So, I'm going to go ahead and skip all the way ahead to my first encounter with the
church now that you know that my background and my parents where I come from.
I had moved to Pennsylvania when I was 15.
And when I turned 18, I joined the Navy.
And I was in the Navy for almost three years and I met a man named Adam.
And Adam introduced me to Jesus in a way that I'd never experienced Jesus before.
My father had always taught me to mock Christians.
He would tell them to respect Christians when they pray and take your hat off.
But ultimately it was to mock them and cherry pick Bible verses to use against them that
he would call them Christian Nazis or he would call it the church hypocrisy and hate.
And that's how I knew it was.
I didn't know any other way.
And Adam kind of changed my perspective on it.
So I accepted the Lord when I was 20, almost 21.
And I say I accepted him, but I didn't live like I accepted him.
I continued to be a bit misogynistic.
I still drank a little bit.
I smoked cigarettes a little bit.
I would even go to a Baptist church once in a blue moon and it just was weird because
there's this guy, there's his brother Bob and he had this like this thin rope tie like
Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
He didn't have the facial hair like him, but I remember brother Bob and it was just, it
was everything was like, it was like designed to make me mock it.
And maybe seven years down the road from there and I still wasn't a practicing Christian
in any stretch.
I didn't understand Jesus.
I didn't know Jesus.
I would tell people, I think some people told him I was a Christian and some people I told
him I was a Buddhist and some people told them I was nothing.
So I clearly didn't know what I was.
But I remember going to a church and there was a one-armed preacher there and he was
just speaking in tongues the entire time.
And there was another guy behind him that was basically doing the preaching or interpreting
the tongues.
And when he was done, he leaned on the pew.
He looked right at me.
So that was some powerful preaching.
And I kept helping him think I was like, was it?
I don't know what that was.
Like I thought he was going to reach in a basket, pull some snakes.
I was freaked out.
Like this is not what I knew.
Like I didn't like that.
And then it almost turned me off again completely.
So we fast forward a few more years and I married my first wife outside of college and
she was Catholic.
And I went to a Catholic church and the only way I was allowed to marry her is if we promised
to raise our kids Catholic.
Kind of like, sure, but I'm not going to honor that.
Why would I?
And I remember thinking just how backwards some of the thinking in the Catholic church
was coming from an outsider's view.
So I came with a perspective that I was already going to mock them.
So it was a lot easier and then I could pick apart things that they did and I didn't like
a lot of it.
And when I met my second wife, it was after my first wife, obviously, and she introduced
me to a non-denominational Christian church.
And man, I don't know what happened there, but I knew that I, for the first time in this
long journey so far, I wanted to know more about Jesus.
And the closest I can come to understanding why is because my father had felt to me as
if he was more of a conditional love.
He never really expressed his love.
He never really expressed gratitude.
He never really expressed any kind of pride unless I did something that met or exceeded
his expectations.
And so now is in a place where I felt like someone could love me and I didn't have to
do anything.
I didn't have to earn it.
And I still struggle with that.
Right?
I still struggle with not feeling like I have to earn God's love because of the brokenness
that I experienced growing up.
And so I did this church for almost a decade and I got compliments from people telling me
that they could see the change, you know, seven years into it that they saw when I first
came there.
You know, I was like, that's pretty cool, right?
And people I respected in that church, elders.
And I was like, man, I, he noticed like, I didn't even think he knew my name.
It was mind-blowing that someone actually cared enough to notice my journey and notice my
walk.
And by, at one point, I was an usher.
I was in children's ministry.
I helped out where I could.
I was feeling really low and I couldn't explain why I felt the, my relationship with Jesus
was 100% me trying to force Jesus to love me.
And I was missing out on something and then my spirit knew I was missing out on something.
And I remember the church was doing a corporate fast and they were fasting for 40 days in
a January.
And I remember not starting a fast with them because I was dissatisfied.
And I started like three days after them and they're fasting things like Facebook and chocolate
and I thought, that's not what a fast is.
I mean, I mean, I had a relationship with Jesus that I want, but I know what the Bible
says and I understood the purpose of a fast.
I understood it to be trying to kill the flesh so that your spirit can climb out on top because
they're always warring with each other.
So giving up Facebook, what's that?
How is that making your, your flesh is just going to find a different outlet?
And so I remember being upstairs in our room, we lived in Carnegie at the time and I was
faced down on the ground and I was crying and I was just talking to God and I was giving
him my whole heart.
And I told him that I was going to do this fast and I wasn't going to eat anything and
I wasn't going to eat anything ever.
Like it wasn't a 40 day thing.
It wasn't a 10 day thing.
It wasn't a one day thing.
I was like, ever, I'm not eating again.
I don't care if it kills me.
Then I wanted this relationship with him.
You didn't tell me any of that at the time, still trying to feed you.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, well.
Offer you food randomly.
Yeah.
And you still do it when I fast.
You can't help yourself.
You're a giving person.
It's a mom thing.
I like to feed people.
And so I remember telling him that I wanted a relationship with him so bad that I was
worth dying for.
And I remember getting up the next day.
I remember this is January.
I remember the news was saying his gonna be a hot day today is gonna be 40.
They go, okay.
And I remember seeing the word 40 and the number 40 show up in, I don't know how many
different places that day, but I felt convinced that the fast was going to be a 40 day fast
at that point.
And let me tell you how short.
When Jesus told Peter, ye of little faith, and he wasn't talking about small amount,
but he was talking about short duration of faith.
Man, how little we think in duration, right?
Because the night before I was ready to hang up the whole everything, right?
Kill the body.
I wanted to be done.
And the next day I'm like 40.
That's a long time.
I did not do that.
No, I know.
No, no, I'm aware.
And so I was impressed to do 40 days and I'm gonna skip to 10 days after that.
And I was done.
I was hungry.
I was tired.
I was angry.
I was bitter.
I was saying uncrushed like things and blame my wife for every little problem that came
up.
I still smoked.
I didn't drink.
I got that.
That was beat out of me a long time ago in the Navy.
That's another story.
And it wasn't physically beat out of me.
I was gonna clarify that.
And I went into the kitchen to go get something to eat.
I was fed up and I was gonna eat and I was gonna grab a cigarette like I always did.
And I went into the kitchen and no sooner did I take, I was in the kitchen.
And I couldn't have gone maybe three feet into the kitchen before I felt joy.
I felt satisfied.
I felt warm.
I felt whole.
And I couldn't explain why I felt such things.
And then as I was sitting there pondering this feeling that I got walking into the kitchen,
you know, thinking maybe I was having a stroke or something because nothing is right.
Everything was, I mean, a complete reversal of everything that was.
And in my mind's eye, I could see myself lying prone on the floor, but from the perspective
of something standing over me from behind.
And I could hear myself tell Jesus that I wanted relationships and so bad that I was
worth dying for.
And then I could hear in the back of my head a voice that said, I want it more.
And man, that changed everything.
I was dumbfounded.
And that's really where the beginning of my Christian faith, I feel, started for me.
Right?
I feel that it had locked something when I was in the Navy, right?
That I invited him in.
He did not take that lightly, even though I did.
And when I was in the other church and I started volunteering, I give my life to McGenna's
baptized there, that even though I could not understand, he was still feeding me.
I never got discipled by another person.
I realized that that is not something you should do because so many people fall away
that aren't discipled.
Like, you wouldn't have a baby and then leave the baby on the floor and say, hey, I'll be
back in 21 years.
Good luck.
You'd be a good productive member of society.
It's so good.
Bye.
Right?
It's irresponsible to leave somebody without discipleship.
And I had it for over a decade without discipleship and finally God stepped in and discipled me
himself.
But just a little bit, but it was enough to encourage me to, you know, you never forget
when God speaks to you.
I promise you.
And you truly have a deeper relationship with Jesus when you have that experiential memory
with Jesus.
And so I completed the 40-day fast, but on this 40-day fast, I had a lot of encounters
with God, one of which was he impressed upon me the importance of the Sabbath.
And so I said, I need to find a good Sabbath church, a good Saturday church.
I didn't know anything about anything as far as that goes.
And I told my wife we should look into it.
And so she just Googled immediately and there was one within a walking distance from our
house that was a storefront little seven-day Adventist church.
So we went to this church and man, it was a hot mess of churches.
It was a storefront church and they catered to a group of people that was unlike any church
that you would go to on a Sunday, you know, in this place, in this place where the addicts
or the alcoholics were the poor and disenfranchised were the broken people, like the lowest of
the low.
And I thought, man, it really put things in perspective when you consider all the people
to go to your mainstream church.
And then you go here like this and you just finally realize for the first time that, you
know, Jesus is for everybody, right?
But you never consider everybody when you're only surrounded by those that are like you.
And it really helped, I feel that Jesus impressed upon me this Sabbath, not just because he
wants us to remember and keep it holy, but because he wanted me to see that side of the
coin.
He wanted me to be in that spot.
And so now I'm under the firm belief that you can only love Jesus as much as you love
the least of these.
And I try to live that way.
And so also on this fast, I would get up in the morning, like at three o'clock in the
morning and I didn't know why.
And I thought maybe it's because I was hungry and my body was like rebelling against my
spirit because I was starving it out and didn't like it.
And so it was putting up the last good hurrah, you know, and I would get up at three and
it happened a couple of times and by the time the third time happened, I was like, Hey,
I know what's going on here.
So I woke up and I'm like, here I am, Lord, right?
I didn't hear anything back, right?
It is a good up and go, right?
It's nothing.
But I just assumed it was him.
And so I'd walk around the streets of Carnegie at three o'clock in the morning.
Thank goodness the police didn't come around thinking I was like, it's just an addict trying
to find his way home.
And so I'm walking these streets and I'm talking to him and, you know, I obviously did most
of the talking.
I didn't hear a whole lot coming back from him.
You know, I can't say that I heard this booming voice of God as he walked beside me.
That had been cool.
But I remember one day in particular I was walking and it was a light rain and it was
cool outside.
It was a warm winter.
And so I was walking history.
There's no snow.
It was light rain.
And as I was walking, I asked him why he gets me up in the morning.
I was like, why do you pick?
Like, I feel like I'm doing all talk.
Why are you getting me up in the morning at three o'clock?
Right?
And I could just feel, I could feel him saying because I love you.
And thanks to the relationship that I have with my father, I felt I didn't deserve his
love because I didn't do anything.
So I put my head down kind of in shame because I don't, is this like, oh, I can't take that.
And no sooner I looked down and I, at my feet on the asphalt, glistening with the little
blue of the water, it was a spray-painted white heart at my feet.
And man, I was like, this is incredible.
Like we're an incredible God we have.
And at that point is when he's like, right here.
And he knew what I was going to do.
He knew what my action was going to be.
And he still chose to force me to see him loving me.
And he knew what I was going to do.
That just blows my mind.
They say coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous.
Oh, absolutely.
I don't play with coincidence.
And so I've been practicing and been in the faith stronger than that.
My patience had been well.
I was never afraid to share with people at work.
In fact, I love, and I'll take this the wrong way, but I love conflict.
And so when people say dumb things like, oh, hey, Christmas, because Jesus is like, oh,
oh, it's on.
Let's have this talk.
And I'm not angry with them, right?
Because I understand that they don't know.
And I'm firmly believe that the majority of atheists are only atheists because they had
a poor understanding who God was.
Maybe they weren't discipled correctly.
And then God didn't do what they thought he would do, right?
They had him painted in this box and God didn't operate to the parameters in this box and
they got mad at him.
And I firmly believe that we are spiritual beings, right?
God created us in his image, that's his spirit, that we're like little drops of water trying
to get back to the ocean, that we have the same quality of that spirit.
We just lack the quantity of that spirit.
He's a great big God.
And so as we are going through our day-to-day activities, it's important to remember that
we are all of the same body.
It's just some people don't know it.
The difference between a Christian and an on-Christian, the biggest difference is that I know God
loves me, but they don't.
And if they would extend their hand and tell God, hey, I really want you in my life, nothing
can drive him out.
I see a lot of people, when their life changed, when they said, God, if you're real, I want
to see you.
Make yourself known to me.
And he never disappoints.
Yeah.
It's funny when I accepted him in the Navy that same year.
I woke up one morning and I didn't like who I saw, right?
I was like, I don't like this guy.
I don't know what I didn't like about me, right?
But I didn't like what I saw.
I didn't drink anymore.
And I stopped chasing women, right?
I didn't.
I just stopped.
It was like cold turkey.
I didn't try a relationship.
I didn't try going to the clubs.
None of it.
I had lost all interest in that activity.
And it wasn't until much later when I had asked God, after I'd been a Christian from
the last church for about a decade, I'd said, you know, why didn't you just show me yourself
sooner?
Like, wouldn't my life be a whole lot easier if you'd have just showed up, like at the
beginning, and then I could have avoided all this hot mess that caused me to have this
problem, this problem, this problem, this problem.
And of course, he didn't answer me.
And every time I had a hardship that I thought would have been solved if I'd have been a
Christian sooner, I would ask him that, and eventually he shut me up because I was called
to my memory every single instance in my life where he was that I rejected him.
And I mean from birth, because as I mentioned before, my mom was on heroin and she was an
alcoholic.
I was born addicted to nothing.
Also, I have an older sister.
After she was born, my dad had a vasectomy, one in a hundred million chance or so for
it to heal, and surprise, that would have been an awkward conversation at the dinner
table.
And so from birth, God is with me.
From birth.
And you know, all these people that say, hey, I found God at this point, or I found God
at this point, like I promise you God found you when he met you and your mother as well.
I promise you because I was here for a reason.
And I'm not even fully sure what that reason is.
I could be living part of that reason now, I could have had a multi-reason.
But as a result, I am who I am because of the past that I have.
And when I got to that point in my life where I was looking in a mirror in the Navy, I could
hear God tell me that it's not what he made me for.
And man, that really cut me deep, right?
I had done a lot of harm.
And I thought about other people that I had hurt with my words and thinking I am the worst
of the worst.
You know, I don't know the actions that I've done, but I've broken every commandment, like
every single one.
And it was really hard for me to take at that point that Jesus was still willing to pay
the price for me.
And it was a very humbling experience.
And I do recommend everybody ask God that too so he can show them where they failed.
And I know that you get those difficult people that say, oh, I don't like to pray for patience
because then God's gonna put you in positions.
Like pray for patience.
You want to grow there.
He's going to put you in positions where it tests it, but you want that pray for peace.
He's going to put you in positions that bring you chaos because he wants you to lean on
to him and to get that peace.
He wants you to lean on to him and gain that patience.
It's not because he wants you to suffer.
It's because he wants you to suffer no longer.
Amen.
That's the great way to end this.
Okay.
Now, we also want to end by saying that we have a give send go campaign.
If you'd like to help us with any prayers or financial contributions, just look up on
give send go, look up God's goodness podcast and you'll find us there.
So thank you so much for being with us.
In our next episode, we're going to have a little bit about me and my history and where
I've come from and what all that led us to where we're at today.
So thanks for coming.