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 Shelly Hankins.
Today we have with us Ray Sartori.
So, did I say that right?
Yes, you did.
Hello.
Awesome.
And he was introduced to me by Jim Said.
Some of you may know Jim Said with his razor wire and rainbows episode.
It's ranking number one.
So, if you haven't heard it, listen to that.
Share it with a friend.
And Ray is going to share a little bit of his story with us, but first he's going to
open us up with an opening prayer.
Amen.
Heavenly Father, we welcome you today in our midst.
We glorify you and worship you and we ask that your will be done and you have your way
with us, Lord.
We surrender to you and we ask you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you for coming on.
Where would you like to start?
Well, first of all, I'd like to thank you both for the opportunity to share my story
and give God the glory for all he's done in my life.
I'm a recovering addict.
Rounding the corner within 90 days will celebrate eight years of sobriety.
Congratulations.
Praise God.
After 30 years of hardcore addiction, lost in running and separated from God.
We'll start with me being a young man, growing up in an Italian family.
My parents, both my father, Emilio Sartori, his grandparents or his parents, pardon me,
were from Arturo, Sicily.
My mother, Rosella Puccio, her parents were from Arturo, Sicily.
My mom and dad met through my dad and her brother, my uncle Lefty, being in the Korean
War together.
And when they returned home, both Purpleheart veterans, my mom and dad met each other through
my uncle's introduction.
And they got together and had me and my brother.
They raised my mother's two daughters, my step-sisters, and we became a great family.
But when I was an eight-year-old child, my father was hospitalized due to Korean War
combat issues.
So for two years, I spent my life in a waiting room in a hospital as a small child.
A year after that, my mother went into surgery and got paralyzed from the waist down.
Couple months after that, my father died.
How old were you then?
Nine.
Wow.
On my 10th birthday, my mother died.
That sounds like a lot of trauma.
Wow.
Unbelievable.
Forget me if I get emotional.
No, no, that's understandable.
And you're with them friends and Grace will be upon you.
And the Lord is here, so we're covered.
So after going through that process for two years plus of, like I said, living in a hospital
waiting room and stressing about my parents' health and then losing them, we had a Catholic
upbringing, which is fine.
But the priest who buried my mother and father began to molest me as a small child, as a 10-year-old
child.
Tragic and unthinkable, right?
And after a while, it ended.
That was raised by my mother's sister, my aunt and uncle, and we moved from Jeanette,
Pennsylvania, a rural little country town at the time in 1975 over to Wilkinsburg in
the heart of the city.
And that's where things began to unravel for me.
A lot of contention, a lot of anxiety, being in a family without parents and being raised
by people who really didn't give a lot of heartfelt warmth and love.
I just began to wonder.
I had an older brother who, four years older than me, at like 17, he left the whole home
scene.
And I was 13 and 14 and 15.
And when I was 16, I was kicked out of the house that they raised me in.
Now, mind you, when I was a 10-year-old boy and lost both of my parents and my mother
had a hospitalization lawsuit and my dad died, a Korean war veteran, Purple Heart, I
got an inheritance of $600,000 in 1975.
When I was kicked out on the street, they didn't give me a penny of that and took it
all.
So I was one day on the run, and I ran into one of my uncles and he said, why do you look
like you look and what's going on and what did you do with all that money?
And I asked him, what money are you talking about?
And he told me about it.
And it was just another one of those moments where it was like more abandonment, more betrayal,
you know, more pain.
And so what did I do instead of going to the Lord?
I ran harder and further.
And as a young man growing up, 17, 18 years old, I began to date girls.
After what I went through with the Catholic priest, I began to justify my heterosexuality
and make sure that, you know, I was doing the girl thing and doing it on a regular basis.
And the whole time realizing, not realizing that, but now I realize that the enemy was
all over me, setting me up, right?
Just what I thought was a picture of God to abuse me in the priest thing.
And I look back and I think, man, he was just setting me up moment after moment, issue after
issue, episode after episode to take me out to pull me down, to steal, to kill, to destroy
me, right?
So I ended up getting married, having two beautiful kids in my early 20s.
And then we lived a decent life.
I was a carpenter, a contractor, which we still are today.
And it turns out a couple of years after marriage, maybe six, eight years after marriage, I found
out my wife had cheated on me.
So what did I do?
I ran away.
You ran, yep.
I ran away again.
You know, after having children, we actually began to go to church.
And I believe when I was about 25 years old, I was saved.
I asked God to come into my life.
I believed the message of the gospel that Jesus had come to earth, went to the cross
in my stead for my sins on the third day rose again, and I believed it.
I trusted in it and I placed my faith in Christ and I believe my eternal destination is secure
in him.
But that doesn't mean my behavior on earth was in mind with that, which to my demise
caused me a lot of pain, hurt, abandonment continually after even acknowledging that
Jesus Christ was King eternal.
So what I did was after I found out that the mother of my children had betrayed me, I took
off.
And my kids at the time were eight, my daughter and my son, 10, whom I loved dearly.
And I had a wonderful relationship with now this day.
Thank God.
I just bailed.
And then I began to pursue other women, drugs, alcohol, a horrible lifestyle.
And guess what?
It took me three decades to wake up from that nightmare.
And I want to talk about this because here's something that it just keeps coming back to
me as a young man dealing with the hurt and the pain in the past.
I had a couple of choices to make.
One was of course to ask for help, which I did not.
The second thing was to pray and then ask him for help.
Right?
I could ask a human for help.
I could ask a God for help.
I could ask the church for help.
And I refused all three.
And it cost me decades, decades of pain and suffering.
Not only did it cost me heart and pain and suffering and loss, it cost my ex-wife that,
my two beautiful children that.
And it's like a snowball effect.
You know, the world doesn't revolve around me.
You know, I'm tied intricately with others.
And when I suffer, they suffer.
It's a ripple effect.
It is.
Truly a devastating ripple effect when you look back on all the pain and suffering.
But as King David said in the Old Testament, if I make my bed in hell, Lord, you're even
there.
And so I began to drink.
I began to drug.
I began to smoke weed and do coke.
And I went to one wrong party and I was introduced to crack cocaine, which was one of the biggest
demons that God had to really get out of my life.
And he used the Allegheny County Jail to help me get clean, which I'm fine with.
You guys can have a club.
Amen.
I have no doubt about it.
And thank God for that.
I may still be on the run, but years and years go by and about 17 years ago, I'm still getting
high.
I'm in this abandoned crack house getting high and real deep into it.
And I hear a baby crying and I'm thinking, I'm losing it.
You know, thinking it's in my head.
And so I turned to this, this girl who was in this house with me and said, you know,
I'm starting to hear stuff.
I was so concerned.
And she said, what's up?
And I told her, I hear a baby in my head crying.
And she said, no, there's a baby upstairs in a crib that's been left here for almost
a week.
I said, what?
And so I went upstairs and there's this little six month old baby in a crib in the corner
of this room, just really crying, dirty, filthy, emaciated.
And I went over and I picked this kid up and he grabbed me around the neck and he wouldn't
let go.
And immediately right then in there, I was no longer high.
I was God just revealed to me what was going on and woke me up.
So what I did was I called my ex-wife and told her what the situation was.
There's an issue.
She was right down the road with my little 12 year old daughter at the time.
And they came over with diapers and bathed the child, took him home, got him safe.
And you know, 17 years later, he's still in my family.
Yeah.
My ex-wife adopted him.
Now, we found his birth mother and she was incarcerated.
She went out and made a deal and got incarcerated that week that I had found him, but she didn't
tell anybody about him.
And the people she left him with were complete addicts that were unconcerned.
And if God did not intervene, God, not me, if God did not intervene in that child's life,
he wouldn't have made it.
He made sure you heard him.
God is faithful.
God is true.
And even in our worst, even at our lowest, he shows up and uses us.
You know what I mean?
We have to be obedient though, right?
Be that willing to stressful.
You could have stayed downstairs and listened to that baby crying, kept getting high.
You could have saw that baby and said, just like all the other addicts, not my problem
and walked away, but you didn't, right?
You chose to lean into the compassion that he fueled you with.
You chose to lean into the redemption that he had for you, right?
You chose to lean into that restoration by saving that child.
You saved yourself through him.
Praise God.
That's the Holy Spirit within us, my brother.
I mean, because we are without God, we are nothing.
We're in trouble.
We're on our own.
We're abandoned.
We're alone.
But with God, even in our struggle, all things are possible.
So after that episode, you know, things went in and out, up and down, back and forth.
We had...
No, you get back together with your wife.
No, we didn't.
Okay.
No, but we're still friends.
But he adopted it.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
And, you know, we hung out and we fellowshiped and we did family, but Ray would keep going
back to the destruction, to the running, because I wasn't ready.
You know what I mean?
So we could go on and on and move.
I could talk about tragedy and triumph on and on, but I want to talk about my children.
So my children, Christopher and Jessica, who are both clean and sober today by the grace
of God.
My son just celebrated seven years a couple of months ago.
My daughter Jessica, five years.
My son's wife, five, six years sober.
That's great.
And as I said, I'm coming up on eight.
So when God saved me, it got me clean.
He was working on those guys as well.
I don't take any responsibility for their sobriety, but we all sort of got clean within
a window of time.
And I'm surrounded by grandchildren.
I have eight grandchildren, which claim to me anytime I'm with them.
If it was the old way, it wouldn't be like that.
They might be scared of you.
Absolutely.
You're not knowing me at all.
Right.
Because you wouldn't be there because I wouldn't be there.
It wouldn't show up.
I, over the last eight years, I haven't missed a birthday, a holiday, an event, a family
occasion.
I wouldn't miss it for the world.
Well, you missed 30 years of life.
So I can't imagine you turning anything else down at the moment.
I am.
So when I was 51 years old, this is interesting.
Still getting high.
I did a drug deal through my Washington, got pulled over by Task Force, got busted with
some drugs.
I was on probation.
They let me go.
They said, we'll call your PO.
You report and let them know what happened.
And we'll set a court date and we'll deal with it then.
And dodged that bullet, went, got high some more.
And eventually that time showed up.
That court date showed up.
And I called my PO before that happened.
And she said, well, what we're going to do is we'll have you show up to court and then
we'll have you arrested and we're going to help you get clean.
I said, okay, I can deal with that.
Meanwhile, I went and got high again until.
And so that day showed up and I went to court and I got in front of the judge.
The PO didn't even show up.
And the judge said, okay, violation, this, that and the other thing.
And he said, case dismissed.
And I said, well, may I speak your honor?
And I am very respectful in court.
And I said, what do you mean case dismissed?
I thought I was here to, you know, do some time and get some help.
And he goes, no, we don't do that.
I said, but the, the, the, uh, parole officer said he's going to put a warrant for my arrest.
So I should be arrested and incarcerated because I'm going to go get high if you let me go.
And he said, well, that's not my problem.
And I said, okay, here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to go sit down in that bench right over here.
I'm not leaving your court until you have a sheriff come and take me.
Because I was ready because I had a little sit down with God that week and I said, I
need your help and whatever has to happen, help me.
And sure enough, half an hour went by and two sheriffs, so I'm getting a, they can say,
whisper, come on with me.
You're right.
There's a warrant.
So I put my hands behind my back to get cuffed and they said, we're not going to do that,
buddy.
Nobody asked to be arrested.
You know?
And so, um, the process began June 8th, 2016.
That was that day.
And I sat it down for a couple months until I got a call back in the court and I was met
by judge Anthony Mariani.
He said, yeah, you did a good thing, buddy.
You know, you got a couple months clean.
What we're going to do is sentence you 11 and a half to 23 months.
And I was like, oh man, I didn't ask for that.
You know, but I said, I didn't really say it.
Say that.
I just hung on my head and I said, okay, Lord, I'm ready.
And let's do this.
So God set me down and I went back to the Alacanti County jail and I just thanked him and prayed
that whatever your will is, I'm ready.
I'm willing.
Let's go.
But three months later, they came and got me from the Alacanti County jail and put me
into the renewal center, which was a halfway house where you go and you're incarcerated
from like 630pm till 630am.
You get to go to work throughout the day and then you come back there and you go back
to jail based not to the jail, but to the halfway house.
Kind of like a house arrest.
It was beautiful.
Good, better food, right?
Free clothes, get to go to church on Sunday.
And the whole time, my girlfriend, who's now my wife, Diana, was skeptical.
What are you going to do when you get out?
How are we going to do this?
If you get high again, it's over.
And this is a woman who I knew at the time for about six, seven years in and out of a
relationship with her.
And she somehow got saved.
We know how, right?
The Holy Spirit.
And, you know, because I would witness to her, even though I was out of my mind at it, the
Holy Spirit was still in me drawing her and using the good to let her know that God is
real.
And so 11 and a half months and one day goes by and they called me down.
But let me go back.
During that time of incarceration at the renewal, I met these gentlemen from walking arms.
They would come in on Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, Thursday nights with a different representative.
And we'd do Bible study.
And I never missed one Bible study because I knew that while I was laying it down, that
was the time to get fed.
Is that how he met Jim?
Well, I didn't meet Jim there, but he was there like a couple months before me.
We didn't cross paths.
This is interesting.
But we met after I got out because the day I was discharged, 11 and a half months and
one day I called my girl.
I said, babe, I'm out.
Come get me.
She said, all right.
I hung up the phone with her and I picked up the phone and I called Leo Wisniewski from
locking arms.
We became dear friends in Bible study at the renewal center.
And I said, Leo, I'm out.
I don't want to get high no more.
I need to be around men who love Jesus and are doing the right thing.
And he said, well, tomorrow is the walk for the homeless at Heinz Field.
It was June, something or other.
And I met Tom Jokin and Dave Jacobs and John Colb.
John Colb and Craig Wolfley, right?
And Leo down there.
And I've been with that group of men for the last eight years, which is one of the main
reasons I haven't returned to the madness.
Because every Thursday night, either here at my house or in another man's house, we
meet for Bible study and we break bread, we eat food, we get filled with God's Word.
We just try to become better people, serve Christ.
So after I get out of the renewal center and I get a job, I get back into construction,
I get a car like within six months.
And by the way, I don't have a license.
I don't have anything.
You know what I mean?
I'm starting from scratch again.
Everything's gone.
My son I hear is in a drug program six months clean, six months right behind me.
I'm like, yeah, that's awesome.
So we begin to talk on the phone and communicate.
And he's like, dad, are you going to do it this time?
I was like, I'm going to try, buddy.
You know, one day at a time.
That's all I could do.
I tell him about the men's group I'm in, whom he's been a part of.
He comes to retreats with his son.
And it's just a beautiful thing.
So I began to pick him up at he's now in a halfway house like his father was.
I pick him up on Sundays.
We got to eat.
We go bowling.
We visit his girlfriend who was his girlfriend who's now his wife.
Right.
And we visit her.
She still struggling to get clean.
We were at her house one day in Penn Hills.
We visit after bowling and eating.
And then she's pregnant with his daughter, Kalea, who's now four years old.
No, going on six years old.
It's amazing how time flies.
And we leave.
We leave in Penn Hills to go back to Washington, PA.
And we get a phone call from one of Chris's girl's best friend.
And she says, get back to the house.
Kray Leger just shot up and fell out, I heard her hit the floor.
Pregnant with the baby, no doubt.
So Chris calls 911.
We head back to the house, kick the door and she's dead on the floor in the bathroom.
Purple.
We're doing chest compressions.
911 blows through the door.
Narcans are six times and she's alive.
So the cops say, we're going to take you to the hospital and make sure the baby's okay,
that you're okay.
I'm not going to no hospital, she says.
And Chris said, I'm the father of the child in her womb.
Arrest her if she doesn't go.
And sure enough, they cuff her up.
She said, all right, I'll go to the hospital.
And Chris calls the PO, her PO the next day and demands drug court for his girl and the
baby.
And Kray Leger is over five years sober today.
Praise God.
If we were, where we were supposed to be that day, they'd both be gone.
Just how God is, you know.
You got to forgive me because that's just so moving to me.
There's nothing to forgive, man.
Praise God.
You know, I think it's a tremendous thing that you were always seemingly in the right
place at the right time.
Right?
Absolutely.
We know that God doesn't work in coincidences.
That's only from a believer's perspective.
We don't believe in coincidence.
There's no such thing.
And your first encounter with where God approached you to restore you with that child, like I
could feel like when you told the story, I could feel the child cling, right?
In desperation and trying to survive and trying to find love.
I could feel that child cling through your story.
Like I could totally, like you almost teared me up and that's really hard to do.
It really is.
And then you said that you were 25, right?
When you said you first think you gave your life to Jesus, that's about the age.
And it really speaks to the fortitude and the manifold wisdom of God that we pray to
Him and we accept Him in our lives are total chaos.
Like they're just nuts.
Absolutely.
He doesn't forget the promise.
He doesn't forget the salvation.
He doesn't forget what you prayed.
He doesn't forget that.
And he refused to let you go after you asked him into your heart.
Despite the dumb things that we do as people, he refuses to let us go because I remember
similar things that similar things.
And I've done some dumb things and yet I'm still walking with the Lord and still he chooses
me to do things for his kingdom.
And it's because I asked him into my heart, even when I wasn't ready, even though I didn't
understand and he's like, I got you, you will always be there.
The footsteps of a righteous man are ordered by God, right?
And how are we made righteous through Christ and Calvary?
Yeah, nothing we can do.
Not through our own, but through him.
I'm showing these guys a picture of Brandon, the child that I found as a baby abandoned.
And he's 17 years old in this picture that I'm sharing.
And he just went to college.
He just entered college this year for the first time.
He looks beaming.
God is faithful and happy.
God is faithful.
He looks like a perfectly well-developed young man.
And the Lord in his sovereignty allows our story to glorify himself.
And that's who gets all the glory is Jesus Christ.
Because once again, left to our own devices, it's over.
It's a wrap.
Absolutely.
We're fodder for the enemy.
And that's the whole thing about the matter.
It's no one in this family of mine is perfect, right?
But now we know who to turn to for help.
And the more you do it, the more it becomes a reflex, right?
It is a reflex.
The less you feel you have to do it on your own, the more that you've already experienced
what he's done.
Listen, stuff happens till today, but we don't run to a crack pipe.
We don't run to an alcoholic beverage.
We don't run to a marijuana leaf.
We run to the author and the finisher of our faith.
We run to the King, the Creator for our rescue and our health.
I would even hazard to say that we don't even run to him, that we step boldly before him
as his children, right?
We don't need to run any longer.
Because he is the author and perfect of our lives, as you said.
He is the King.
He knows what's going on.
He knows what's up.
He's never, ever, ever, ever caught off guard.
Praise God.
And so as we enter an intimate relationship with him and we share our life with him, even
though he already knows, it's us acknowledging that what we want and trust him with the small
things in our life, the pain in our life.
And he loves that.
And everything that we do that furthers his kingdom brings him glory.
And he loves that.
Praise God.
So I have another great story of redemption and rescue and salvation to share with everybody
so I'm just got clean at 51, nearly eight years ago.
And a couple of years into being sober, my wife was like, you got to go to the doctors,
bro.
You're an older gentleman.
You need to go to the doctors, get a physical check, because I didn't care about any of
that while I was out getting high doing my thing.
And I said, okay, that's cool.
It's a good idea, primary care physician.
Let's go get checked up.
You're over 50.
You need a colonoscopy.
And I said, I'm like, no, please, no.
That pre-drink makes you have to drink before and get ready.
It was just the nightmare.
But they did the colonoscopy and they found stage three B colon cancer tumor size of a
tennis ball in my lower abdomen.
And so I'm like, I get the news after waking up out of that colonoscopy, whatever aspect,
you know, because they put you out.
Yeah, the whole seizure.
And they're like, yeah.
And so they're glowing as you wake up.
They tell me.
And I didn't freak.
I didn't flip out.
I realized that I lived a lifestyle worthy of that diagnosis.
I really did.
I understood that, man, you didn't take real good care of yourself, brother.
What do you expect?
So when I was shed a tear or any real flipping out, I went to Bible study that week and I
said, check this out.
We got a little prayer request, gentlemen.
And I told them and I said, I don't want to pray that God delivers me, that God heals
me, that God this or that or the other thing.
What I do want to pray is for the will of God to be done in this matter, whether it's
to allow me to be healed, allow me to suffer with dignity or to take me home, whatever his
will is, I'm good with.
And that's just what we prayed.
And so I went through 28 sessions of chemo and radiation, never missed a day of work.
At lunchtime, I'd go to the hospital and get radiated and then go back to work.
I didn't lose weight.
I didn't lose hair.
I'm already bald.
But that's all good.
Unrelated.
And I didn't suffer fatigue or anything, really.
And then the tumor had shrunk and just disappeared.
It was gone.
They couldn't find it, which was a praise reported itself, which was wonderful.
So the doctor says, well, we're still going to recommend this and surgery and chemo.
I said, listen, you can do surgery and biopsy to see if there's any microscopic cancer,
but we're not doing any more chemo.
So they did the surgery and they found zero cancer.
And that's been three years past and recent checkups, still no cancer, nothing.
Awesome.
But God is good.
So how good does it feel knowing that you think that you fully deserved that cancer?
And God said, no, you didn't.
Right?
How could you feel that he loves you so much that he said, that is not what you deserve.
Despite what you've done, despite what you feel is owed to you because of the life you
lived in such a way that God says, that it's not for you, right?
That he cherishes you so much that he took that away.
Despite the fact that you think you deserved it, that he says that Jesus has already paid
the price.
You don't deserve any punishment, right?
You don't have this penance that you need.
It's taken away.
It was, it was a buried with Jesus and he didn't come back to life with him.
It feels absolutely astounding.
It is just amazing that I get to enjoy life with all my children sober, my beautiful wife,
who's never had a drug or alcohol problem, by the way, which-
Except you.
Exactly.
Which is enough for three people.
Do I feel unworthy?
Of course I'm unworthy.
We are all unworthy to enjoy the glory of God, but you know what?
He is so good and sovereign and powerful and merciful.
It is mind-blowing.
Isn't that mind-blowing how-
It's mind-blowing that we think that we're unworthy, right?
That we think we have no value, but would you have sacrificed your son for someone unworthy?
That's a great point.
Right?
You wouldn't have done that.
So he saw us as worthy even in our sin.
And you know what?
He saw us as worthy regardless of the dumb things that we continually turn to.
And his son, who died in our place, gives us full access to his dad.
Isn't that beautiful?
Unfettered access, as long as we come in spirit and in truth, right?
Unbelievable.
It is- well, it's very believable now that the Holy Spirit resides in me and makes me
aware of the truth and the access and the beauty.
And it's so powerful.
Once again, I have eight grandchildren who are my love, who are surrounded by- and they're
all local, and we get to hang out constantly.
And when I look at them, I just see redemption.
You know, I just see- I just see just love.
That's because God never wanted you to suffer.
Amen.
Right?
You- He understood the things that led you down the road you were on.
He understood that you had an aunt and uncle that clearly just wanted money and not you
and didn't invest any time in you.
That when your parents died and then you were with your aunt and uncle, that's when you
decided that your life was unraveling.
Not before that, when you spent years in the waiting room with your parents, right?
But at that moment, you felt it was unraveling.
And as a child, there's trauma that sticks with us forever until it's cleared.
And so, God never intended you to have these trials, right?
He never intended you to suffer.
And so, when you're saying that, hey, I deserve this, you weren't meant to go down that road.
You're not deserving of his wrath and his punishment.
You're deserving of every bit of love that he has poured upon you.
And I'm so grateful that you understand that.
I'm so grateful that you have your eight grandkids that you can pour your love into because
you deserve it.
You deserve to be happy.
You deserve to have the love of God in your life.
You deserve to feel rewarded despite the fact that you suffered so much.
You deserve to be rewarded.
Well, God is faithful.
And, you know, he knew that in saving me, that I would tell everybody about him.
And that's my thing.
So, I would ask, I'd be in church and I would ask God, what is my purpose?
How do I serve you and love you better?
And I would see somebody in church.
I would watch at people, on a people watcher.
And I'd see people hear his word and weep and turn from their darkness, right?
And get redeemed and saved.
And that would move me so deeply.
And God said, speak my word, share my love, talk about my son.
And that's my thing.
I'm an evangelist.
You know, I don't go pursue people and track them down and beat them over the head with
the Bible.
But I would work if you did that.
I agree.
I engage people in conversation, right?
And the door opens.
The door opens mightily.
I'm a contractor.
I'm in people's homes every day.
And you'd be surprised how God just opens the door to witness for him.
And I share my story.
That's great.
And people are blown away.
How can you even deal with that?
I said, well, the Lord, you know, the poem footprints, that's my life.
Yes.
When the storms came and hurt and the pain was there, there was only one set of footprints
and it was Jesus carrying me.
That's my life.
Makes us ever wonder how we thought we could do it on our own, right?
You want to do this with me, that Jesus, you want to impart yourself in me by giving me
the Holy Spirit so I can live with you at all times.
Why do I keep feeling that I need to do this on my own?
Why do we keep running to that?
I have to do this by myself.
And God says, I have given you me.
You don't have to do this on your own, right?
We lack the fortitude to do the things that God asks us to do.
We lack the love, the wisdom, the things that we need for our fellow human beings that if
we just allow the impartation of Jesus Christ to overtake our life, we can do all things
through Him who strengthens us.
Praise God.
Philippians 419, you know, I read his word.
I pray I ask his spirit for guidance and wisdom and understanding and then application, right?
There's a great saying.
It is only through understanding and application that this thing works.
That's an NA thing, right?
An AA thing.
And it's true.
You know, it's one thing to have knowledge about a solution or a revelation, right?
But unless you employ it and apply it, it's nearly useless, right?
I used to say knowledge is power, but it's nothing until you do something with it.
Wisdom is power, right?
When you apply it to your life and you use it and you share it with others and lives
change.
Yeah, it's the sharing part.
You can have all those in the world if you don't share it.
Like G.I. Joe, they had it right.
You know, nothing is half to battle.
But what's the other half?
Action.
You have to do something with that wisdom.
That's right.
And so we can't just say, hey, look, God has given me the word of knowledge and then sit
on it.
And you can't just say that God has called me to do something and not do it.
Right.
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.
And today with the sound mind unfettered by chemicals and alcohol, I can assess situations,
pray about it and use the wisdom of God to act and move and have my being in Jesus'
name.
Right.
He is the solution.
I mean, we look at our country, it's so divided in crazy state and attack on every side.
Divided in the division, right?
Even the people dividing are divided with each other.
Absolutely.
Jesus, 20, 24.
And every year after.
Jesus take the wheel.
That's the key.
Any thoughts?
I love it.
I usually, you know, come up with the name of the episode later on in the week, but I
think I have it and I think we would call it the ripple effect.
Amen.
You have a tremendous story and it speaks volumes about how different scenarios in your
life affected you in steps.
Right.
You were loved as a child and you could see where the decline happened and you could see
where you reached out to God and you can see where it still declined because the enemy
said no.
Right.
The enemy doesn't attack nonbelievers.
That's why you were attacked so heavily because you had God to start with and he's
like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because he's afraid of who you are now.
We were under fire very early.
Yeah.
Well, he knew who you were going to be.
He could see your, so the devil has seen everybody and he's seen everybody's character.
He knows what people are going to be like.
He may not see the future, but he knows what your character was like and he had to beat
you down because he couldn't have you working for the kingdom.
Well, God placed his signature on my heart before I was even born and that's evident
because of the on-slot, right?
But I have to say this.
I got to mention my wife, Diana.
We had met like 15 years ago at Supercuts.
I had brought an employee because I don't need a haircut, but I had brought one of my
employees in to get a haircut and I went into the waiting room because I knew there were
hot chicks in there.
And I saw my wife and I didn't know it was going to be my wife, but I laughed.
I didn't say a word to her.
And the next day I went in and gave her a business card and said, hey, call me if you
ever want to hang out or anything done.
Love to meet you.
Get to know you.
Never call.
It turns out that the manager, her manager said, that guy looks like trouble.
She was right.
Right.
Took my car and ripped it up and threw it away.
And me and Diana ran into each other a year later at a place called the Grove, the Lending
Grove where we dance.
You know, we go out and dance.
But it turns out that the manager who threw away my card is my cousin's daughter.
Who didn't know me?
Wow.
We know each other, but we found this all out at the end.
Not the end, in the middle somewhere.
And it was a good laugh, right?
So my wife is from Vietnam.
She came over when she was like nine years old with her family, 40-something years ago,
48 years ago.
And speaks fluent South Vietnamese.
I say my wife speaks three languages.
English, South Vietnamese, and bad English.
Well, she loved that.
So we're in locking arms, right?
The men's group.
It's all exclusively men.
And so one day, like six years ago, two years in, a year and a half into locking arms, the
guys say, let's bring our wives, let's all get together.
You talk about footsteps ordered by God.
One of the guys in locking arms by the name of Jim Buchanan, awesome brother in Christ.
He says, I know your wife.
I said, okay, how do you know Diana?
How do you know?
She said when she was nine years old, my family sponsored her family from Vietnam.
Wow.
That's incredible.
There's no mistakes with the Lord.
None, zero.
Huh?
Not at all.
She's simply amazing.
I don't think he knows how to make a mistake, to be honest.
Amen, that's the only thing he can't do, but the tapestry that we look at of life, God's
weaving it every day.
He's weaving it and we don't even know who we know and who we'll meet and where we'll
be then.
Yeah.
I'm making a spreadsheet of all the people, relationships that have come from this podcast
and I'll have somebody on and then they already know somebody we already had on the podcast
and then the luncher just needed somebody I wanted to know and it's just, it's like
a big web.
It's like Jim said in his son's, how?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's just simply amazing.
Yeah.
It's mind blowing.
It's all miracles.
These are, what is that scripture?
The ear is not seen or no, the eye is not seen and the ear is not heard and the mind
can't conceive what God has in store for those who love him and are called according to
his purpose.
These little miracles we're getting glimpses of reminds me of another scripture that says
we see through a glass dimly.
Yes.
Right?
We can't, it's opaque.
We really can't see what's what.
We get glimpses.
I'm a pastor friend of mine.
John Kent, he's been on the shows before.
It's one of his favorite Bible passages.
You know, we see through a lens dimly, you know, it's, it's really hard for us to comprehend
a lot of things that God has for us.
And that's why faith is so important because I can't really fully understand how much God
loves me.
It's, I'm not fathom, like I'm not cognizant of a word that can describe it.
I just have to accept it.
So this podcast will call the ripple effect.
Let me just say this to our audience.
Don't wait.
Don't wait three decades.
Today is the day of salvation.
Jesus stands at the door and he knocks.
And if you surrender your life to him today, you don't even realize how many people will
be affected and how many will come and know him as he knows them.
Your life is not your own and we're not promised tomorrow.
So I just suggest that God is drawing you and you hear his voice and you hear that knock
that you open the door and you let him in and he will dine with you and talk with you
and lead you and love you and heal you and restore you.
He'll even give you the desires of your heart if they're in line with his will.
And that's the key, right?
We all as men and women have many desires, right?
Many thoughts, hopes and dreams and they're wonderful, right?
But I don't want them if they're not God's will.
That's perfect.
Beautifully said.
Man.
That's, I think, a lot of problems that we have as Christians is we confuse his will
for our own sometimes that we feel that what we want is so powerful that God surely wants
it to without taking a step back and realizing that if he wants it, he'd already have it,
right?
That's something that we have to struggle with as believers.
And when we lean into trusting his process, his plan, then it'll all work for us anyway.
There's not going to be a moment where we're like, well, I didn't get what I wanted, but
God got what he wanted.
So I'm just, I guess that's okay.
No, I mean, when God gets what he wants, we have infinite joy.
Praise God.
And it may not be what we thought was going to happen, but I promise you will have joy
by doing God's will.
Amen.
It's, you cannot go through it and be like, well, I completely wasted my time, but good
for you, God.
And you got what you wanted.
And speaking of time, timing is a huge factor in this matter, right?
There are things that we hope and dream and wish for that we're not ready for until God
changes our hearts through how his word, if we're not in God's word, we can't hear his
voice.
God isn't audibly speaking to most of us.
Maybe some of you, I don't know, but I get it.
I get a message from God through his word, through his spirit.
He wants that relationship.
That's right.
Exactly.
So being in fellowship with God through his word is the key.
And then be in, and listen, I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't have a group
of men who hold me accountable, right?
Who I am telling the truth to on a weekly basis.
I'm in a men's group every Thursday night, 6 p.m.
We break bread and then we open God's word.
We reveal our victories throughout the week, our disappointments, our failures, our needs,
our desires.
And sometimes I hear some hard truths there.
Say, right?
What are you thinking?
That may not be best for you.
I suggest you step back and ask God for more direction or better direction or clarity in
this matter because sounds a little sketchy to me, right?
I allow men who love Jesus in my life today to speak truth to me.
You know?
I'm not in some echo chamber that people tell me what I want to hear.
I allow myself to be told what I need to hear.
But you have to be honest too with them.
Absolutely.
Well, iron sharpens iron and every man and every woman needs an accountability.
That's what I call an accountability.
Because if you don't have that, then you're left unchecked.
You're left with your thoughts, God's word and the enemy's word, right?
And so you have choices to make every single day that you have to fight for.
But if you have an accountability, which is another human being that loves Jesus, that
is in your life that God placed in your life, hopefully that can help confirm the word of
God in your life or can help deter what the enemy is saying through encouraging, through
a word of knowledge, through whatever means that God is using to employ, I think is central
for a Christian man or woman to have somebody in their life that helps them line it up because
when we're by ourselves, he's going to pick us off, the enemy is going to pick us off
like a sick animal in a herd.
Like I've learned through marriage with my wife that the enemy wants to separate marriage
so badly because when two or one are together, you know, right?
So when we become one flesh as a husband and a wife, we're like 40 people.
We're like a lot.
We're like a, we're like a platoon.
But when we're separated, we're one individual soldier and the enemy can attack that.
So he attacks it so viciously and it's not, it's not just marriages, but it's you.
Right?
If you decided, I don't want to be in this group, I don't want accountability and I
don't want friends to help me.
You have just separate yourself from the herd and the enemy prowls around like a lion seeking
who he can consume is going to find you as a juicy steak.
All alone sheep.
Right?
If one can chase a thousand of flight to 10,000 and so on, right?
That's scripture.
And I love scripture because it's the solution.
Every answer that we're looking for is in God's word.
They may not be what we want to hear at the time.
That's okay.
Right?
We got to be able to grow up and hear the word no and not take it personally.
That's a hard pill to swallow for some of us.
It is.
And once again, the word no is very healthy because if somebody tells you don't, you
don't go down that road, that bridge is out and you go down that road and go off that
bridge over that cliff into the water, whatever, that's your fault.
You didn't heed that warning.
Right?
There are red flags everywhere that I look back in my life before I surrendered and just
blew right by them.
Easy to do.
With great consequence behind it, by the way, wasted years, ten canes gone.
But we have a God of restoration.
Well, God restored seven, tenfold.
Look what he did for Job.
Oh, yeah.
And by the way, Job didn't get an answer why he was tested or why all that went down.
God didn't give him an answer.
He did not.
God doesn't have to, but know this.
God and John 3.16 sent his only begotten son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And that's the key.
Well, don't forget 17 for he did not come in the world to condemn it, but to save it
through him.
Praise God.
Right.
So don't feel condemned.
I really want to thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.
I really, I feel impacted by your story.
I could feel what you felt in some of the scenarios.
You were very authentic.
You were very real and your experiences are something that I think a lot of people can
relate to, maybe not to the same severity or maybe to a worse severity.
But I think it will help give hope that our God is a God of hope and restoration and that
maybe they'll have a place to turn to.
And don't be afraid of the truth because the truth so set you free, right?
And when we listen, it is embarrassing to talk about the priests and the things that
I've suffered and go went through, but that shame is gone.
That lie has been exposed and that there is light now that destroys that darkness.
That shame has been converted into a testimony that will help someone and may God have all
the glory.
Praise God.
Well, thank you so much for being with us.
Thank you listener for listening.
We hope you enjoyed it and got a word.
And if you'd like to come alongside us in this little assignment of ours, we have a fundraising
campaign.
If you go look up give sand go dot com and look up God's goodness podcast.
You can find us there or you can contact me and send money.
It helps with the audio editing.
So we do appreciate it.
And with that, we'll talk to you next time.