Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast where our mission is to encourage and highlight God's
Goodness and modern-day miracles. We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins. Today we have
with us a special guest. His name is Anthony Brown and AKA Outcast 2020 and he's here with us.
Before we get into it, I want to thank the long-time listeners for listening and sharing it.
If you haven't done so yet, please rate this in Spotify or Apple podcasts so it can go out to
more people and then more people can be encouraged. If you are new, welcome. We hope that you get
something out of it. I believe God has something to say to everybody in every episode. We pray that
you get that download and share something with a friend. We're going to have Anthony start us off
with an opening prayer. Awesome. Thank you so much. Father God, thank you so much for giving us the
opportunity to be here. I pray God that your presence comes down in this room, Lord. I pray that
whoever is listening, whoever might not know you, Lord, will hear the words and learn to know you,
God. I pray, Father God, that you just be with us. You guide us, Lord. You be with my words.
I'll be with my voice, Lord, and just let you speak through me in the name of Jesus. We ask you,
things, amen. Amen. Thank you for that. Now, we know Anthony because of Ben Akers. He is in tri-state
worship and so Anthony has a lot going on. So where would you like to start? Yeah, I mean, I guess,
well, the reason that I'm here, I guess, because I think we're trying to come back one time with
as like tri-state worship with all of us, which would be cool. Yeah. Stay tuned. So I'm going to,
yeah, right. So I'm going to try to keep the drumming aspect kind of out of like two different
stories on how I got started with like the, because I, because for those of you that don't know, I
rap, you know, that's why I'm here under Outcast 2020. So I go by that name because it's Outcast
2020 is like, I'm an outcast of this world because I see Christ in 2020 vision and that's kind of
where that comes from. It actually comes from a ministry that I used to play drums in years ago
called the Outcast Ministries. And that's kind of why I decided to go with Outcast because, you know,
I'm not of this world. And you know, because I, you know, my whole life I was raised in a very
Christian home, you know, I was raised by both my parents, you know, I had both my parents in my home,
you know, and both loving parents. So like I've always, I've always known God, you know what I mean?
Like I've known, I guess, of him, but my story kind of starts in, I want to say 1997. So I know
you guys probably remember that year because you guys got a few years on me. I was still in
maybe in 97. Yeah. Good times, fuzzy memories. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. So I am,
so we lived in Westmoreland, Tennessee at the time. And now to hear my dad talk about it, he would
say that like we were someone like the most blessed people. Because what's funny is we didn't really
know a whole lot of people because my mom's side of the family lived in Arizona and my dad's side
of the family lived in West Virginia. I'm not going to get into that because that's a long story on
why I'm alive. So we're like in the middle. So we didn't really know anybody and but we were very
faithful. You know, we loved the Lord. We went anytime there was a church service, we were there.
But at the time, I'm going to say it was in 97. My mom ended up pregnant again. I was actually
held was I think it was four years old, four or five years old, when she was pregnant. So yes, I
basically, we lived there for a while. My sister was born and she was born with a slew of problems,
like a lot of physical problems. She was handicapped. She was basically, if she was alive,
today, she would be bound to a wheelchair. You know, and so it'd be one of those one of those
situations, you know, she was in pretty bad shape, but she lived her even a long probably year and
a half. It wasn't too long until she eventually passed away. Unfortunately, she had a slew of
problems. Was there a diagnosis for what the prominent factor was for those problems? She had
a seizure disorder. She was just like a birth defect. I don't really know the whole the whole
situation. But yeah, she just she just had some just birth defects. Sorry for your loss, by the
way. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But I remember, now this part I do kind of remember.
So I'd woken up and I remember I woke up my parents were just broke frantic, you know,
they're just going through, you know, on the phone and you know, my sister was in her crib,
my dad grabbed her and I remember my dad, you know, even though we were Christians, you know, he,
when he dealt with his anger, he would swear a lot, you know, and that that sailor tongue.
And I'm not yeah, I'm not innocent in that factor anyways. I don't think very many Christians are
innocent in that. I think that's one of our darkest secrets is that we don't want to tell each other
that we're still human. Right. It's a hard habit to break. Right. Right. Definitely. But yes, that
was going on. I do remember a little bit of that and you know, because the ambulance took a long
time to get there. And what had happened was my mom woke up to give her her that was another thing,
too, that I didn't mention earlier was that she had a she had a feeding tube in her stomach. So
that was how she got her nutrients. And my mom had woken up to feed her, you know, and she just,
she wasn't breathing, you know, didn't know why it just happened, you know, and so they called
the ambulance the ambulance said forever to get there. So my dad was freaking out, my mom was
freaking out and I was just there because I was five years old. I didn't really know the situation
or really what was going on. And at that time, you know, I was so young, I didn't understand the
concept of life, death, you know, I didn't really understand. But I guess what had happened was
she had passed away in her sleep. And we don't even know how long she was there. You know what I
mean? It was just she woke up and she was gone. And a few days later, we were at her funeral.
And I do remember this, I looked up to my dad and because the funeral was over, they did the eulogy
and stuff. And then they were started filling the hole because she had a casket, you know, and
they were filling the hole and putting the dirt on it. And I was like, I was like, dad, you know,
why are they throwing dirt on my sister? And I was like mad about it, you know what I mean? And
my dad that, you know, use that opportunity to explain, you know, she's in heaven, she's Jesus,
you know, and stuff. And again, I was just like, cool, you know, like, I didn't understand it,
you know, fast forward, we lived, I think we still lived there for a few months after that. But,
you know, that's hard after losing a child, you know, you're like, you just want to get out of
there. So we ended up moving to Arizona to be with my mom side of the family. And during this time,
again, we were very involved in our church, because we went to the church that my grandmother
went to, it was actually a new beginning search the Nazarene. This is when I was telling you guys,
before the podcast started, I was telling you guys how I'd been to many different denominations.
And I kind of got a bit of a grasp on the certain types of churches and what they believe in stuff.
Nazarenes normally, they don't believe in, you know, like the crazy worship that Pentecostals do,
you know, they're really back, but the church that we went to was actually very lively. Now,
they still did the turn to your 297 and your hemorrhage, you know what I mean? And then you
do the hemorrhage, but they were still like hallelujah. And they were like, yeah, and they were like,
you know, I wouldn't say they were dancing, but they were excited. They were excited about Jesus,
you know what I mean? And which it's funny because moving out here, we tried to go to a few
Nazarene churches out here was jarring because they're the opposite of that. Like they're very,
they're like, you know, Methodists like we're laid back and, you know, it's fine, you know,
worship however you want, you know what I mean? But it was for us, it was jarring. So that's why I
prefer going to where I go because it's just more, you know, lively and excited, I guess.
The Holy Spirit is free to express itself. Right. Right. You know, with a blank check.
Right. Go ham Holy Spirit. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. But this church that we went to
in Arizona was like that, you know, and the pastor had a vision where he, you know, he did a,
there was a like a food program that he did. So every like, I think it was last Friday of the
month, he would do a, I think called a project manna, you know, scripturally based. And he would
basically turn the sanctuary into like a food market almost essentially, and people would come
in and it would pay very little for the food, if not anything, sometimes he'd give stuff away and
and it was God was doing some powerful stuff in that church. And it was again, it was a Nazarene
church and it coming out here is like, wow, I can't believe how different it is just like
across the country. You know what I mean? But we were very involved. You know, my dad had a CDL,
the plate, it got so big that they had like free to trucks out back because I mean, you know,
basically the church had two services. They had one for English and one for Spanish. And they had
a whole, they had like, I can remember they had like three buildings, one building for the adults,
one for the, the, of all the, I should say the adults in English and one building for the adults
in Spanish and then another building for just the children. You know, so I'm mostly obviously was
in the children's area, but it was really, it was really nice, you know, and they even had a skate
park out back. It was pretty crazy. But yeah, so he did a lot of these things for the community,
did Christmas programs. And we were like, my family was like the head of it. Like my dad was
the sound guy, you know, he ran the sound. And then I remember on these days, because I would go and
I would volunteer before school because this was a Friday and I would go, I would wake up early,
like, I don't know, like, 330, 4am, how early I'd wake up because we lived kind of far from the
church. We lived probably, it was probably 45 minute drive, but everything was so flat. You know
what I mean? So it didn't really, we can probably see it from our house because of how tired he was.
So clear that, because he didn't turn it just over. Right, right. Yeah, so that's kind of like
what we did. We were very involved and, you know, and we were very faithful to like our tides and
stuff like that. And then I'm saying all this because it's going to be important for later,
you know what I mean? So basically, I, my mom ended up pregnant a second time, you know, with
with my brother, his name was Daniel. I remember him more because of just how I was a little bit
older, you know, at this, at this time. So what had happened was he was born again with a very
similar situation to my sister, Jessica, you know, he was, but I, my parents told me that he might
have been not quite as bad as Jessica, but from my perspective looking in, he looked a little bit
worse because I remember, you know, every month he had to have oxygen tanks delivered to our house.
You know what I mean? And like, I don't remember that from Jessica, you know, because he, again,
he had a seizure disorder, but he also had a sleep apnea. I don't know if you know what that is or
not, or yes, but yeah. So he would just, every once in a while, he would just quit breathing in
his sleep, you know, and he was hooked up to a machine that would go off very loudly. And,
you know, if that were to happen, normally my parents can just grab and wake him up and
go snap out of it. He'll be fine. Now, another thing that this whole, everything's going to
tie into itself is I was also, while I was at school, again, I was doing everything for my
church and even at that young age, you know how when you're in high school, you have to get a
certain amount of like community service hours to graduate. I don't know if you guys ever had that
or you know what I'm saying. I did not, but I needed it in the Boy Scouts to get certain
merit badges and such so you can be an Eagle Scout. Like you couldn't do it without community
service. Like what you could not. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah. Well, my school, you know, I required for
a few hours of community service. Well, I didn't have to do that because by the time I was seven
years old, I'd already done those community service hours because of what I do with my church,
you know what I mean? So that's how, you know, how it was, I was probably the youngest volunteer
there and I had a heart to serve, you know what I mean? Like I was just there and so did my parents,
you know, we always had to serve, we had to be somewhere, you know, but while this was going on,
I was also mistreated very significantly in school because in Arizona, there's not a whole
lot of white people there, you know, and a lot of people don't like me talking about this. Yeah,
no, I grew up in Las Vegas. Okay. You know, and you know, when you look at the demographics of
America, it's all the population, but not considering where you live or population density of cities
and certain areas that significantly changed the percentage numbers from that whole. So yeah,
I grew up and I had a lot of Hispanic kids in my school. I mean, a lot. I'd say that it was
probably half white kids instead of like the 60% and then, and that's just Vegas. I mean, I was
farther from the border than Arizona. Yeah, I remember like there was a couple of white kids
in my school. Like I don't even remember. There was like two or three that I could think about
on my head. Like it was a very small number. I was a minority and because of that, I got picked
out a lot because of my, because they didn't like white people, you know what I mean? And a lot
of people don't like me talking about it, but the fact is that, you know, like you can be racist
towards a white person too, and that happened to me a lot, you know what I mean? Yeah,
my experience had a time or two. Yeah. And so now while all this was going on, we were faithful
to our church, there were people because our pastor also did these Christmas programs where he
would give, he would go to like real low income places like it's not like an Indian reservation
or something and would just give toys and give away stuff to the families because, because people,
people joke about this in like, you know, shows like Family Guy or South Park, whatever people
make jokes about how a lot of people live in like one rural, small house that actually happened.
That's like a reality because I've seen it firsthand and like there was times when people
that I went to school with, you know, they would bully me in school, but in their home life was
like they would have like nine brothers and sisters and they would live in one, a one bedroom house
in like real small. And so and I was there, I was the front runner of it, like I would give people
stuff, you know, because I, you know, I was, I was an only child, basically I was an only child
growing up and I would get everything that I've ever really wanted or need, I should say needed
because we, they were, times were tough, you know what I mean, but my parents always provided
everything that I needed, but my Christmases and birthdays were always really good, you know what
I mean. So I would help people that couldn't afford stuff. I would be the front runner, I would give
stuff, you know what I mean, I would help. And so with all this going on, you know, I had my
brother and out of the hospital and then I remember on, it was a, we were at our Christmas Eve
service at our church. I remember his machine started going off, you know, like, and normally my
parents would grab him and whatever he would be fine, but this time it didn't shut off, you know
what I mean. So my parents were starting to get frantic. So they, you know, they grabbed him and
they, they took him, you know, they, they left either to the hospital. And at this moment, my
grandma came up to me and she said, Hey, so your parents are going to take your brother to the
hospital, you know, you're going to have to come home with me after church. So at this moment, I,
you know, turn around, I run, you know, out of the sanctuary and I run out of the foyer and I
remember opening, I remember opening up the doors and then I'm looking to see in my dad
in the truck, pull out of the parking lot of the church and they're going left to, he was like
peeling out, going left to the hospital. Now I remember seeing that. And yeah, so after church,
I was at my grandma's house, my dad can't pick me up, you know, and this was like, he had to go
back to the hospital, but he wanted to see my face when I opened up because usually when I
write at Christmas, they did like one big gift and then like a bunch of small stuff. So he wanted
me to see my face when I opened up my big gift. And so he let me open up on Christmas Eve. He let
me open it up. It was a PlayStation. I remember that. It was the very first PlayStation. I was
so excited, but that thing's still amazing to the, yeah, right, right, right, right.
Yeah, the original. Yeah, right, right. But yeah, so I got to play with it for a little bit, then he
had to go, you know, go back to the hospital. So I had to spend Christmas with my cousins who lived
down the street. So he, you know, gave them all, you know, put all my gifts over there. And then I
basically had Christmas with them for the rest of my Christmas. And meanwhile, while I was opening
gifts and stuff, my parents basically had a decision to make because at the time, the machines that
my brother was hooked up to was, was keeping him alive, but he was basically brain dead. And so
it's just like, he wasn't really living, you know what I mean? He was just there, you know? And so
my parents obviously was hard because it was their son, but they had to do what they had to do. And
and, and, you know, and so, you know, essentially he had, he had passed away. And I remember his funeral.
This is how I started getting misty out here because I remember at his funeral, my mom was
I was standing next to my mom. And then I just look up at her and I remember she just started
sweeping. And there was a song going on. I don't remember what the song was, but there was someone
was singing. It was like a worship song. And I remember she just started weeping. And I don't
know where my dad was. He might have been in the background or the sound or something, but, but
my mom started weeping. And then in the midst of all that, she still raised her hands. She still
lifted her hands up and was still worshiping. And at this moment in time, I was thinking I was
eight years old, my eight year old immature mind was thinking, you know, how could you still be
worshiping this God that's doing this to our family? You know, that's what I was thinking. And
because, you know, obviously my mom's got a few more years on me, so she can kind of understand
a little bit better than I could. But that was where my mind was. I was like, God even exist
at this point, you know, and for years from the time I was eight years old from when he passed
away into the time I was about 16. I can't say that I was like an atheist. Like I just didn't
not believe, you know, but it was just like in the back of my head, I'm like, if God, if God
either exists and he's just gone for me, or he just doesn't exist. You know, that was where I
was at. But still in the back of my head, because I've seen stuff that like anyone my age shouldn't
like wouldn't be able to say that they've seen. Like I'm talking like miracles. You know, like
when we lived in Tennessee, we were very, I wouldn't say poor, but we were very low on income, you
know, and again, we didn't know anyone. This is why my dad said we're so blessed is because
I remember one Thanksgiving, we were about to go in and have like macaroni and cheese and hot dogs
for Thanksgiving dinner to be at nothing. Sounds delicious, by the way. Right, right. But we had
nothing. And but when we went in there, we came home from church and we went in there. It was an
entire spread laid out, talking like turkey and like mashed potatoes, like everything you would
have at Thanksgiving dinner. To this day, we have no idea where any of it came from. It was just
there. And I think I have an idea. Yeah, yeah. The craziest thing, the craziest thing about that
story is that it just snowed also, like it was just very light snow. And there was no other
footprints except for ours left in the morning, you know what I mean? So we have no idea, you know,
so it's got to be the glory. That was it. So I remember stuff like that. So in my head, I'm like,
God, a real, but then I'm like, how could you even say that because of all this? I was very
conflicting, you know what I mean? It's conflicting because you don't have the experience at eight.
Right. It's conflicting when you're 38. But you have wisdom and experience to help
take your spirit to the right place. Right. Your flesh will always rebel against your spirit,
always, always, always, always because your flesh is a bitter, bitter, bitter thing,
because it knows that when you die, you're not taking it with you. Right. Right. It's staying
behind. And so it is lodged in sin and it wants to sin and it wants to keep you from living your
best life because it's mad, just like the enemy is mad because he'll never make it back to heaven.
Your flesh is not going there. Your spirit says bye. Right. And what would you do if you were clung
to something like a parasite and it was leading you behind? Right. Right. I would do as I could
not to have that happen. Right. That's actually a good analogy. So yeah, so I was in that mode for
a while and so up until I was 12, we still lived there. So up until I was eight and then when I
was 12, we basically sold our house and sold it for more than what it was worth. It was mostly
property because we had a lot of property. Like our house, you know, the house that we sat on,
it was just a two bedroom house. It wasn't huge, but the property is what sold, you know what I
mean? So we ended up selling our property and we had, I think it was three and a third acres,
even had like, I didn't really get much into this, but we would have like, you know, animals. We had
goats, a couple horses, chickens, you know, like a turkey at one point. We even had a donkey that
had a clubfoot, you know what I mean? Like, so like we literally had animals. I know we were
Thanksgiving turkey came from that. Well, this was years after. Oh. But yeah, this is when we
lived in Tennessee. That was when we lived in Tennessee. That was, I think my sister was still alive
at that point when that happened. But yeah, so we ended up moving from Arizona to West Virginia
and to be with my dad's side of the family. So basically we joke about it because we say, oh,
we're going to go on a vacation. We're supposed to go back to Arizona, but we never did. So that was
in 2005 and we've been out here ever since. And we're like, oh, we went on a 20 year long vacation.
You know, but yeah, when we get out here, we liked it so much that we just found a house and we just
stayed. But it was nice because we went on a like a two week, two week long just because we had a,
we didn't have any place to quote unquote live. My dad just bought a truck and it had a physical
camper on it. So we literally just because it was during the whole summer we went and we just like
traveled from we took our time because if you drive straight through from there to here, it's
like three and a half days, you know, but we took us like two weeks to get out here because we just
wanted to vacation, just get it away for a little while. It was, it was nice. We lived in the camper
for a little bit and we, we, we stopped at a bunch of different campsites, met some really cool people.
It was actually, it was a lot of fun. I wish you would have said that because my wife has been wanting
a camper to travel America for so long. You have lifetime goals to be traveling the United States,
doing a podcast full time. She's looking at me. You just can't see this. I wish you would have,
I don't know why you came today. Just ruined the rest of my marriage. I'm sorry.
I'm just kidding. That does sound pretty cool. But no, we,
but yeah, so we traveled out here and, and yeah, we, I mean, like I said, we got involved and again,
we went to a church, we found a Nazarene church because we were accustomed to Nazarenes because
that's where we went before, you know, when we left our church and, but it was a jari, it was
jari, it was different. But then there was a youth group, the church that I went to started up a youth
group called NAS and it was, it was the youth group. I would say that had changed my life because
not long after this is when I finally figured out what I actually wanted in this far as the spirit
and stuff. Okay. So I was about 16 years old and at this point I'd been one of this youth group for
probably about a year and there was a good amount of teens that would show up, you know, there'd be,
I don't know, 20 to 30 teens, but it wasn't just people that went to the church. It was people like
all over because I would again, for some reason, even though I had a hard time believing in God,
I would still get myself involved in just in any way. And so what we did or what I did was I would
play phone tag with people like, Hey, come on and not say, you know, this is believing it
before texting. I didn't have an iPhone at this point. So I had to call everyone physically.
That, that or I'd have to type, you know, like three letters to, to, to type out the message,
you know, but that and it was like 80 cents a text. So every time I'd get a text, I remember my
mom would get so mad at me because I got a text out of flip phone at the time. And I got a text
from somebody and it was some girls saying, Hey, it's all was, she's like, you just paid 40 cents
for, for three letters or a per letter or however she said it. Back in the day, we used to get like
the first three texts was like 10 of them, you get for free. Oh man. Like go text me, call me,
I've got nine left. Right. Right. You learn to abbreviate a lot. Right. Maybe that's where I
came from. All the extra like LL, LB, LB is exactly where they came from. I'm not going to type
all that out three buttons at a time. Right. Right. But yeah, so I would, I would basically do that.
I would get people to go and then I remember one service. One, so I don't remember what the actual
message was about, but it like hit me hard, you know, and I'm like, you know, I had a tug on
my heart. So because usually at the end of each service, they have an ultra call and, and, you
know, they had a band and so it was real cool, you know, just what teens need. And something stuck
up my heart. So you need to be up there, you know. So I went and I, you know, and I went to the altar
and I, I asked, I basically, I prayed, I remember this prayer, I prayed, I said, God, if you are real,
break my heart for what breaks yours. Man, that was the stupidest thing I've ever prayed,
because it worked. It worked. God, God, it, it, like he opened up my eyes and he made me see,
he revealed himself to me in that prayer. The reason I say it's so dumb is because I went from
being bullied because of my, because of my skin color, being bullied because I was now with
the Jesus boy, you know, because I was still bullied, like even out here, but it wasn't like,
it wasn't as crazy. Like out there, I'd beat up if I got looked at, looked at someone wrong,
but out here it was just more like, Jesus boy, Jesus freak, or you know, they'd be calling me
named because of it. Yeah, yeah. But it was, it was, it was still rough because I didn't know
when you were a kid. It's not, it doesn't feel like one as an adult. Now you can call me Jesus
freak and go pray to your sky daddy. I'm like, I love that. You know, I will pray to the sky daddy.
I think he's pleased with that. Right. Amazing. That's like, you guys keep coming up with a great
a name. Right. Right. Like, I don't need to defend him. You can defend himself. Right. Right. But
what was crazy about it is this is what I mentioned earlier. How, you know, I knew, I found out what
I wanted spiritually and it wasn't, it wasn't there because NOS, it changed my life. What's
this stand for? It was no ordinary sound. I thought it was nitrous oxide. Right. Whatever.
Right. Yeah. That's what it stood for, but it was the NOS band. So they had a band there and the
way that it would work is you'd show up, it was like five o'clock, you'd show up five p.m. whatever.
You can just hang out for like an hour and a half before service starts and they had pizza. They
usually got food, you know, again, whatever your growing boy needs, you know, pizza and chips,
you know, like it's, you know, then they'd get soda and stuff. And then you end up stairs,
they had like the teen room, they had, you know, a pool table, foosball, they even had like a rock
band guitar hero stuff. Oh, yeah. It was like the works, you know, it was really cool. There was a
lot of teens that would go because it was a lot of fun stuff. And then, of course, then they'd
get serious with the service and stuff. And but it wasn't, again, it wasn't very Pentecostal, you
know what I mean? So after I prayed that prayer, he opened up my eyes and I was looking around. And
I remember someone telling me a long time ago that they decided not to go to NOS because they were
like, I can just go to the teen club and do the same stuff. He was right. Because when I went there,
there was things happening that in church, you shouldn't be doing, you know what I mean? And I
didn't notice before, you know, that's what I'm that that's the significant. That's why I say this
is so dumb. Why did I pray that, you know, because, because things were happening that like, you know,
I'd see like girlfriend boyfriend, like making out over there. And there wasn't a lot of in,
like adult supervision when they should have been like as much supervision as there should have
been, you know what I mean? And it was just sort of just run around crazy, you know what I mean?
And then it's like, this is what Jesus wants, you know what I mean? Like that was where my mind
was. So I eventually quit going. And then this will kind of tie into my testimony about like playing
drums and stuff. So I started playing drums and stuff. But it was at a different a different
youth group. This is the youth group that was more serious about it. But it was literally like the
same amount of kids. But it was more of a, this is actually when I started going to New Life Church,
I was telling you about before. But at the time, the youth was called a live student ministries.
And they basically had a building that because the church grew and it grew, you know, bigger
than what the building was. So they had to move. So I had the building that they used for just
the youth. And there was a good 30, sometimes we had 40 kids that would show up. It was pretty big.
And I started playing drums there. And that was kind of how that happened. Again, I'm going to try
to keep the drumming for another day, because the whole long story, you know, and then, you know,
I started to again, started seeing what I wanted. I still went to the Nazarene church on like the
Sundays, but because I went with my parents. But on youth group days, I would go, you know,
I'd go to youth and feel like I'd get my fill, you know what I mean? And then I would go be bored
on Sunday morning. That's kind of the way that it was, you know what I mean? But then, but yeah,
so a few years ago, go by and you know, I'm doing this. And then I just, I don't, I guess,
I don't really know what happened because you know how sometimes you, you're real strong in the
Lord of the Needs, just kind of fall back for a little bit. So while I was still playing drums
as this youth group, I ended up getting my girlfriend and her and I do things that we
should not be doing because of, you know, basically, I had lost my virginity, you know.
And now, while all this time was going on, I actually just recently made a song about it.
I don't know if you heard it yet or not, but it was my most recent song I texted you. I said,
hey, you want to check out my new song? It's on the, yeah, the cover. It's got, it's what the
covenant's about because I have been struggling all, all this while I've been struggling with
pornography for like the longest time. Oh, that's every man's battle. Right. So before you can go
like the people that admit it versus the people that don't, more do it than admit it. And, and
right, you know, you keep it in the dark and then you're going to keep kindling that fire for you.
But as soon as you start telling people, right, he has less places to hide. Right, right, right.
So what happened was, is again, like I thought, I guess, again, the song would explain which
people listening won't, won't hear it yet. But I mentioned how, because the way the song is set up
is like, there's a, my normal voice, I don't know if you showed him or not, but there's like my
normal voice in the first verse talking about my struggles with pornography. And then the second
verse is a demonic voice trying to get me back to that. And that's the setup. It's kind of like
Indwelling Sin by Lecrae. I don't know if you've ever heard that song or not. You probably have
to listen to rap. Okay, well, anyway, listen to K-Lo below it. We do occasionally, depending on who
it is and what it is. Right. Like I don't like the message of mainstream rap. So therefore,
I don't listen to mainstream rap, but I don't listen to like a lot of heavy metal either.
So I got you. I got you. But yeah, so that's kind of what that song was talking about. And what
had happened was I had, I had thought that maybe my struggle would end if I just had sex, you know,
and, and then it got worse. It got a lot worse. And that's what I was explaining in the song a
little bit, because like the demonic voice was like, oh, you try to hide in it, then you got the
real thing and you got worse, didn't it? You know, it's kind of the, some of the lyrics. And yeah,
it's totally like that. That's what I was dealing with. And, and then of course, like I said,
because I don't know if you guys believe in the soul tie when you have that 100% look at 100%
without 100% happened with me because I thought that I was head over here was in love with this
girl. I was so stupid because it's the first person you imparted your spirit with. Absolutely.
And, and so it gets it gets even worse because because at the time before all that happened,
you know, I was a virgin up until I was 19. But before all that stuff happened, you know,
I had given her my promise ring. So stupid. You know what I mean? But yeah, you know, like I said,
I was kind of doing the promiscuous stuff for a little while. And you know, I even her and I
broke up and then I got with a girl that went to my youth group and did stuff. Like it was, it was
so dumb. And then eventually I had met and married someone within a year, one year. And that again
was for me, it was quite dumb. Like some people, you know, you get with someone, you just know,
you know, whatever, like that happens, you know what I mean? But it didn't happen that way with
me because her number so unequally yoked. And the end result is, you know, we ended up having a son,
you know, so and she ends up cheating on me, you know, so I try to do the right thing and
have I invite her back for like six months and she's still doing it. So I'm like, all right,
well, I filed for divorce and that was it. And you know, again, that's a longer story too. But
then we so what's crazy about all that is while this was going on, I was I was in the label with
Ben at the time. And you know, it was LVM records him and I were in the same label for a little
while. So we decided I had, while this was going on, I, you know, got divorced and stuff. And then
I remember when my album, my first album dropped, things happens, I'm not in the label anymore,
but my first album dropped. And then my divorce had been final the same day that it dropped,
basically. But I was in a rut, like I was like, I just want to die at this point. I didn't care
about anything, you know, the first thing I spend the rest of your life with, and now you've ended
all the contracts and commitment with that person. And we have, we have a two year son at the time
as well. And no matter how horrible you think they are now, there was one point where you actually
liked them. There was a reason like you couldn't imagine your life without them. Right. Right.
And now you're like, I can't believe I fell for this. Right. Right. No. So I got with a couple
friends and I said, Hey, so this is actually New Year's going from 2018 into 2019. And I got
with some friends and I said, look, I because at this point, I've never been drunk in my life,
you know what I mean? Like, but at this point, I, my friends, I said, look, I don't want to wake
up blackout, but I want to definitely feel it. You know what I mean? That's what happened. You
know, I got, I got kind of messed up as far as, you know, we did a lot of drinking and did a lot
of dumb stuff. And this is again, this is like six, six years ago, six, almost seven years ago.
And again, I had a relationship with God, but I was still, I kind of fell back for a little while,
you know, and then that's what happened. I got drunk my first time and it was crazy. But
again, part of the song that I write, I mentioned how, you know, you try to drink your sorrows away,
but when you wake up, you feel the same. And that's exactly what happens to me. Because like the next
morning, I just started crying. I'm like, I need to do something better than this. You know what
I mean? Like I couldn't, I can't, I can't do this anymore. You know what I mean? And so at that
point, I did, I got, I got my heart right. I got myself right. And literally a month later, I met
who's now my current wife, which I actually made her wait two years before we got, we dated about
two years before we ended up getting married. She was almost mad at me about it. She was like,
why'd you like to marry your first wife in only a year? And I'm like, well, I'm going to make sure
this time. I learned how to vet him this time. Yeah, I didn't get, I didn't get into worse the
second time, you know, but yeah, since then, I mean, things have been great. I mean, her and I,
we, we actually, we've been married, I think we've been on four years, been together,
going on six years, been together, and we've been going on, I think three years, we may, but we have,
we have a two year old son together and we have one more on the way actually. Congratulations.
No, thank you, thank you. And it's been great. I mean, and she keeps being shep too. Like her and I
are equally yoked. Like my ex, we were not like, she wasn't even, she pretended to be a Christian,
but she wasn't. But my current wife, what's, what's funny about that is we actually kind of knew each
other because there's a six year age gap. So like I'm 31, she's 25. Yeah, she's 25. I'm 31. And when
her, I first met, I was 19, she was 14. So, you know what I mean? So that was, so like we kind of
knew each other, you know, and of course, back then she was like, oh, he's cute. You know, but that
was years ago. And then we kind of had our own lives for a little while. She, she actually ended
up making mistakes. She ended up pregnant at 16 had her first son before, before I was with her,
she had Parker. I don't know if he's ever going to hear this podcast, but like, he doesn't actually
know that I'm not his biological father because I was in his life since he was two, you know, and,
but it's been great. Like I said, it's been, you know, it's been, it's been a journey. I don't
believe God has, God's definitely not dealt with me yet because I've got an album working on and
it's basically around that's called forward and it's going to be about moving on from your past
and letting, letting God have his way with you, letting God change you. Like how you said,
God's not done with you yet. Of course, you're 31. He's got a lot of use left in you, buddy.
Of course, of course, of course. He's got, he's got a lot of purpose in your life.
Right. He says, ha, you keep leaning into this and I got a lot more for you.
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of us don't realize that the whole H-O-L-E that we're trying to fill
with worldly things is needing it. Like what we really need for that whole is Jesus to make us whole
W-H-O-L-E. Right. And you know what's crazy about, you mentioned that and I remember the first time,
because like I said before, when, when me and my ex had her outs and we, you know, we kind of split
the first time and we were split for like six months before we, I invited her back and I'm like,
let's work on this, you know, I never actually cried over my brother and my sister until I remember,
I was at church and I was talking to my dad a little bit about it. And this is when, you know,
I told him what was the situation with me and my ex and that I was like, I don't think we're going to
make it, you know. And then for some reason, things were starting to come back to me like with my
brother and my sister. And I was thinking to myself, you know, like, I practically hated God
because they weren't here anymore. You know, because I felt like my brother was the only one
that I could really talk to it in the situation that was at like school and stuff. But like,
well, they really want to live like that. Like what if their passing was like their answer to their
prayer? You know what I mean? And that was the moment when I just, I started to just, I started
or the answer to your parents prayer, like I prayed that they're made whole done, right? But it's not
the way you thought it would look, right? But they're whole, right? I guarantee you they're running,
right? No, definitely. Definitely. And that's, that's freed up in a fit of joy, like I guarantee you.
I mean, I think that's the biggest part of my testimony. You know, I don't know if you guys
ever listen to Tim Hawkins or not. But, but he has this bit where he's like, you know, sometimes
you hear a testimony, it's like, oh, yeah, I was, you know, I was shot at 20 times and I, you know,
addicted to drugs and all this. And then you're thinking, then you're looking at your testimony,
you're like, man, oh, Joe was a duc-du-du crack because the testimony ain't as big, you know what
I mean? But my testimony involves a lot of brown loss. Because other things that I didn't really
mention is when I was when I was 19, I had a friend that passed away in a car accident. You know,
I was 18, he was 19, you know, and I had, you know, I had an uncle that had passed away with
cancer and, you know, I had my grandfather also on my dad's side passed away because he had a
heart attack. He was working. He was 62 years old and he was cutting wood for his house. Like,
he should have been doing that in her place, but he ended up having a heart attack and passing away.
And, you know, and I think that was my biggest hang up through life is just loss at a very young
age. I had to come to grips with how to understand death, how to learn about that, about loss.
You know, I mean, God is going to use every one of our testimonies against the enemy in the end,
right? They're just going to punish him. And so no matter how big or small you think your testimony
is, it's going to reach someone because that's what it's meant to do, right? Your testimony,
your story is going to reach somebody that the person who got shot 20 times because they're a
crackhead or they crashed like another one, it's crashed into a police station twice, you know,
got arrested eight times in a year and now he's an evangelist in South America, you know? And so
there's no limit to what God can do to you or do with you. And your testimony, no matter how small
you think it is, is very powerful for the kingdom of heaven, very powerful. And I would
warn against any of the listeners from feeling bad or some kind of way about your testimony,
not measuring up to somebody else's, right? You're not the one who's doing the measuring.
Right, right. It is God. And even if your testimony is small, if you share it with 100 people,
but the person with the big testimony shares it with one, who do you think has reached more people?
You have with your small testimony, right? Comparison is a thief of joy. Your testimony is
powerful. It is important. And most importantly, it is yours. It is your relationship to find in God.
Right, right. So it's real quick, just to capitalize on that. That actually just reminded me. I do
remember this at my sister's funeral and at my brother's funeral. This is another thing where
it's just like just another, you know, just a way to cap, put a cap on it. There was people that
went to their funeral that didn't, that didn't even really know them, but had given their heart to
Christ because of their situation and because of my parents still worshiping even in the midst of
all this. And that was another thing too, that I just didn't get so young. You know what I mean?
Like there was a reason for that. Like as sad as it is that there was a reason for that. And I think
that it's all to just get people to feel their way towards Him. You know, and that I think,
I think that was the biggest. If we're to give them our heart, how are we going to do it without
feeling? Right. Right. You can say it all you want, but I tell you to feel it. I mean, it even goes
along with Jonathan, my friend that had passed away in a car accident. He was a very good spiritual
leader to me. He was someone who's in a Nazarene church, but he showed me how to worship. And
when he passed away, I wasn't mad at God. I was sad, you know what I mean? But like,
but my grandma was like, well, I mean, if, if everyone died when they were like really old,
you'd just be up in heaven showing with the old folks. That's what my grandma told me, you know,
because she was living with us at the time. And she was like, I mean, sometimes God needs someone
young to brighten up heaven basically, you know, that makes sense. You know, and when that, when
that happens, and then my uncle that passed away, my uncle Jeff, he, he wasn't afraid of death. He
was right with God. You know, he, he was, he was more afraid for his family because he had family
members that are not saved. And, and he didn't know what's going to happen to them. You know,
that was the only thing he was worried about. But yeah, he lived a very, very good life with
the pleasing to God. You know what I mean? And the same thing with my grandpa. I mean,
he made mistakes, but I don't think he was afraid of death either. It was just, it just happened.
That's how it should be. Right. Ready. Yeah, I make mistakes every single day.
All the time. I mean, probably twice on Tuesday. And, and it does not change that Christ died for
me. It does not change that Christ is for me. It does not change that Christ has been risen from
the dead. Right. And it does not change that Christ has paid my penalty. It does not change that
God loves me. None of the things that I do wrong changes any of the way that God sees me. Right.
That's only my perception that's slowing me down. So when I get hung up on the things that I'm doing
wrong, I'm not focusing on the things that God wants from me. And that's what's limiting me. So
you got to get out of that thing. All right, I messed up, but Jesus paid the price. God,
help me turn this around. How can I make this for you? And that's a good beginning step.
Okay. Yeah. In last week's episode, we talked about how Jesus meets us in the trenches,
and he gets us through those and then we're able to help others through the same circumstances.
Right. Right. So you'll be able to know how to talk to those people and know what they're going
through. Yes. Right. More so than us. You suffer so you can help other people in it and comfort them.
Right. Right. Right. And we don't mind because we know, we know where your brother and sister are.
We know, we know where your uncle is. We know where your grandpas are. We know. And so we don't
have to, we can be sad because we miss them. That's fine. Right. But we have joy because we know
where they are. We know that when we go, we know who's going to welcome us. It's going to be God,
Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and them. Right. Right. Like welcome home. Oh man, what a friendly face.
Right. Right. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I actually, you know, mentioned something
like that in my, in my music song, the last verse I talked about, you know, how like I,
I don't want to forget my past because I want to share with people, you know, and hopefully it helps
helps them, helps other people grow in their spiritual mark because it was, it was rough for
for a long time, you know, but, but I mean, God, God showed his way out. And I don't, I don't believe
that I'm, I've completely escaped all tragedy because I mean, things happen all the time. I mean,
I mean, heck the weekend before Thanksgiving, I wrecked my, my traverse, you know what I mean?
So it's just, I mean, it is what it is. And right now I'm just trying to, trying to just let God
lead me and that's where that's where I stand with them. You know, I'm 100%. I'm a believer,
for sure. Like there's not a question in my mind, you know, and, and I mean, you know, people,
it's so funny to me to talk to people that are like, that are atheists that like, you know,
God, like, cause one guy told me the other day, like God, God let my mom get eat up by cancer.
And I was like, well, if you don't believe in God, why would you blame him for it? You know,
I mean, that, that was my thought. Exactly. So quick to blame him for all the hardships,
but you don't thank him for any of the good things you did. Did you thank him for your life?
Then don't blame him for taking it. Right. If you didn't thank him for it, don't blame him
from taking it. Right. Right. Especially if you don't even believe in him, because how can you
blame him if you don't even think he's real? They believe it. They believe it. If they bring him
up in anger in any way, they believe in him. They're just mad at him. Right. He didn't fulfill
something for them. They don't understand. I think that's, I think that's where I was. I don't,
I, I couldn't, I can't say that I didn't quite, you know, what's funny about this is, is like, I,
I've never told, my parents are probably listening to this podcast and I've never actually told them
that. So they're like, I didn't know that about you all these years, you know, surprise. Right.
But, um, don't be mad. Right. Right. Right. But yeah, I mean, that, that, that's, yeah, that's,
that's the way that I look at it now. It's like, you can't, you know, you can't not
say you don't believe him and then just like, oh, he did this to me. You know what I mean? It's like,
then if you don't believe him, nobody does this to you. It's like, it's like the movie, God's Not
Dead. You guys ever see that movie? God's Not Dead years ago. They're because you never saw.
What's that? It goes with the court case? Well, that, that's the second one. I think.
Second or third one. But they have like three. But the first one is about a college student
going up against the, going against the pressure that claims to be atheist, but he blamed God for
some things and he basically put God on trial. So maybe that's what you're thinking of. Yeah.
Yeah, it could be. But yeah, but he basically made him say that he hated God and he said,
well, how can you hate him if he doesn't exist? You know what I mean? Like, it's true, you know,
but yeah, that was that news boy song, God's Not Dead was based on, yeah, but.
But yeah, it's tremendous. The misunderstanding we have, even as believers, right? So you get mad
at God and leave him or you get mad at God and stay with him. Okay. And so what does this turn
into? It turns into the prodigal son. You got the one that left and did his life and you have to
want to stay at home and like, oh, we stayed home with dad. But at the end, you find out that he
was bitter. He was a very bitter son because of how he treated the one that had walked away.
And so we learned that yes, you can be better in the house of God and not
understand who he is or what his character is because we're so close, right? That sometimes
we have to fail in order to see how good he is. Right? Right. Right. If I'm if I'm good and I'm
in his house and I obey him every time, it looks very wrong and I seem reporting all these centers.
But when I am one of those centers and he rewards me, I feel very good because
now I understand his heart for me. Right. Yeah, it's good. Good stuff. Good stuff.
Well, thank you for sharing that. I will circle back next month. Right. Yeah, I'm real excited
about that. It won't be quite as long. But yeah, I'll just talk about the drumming side of things
since you kind of know my story. I don't like as far as the writing music and why I why I write,
you know, when I was listening to your one song, well, a couple of the songs, I had to rewind
and like, wait, what did he just say he lost his sister? Oh, did he just say he lost his brother too?
Oh, did his wife cheat on him? I'm like, oh my goodness. And it's like, it's like a quick
testimony. If you needed it wrapped up in three, four minutes, he got those songs. It's like a
rap song that's a reverse of a country song. It doesn't have everything. It loses everything.
It loses everything. And then he gets everything. Right. It's crazy how God is doing this because
because I'm literally technically forwarded to my second studio album, not including the EP.
Well, yeah, not including the EP, but I'm already working on my third album. And
and I have a song called the whole story and it's going to go into detail about my brother and my
sister, you know, and it's going to be very emotional. And I've already wrote it. I have a demo
beat. I just need to get an actual beat written, made and stuff. But how hard is that to sing
when you are emotionally attached to the material that you're singing that knows it triggers
or honestly, I think it does better because you can hear it in my voice because because there's
one thing if because normally just so I don't mess up, I usually have the lyrics on my phone in
front of me as I record them. But if I don't need the lyrics, it actually sounds a lot better
because you can hear the emotion in my voice and I think it's more impactful. And that's kind
of what Be Still was like for me because Be Still is my anti suicide song. That one is on
Apemusic Spotify. But that was my anti suicide song because I dealt with thoughts of that in the
past, you know, you know, I've had depression, anxiety, and I'm still getting anxiety sometimes.
But not so much depression. It's just so I try to I try to put as much emotion as I can behind
it because I feel like it's impactful. And it's apparently an outlet to guys giving you to use.
Definitely. Yeah, I mean, 100%. That's that's definitely what it's what it's been like for
years. Music got me through. I mean, the hardest times I remember I would listen to a lot of
Toby Mack back when he would rap more so because he doesn't really rap much anymore sometimes,
but not too much. But like his album Momentum and Welcome to Diverse City. Momentum. Yeah.
See, and I like DC Talk. Yeah, I was gonna say actually on our little 20 year vacation,
on our two weeks that we spent on the road when we were driving a couple hours to the next campsite
or whatever, I had a DC Talk Greatest Hits CD. Yeah. And it was called Intermission Greatest
Hits. I don't know if you've heard of that or not, but it had all the older songs, a lot of
their good songs. And I listened to them so much because they did, they got me through, you know,
and in some stuff that Toby Mack wrote, got me through a lot, you know, and that's in one of
these days, I was I was thinking myself like one of these days, I want to do that, you know,
and hopefully I can help someone else get through something, you know, and that was that was, yeah,
that's it got me through big time. So wouldn't it be cool if you sang a song that actually he
heard and it got him through something? That would be crazy. How profound that is. I don't know if
you guys have heard or not, but in 2019, he lost his son, which is crazy is because that even impacted
me because I listened to, because it was True Dog, the guy, the kid that did all the True Dog,
because he had True Dog on every one of his albums. And so he was like three years old when
on Momentum, you know, and and that was crazy to me knowing that he had just passed away and
and it's just that that would be insane if that actually happened. But I don't know,
I don't foresee that, but it is what it is. One can hope. So well, if this episode has been a
blessing to you, we ask that you pass it along and share it with a friend. And also we have some
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