Me and you talk. I'm gonna tell you what I think about you right now.
And I just begin to tell God things that I never thought I'd ever say to God.
How could you do this to me? I have given you everything. I have sacrificed everything.
I have done without. I have not been able to do what other people do because of you.
And I've given everything to you. And here I am. You won't even heal me.
I preach healing. I preach deliverance. I preach prosperity.
You've forsaken me. And I heard the Lord say to me, now are you done telling me about me?
Let me tell you about you.
Pastor Larry Ragland, it's great to have you here on Charisma. We had the opportunity to meet at
the Armed Media Conference and so many people were talking about what you were doing on your
YouTube channel, which is a part of your podcast. And all of this is really the big picture.
But you've been pastoring for many years. We're gonna talk about that story and that journey.
But it's great to be able to have you here on Charisma because God has highlighted you.
And now we get to learn about why that is. So welcome to Charisma.
Well, John, it is such a great honor. Of course, I've always respected Charisma.
I've, like you said, I've been in the ministry now. I've been preaching now for 35 years,
planted our church and been pastoring it for 30 years right now. And so we followed everything.
And I'm thankful for a Christian media company that didn't stick to just the printed material,
but then saw where God was moving. And when I looked over and I saw Charisma at the Armed
Media Conference there, I thought, man, this is amazing because this is what the body of Christ
needs. Voices like Charisma saying, hey, wherever the cloud is moving, the pillar is moving,
the glory is moving. I want to move with it. So what a great honor it is to be on Charisma
and to be with you, John. Thank you so much. Well, I'm honored to hear you say that.
Wherever the cloud is moving, then that's where we want to be. And if you're seeing that in us,
that is an answer to prayer, brother. We thank you. So I want to hear how the cloud has been
moving in your life because being a pastor for 30 years, starting a church and now you're
celebrating your 30th year, but you've been pastoring a little bit longer than that too.
I know there has got to be supernatural stories in this. So tell me about the church and how God
has led you for these last 30 years here. What are some supernatural things that God has happened?
Wow, man, we need about three or four hours to talk about all that God has done. It's amazing.
As you said, we started our church 30 years ago. We're claiming 30, of course, that's the age
that Jesus began his ministry, the age of the priesthood. So we're really saying to our church,
hey, we're just getting started. Just like Jesus was operating sort of in stealth mode.
And all of a sudden he came on the scene and in three and a half years, literally changed the world.
And we're not equating ourselves with that, but we're saying, hey, we are just beginning.
And I believe the body of Christ is just beginning. And then you look around and you see the condition
of the world. And as a believer, you just shake your head and you're like, I just don't see how
anything could get any worse than it is. But the truth is there's a remnant and what we are going
through right now as we've preached about, prophesied about, yet once more, the Lord said
in the book of Hebrews chapter 12, I will shake everything, heaven and earth, and everything that
can be shaken will be shaken, that which cannot be shaken remains. So when I look at our church,
I thank God that we have been through so many shakings. We've gone through five building
programs along that journey. My wife and I have had miracle after miracle after miracle happen in
our lives. In each building that we've got, I just recently wrote a book and I detailed in that book
the stories of the miraculous of how these things came to pass. They were just incredible.
And then I get all the way to, I'm a pop all now, I'm very, very excited to be a grandparent.
I have two grandbabies. And of all things, John, here we are, we're coming up on, at that time
it was about 28 years into the church and miracle after miracle after miracle. And I thought,
I'm going to slow down. I got my grandkids, we just decided to do this crazy thing, build a house
in the middle of the pandemic. And so I don't know what we were thinking. And I was like,
I don't know what we were thinking, but we finally did and got it finished. I'm sitting on the back
porch and I'm thinking about what you're talking about, all the things that we've lived through,
all the hard times, all the miraculous God pulling us out at the last minute. And I said,
you know, God, I'm just going to settle down and I'm going to enjoy my grandkids. I'm going to enjoy
this new house. I'm going to watch the sunset. And that's when the Lord just sort of laughed a
little bit at me and said, no, no, no, no, you're just now getting started and you're about to be
crazier, busier than you've ever been. So that's how we got to where we're at right now. So we give
God the praise. It has been miracle after miracle after miracle of what God has done. And, you know,
we can break some of those down, but it's just too many to pull out of top of my head right now.
Yeah. So I, it's always amazing whenever we tell God our plans and our ideas, and we hear that,
that Holy Spirit laugh in our, in our ears, but in our hearts too. And brother, you said something
earlier about the, the, the year of the priesthood. Okay. So you're in your 30th year of your church.
And as you were talking about that, this verse just kind of played in my spirit where the Bible
says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. And so like, as you said,
the 30th year is when Jesus began his public ministry, brother, you got a wild ride ahead.
I just feel it. So tell me about some of these things where God has been preparing you and growing
you in wisdom and favor with God and man. It is so amazing that you just brought this story,
because that is what I've literally been preaching on that. Cause that was the story of when he was
12 years old, when they found him, when he was 12 years old, they found him in the temple. I call
it, you know, I talk about the movie home alone. You remember when she's leans back on the plane,
she goes, come on, you know, I just like, you know, Jesus, you know, he's back there. He's left
behind. He's instead of home alone, I call it temple alone. And he, he's back in the temple
doing his thing at 12 years old and Joseph and Mary both think that each one of them has them.
And then they realized they've left him behind. And so they go back and they, you know, like Jesus,
you know, the Kevin moment and they go back and they find Jesus there and they, and they say,
what are you doing? What have you done to us? We were worried sick about you. And he said,
did you not know I'd be about my father's business? And then it says from that point,
Jesus grew in stature and in favor with God in man. And one of the most powerful things
when you begin to realize is that inside that 12 year old, inside that baby that was in the womb
of the Virgin Mary, inside that young man that was approaching into his twenties, moving his way to
the thirties is the word of God. He is God, the creator of the universe, the one that, that,
that made everything. But on the outside, it was a body. And, and, and the Bible says that,
and I like to say it this way, everything that Jesus did, and I might be get,
get a little pushback on this, but hear me out from the moment of the conception in the womb of
the, of his mother to the point that he said it is finished and he knew no sin became sin so that we
might be saved. Everything in between those moments, Jesus did as a man who happened to be God,
not as God who happened to be man. And, and therefore what he did, he did it for not only
so that he could move towards the point of dying for our sins, but to teach us by example. And if
Jesus had to grow in stature, if Jesus had to have favor with God and with man, then who are we to
not think that we have to have that? And the great Dr. John Maxwell says, you know, leadership is
influence, nothing more, nothing less. So what, what I've learned from the great leader, Jesus,
is that life is all about building influence, beginning to build relationships. You think about
the conversations that Jesus had to have had with his disciples, the relationships that he probably
had with them. This is the gospel according to the lay because it's not in scripture, can't prove it.
But I just don't believe that Jesus, like we see in the movies, just this random guy walking along
the sea of Galilee and says, Hey, you out there in the boat, walk away from your business, walk away
from your family and follow me and I'll make you a fisherman. Oh yeah, who's this guy? Yeah, I want
to follow him. No, they already had relationships. So Jesus had probably already had multiple
conversations to getting to know Simon, getting to know his family, earning that trust. And I
believe that's what the word of God meant when he said he grew in favor with God and with man,
because favor is open doors to people's hearts. And that's what we're, that's what things like
this is, is, you know, if, if people don't feel like they can trust you, if people don't feel like
that they can relate to you, you can't speak into their life. And if you can't speak into their life,
you have no influence. And if you have no influence, you are not a leader. You know,
John Maxwell says, look behind you, is anybody following you? If nobody's following you,
you're just taking a walk. You know, you're not influencing anybody. So these are the things that
I've learned from that. And I, and I just, I say it humbly, I received what you said. I praise God
for that. And I've told God, whatever you want to do in my life, I'm ready. I don't, I don't have a
desire to retire. I want to serve you and preach the gospel until you call me home. And so Lord,
you know, whatever we've been doing for 30 years to prepare us for that moment, then, you know,
we say, here we are Lord, use us and speak through us. Yeah. You know, Larry, we were just talking
about, you know, when Jesus was left at the temple and Mary and Joseph went. And so you said something
where they left Jesus behind. And I know in our pre-interview here, you started talking about a
time in 2007, where you might've left Jesus behind, but you had this realization of you got, you knew
that you knew that you had to go back and get them. What was happening in your life? And tell me about
that story. Okay. So in 2006, I was the, the typical preacher, because you, we, you know, we,
we look at numbers and things like that. We knew that the year 2007 was coming. So just like every
preacher in the world, we were preaching the year of the Holy spirit, the year of perfection, the
year of completion is coming, the year of the Lord 2007. And I looked at the calendar and I realized
that July the seventh, 2007 was going to be on a Sunday. I mean, we were really promoting it, man.
We're going to have a big service that day, seven, seven, seven, and all of this. So I kept saying
that seven was going to be the greatest year of my life. And I was preaching fire. I was,
God was blessing the sermons and the, and the service and we were having tremendous,
and we were just building towards 2007. Well, in 2006, as I'm building towards that, I was preaching,
you know, on the road a couple of places and I, and I just got through preaching this message
with my two young children were with me and my wife and we were sitting in a subway. I'll never
forget this late at night. We're the only ones in the restaurant that get ready to close down. And
we just had a great service. And we were talking about this building program that we were in,
that we were just, it was just amazing what God was doing. And I thought, man, everything that
I've dreamed that God would do in my life, he's doing it now. We've got this new building,
doors are opening for us. We're sitting at subway and I'm just going on and on and on. And my wife
is just looking down at, at the table and I said, what's wrong with you? And she just started crying.
And she said, Larry, I can't, I can't stay silent anymore. I can't, I can't do this. And I was like,
can't do what? And she said, I don't know who you've become this, you're one man on the platform.
He said, you're, she said, you're a good man, but you're not the man that's sitting across from
this table that I fell in love with, that I, that I risk it all for some way along the way,
you've lost who you are. And I'm just sitting there going, what are you talking about?
We've never seen success like this ever. And she goes, I'm just going to cut to the chase,
man. I'm getting emotional right now. It's been that long and it's still wrecks me. She said,
I love you, Larry, but I'll be honest with you. I don't know if I'm in love with you anymore.
And she's like, I hate to do this to you tonight, but I just can't do this anymore. I'm in one year,
one year, I'm giving you one year. If something doesn't change by this time next year, I will
hate to do it. But, but Larry, I'm, I will leave you. I can't, I can't stay, I can't stay in this
life because you, you're quiet. You don't talk to me. We are miserable. Have you not noticed that we
are miserable? Have you not noticed that we don't talk anymore? All we do is ministry and is, I feel
like I've been forgotten. I was stunned. I was just like, I do not know what you're talking about.
And I started trying to do my thing, trying to stop the conversation. She said, you're doing it
again. You're deflecting this. I'd rather not talk about it anymore. Just, I had to get that out.
So I drive home that night. We are just, I mean, we're just totally quiet. My kids are laughing,
trying to talk to me and I don't want to talk to anybody. And brother, and just, it was, that was
the latter part of 2006. And in 2007, I promise you, this is like a movie. What I'm about to tell
you, my birthday is January the eighth. Well, January 7th was a Sunday. I preached on January
7th, on 2007, which I had prophesied for a year was going to be the greatest year of my life.
I'm now into that year that if I don't change, everything's over. And on June, on January 7th,
2007, approximately at 7 PM, I hit the floor in my, in my, in my living room and the worst pain
I'd ever had in my life. And my wife was upstairs. She had, she had already sort of dozed off. My
kids were in the basement and I was by myself and I just started screaming in pain. And she came
down there and says, what is it? What is it? I said, I don't know. I've never felt pain like
this in my life. And my stomach was just reeking in pain. I was sick. I laid on the couch and I
laid there all night long. And then that morning on my birthday, on January 8th, I went to the
emergency room and when I went there, they did every test in the world on me. They stuck tubes
down my throat, all this kind of stuff. They sent me home with Nexium. They sent me home. They said,
you've got stomach acid. Well, I went home thinking I had stomach acid and I laid there and I got
sicker and sicker and sicker. And in a matter of days, I was, my temperature was 104 consistently.
I went back in and they tested my gallbladder and said, you have gall, your gallbladder is infected.
It needs to come out. So I'm in surgery, I'm getting ready in pre-op to have a same day
surgery, have my gallbladder out. And my doctor comes in there and says, who told you you had
gallbladder problems? I said, well, I don't know who it was. And he said, listen, I just did an MRI
on you and you have enough poison in your body right now to have already killed five men. And
he looked at my wife and he said, I can't even talk to you right now. I can just say right now,
if you are praying personally, you need to pray for your husband. And they pulled me out basically
and took me to the emergency room, I mean, to the operating table and left my wife there,
wondering what was happening to me. But what had happened was my appendix had ruptured
and it had completely ruptured and they had looked out, they didn't even know it.
And the poison had spilled through all, all through my body. Well, when I woke up, I woke
up in intensive care and I stayed in intensive care for several days. I got out and that was
January of 2007. The infection kept coming back and coming back in the last, and right in the
middle of all of that, you stop me anytime, John, but right in the middle of it, about the fourth
month into those seven months, my house caught on fire. And so my kids were alone in the house when
it got caught on fire. And I ran trying to find my kids as I'm going inside the house, I couldn't
find my kids and they were outside screaming. And I found my oldest daughter, but my youngest
daughter, I couldn't find. And she screamed at me and said, she's at the neighbor's house, dad. And
she was just panicking. And I ran, I'd only been out of surgery now, major surgery, which they had,
by the way, to back up, they had found out that the infection had killed my colon. They had removed
a foot of my colon and a foot of my small intestine. And I was recovering from the surgery of that. And
I jumped over a barbed wire fence trying to find my daughter. And when I did, I ripped my large
intestine inside of me and didn't know it. And the poison began to spill into my body. Well,
so my house had burned. I had been in the hospital at that point for the first five months of the
year. And then later on, I started getting sepsis and I started losing my sight. I was basically
going blind. And they put me in the hospital and they said, there's so much poison, you got more
poison now in your body than you did when you're a appendix rusher. And they stuck a tube in my stomach
and drained it. And I stayed in the hospital for 28 days. It would not heal. And on the 28th day
of 31 days in the hospital, I called my wife, she was at home and I could hear my kids in the
background playing. And I laid there and I just said, that morning, that morning before I called
them, I'd say, God, I have went in hospital room after hospital room. I have laid hands on people
who were dying of cancer. I've seen cancer tumors disappear. I've seen the lame walk.
I've had preachers lay hands on me. God, I've given my life to you. Why can't I get out of this bed?
Why can this not heal? I don't understand. And I just said, I'm just going to call my wife. And I
was just depressed and I called her. And then we got to keep in mind, I'm in that year that I'm
supposed to change. And I hear my kids in the background and they screamed, daddy, when are you
ever coming home to us? And she said, I'm sorry, Larry. I'm sorry that they said that. And I said,
no, it's okay. I said, I'm okay. I'm going to let you go. And I got off the phone and John,
I'm going to tell you what happened. I looked at phone down and I said, me and you talk,
I'm going to tell you what I think about you right now. And I just began to tell God
things that I never thought I'd ever say to God. How could you do this to me?
And many, many are watching right now. You know how I feel. I was like, I have given you everything.
I have sacrificed everything I have done without. I have not been able to do what other people do
because of you. And I've given everything to you. And here I am. You won't even heal me.
I preach healing. I preach deliverance. I preach prosperity. You forsaken me. Look at what you've
done. Look at what blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I heard the Lord say to me,
now are you done telling me about me? Let me tell you about you.
And he began to systematically, John, break me down. I detail it all in my book. And it was
very difficult to even write about it. He began to reveal the real me. And at that point, I cried
out to God and I said, God, what have I done? What have I become? How did I forget you? How did I
forget my first love? How did I turn this into what I've turned it into? And brother, I laid
there for I don't even know how long and nobody checked on me. Nobody checked my vitals. I wept,
I cried, I repented. And when I felt the peace of God come on me, like I had not felt since I was
first a believer, it was like a new, fresh anointing come on me. The door opened and that
nurse came in and she said, Mr. Raggan, I'm so sorry. There was a mix up on the exchanges of the
duties of the people we thought you were being taken care of. We had no idea that you'd been
in here for almost an hour. Nobody checked on you. I looked at her, I said, ma'am, you didn't do that.
My God isolated me to get me right. Two days later, I walked out of that hospital. It healed.
It was incredible. The doctor was amazed. My marriage was restored. My children were restored.
I rebuilt my house. And I'm telling you, 2007 was the greatest year of my life, but I had to go
through something that I never thought I would ever have to go through to wreck me. And my marriage
is who it is to my grandkids, my life, my ministry. I had to hit the bottom in order to become the
man that she needed me to be. And long answer, but that's what happened to me. That is a powerful
answer. Pastor Larry, as you were talking about this, I can just tell right now that people that
are watching this, you can relate to what he did in that bed, crying out to God saying, I did this
for you. I did this for you. I forsook everything else to serve you. And just putting all this on
God. And then God just answered, are you done yet? There's so many times where in my own life,
I have done that where things haven't gone my way. And I said, God, I've done this for you. I've
done this for you. Why aren't things happening for me the way that they should? And God often does
that. Are you done yet? Are you done yet? I want to get into more of your story in just a moment,
but there is a holy moment right now. And Pastor Larry, I'm going to ask you to pray
for people that are watching that are touched by that part of your story. We're going to continue
on with this story in just a moment, but there is something powerful right now. And you're watching
this, put in the comments, that's me. That story was connecting with me. That's me. We want to pray
for you. And Pastor Larry, would you just pray for people right now that are going through that?
Father God, right now, Lord, we've all been there. And God, whoever's watching, whoever's listening
to this right now, God, I can feel in my spirit, Lord, that you are breaking them down and you are
showing them right now, God, that you are not finished with them. And that Lord, many of the
things that we have blamed you for, God, we have to take responsibility for. And that God, we're
thankful that through your grace, you didn't abandon us, that you didn't throw us away like trash
when we were abusing your grace and when we were abusing your calling that's on our life,
or we were doubting your word that you spoke over us. Lord, we repent right now, God. We just,
I just pray right now that whoever that person is, that they would begin the process of healing
through the greatest thing they could ever do. And that's what I had to do in that bed,
is I had to just repent. I just had to go back to my first love. I had to say, God, I'm sorry for
what I've become. I'm sorry for what I've turned you into. God, it's not fair what I've done to you.
And I'm so thankful. And listen, I want you to understand, be thankful that we have a God that
can take it. He can take what you've said to him and he didn't throw you away when you said it.
There is a purpose and a destiny for you. You know, I live by the principle of the big picture.
When God dropped something in my spirit and he said to me, he said, Larry, you need to understand
the principle of the big picture. My perspective of who you are, my perspective of who the world is,
is so much bigger than what you can comprehend. And I'm saying this to the viewer and to the
listener. You are channeling your pain through the funnel of your eyes and your senses. I pray right
now that God supernaturally allows you to filter your pain and your situation through the grace and
the mercy of God. I believe that God is touching you right now and he is honoring your repentance.
He said, call unto me and I will answer thee and show you great and mighty things. If my people
would turn, call unto me, turn from their wicked ways. So right now, as you are calling on Jesus
right now, I believe he is, I speak, he is restoring you. He is rebuilding you. He is reminding you
that he is not finished with you. And no matter what you've done, no matter what you've said,
God says to you today, I can take it. I heard it. Listen, it doesn't change how I feel about you.
Now get up, shake the dust off and understand that not only am I not through with you today,
I want you to know I'm just now beginning to use you because it took you getting to this point
before you would finally surrender to God in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. You know,
if you related with what Pastor Larry just said and just prayed and you believe that there is a
new beginning, right? New beginnings in the comment. Like I had, this is my new beginning.
This is my new today. And we want to celebrate with you. We want to pray with you. And so just
let us know that, you know, Pastor Larry, I think it was really interesting how you were prophesying
in 2006, that 2007 was going to be your best year. And all intents and purposes, the first half was
absolutely not the best year, but it set you up for the best year. I'm sure there was times where
you were just wrestling with that prophetic word that God had given you. Tell me about that,
wrestling with the prophetic in that timeframe. Well, I go back to, I'm a creature of habit and I
go back to certain things that I always, God dropped in my spirit. And just as I spoke of
a while ago about the big picture, the big picture, one of the things that God taught me was the big
picture in that, you know, I would answer the phone during those times. You know, I remember standing
outside watching my house burn, you know, while poison was pouring into my body and my pastor
called me and cause I'd called him to tell him, pray my house is on fire. And I had got, he was
in the middle of something. So he called me back and I just laughingly answered, this is pastor Jobe.
Can I, can I help you? And he was like, what? I was like, yeah, I'm just standing here. I've got
the anointing of Jobe on me. And he, and I began to tell him, and I just was laughing to keep from
crying as I'm watching the fireman trying to put the fire out of my house. And, and so the big
picture of Jobe is that, you know, Jobe couldn't see that got Jobe, Jobe couldn't see where it was
going to end, but, but our God did. And, and, and the premise of the big picture is, you know, where
I live in Alabama, for several years, I lived in a place where a train would come through. And many
times I would be in a hurry and I'd be, you know, there's something on the other side that tracks,
I needed to get to. And I think most people know where I'm going. And as I'm going, I hear the
sound. I ding, ding, ding, ding. I'm like, Oh no, no, not now. And I was stopped by that train.
And in the terrain of Alabama, it's not like out West where it's just flat. You can see forever
in Alabama, there's, there's mountains and hills and trees. So when a train comes, you literally
never have any idea when it's going to end. All you have to do is just sit there and wait.
And, and there's car after car after car after car, and, and, and you can't do anything. But if you
were able to just sort of like back to the future car, the DeLorean, and just sort of lift up,
and at some point your perspective would change and you'd be able to look out the window and you
could see the caboose. But so, so what I learned through the big picture is the big picture is all
about who has, who has the perspective to see the beginning and the end. It's only the alpha and the
omega, the beginning and the end. So every, every time you ever get stalled by that train,
and the Bible says, he that waits upon the Lord shall renew their strength. So you're sitting
there waiting. It is in that waiting moment. That's what I had to learn in that moment.
That's what I learned about. Maybe God didn't really say no, what do you, because the answer
is the Lord, yes and amen. What he really said was, I need you to sit there and wait. The answer is
still yes, but you're not ready for the yes. You're not ready for it. Because if I was to drop that
revelation, if God were to drop some of the revelations that he began to drop in my life
post 2007, I would have abused it, John. I would, I would have turned it into a catchy sermon title.
I would, I would have, I wouldn't have let it impact me and it would not, when it don't impact
me, I can't impact anyone else. But out of 2007, my whole perspective of ministry and life change.
Now, when I go into a hospital bed and a room and someone is being called me to be there,
I'm still going to pray the prayer of faith, but I have compassion for that person in that room
where I used to say in the name of Jesus Christ, get up and walk, come on, get up, get up right now,
get up. Well, well, I remember people telling me to get up and I couldn't get up. So, so I still
pray that prayer of faith, but I've been moved with compassion. And I think about Jesus being
our example again, you know, Jesus was watching the funeral go by and the Bible says nobody's
doing anything full of faith. Nobody was speaking faith words that, that moved him. The Bible says
he was moved with compassion for the woman who had lost her son and her husband. And so, so 2007
taught me that the most powerful revelations you'll ever get from God is in the waiting and in the
pain. And I became the man that God needed me to be, the father, the husband, and of course,
one day the grandfather and the pastor. And I believe even what God's doing in my life right now,
to be on with you on Charisma Magazine's podcast, I'd be honest with you, I'm being real with you,
John. If this door would have opened to me in 2006, I would have, it would have become such a
prideful thing. I'm on Charisma Magazine, all this kind of stuff, look what God is doing.
That ain't where I'm at right now. I'm just like, wow, thank you, Lord. Thank you Lord for just a,
another opportunity to talk about you. I'll do whatever you want me to do. And he had to crush
me in that moment. And I say to the Lord, thank you. Thank you for the crushing.
Yeah. Thank you for the crushing Lord. That's a hard thing to say, but as in Psalm 46 says,
God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble. Therefore I will not fear,
though the earth give way and the mountains will fall into the heart of the sea.
And the later on in that chapter, he says one of the famous things. And I know this is really what
we were just talking about where, yes, the Lord says yes and amen, but as it promises, but sometimes
he says, be still and know that I am God. And, uh, you, your story has just exemplified that,
you know, pastor Larry, you've been a pastor now for 30 years of your own church, 35 years in total,
from what you said earlier, but now God's called you into a different type of media as well. So
you're, you're launching into this new season where you're busier than ever.
And you've got a lot of stuff going on. Um, I want to hear about that, but how are you also making
sure that you don't fall into what was going on where your wife had that conversation with you in
late 2006? Yeah. Well, one of the, the quick answer to that is what we're doing is I made sure that,
uh, when God told me that my back porch, you know, you're going to start a YouTube channel
called the big picture and you're going to be as you've ever been. And, and then he said,
and you're going to love it because this is what you're called to do. But I knew what that meant
was, okay, now go in the kitchen and tell your wife what the Lord just told you. So I walked in
there and I told my wife, I said, you ain't going to believe what the Lord just told me. She's like,
what, you know, here we are, we just finished building a house during the pandemic, you know,
and she's wanting to slow down a little bit. I said, the Lord just told me, I'm going to start
a YouTube channel and call it the big picture. And I'm a busy than I've ever been in my life.
And I said, but not going to do this unless you come with me. I said, because I can't do this on
my own. And she said, well, you know, I'll be Larry. This is the, she knew immediately. She's
like, I know that this is what God has called you to do. You're 100%. I'm on board, but what she
didn't realize what I'd already knew. And I, and in the same way with, you know, patients, sometimes
you got to wait until it's the right time. I didn't want to tell her what I heard. And that was that
she was going to do it with me. And my wife is, is, is an introverted, not an introvert. She's not
the introvert. She's not going person, but she's just not the person that would ever get on camera.
You know, she's just not that person. She's the behind the scenes. And if she needs to speak in
the church, she will very powerfully. But the thought of her ever been on YouTube was no,
that ain't never happened. But I knew, I knew in my spirit that God was promoting her. So yes,
along the way I knew that and, and I, I made sure I involved her in everything that we're doing.
I wanted her to know everything. I wanted her to see what I was learning, how I was learning it,
the late nights that I would be sitting up training myself on how to do these things.
I would make sure she saw me doing that, that she knew what I was doing. And at some point I said,
Hey, you need to come on the show with me one night. And she came on the show when she did,
it just clicked. And now, you know, our, our biggest viewership and our, we've built a family
all over the world through our YouTube channel is the ones that me and her cohost together. So it's
the greatest joy of my life to, to sit in the studio beside her and see God using her and expanding
her boundaries and, and just enlarging her territory. So, so yeah, the way we've sort of
covered that is we've done it together. Amen.
Doing it together is, is really powerful. And I love that you saw greatness in her this time.
Yes. But earlier on, you started telling me about when she saw greatness in you and that's the,
that's the name of your, of your book. I see greatness in you. Can you tell us this,
this story and encourage the viewers that God has just positive greatness in them as well?
Okay. Okay. I've never been able to successfully tell this in public without crying. I want to say
if I could fill this one off today, but a real quick backstory on the book, I see greatness in
you and the title is I am in my late fifties at this point, and it's still, you can see when you,
when you hear me talk about it and know that I'm being genuine when I say this, that I'm still
affected by it to this day. And one of the things that I'm driven by is trying to help people who
had, did not have a father, a father figure in their life, because I was raised in a, in a very
abusive home by a man that beat me physically injured me several times. One of the stories
that I detailed in the book when I was 10 years old and my mom was as many times had threatened
to leave him. He went into the next room and brought a double barrel, 12 gauge shotgun into
the room and loaded the two shells in it in front of me. It was the kind that has the two levels,
the two triggers, pulled them both back, grabbed me and stuck both barrels into his mouth and put
my 10 year old finger on the trigger and started screaming, pulled the trigger, pulled the trigger
and in me now, in me now. And I was screaming out, I'm not doing, I'm not going to do that dad.
I'm not going to do that. I love you. I love you. He goes, you might as well, because if you don't
pull it, just be a man because you either pull the trigger now or you leave with your mother and I
pull the trigger, but either way that you live the rest of your life knowing that you killed your
father. So you might as well just be a man and do it. I was 10 years old and those are the kind
of things that I went through over and over and over again and it scarred me. And for those that
were raised in an abusive home, you can relate to what I'm saying is that, you know, you don't know
this at the time, you learn it later on, but people will teach you that you will become the
one that you hate. And it is true without God, you become that because he gets in your DNA.
So he was a master manipulator, master liar. He had convinced everybody other than my family that
he was the greatest man in the world, but he was a terror and he was a liar. And I did not become
violent like him, but I became the master manipulator. I became the master liar and I
lied my way all the way through high school. I became the jock of kids, I became the
way through high school. I became the jock of captain, the football team, popular guy,
looked like I had everything going for me, but I was miserable. I was a fake. I was a fraud.
And I had somehow convinced this girl that I was this guy that she's supposed to be with. I was
going to church where she went. I was playing the game. I was not serving God. I'd been raised in
church, but I backslid. I was really there just for her to get her because she was just so beautiful
and all this. I was pretending to be whatever she needed me to be. I genuinely loved her.
And she obviously genuinely loved me, but she would love a fake and a fraud. And so she said
yes to marry me. She was 18 years old. She had just graduated high school. She'd only been on
high school for maybe two months. And I got arrested for one of the stupidest things anybody
could ever get arrested for. It's just insane. But as I'm standing in our hometown, our hometown,
where we grew up, I was standing before the judge in that hometown. And he looked at me and just
said, I cannot believe that you're standing here doing this. And she's standing outside waiting on
me. And as I'm walking outside, I'm like, okay, everything my dad said about me is true. I'm never
going to have anything. I'm a bum. I had one shot at happiness and I just blew it. So it's over.
And everything he said, I'm going to be, I'm going to probably die or be in prison. I walked
out there and I said, Sandy, I want you to do one thing, turn around and walk away.
Keep the ring and find you a man that deserves you because it's not me.
Because if you stay with me, I'm going to ruin your life. And she said, Larry,
I'm not leaving you. And she grabbed my hand, John, and she said, I'm not leaving you. I said,
I said, please walk away because you don't deserve this. Everything you believed about me
is a lie. You now know the truth. That is not me. She said, I'm not leaving you.
I said, why would you stay with somebody like me now that you know the truth?
And that little 18 year old girl looked at me and said, because when I look into your eyes,
I see greatness in you, Larry. I see greatness in you. It's in there. It's in there. And I'm
not leaving you because I'm going to help you see it. So come on, let's go. She took my hand.
And I was just like, I just froze. And I was like, don't do this. She goes, come on, I'm not
leaving you. Let's go. She stayed with me, John. And at that moment, I realized what God was doing.
God used her because she told me, she said, I didn't say that, Larry. God said that through me.
God used me to say that to you. Just a few days later, I was in the altar. I was giving my life
to God. I had recently dedicated my life to God. A few months later, we got married with no
desire for ministry whatsoever. We had never had one discussion of, you think we'd ever be in the
ministry? Nothing. We just wanted to live our lives together, serve God, American dream, go to church
and serve God. We got married in May of 89. By August of 89, God said, you're a youth pastor.
And by 91, I had planted my first church. And then in 94, I planted this church. But I take it all
the way back to God using an 18-year-old girl to look at me for the first time in my life
to speak that there was something good inside of me. No one had ever said that to me before.
And it set me on a journey to do that for others. And that's why we call the book, I say,
Greatness in You, but the subtitle is One Man's Story, But Everyone's Journey, because everybody's
been broken. Everybody's been dropped. Even if you had a great father and a great mother, someone
has wrecked you. It's all about identity. Think about what the world is right now. The whole world
is about identity. Who do you identify as? What do you identify as? It goes all the way back to the
Garden of Eden. It's always been about identity, because if the enemy can confuse you about who you
really are in the sight of God, then it's impossible for you to ever do what God has called you to do.
So God may use an 18-year-old girl to look into your life and say, I see greatness in you.
God may use a podcast to ignite something in you. The opening chapter, the opening introduction
of it is called A Note from Sandy. And she basically lays out why she said what she said,
and it's riveting. And in the introduction of the book, I say this, John, I say,
everybody don't have a Sandy. And I'm fully aware of that. Everybody is not blessed to have a Sandy
like me. So I wrote the book to be your Sandy, because by the end of that book, the same thing
that happened to me with Sandy is going to happen to you. And it's going to ignite that God has
called greatness in every single one of us. You say, well, I'm not great. Only God is great. I get
it. I get where you're coming from. But the reason we call it I see greatness in you is because
you were created in the image of God. And when you finally see who you are, you unlock a greatness
that's in you that is beyond anything you could ever do in the natural. And it can only happen
through the supernatural. You unlock the God DNA that's within you. And that's what it's about.
John Bellen And God definitely has a track record of taking people that are unlikely and making them
and calling out the greatness in them. I can think of Gideon right now where God told him,
you're a mighty man of valor. You know, and also David, who was a backwoods shepherd boy,
the seventh son of, you know, and forgotten about. And he's anointed to be king. And God takes Larry
Ragland, who's standing before a judge. And you're thinking everything that my dad has said about me
is true. But really, the react the the honest truth is everything that your father said about you
is true. And he spoke that through this 18 year old girl. And Larry, as we're wrapping up here,
would you just speak to that person that's watching that has stayed with us this whole time,
that they don't believe that there's greatness in them, but their father sees greatness in them?
Larry Ragland Yeah, I want to tell you that I walk around sometimes with a shirt on the on the front
of the shirt that says I see greatness in you and he'd be surprised and it breaks my heart. How many
people will look at me and say, what do you mean? I see greatness in you. There's nothing. There's
nothing great about me. And it always is the conversation starter. And I'll say, well, okay,
were you creating an image of God? Let's start there. Were you? Of course. Everybody always
says, yeah, yeah. I said, well, then watch this. You are creating the image of a great God.
And I said, yeah, I get where you're coming from. We've all made mistakes. We've all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. We've failed God. We've dropped the ball. We have hurt people. We have done
things that we are ashamed of. Many of many of that are watching this list and this can't even
look themselves in the mirror. They hate themselves because of what they've done. And then many more
are so injured by what was done to you. I mean, I'm almost 60 years old. Do you understand? I still
cry when I think about what my father did to me. It's, I want so bad to have a great memory
of a father and I don't have one. I don't have the great memory of a father in my life. I think
about the book, I had no father with God. And I think about, you know, being a father to the
father, he came into my life and he brought people into my life that became the voice that took the
place of that horrible experience that I had. And maybe you're injured by what somebody said about
you. Maybe, maybe you're injured by what you said about others. Maybe you're a parent and you have
so many regrets and you're like, how could I ever look my kid in the face? How could I ever believe
that God could ever use me? You know, I think about one time I heard this man of God talk about he was
walking down this aisle in Jerusalem and a man had some vases that he had made. It was a potter.
And he knew the industry and he said, do you have any, I see all this, but do you have any chosen
vessels? And he goes, I don't know what you're talking about. He said, yes, you do. Do you have
any chosen vessels? And he goes, okay, so you know your stuff, come with me. And he took them back
in the back and there was a cabinet and he opened up the cabinet and the cabinet was filled with
deformed vases and cups and cups that was just unusable. And he called them chosen vessels.
And the reason he called them chosen vessels is because they had all been on the same tray as all
the other cups and all the other plates and had been made from the same clump of a lump of clay.
But when they were put in the fire, there was something in that particular piece of clay
that was not like what was in the others and the heat caused it to deform and cause it to set into
unusable place. So that potter knew that some people only collect the chosen vessels because
they're one of a kind. And he says, how much are they? He goes, well, you're going to have to just
make me an offer because they're priceless to me. I feel like that some of you, I feel like some of
you have just been in the cabinet, you've been in darkness and you've thought I'm distorted,
I'm broken, I'm unusable. But what you didn't realize, and maybe this podcast is going to help
you realize, is that the fire maybe caused something in you right now to be revealed,
to be a chosen vessel that God's about to restore and to set out. I believe God is calling the
remnant to rise. And maybe you feel like you don't fit in. Maybe you feel like, how can I ever come
out of this pain? Well, the first step, as we've already said, is repentance. But then the next
step is to stand up and to cry out to God right now and say, God, here I am. Use me, I'm ready.
I don't know how I'm going to do it. But God, I need you to restore the joy of the Lord in my heart.
Because if you can restore joy, you can restore peace, then you can do anything in my life.
So in the name of Jesus, I declare that today is the day of the restoration of everything
the enemy has taken from you. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Pastor Larry Ragland,
thank you so much for joining us today here on Charisma. How can people find you? You've got
your The Big Picture show, different places. Just tell us real quick how people can find you.
All right. Easiest ways to go to LarryRagland.com or.tv, either one, LarryRagland.com. But if you're
on YouTube, just search for The Big Picture with Larry Ragland. Subscribe to our channel. We're
also on Faith TV, which is a Christian television network. We're all over Europe, America, if you
have DirecTV. We're already on there. Or you can download the Faith Now app and you can watch us
live there. Our church also streams there live on the Faith Now app, Solid Rock Church, the church
our pastor here in Birmingham. But the easiest way to find all of it, LarryRagland.com. Amen.
Pastor Larry, thank you so much for joining us today on Charisma. Thank you so much for
having me, John. It's been a great honor.