Abba Father, what a joy and what a privilege
to come to you today and what a privilege to
be able to do this remotely today. Just through
technology, we often say it's a miracle any of
this stuff works, but we get to do this and it's
fun and it's joyful. Pray for our listeners today
and whenever they're listening to this, that
they will be blessed, they'll be encouraged and
even provoked to think deeper and to think critically.
And so we pray for them in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. It's Wednesday, June 24, 2026. We get to
do this. This is episode number 38. We get to
do this. Yeah, baby remote. This is so cool.
It is so fun. I love doing this. I was really
excited and it was like, you are so excited.
In fact, I was so excited. I was an hour early
getting on. She was like, wait, why are you so
ready already? And I'm like, what? And then about
that time you text me, I'm like, oh, I'm up an
hour early. It's okay brother. I must have been
really excited. So you're on vacation and it's
highly appreciated that you still want to do
the show. You set up the rig. You got the Pod
Mobile. I just want everyone to know the Pod
Mobile rig is an amazing little device. Pod Mobile,
you can find it on Google. It's fantastic. Super
cool device. I'm just sitting here looking at
it going, this is amazing that we can do this
so easily actually because I can pack it in a
very small bag. As long as you have a really
tiny mic stand, you know, it's I mean, it's very
small. It's light. I mean, super neat piece of
equipment. So what's your setup right now on
your in your vacation studio? Yeah, so I'm sitting
at a little table in my room here. We're in Florida
on Longboat Key Island. Just got. ocean on each
side of us. It's, it's stunning. And then the
room I'm in, it's not quite as sweet, but it
sort of is. It's kind of hard to explain, but
just got one. I'm on a small table and all I've
got is the pod mobile, my microphone, my computer,
and a mic cable. I mean, it's that simple. It's
the best. It's the best. Very cool. I really
appreciate that you're doing this because vacation
is still vacation. You know, so, but it's also,
we need to catch up. You and I need to catch
up. Really? I know. I've missed you, bro. I mean,
you were gone some, we've been gone some. I mean,
it's just that time of year where everybody's
kind of moving, traveling and out and about.
So yeah, what's the latest? Well, there's a couple
of things going on. You're on vacation. You still
are doing your daily grind, which is appreciated.
You're doing kind of an abbreviated version,
which means, well, actually I'll read the one
from yesterday. It's just Jesus day two you're
doing just Jesus and so the daily grind it's
on It's on hello Fred for those who listen to
hello Fred on the godcaster in a spoken version
Pastor Jimmy Sends it out on all the socials
and I get a an early text version, which I'm
always very appreciative of so he says we're
enjoying Time away this week. I'll be posting
a simple just Jesus reminder each day for the
next week Signed Pastor Jimmy and yesterday was
Matthew 5 3 from the New King James Version blessed
are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven and I really enjoyed just the simplicity
of this daily grind because what it led me to
do is Something that I've learned from you. It's
like I wonder exactly what poor in spirit means
if we look at the Greek or Aramaic original and
because as a new believer I read that is oh when
I'm down when I'm not feeling good when I'm poor
in spirit and Imagine my surprise when I figured
out what it really meant And so I thought maybe
we could kick things off today with you giving
an explainer of poor in spirit That's great now
If you go into the actual Greek of that, it really
breaks it down and it's going to read a little
bit different than the phrase poor in spirit.
But the word poor literally where it means reduced
to beggary, begging, asking alms, destitute of
wealth, influence, position and honor, lowly
afflicted destitute of the Christian virtue.
So, I mean, just that word by itself is very
intense, but he's not saying just the poverty
ridden here. He's talking about poor in spirit.
In other words, to me, the way I read it, I'm
not looking at a commentary. This is just off
of my heart. When I see poor in spirit, I say
destitute of oneself. and needing more of his
spirit. Yes, that's exactly what I came up with.
Okay, did you look it up? Because I didn't, that's
just what it means to me. Well, there's a whole
bunch of Greek words that are unpronounceable
like Makarioi, and Pochatoi, and Bakchoi, and
all this other stuff, and Numati. You think Greek's
bad, try to pronounce Hebrew words. I'm hocking
up a loogie the whole time. I speak a little
bit of Hebrew. That's my go -to. That sounds
like German. It's still guttural, right? It's
guttural. What I came up with is... Only those
who can admit they are completely empty -handed
in front of God are eligible to receive everything
God offers. Yeah, because look what the offer
is. The kingdom of heaven. Right. Theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. So when we come before him
impoverished in spirit of saying, Lord, I want
to be empty of me and empty of my own spirit
so that I may be filled with yours. Yes. I wonder
if this is widely misunderstood. Oh, no doubt.
Just the Beatitudes itself could be an entire
sermon series for 10 years. It really could.
And that's why I chose this. First of all, I
was thinking about what can I do while I'm on
vacation? That's simple. But also, has some depth
to it. And so I've started thinking about, well,
there's nothing more important than Jesus. I
mean, than what Jesus can bring to the table.
And so that's why I just kind of took it on,
okay, just Jesus. And I always ask the question,
is just Jesus enough? And so that's kind of why
I went that direction. And I've been actually
encouraged by the response to that because usually
I write two or three, well, about six, seven
sentences. That's the daily grind. But just putting
the verse only and keeping it simple, people
have been responding as if I've been writing
a whole paragraph or something. And it's been
really neat. Oh, interesting. Because people
are thinking. And so that to me makes me happy.
Yeah, well, and spot on though, because and maybe
the simplicity of just Jesus in the daily grind,
maybe that's what actually spurred me on to like,
huh, what does that actually mean? I'm glad you
did that. Way to go. Well, I pay attention to
what you say. Keep diving in. I didn't say it.
Jesus did. That's the whole point. Good point.
Good point. Jesus' words. Just Jesus. I love
it. I bring messages from Bridge Church in Fredericksburg
as well. Everybody misses you. And James handed
me, you know James who's on our safety team and
he sits in the corner in the morning. So every
Sunday I come in, I have a little chat with James.
He listens to the podcast all the time. He loves
the podcast. And he handed me a note and he said,
I think we should own this. Hold on a second,
James. And this is what's written on it. It was
a question. Do you know what God left out of
the Bible? And then underneath is the answer.
Your opinion. Oh, boom. I'd never heard that
before. He says, I came up with this or it came
to me and I think we should own this. I love
it, James. I love it. I think that's fantastic.
You know what? He's named something that is the
tension that me and Pastor Brian live with when
we're preaching the word, when we're preaching
scripture. Every time we stand in the pulpit,
I gotta tell you, I still get nervous every time.
And I'm not nervous because I'm nervous about
speaking in front of people. I'm way past that.
I'm nervous because I wanna rightly divide the
word of truth. The last thing I ever want to
do is perpetuate just my opinions. And yet if
you think about it, That's what an interpretation
is, right? It's your opinion. That's why even
when I read commentaries or scholars or experts,
I always take them with a grain of salt because
it's just their opinion at the end of the day.
And so I'm very cognizant of that. It's very
humbling to me. And I remind myself of this often
because I don't ever want to get in a pulpit
and just bang the pulpit and just this is the
way it is because I'm telling you, There is so
many layers to scriptures is so many layers of
truth that you peel one back and there's a hundred
more and Yet you may peel one back and think
I finally found the secret. I found the answer
This is it This is what this means and yet the
Bible even describes itself that the word of
God is living and active and Sharper than any
two -edged sword. So if the word is living and
active then that means it's not just it's not
just stayed, it's actually fluid, not static,
but fluid. And so to me, that's why the Bible,
you know this, you'll stumble on a scripture
and you go, oh, I've read that scripture before.
And then you read it and a different word catches
you, pops out. And it's like, well, I've never
seen it that way before. Well, that's the beauty
of the Word of God. It's the Word of God. Yes,
written by Paul, written by men, written by people
who dictated things, but yet it's inspired by
him. And that's why we call it the Bible, the
Word of God. It's inspired by him. God breathed
is another way to say it. You know, you said
something that I hadn't even considered when
I read James's note because I took it as, yeah,
my opinion, okay. I didn't even consider what
you just said there that as a pastor, You literally
are giving your opinion whenever you're in the
pulpit. Absolutely. I mean, just by definition
of what you're doing, you give your opinion.
That's a little deeper than I thought it would
be, actually. Well, what it means is I got to
be careful about what hills I die on in terms
of convictions about things, because as we're
always hopefully ever learning, ever growing,
then the hill I died on five years ago probably
is not the hill I would die on today because
I've learned, I've grown. And that's the idea.
At my age and season of life, I wanna still remain
as teachable, as moldable, as open to hearing
other people's thoughts and dare we say it, opinions.
And say, you know what? I have not considered
it that way. Thank you. You've added something
to my, now you're helping inform me as I read
scripture. And that's part of the journey of
faith. And that's why the scripture says we walk
by faith and not by sight. So the day we think
we've got God figured out or we've got the Bible
figured out and I see a lot of, you call them,
what do you call them? YTPs. Yes, the YouTube
pastors. Man, those guys are ripping off like
they have got it figured out. And I'm sorry.
And I just, I have a hard time with any level
of pride or arrogance in preaching. That's just
a personal thing with me because when we're before
God and we're handling His word, man, you better
be at the most or in spirit you can be. Yeah.
Is what you said there is deep again because
another J another one of my favorite James has
said be quick to listen slow to speak and even
slower to get angry and it seems like a lot of
YTPs go straight to the anger part and the outrage.
They just skip over everything. They're like,
oh, what are we doing here, man? What are you
talking about? It always reminds me of that band
Rage Against the Machine. They're the killer,
right? But man, one thing they had was passion.
They did. And a lot of drugs. Do you know that
they got really famous at a Dutch concert? No,
I didn't. Yeah, it's the live performance. I've
seen some of the YouTube stuff. Yeah, so the
live performance where they're really going at
it, that really broke through that live performance.
That was a Pink Pop is a Dutch summer concert
series. Okay. Yeah, and so I think it's really
the Dutch that pulled them out and put them front
and center with that particular song. They were
known, of course. It's fascinating to me because
the thing about it is, you know, I may disagree
with a lot of their philosophy, but... But I'm
intrigued by their passion. I'm intrigued by
their intensity, albeit drugs, albeit whatever,
youthful rage, whatever. But I also see that
same spirit, that same mindset on a lot of YouTubers,
a lot of. podcasters. I mean, it's just rage,
rage, rage. And we're the people who are living
up in a down world. We're the people that are
saying, you know what? It's not all bad out there.
There's good people on this planet. Man, we got
a bunch of them that listen to this podcast and
they reach out to you and me or they hit us up
on X and they add things or they encourage us.
And it's like, man, there are good people everywhere,
everywhere. And Jodie White, known as the Pickle
Princess, She sent in a note. I don't know if
you got, but I think she only sent it to me.
She wanted it to be show content, which I appreciate
since you bring it up. And I'll read it to you.
She says, Adam, we get to do this. It was wonderful
this week. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The thing
Pastor Jimmy read was a good reminder of exactly
how spoiled we really are. I'm trying to think
what that was exactly. It was that thing about
I get to travel. Oh yeah, exactly. I have to
pack, but I get to travel. I'm doing the dishes
because I get to eat. Yes, perfect. Right. As
she continues, also I too am enjoying all the
patriotism and the FIFA visitors enjoying our
country. Which it just continues, man. It's snowballed.
I saw an English guy at Java Ranch the other
day when I was playing chess with Willie. Oh,
yeah. I love it. Yeah, we love the hill country.
You know, we were in Houston. Now we're going
to Dallas. It's just, it's amazing. It really
is so cool. We're at a resort today, this week.
So we're hearing lots of, lots of accents from
other worlds and other places. It's beautiful.
I love it. So The Pickle Princess's question
is regarding When Calls the Heart, which she
says she is now binge watching as well. I have
not seen this. I have not seen this. Can you
explain briefly what this series is about? It's
set in the early 1900s, so it's a period, historical
period piece. It's a romance. It's like watching
a Harlequin romance basically, but without all
the fluff. But it's based on family. It's based
on values. We use the three F's, faith, family,
and freedom. They're all included in this. Interesting
enough, though, it's not in America. It's set
in Canada, in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
And it has the Canadian mounted police in the
early days. These guys were constables of their
communities. So it goes into some politics. It's
very lighthearted. It's somewhat predictable.
It's made by Hallmark back before they lost their
minds. And yet it's the longest running series
on Hallmark. They're in the 14th season, 14 years.
And all the same characters, now they come and
go. But oh my gosh, the character development
is amazing, but they constantly hearken you back
to God, hearken you back to faith. One of the
main characters is a guy named Joseph. He's black,
by the way, and he's the town pastor. And it's
beautiful. Well, Tina and I have been looking
for something to watch. So we're going to start
on that because we're a little tired. And I'm
just going to say it. It's maybe because it's
the month of June, which is known as Pride Month,
but every single show for no reason has to have
gay guys kissing. I grew up in Amsterdam, like
nothing shocks me. But it brings nothing to the
story. You're doing it just to do it. And I mentioned
this on no agenda and people said, oh, you have
no idea. It's happening in books. It's everywhere.
Like this. Wow. This is a, this is an attack
we got to be careful of. Anyway. Yeah. Obligatory,
right? It's just, and I got to tell you, if,
if I was that, I'd be insulted by the way they
treat it. I mean, so even, even from that angle,
it's like, just sort of a tip. And anyway, I
don't want to dive deep in that. But this is
what I love about this particular series that
has been such a blessing to us is because it
has faith. It's all about family values, and
it's about freedom. And in a time period too,
which is fascinating, they've just entered into
the roaring 20s. And so the youth are wanting
to learn these new you know, scandalous dances,
you know, the shimmy and the Charleston. And
it's like, oh my gosh. And so they had an ethical
moral dilemma over a youth dance, you know. And
it's so fun because there's an innocence about
it too. And the things that startled them, like
when comic books came on the scene, all of a
sudden, it created a scandal because now all
the use of tension is going to be stolen by these
books. Not much has changed. I mean, the dynamics
don't change, even though the methods do and
the delivery. of it changes. Whether it's a phone
in your hand, well, they were struggling with
the kids having comic books in classes. Everything
you're saying, it's like, oh yes, I have this
topic ready. I've got this topic ready. So put
a pin in that. I just need to finish the letter
from Jodi. She has five questions about the show.
You may not be able to answer them, but I figured
she wrote in, we love Jodi. We love that she
introduced us to Bose Pickles Louisiana, Louisiana
dill Pickles at gmail .com. So here's question
number one Why do the people of Hope Valley never
close the door when they walk in a room? And
I've noticed that I Don't know, you know, they
had no air conditioning there. I mean literally
that no AC brother number two when bill sold
his land to Madeline They never set a price.
He just offered to sell it and she accepted.
Was there no money exchange? And did he just
deed the land over to her? That was weird. That
was weird. They did not discuss a price, maybe
because of values back then. I don't know. But
yeah, you're right. She's absolutely right. I
noticed things, quirky things like that as well.
So I'm on the same page. All right. Number three,
what happened to Pastor Frank? He was there and
then he wasn't. Did he go work with orphans or
something? Okay, so here's what I do. When I'm
watching a show like this, I've got my iPad on
my lap and I'm looking up stuff. Oh, you're like
Tina. Oh, man. I like to know the background.
I like to know what's going on. She's looking
up actors. She's looking up historical facts
and she's, no, you don't have to pause it. Keep
going. How can you even do that? All right. So
you're like Tina in that regard. So the people
that are followers of this show are called hardies.
Yeah, when he calls the heart. And man, it's
a culture, brother. I'm just saying. The question
she's asking, the questions everybody's asking.
But Pastor Frank was great because he had a great
redemption story. He had a really hard past.
He had been convicted and had a felony. He was
in prison for a time. And then he was redeemed,
radically redeemed by Jesus. And so he comes
on the scene, great redemption story. But for
some reason, They have different showrunners
that cycle in and out of these shows, and then
the shows will kind of take a different direction.
You know what a showrunner is, right? Kind of
the CEO of the set, he kind of oversees the direction
a show is going. Well, when they hire a different
showrunner or another showrunner has gone somewhere
else. The shows will take a different direction.
That's why when you watch a long series, you'll
notice changes and shifts and emphases on different
characters or different themes. And so I think
they had a showrunner change and they wrote him
off. He ends up going to serve a children's,
an orphanage somewhere and falls in love with
that as his primary ministry. So we did. Okay.
And he gets replaced by Pastor Joseph, who's
phenomenal. Precious, precious man. I can't wait
to see this show now. This is already intriguing.
You're going to get into it, bro. Number four.
It's going to be good. Where does Henry live?
They never say, but I do love Henry. Oh, I don't
know where she's at, so I don't want to go too
deep into it, but his redemptive story arc is
the highlight of the show. OK, we'll leave it
at that. We get to follow Henry Gowan, who starts
off as a scoundrel, greedy, angry, mean, powerful.
and his life goes through a major massive redemption.
So his whole story arc, we're now in season 12,
I think. And it's still going, by the way, it's
still in production for season 14 right now.
But his story by Hardee's is one of the most
beloved story arcs in the whole thing. And the
final question, no one ever pays a tab at Abigail's.
especially when they're taking food from the
kitchen. How does Minnie stay in business? I
don't know. I've never seen money exchanged.
Every once in a while, I see somebody drop something
on the tables. They're heading out like Lucas
or some of those guys. But yeah, that's interesting
to me. I said that to Annette. I said, no one
ever pays for anything. That's great. I don't
know. It's that local thing, right? Beautiful
show. Well worth a watch. And it will be refreshing
to you because you will not hear the crap that
Hollywood is putting out. Well, we actually,
so we, we watched two different things that I
wanted to highlight because people are always
looking for something good to watch. And this
was on, this was on Angel. It's called an interview
with God. It's from 2018. Have you ever seen
this movie? No, I haven't. Oh, man. I'm intrigued.
Yeah, it's a journalist who gets a three session
interview with a man who claims to be God. And
I mean, the whole story is just fantastic. It's
a great movie. You'll enjoy watching it. It's
streaming. It's on Angel. It's Angel Guild approved.
Very cool. And then the other thing since we
both love period pieces was Seeking Persephone
Huh, and you know the story of Persephone in
Hades. I don't know if not everyone knows their
Greek mythology Persephone is P -E -R -S -O -P
-H -O -N -E So you look at it you go Persephone,
but it's a Persephone a period piece now. This
is nice It's a four -part miniseries And I think
that was also an angel Fantastic. Absolutely
fantastic. All right. I'm going to have to remember
them. You're going to have to text those to me
because we're always looking for something. There's
not as much God in that as the obviously interview
with God, but man, you want a good movie, a period
piece, a beautiful love story. That's the one.
It's fantastic. People are calling out for wholesome
TV in movies and that's why you see the onslaught
of... Christian and faith based movies and moral
morality base and wholesome movies coming out
right now And it's working because people are
sick. Yes tired of Hollywood. We were supposed
to have Dietrich and his wife Kelly who's the
CEO of The wonder project that was supposed to
come out this weekend supposed to have dinner.
They had to cancel unfortunately So we'll catch
them, you know back to her back from from Europe
But I can't wait to hear her story since she
you know, she was at YouTube Right, exactly.
And they're both, you know, faithful people.
And she's one of the founders of Angel, correct?
No, Wonder Project. A Wonder Project. Yeah, they
did House of David. Yes, subsidiary of Amazon?
No, Amazon distributes for them. Okay, got you.
It's all confusing to me. Yeah, it's a standalone.
She and John Irwin, the director of House of
David. One of the Irwin brothers. Yeah, so they
founded this together. literally as a HBO for
believers. Nice. I love it. I mean, listen, now
we're watching the Hallmark series and that again,
back when things were more wholesome and they've
stayed with the formula. They have not ventured
outside the lines on that. Right. So far. And
I'm assuming it'll stay that way because I mean,
this is what it has a massive following. Yeah.
And the Hardys are intense. And so yeah, anyway,
you'll enjoy that. And man, thanks for the suggestion
for some good wholesome things to watch. Yeah.
You guys got your streaming sets there. If you're
sitting in the hotel in the evening, like, oh,
what am I going to do? Just chill. We plan our
evenings around this. We ate at six, so we can
be back in the room at seven. Six? Wait, at half
hour later than usual? What are you talking about?
This is not AARP approved? We couldn't get a
530 reservation. We had the big dinner last night
at the CW. Oh, nice. A steakhouse. And it's like
elite. It is like a, it cost a shiny penny. I'll
bet it did. But it was worth, everybody had a
16 ounce Kentucky ribeye. Amazing, amazing food.
Yeah. So you were talking about, in the series
how comic books came along and this would be,
this is going to destroy our youth. Scandalous.
Scandalous. And you correctly say that the challenges
are the same. It's always, it's the, actually
it's the medium that has changed throughout the
years. Comic books were a whole new medium. And
something came out, And this is really for parents
at a bridge church and of course anyone who's
listening We we do this for our church first
and foremost and but anyone else is listening.
You're welcome to it and we appreciate it Do
you remember the Commodore 64 computer? Absolutely.
So my my first actually my first first first
computer was a Sinclair ZX80 at night. People
can go look that up. Mine was a Tandy. Right.
So you had the color computer probably, the TRS?
No, monochrome. Monochrome. So the Commodore,
I started with, after the ZX80, I had the VIC
-20. And that was the precursor to the Commodore
64. And I really learned a lot of my computing
chops, understanding data and for people who
don't know back in the day, you didn't have hard
drives or floppy disks. You actually recorded
computer programs on a cassette tape. Oh, wow.
And so if you if you bought a program, it would
come on either two ways. It would be a big ROM,
like a module, like a cartridge that you stuck
into the back of the computer. Or you could hook
up a cassette recorder. And then you'd put the
cassette in and the cassette would literally
have tones. It sounds like an old school modem
like, and then that would read into the memory
and then you could load the program. And just
as an aside, back in the day, the BBC had a computer
program and I think it was Monday night at seven.
They would broadcast a new computer program.
That's pretty cool. So you would sit there with
your cassette, you record it, and so over the
air for maybe three or four minutes, all you'd
hear was... You record it on the cassette and
then you could play that into your computer and
it would load the program. So anyway, long historical
walk down memory lane. Fascinating. To get to
a new device which... I've always been searching
for the perfect phone, what I call the OTG, off
the grid phone. Then I've never really been able
to find the right combination. I mean, I've had
the light phone, I've had flip phones, all kinds
of different devices for just when I just don't
want to be bothered. And it actually hampered
my professional life quite a bit because it was
hard for me to even participate in certain text
conversations because of how Apple doesn't want
to work with Android, et cetera, et cetera. And
so Commodore, the company was purchased by really
an enthusiast several years ago. He bought the
company, which meant he was able to buy a lot
of the old computer casings. via the classic
Commodore 64 style and he rebuilt the whole operating
system based on Linux which is very analogous
to how the old computers felt and how they operated
but it's very modern and it's actually quite
usable and of course it plays all the old classic
Commodore 64 games and everything. So it's a
real, it's a hobbyist device, but it's, it's
cool. And it's, you know, I'm actually considering
ordering one just because it's such a cool nostalgia,
nostalgic item, but they just came out with a
phone and, and it's a, it's, it's a real phone.
It's I look at this thing. It's like, it's actually
cool to look at. It has a very Commodore kind
of look to it. and there's the way they've set
it up is well actually I have a clip here of
one of the YouTube reviewers who explained shortly
exactly what the big deal is about the it's called
the callback the Commodore callback very weird
and kind of retro it's a flip phone which runs
Android but purposefully blocks web browsers
and social media apps not that it doesn't include
them It blocks them so you cannot install them.
And apparently it has a touch screen, but it's
disabled so that you won't be tempted to use
a touch screen. And it costs $550. So this thing
is kind of, you know, lead us not into temptation.
So you can load your, you know, like your, your
messaging apps. And a lot of people use WhatsApp
that's increasingly popular throughout the world
just because there's no text cost to it. But
it does text messaging. You can put, you know,
if you need a navigation app or, you know, like
a rideshare app, like Uber, it'll load all that
fine, just standard Android, but literally blocks
all social media apps and the web browser. And
I'm thinking, parents, you might want to look
into this. This might be the perfect device for
your child who still needs to be able to communicate,
still needs to be able to call and text, and
you need to be able to reach him because Lord
knows these days we have to be able to check
on our kids all the time. And it has other apps
that are useful and productive apps, but it literally
blocks anything else. So how do you get access
to this? They sell it at, I think it's Commodore
.com. I'm not sure if that's it. So it's called
Commodore phone or what? It's Commodore Callback.
Let me see. I have it. I'm going to look it up.
That's it. You got me interested. It's a good
question. Commodore Callback. It might be Commodore
.net. Yeah. Commodore Callback. There we go.
Callback 8020? Commodore .net. Yeah. Callback
8020. Exactly. It's a flip phone. Yeah, it's
a flip phone. Oh, classic looking too. Isn't
that awesome? Ooh, I like. I know. You look at
it like, I kind of want that. So it runs 99 %
of all Android apps. It's a flip phone, so it
is kind of cool. You know, you can do your podcast,
you can do music. It has old school and FM radio
built in. All right. We haven't had one of those
in a while. Does Wi -Fi. but block social media
and browsers, no data selling, it's a complete
open source version of Android called Sailfish,
and almost no pop -ups, it has LED notifications,
and you can completely go off grid with a physical
privacy switch. Wow, I'm showing here, starting
at $3 .99. It could be, yeah. Starting it. WhatsApp,
SMS pre -installed, support signal, Telegram,
WeChat, and more. Even iMessage, it says. So
there's a way to connect your iMessage to it.
At the speed of predictive, all at the speed
of predictive text input. So it is, it is the
old school way of using the keyboard, the keypad
to text. But you can get pretty good at that
because we were fast back in the day. So you
can bring back your old skills. I just I just
saw this I'm like, yeah, that's very cool Yeah,
I'd give my you know, I love it they're little
byline not your granny's flip Good marketing
there. Yeah That was my fantastic. That was my
yeah, how's the weather there by the way? Weather
is hot here. Very humid. It'd be like 89 degrees
and a hundred and two heat index So yeah, it's
the heat, the humidity is like having a hot wet
blanket on an August Texas day. As we would say
in the old country, which translates to the sparrows
are falling dead from the roof. Oh, that's a
good one. Bro, that's a good one. I mean, literally,
it's just a different kind of heat here. You
know, being on the coast, it's a different kind
of sun too. I mean, it'll fry you in a very short
amount of time, but it's beautiful though. It's
stunning. No rain this week, I think maybe a
little bit tomorrow and Friday, but very little.
So it's been gorgeous. We come back on Saturday.
We'll get in late Saturday night. And it has
been... Such a great experience. Man, I love
our city. I love our town. But the truth is,
if we don't get away, we can't get away. Of course
not. It's one of those things. We got to get
out of town. And so every year we try to get
to a coast and we love Florida. So we tend to
come this way. And Florida is weird for me because
it feels very familiar. I don't feel no culture
shock whatsoever around Florida. I feel very
at home here. Not that I want to move here, just
we love visiting. I don't like hurricanes. I'm
sorry. I'll take tornadoes any day. Talk to Tina
about that. Talk to Tina about that. She'll tell
you. She lived there for many years. Yeah. I
mean, it's beautiful. And the people here are
very, very Southern, gracious, just very much
like Texas and Tennessee. Oh, you should see
the tourists who are going to World Cup in Miami.
They're like, holy mo... They're like... This
is, this is like the most multicultural place
I've ever been. You know, they're going to, you're
seeing all the Cuban stuff and that was wonderful.
Doesn't it make you feel good though, watching
these clips? It gives me such a pride in the
right way. Not a weird pride, but a good pride.
Patriotism. I'm proud of my country and what
it also highlights for me are all the entitled
people who talk bad about our nation and about
our country. Here's the thing, let's be real.
presidents, different cabinets, different red,
blue, whatever, they come and go. And we need
to get over who's in office right now and get
back to our local level, our local life. We get
so spun up, and thanks to news media and social
media about what's going on in Washington, when
we need to be focused on what's right in front
of us. Now, that's not to be ignorant of, we
need to be praying for. But we've got to get
people with their eyes back on their own terra
firma, right where they live. and be involved
in that and quit over worrying about the world
scene. And because of social media and because
of these bricks, by the way, I wanted to say
this on the show. I've never seen more men sitting
with their wives at a pool, at a restaurant that
all are on their phone. I want to go take it
out of some guy's hands. I've been leaving my
phone in my room in the safe. So I don't have
to see it. And praise God, what I love about
our church, they're so good. When they know we're
gone, they don't text us. They don't mess with
us. Our people are wonderful. But I see these
men at breakfast, three kids losing their minds.
Mama's over there trying to control them. And
they're on their phone and cannot put it down.
I want to go over and grab it out of his hand
and say, what really matters is sitting right
here. Oh, they're, you know, they're moving,
shaking, you know, doing business or they're
watching the next soccer game or whatever. But
it's like, it has really, I've noticed it on
this trip more than any because this is a really
a getaway resort. You're on an island and it's
like, there is no excuse for being on your phone
24 seven here. This is where you put it away
and just go about. trying to have fun. It took
me a couple of days to unplug, to wind down once
I got here, but man, I'm in full relaxed mode
now. I was having a conversation with my buddy,
Dave Jones. We do the Podcasting 2 .0 podcast.
The Podcasting 2 .0 is an open source, open group,
and we kind of came together to improve podcasting.
And part of that was by creating an independent
index that so that no one really owns podcasting
and anybody could develop an app. And it's like
190 apps are now out there then. Yeah, this some
are very small. You'd be amazed how many people
in South America use what is that thing called
pod two? It's a very small podcast app that fits
on Flip phones and smaller cheap devices Africans
a lot of Africans use it as well and that all
connects to the index You know people can't just
easily use an iPhone for the cause And so they
have these different kind of flaws, but that's
beside the point So this group is it's ad hoc
and we do a podcast and the podcast we do once
a week And it's very interactive because we have
a live chat room. We record it live and we call
it the board meeting. We're just talking about
whatever's going on in the group. And through
this, you see transcripts in your podcast that
comes from us. You see chapters in your podcast
that comes from us. There's a whole bunch of
improvements that we've created that now are
being adopted by this whole quote unquote industry.
And so we have a mastodon, a closed Macedon server,
which is kind of like a social network, but it
doesn't, there's no algo. So it doesn't really
behave like a, like Facebook or Instagram or
X. Um, but then there's technical discussions
take place on something called GitHub and GitHub
is literally where you publish code. People can
say, Hey, I want to add some code, take a look.
It's called a PR, a pull request. You can take
a look at this code, merge it in. But then there's
also discussions so someone will have a proposal
in this case. It was doesn't even matter what
it was for but The github discussions it's kind
of like a forum almost like reddit I should say
where you have someone proposes something and
then there's a hundred and fifty comments below
and people are quoting another person and This
thing it always I don't care what project it
is github discussions about code Always get heated.
Always. And Dave, who was part of my faith journey,
is the most loving, kind, calm man I know. You
and he are kind of equal in that regard. And
he was getting upset. And we talked about this.
And he says, you know, I realized that... And
he actually is also kind of a hack philosopher.
He was... telling me about this book he was reading
with right brain left brain and there's a lot
of talk about that and and these days we use
a lot of our left brain which is really controlled
um controls the right side of your body so your
right eye what you see with your right eye right
and you know the feeds into your left brain and
left brain is analytical and you know it's it
controls a lot of other things like your amygdala
and how upset you get or how you analyze things.
And the right brain is kind of the loving creative
half. I'm really cutting corners here on this.
And he said that he read that sparrows, I think
it was sparrows, when they're like picking seeds
off of the ground, one eye is focused solely
on the food and the other eye is looking out
for predators. Whoa. And as we're talking about
this, we realize that what happens is, us humans,
we focus both eyes, we're probably the right
eye more than the other. And what you're seeing
on your screen, and it's even worse on your phone,
at that moment, what is happening right there,
and you can feel this, next time you look at
your phone, look at a newsfeed, that is at that
very moment, your entire world. That's why the
fathers you see, They're locked out. They're
not seeing anything. We don't have the sparrow
capability to have one eye on what's going on
around me. Like, are my kids in danger? Is my
wife getting frustrated? There's none of that.
We are focused and that literally becomes your
world. And so then, now you see why people respond
the way they respond because the whole world
is tuned out. Wow. Now, I had a solution to this,
which is you should just cover your left eye
when reading anything so then your right brain
kicks in, you'll have love and better normal
emotions. Does that work? No, it doesn't really
work. But it just dawned on me that that is what's
happening. We used to have this, we call them
TV junkies, you know, Willy Wonka famously had
TV mic. And our parents would tell us, you better
not sit in front of that TV, your brain's going
to rot. But we were mesmerized, hypnotized. And
then the remote control came along. Oh man, if
I'm bored for two seconds, I can zap over to
something else. It is the same mechanism. but
it becomes your world. We've got to be on the
lookout for something like that. Becoming your
world because literally you don't see that your
wife is frustrated, your kids are mucking about,
they're giving her a hard time, they're not settled.
The awareness is really what helps me every single
time. Just the awareness of, oh wow, I'm sucked
in, I'm focused. That's why we all have that.
You say something to your spouse and then they
respond seven seconds later. Because it takes
that long to process, to get through all the
synapses for them to process, hey, wait a minute,
someone outside of this world that I'm in is
talking to me. Wow. You've really hit on something
here. I mean, even as you were speaking, I was
thinking how one of the reasons I've been able
to relax so much is I've put my phone away. I
just haven't been messing with it. I'm doing
these little simple daily grinds that don't require
anything other than putting together a little
graphic and sending it out. So I'm not drilling
in and going, okay, what are people going to
like? What's going to help somebody? You know,
I've been able to kind of check out and what
I've become very aware of is my environment.
I'm looking at the ocean. I'm looking or we're
at the pool and just watching kids have a blast
and be kids. That's refreshing right there. Just
seeing kids throwing a Nerf football, you know,
across the pool and having a big time, you know,
or a tennis ball. And listen to this out of Proverbs
425. Let your eyes look directly forward and
your gaze be straight before you. And then in
Psalm 119, turn my eyes from looking at worthless
things and give me life in your ways. There is
a lot of scripture about what we're looking at
and where we put our, what we gaze upon. I've
always said, you become what you behold. Yep.
And it's just this idea that whatever you're
setting your eyes on is also going into your
mind and it's transforming you, whether you think
it is or not. Now, neurologists are proving what
the Bible said all along on these issues, right?
Neurology is fascinating to me because it actually
confirms and affirms so much of what the Bible
teaches. And this is one of those where we're
actually rewiring our brains as we're so focused
on this one little screen in our hand. It's literally,
we're rewiring our brains. We're training ourselves
to 144 plus characters, you know, where we can't
hardly read a book. We can't read anything long
form anymore. And I know I found myself, if there's
something that's too long, that's why I've enjoyed
going back to Substack, because there's some
long form things in there and I am forcing myself
to read them. because I want to retrain my brain
to have long span attention and long form attention
as opposed to just short term. And it's helping
me and it's helping me think different too. And
I'm finding I'm more at peace and more at rest.
I keep asking Annette, so did anything blow up
today? I mean, I'm just not looking. In fact,
Annette said, what are you and Adam going to
talk about? You don't even know what's going
on. I said, I know, I'm just going to bring scripture.
He's going to bring the issues. I'm going to
find a biblical worldview towards it. It's easy
for me. Well, as predicted, it looks like the
war is over. Gas prices are falling down drastically
every single day. It will be a good Fourth of
July celebration. I'm quite confident of it.
Just like you called the ball on that one. He
said he will get it done one way or another,
whether all the terms or whatever everybody's
liking, because all I've been reading is how
mad everybody is. We can't just say, hey, but
we're not firing bombs right now. Ultimately,
what we care about is the price of gas. That's
the American way. That is the metric. That's
what you talk about at the cookout, man. You
believe those gas prices? Yeah. That's Annette's
first thing. That's the first thing she notices.
She's, oh, look. Gas is down another 15 cents.
I'm like, honey, you have an electric car. Why
does it matter? It's amazing. Tina, she's like,
it cost me over 50 bucks two months ago. 50 bucks
to fill it up. I'm like, it's okay. I know it's
expensive, but that particular expense is not
going to break us. We're okay there, but she
still gets really mad. I mean, that's the Indiana
girl still going, this is no good. Outrage. And
so the inverse has happened. It's like, wow,
it was like $4 .29. It was almost under $4 and
she's really happy. But this is good. And what
you're seeing on social media people, it's probably
8 % of our entire country who's on there. It's
not everybody. It's not everybody. Not everybody
cares. Not everybody is as spun up as you think
they are. That's right. There are some people
that are actually grateful in this world that
they have a car to drive. Amen to that, brother.
Yes. Hey, can I land the plane with this bite
your tongue and read this thing that I did last
week? Yes, please do. I think it's one of these
things we need to keep in front of us, especially
in these times when the news just keeps trying
to spin us up. Let's spin down with this. You
complain about traffic because you have a car.
You complain about laundry because you have clothes.
You complain about dishes because you ate. You
complain about packing because you get to travel.
You complain about taxes because you earned.
You complain about your job because you have
one. You complain about a full inbox because
people need you. You complain about noise because
you have a family. You complain about exercise
because your body moves. You complain about wrinkles
because you lived. You complain about gray hair
because you made it this far. You complain about
change because you're growing. And listen, I
agree with Mr. Adam Curry that we need to put
down our phones and pick up our Bibles. Put down
your screens and pick up your Bibles. Yes. Scripture
before screens in all cases. Amen, brother. Brother,
enjoy the rest of your vacation. Just have a
great time. Thanks. And we look forward to having
you back home and back in our church too. We
miss you. Hey, one quick shout out to my church
family. Listen, don't think we're out here, woo
-hoo, we're out here going. Good night, we miss
our church. We miss our family. So just know
you're missed and you're loved, and I can't wait
to be back, but also so thankful that we get
this time away. It's such a gift. And we pack
because we get to travel. That's right, brother.
We'll see you next week, everybody. We get to
do this and we love it. The chance we did not
miss This is the life we get to do this