Steve Rotermund

David W Ebel: Welcome to the God Says Yes podcast. You are welcome here. This is David Ebel and this is God Says Yes, a podcast where anyone is welcome. No judgmentalism, just welcome. We focus on you as you who may have been struggling or had known someone who's struggling, who's gone through hard times, who maybe feels like they've been through so much they don't feel even worthy for God's love. This is a place to find out that there is light at the end of the tunnel and it's good. that God has promises and healing and restoration. And we're just here to love people and introduce people to that love. We want you to know how much that God loves you. My favorite description is that we are all individually custom made by God to love. That is our first and foremost purpose in life, is God created us for him to love and for us to love him back. Everything else revolves around that and is part of that. So we're here to encourage people to listen, to learn, to grow, to thrive. And that's why we're glad you're here. I have with me one of my dear friends, Steve Ruderman. And Steve is going to be talking with us today about his heart, his story, and in the process, God's story in him. So, Steve, I welcome you and I'm glad you're here. David, it's an honor to be here. Good to see you. And can't wait for our discussion today. Well, I'm ready for you to start telling your story right now. All righty. It's a good one now. Before we start, it's not better than anybody's. It's not worse than anybody's. It's just my life story and what God has done with me. And it started with the less than feeling that we're all born into with Adam and Eve from, you know, them messing up in the garden. It starts with that, but then added to it, life comes into play with our trauma. I had a mother that abandoned me at the age of four and I did not. My father and her got a divorce. She took off. Never met her. Don't remember her. When I was about 18 years old, she came back into our life. I gave her a chance. She abandoned me again. And when I was in ministry, I thought I'll do the right thing and connect out with her again. For a third time, I work for God now and I'll be good enough for you to like me. And she had nothing to do with me. So I was abandoned three times by my mother, which is crazy. ⁓ I was molested sexually in a construction trailer when I was six years old. And my father, although he loved me the way he could, he was an alcoholic off and on. basically said that I wouldn't amount to anything, that I was less than, that I wasn't good enough. Not that he felt that, but that's just what came out of his mouth. And he loved me the way he could. Moving on from that childhood, growing up, met a young lady I thought that I was gonna spend the rest of my life with. And three years into our marriage, she ended up becoming addicted to pain medication. During that process, I came to know the Lord at the age of 21. I went up forward and I got the ticket, put it in my back pocket and just was on fire for the Lord. And back in the 90s, if you remember Promise Keepers. Very much. Yeah, I started to go to Promise Keepers and I'd come home just energized. I'd be like, I'm going to speak to men like this someday. I'm going to do this someday. I know God's calling me to do this. And I traveled around the Midwest volunteering at Promise Keepers, these big conventions, you know, was the for people to know it's a men's ministry that you make, you know, is to make men better leaders, better husbands, better fathers, better friends, better brothers in Christ. And it was a really good movement back then. But I called into ministry and started down the road of running a business that I developed and kind of put the ministry call on hold. wasn't ⁓ until a few, quite a few years later that we ended up moving from one state to another state to run from my wife's addiction. Ended up meeting some people that invited us to a church. We went back to church and from there, I met the pastor, told him that I felt called into ministry and he took me under his wing and bam, from there I became a pastor. I was a children's pastor, did men's ministry, had a radio ministry, ended up planting a church and running with ministry all the while hiding the fact that my wife was addicted to pain medication and I was battling her addiction. After my church plant, ⁓ After about a year and a half into it, I just felt so shameful. I felt so hurt, so angry. God, why won't you fix my wife? Why won't you fix our family? Why won't you fix this? I'm doing all this for you. Why won't you fix anything? And it just turned into more anger, more bitterness, more shame. Watching my wife not off in the front row during sermons, I just, I walked away. I was so angry and walked away from the church, handed it over to a River of Life church, moved out of the community. I gave up on God and I said I'll fix this addiction myself and ended up walking through two years of hell trying to fix my wife. move on to that friend, a good Christian friend said, hey, you need to go see a counselor. I got this really good Christian counselor that can help you. And I'm like, I'm a man. I don't need counseling. I know how to take care of things. If my wife would just get fixed, all this would be great. So I ended up going to this counselor and I was there for 15 minutes and he goes, You're part of the problem. You have codependency. He says, you're just as bad as your wife, except for you're using emotions instead of any kind of drug. And I was floored. I was really floored at that point. I wanted to punch him in the face. I was so mad. I didn't understand what was going on. He tried to explain it to me. I was just nodding my head. Yeah, yeah, but thinking in my mind, what the heck? And I hired you to be on my side to go team up against my wife to tell her how wrong she is. And then hopefully she'll get fixed. I ended up leaving there, going home, immediately got on the computer. looked up codependency because I didn't know what it was. I definitely didn't think I had it. And it hit me. I was like, ⁓ my gosh, this relationship, that relationship, this relationship. And I just traced it all the way back to my childhood. And I'm like, Yep, I'm a codependent and ended up going back to him for seven years. He must have known something. He did. He did at this point you've already gone up and down and back and forth and finally you're ready to surrender Finally ready to surrender He um Said something very profound. He said you need to find your identity in Jesus Christ I Said I've been a pastor for years. I know the Bible. I know this and that way. I don't know what you're talking about And he said no you're living as an adoptive son He said you have to live as a spiritual son and know your true inheritance of who you are. And that kind of woke me up and that kind of shocked me because I never heard it put that way before. And then we went down that road and that's what freed me. That's what started to peel off the later the layers of hurt and trauma in my life. So when that happened, what was the next step in this? I mean, you got me on my edge of my seat here. The next step was realizing that God wanted to heal me and that all the time I wanted him to fix my wife, he just wanted to fix me. That's the first thing that he pointed out. Second of all, then he made me understand that I was in church and in this pastoral role to get. I felt needed. I felt wanted. I felt loved, I felt important. And for those people that don't know, codependency is putting your value and worth into other people to get the emotions that you need because you can't figure it out kind of on your own. And you put all your stuff aside just to make sure that everybody else is happy or people pleasers, you're doing everything. I was what they called the savior part of codependency. I was a fixer. I was going to fix everything to make it to where everybody liked it. So being in that role, although I love Jesus and I love to help other people and I was watching God transform other people, I was never really transformed. I got the ticket, put it in my back pocket, and I'd preach a wonderful sermon and I'd go home and belittle my wife because she started taking medicine again. yell at my kids because I didn't know how to handle the emotions that I was dealing with with the addiction and the co-dependency. I didn't know any of that. I was just never transformed. And through this Christian counseling and realizing who I was in Jesus Christ, it just started to change. And that's where the transformation started to come. And it wasn't a quick process. left the church, started counseling, ended up going through a divorce and everything else, but this is a span of about 12 years now. Okay. I've been going through this. So is, where's the wife now? Unfortunately, she passed away three years ago by an overdose. Well, the thing about drugs is that if you don't get delivered from them, They will inch by inch destroy you. They will take everything that is valuable in you until there's nothing left. Yeah. She never hit a rock bottom. mean, she lost her kids. I gained custody of the kids. She lost everything and she never hit rock bottom. She just never faced that trauma that she had. Well, she hit rock bottom, but unfortunately that was death. Yeah. So how many kids? We had three boys. And how are you doing with them now? Doing alright. The two older boys, one's 30, one's 28. They have some issues due to growing up in that environment. My 16 year old son was about four at the time, three at the time. So he doesn't remember anything, which is a blessing. and it's a matter of not revisiting that co-dependency by trying to go fix my two older boys. My older ones, he's angry at the world, hates the world, he's angry at me. know he's not take, I mean, he takes it out on me, but I know he's not really angry at me. He just doesn't know how to process what he's going through. So I just love him in his mess. And my other son, he's been in a couple of codependent love addict relationships, just totally destroyed. ⁓ Starting life over, he actually just moved in right before Christmas trying to start his life over because he just he lost everything because he was just trying to find the right thing and people. And so you're only as good as they are that day, right? So he ended up losing everything and he's starting over and we just love him and his mess too. And I try to, like I said, I try to not find, I try not to get back into that codependency role because it's like, I want to fix you and you know, and. You can, you can give them a path. Give them a path. Yeah. I tell them, I understand what the wrath of God really is. and coming from a father's standpoint. I would do anything with a fiery anger to go inside of my kids and remove anything that is blocking them from who they really were created to be. That is the wrath of a father. It just hurts me to watch them hurt. And it hurt me for a long time to know that I caused part of that problem. Yes. And I think that is the love of a father. You just wouldn't go in and just rip out anything that they're believing about themselves that isn't true, that is hurting them. So how do you function? I mean, I'm sure there's people who are going to be watching if you're listening to this who have this question. OK, you're stuck at this point. How do you do this without it melting you or creating bitterness in you or making you what you don't want to be because you're trying to help them and you want the good to splash on them, not their bad to splash on you? I don't put any expectations on him. I love him because they're my sons. I don't put one expectation on him to... say, hey, dad, we're proud of you for changing, change us, you know, we want what you want. I just don't put any expectation from them. I woke up to love them. If they don't want to love me the same way I love them, I'm not wrecked by it anymore. I love them for who they are. That's healthy. It is healthy. Hard, but it's healthy. It's very hard. But once you... come through a place of victory through recovery and your transformation, it's not perfect. And I don't want to make it sound like it's perfect, but I have triggers or I have arrows, you know, flying at me all the time. And you'll feel yourself getting drawn into maybe a disagreement with your kids or an argument with your kids. And you just have to catch that arrow and back off and say, Father, that's not who I am anymore. And, know, a piece will come over you and you'll be able to block off them darts and tell people all the time. The devil's really tricky at how he tries to get you to fall. And ⁓ yeah, he just, you know, he doesn't care that I love the Lord. He doesn't care that I serve in ministry. He doesn't care that, you know, maybe you go and listen to worship songs and raise your hand. He doesn't care if you serve in Sunday Children's Church every day and use the felt board. He doesn't care about any of that. He just wants to make sure that you're not light and you're not love. And if he can rob you of that. then he wins. the enemy's job, he's made it his job to what God loves he hates. And whatever he can do to hurt you hurts God. So we become stuck in the middle of this. And we are we are we are being led astray. And then so that the enemy can say, God, they don't they don't they don't follow you. See, you call yourself almighty and look at your kids doing all this stupid stuff. And that's where the spiritual battle is. And that's why we need to always go back to God every day, all the time, and lean on Him and draw to Him and ask Him for direction so that we let Him fight the battle. And we're in the battle, but he's out front with the sword and we're in there doing what we can do, but he's doing the part we can't. And we let him because we pray. We let him because we hide ourselves in God's Word. By letting him be the one in charge, we heal and we grow and we mature and we thrive. where if we tried to do it the other way around and say, here, God, let me do this for you. It just means another crash and burn. Right. Getting validation from a wonderful father is a great feeling. I don't need a validation through a great sermon. I don't need validation through being a pastor or feeling important. I get validation to know that I am loved and I'm looked at blameless and righteous. and holy and that is once you can come to those terms and accept that yes it's a great feeling it's a wonderful feeling it's the best feeling in the universe yes relationship with God on every level but that's a work that doesn't happen once it's not you give your heart to Jesus and you're that part's free but to live for him costs you surrender and humility and honesty and transparency you gotta just get to the point where God is almost God is smart and we are not it doesn't mean we're robots but we realize that God's thinking is perfect and ours has been damaged by this world yeah so it's like the computer garbage in garbage out If we let the stuff around us impact us, then we were polluted by this world. So the things we do are polluted as well. Even though we are doing our best effort, we still have the residual of the yuck of this world still sticking to us. So we need to get close to Jesus so he can keep us clean so that yuck doesn't stick. So we see we smooth and clean and pure. Being a Christian doesn't mean I just go to church every Sunday. And a lot of people think that. And that's the passion behind the ministry I have now. It's just there's so many people in church that aren't transformed because they don't... I think they understand the fullness of this love. And if you had a relationship with your wife 10 seconds before a meal... 15 seconds before he went to bed and an hour and a half to two hours on a Sunday. That relationship wouldn't be very deep. It wouldn't be very good, it? Nope. Well, that's how we treat God. And, you know, we're afraid of number one, our father being like our earthly father or earthly mother, because that's how we view him. So he loves me, kind of tolerates me. waiting for me to mess up so he can just point his finger at me and Jesus is there to sneak me in the back door because I smell like poo and then the Holy Spirit's floating around so I can lean on him to get through life until we go to heaven. That just doesn't sound like fun. doesn't sound like what God wanted for us. That's the Bible at the worst way. Yeah, so I mean you come into this place of understanding And I didn't wake up to try to not to sin. I didn't wake up to try not to do something. I just woke up free and in truth and I woke up to love today. And that's a powerful thing once you can get to that point. And there's victory there. You can get through this anything. You can get through any issue that you have. That less than feeling all addiction is tied to I feel less than. Whatever it is, it's tied to I'm not good enough of some sort. And you can overcome that. so, so out there in everybody's life. I mean, we were born into it, right? And we have to believe that the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ gave us the out to put on the new self, to get rid of the old Adam self, to put on this new self and go live in that new kingdom. That's just such a great feeling, such a freeing feeling. ⁓ Just want to back up just one second because in case someone doesn't understand when we when we give our heart to Jesus He takes the blood that he shed on the cross and he cleanses us from our sins So we started out at that moment free clean forgiven healed in a right relationship with God That's the beginning of really living is to be surviving and then all these other things you're talking about become available to us because we gave our heart to Jesus and we committed to live for Him. It's not just you give your heart to Jesus and you're done. You give your heart to Jesus and you begin. You build a friendship by meeting somebody you like and you want to hang around and the more you hang around the better you like them. You meet a girl and the more you like her the more you want to spend around and then you start from reading love letters and you can play them back in your mind all night. When you fall in love with Jesus, he deserves more attention or more love or more investment than any one person you could find. And yet our culture gives him Sundays and a couple of times before meals. So what you're saying is so true. get out of this relationship with God what we're willing to give Him room to work in us. Yes. So true. Keep going. Keep going. I'll preach it. I'll preach it. We've got time. Yeah, no. And codependency, for people that don't know codependency, it's putting all your value into another human being. And you're only as good as that person is that day. And if my wife would wake up in a bad mood just because maybe she slept wrong or she's stressed out at work or something like that, somebody with codependency automatically thinks that they did something wrong. They automatically feel shameful. What did I do? I did something wrong. So then you press in, babe, what did I do wrong? What's wrong here? Nothing. You didn't do anything. Tell me what's wrong. I, know, and then a big fight blows up and now you're wrecked for seven, eight days because you shut down. You're, you're shameful. You did something wrong. And when it was not even anything to do with you, but now you've upset her because you've crossed that line and maybe you've said something you said and now you're wrecked even more. So codependency is, you're only as good as that person is that day. You're basing your life off of circumstances. And as a codependent, I think I said I was the savior part of codependency. I had to fix everything because I felt my wife was taking medication to escape me. I felt that she was, she didn't like me, so she was escaping me. But if I can save her from this, she'd see how great I am and then I'd get the love that I need and I'd feel validated. that's codependency. And with our Heavenly Father, he's already validated to me to where I don't need to fall on anything else. I don't need, I woke up to be loved today. And if you don't love me, then you don't love me. That's okay, I get all the love that I need, but I'm gonna still love you. Because I got work that I have to do. And you're not gonna knock me off my game today. And... I've just got to walk out that love in the kingdom. And for people that maybe came from where I come from, there's no legalism here. You drop that at the door. There's no I have to I love to get up and I love to journal and I love to get in God's Word because I want to I'm not trying to fill myself with head knowledge. I'm trying to actually know who he is and I have a conversation with him through journaling I'll journal and ask a question and it'll answer me sometimes he doesn't and if he doesn't answer me I just answer myself with what Jesus would say to that question and it turns into this relationship to where I don't feel like I have I'm not I'm in a relationship because I want to be in relationship. I don't feel like I have to do all these things. And I think some people also think that, I want my free life over here. And I'm afraid that I'm going to have to read the Bible four times a day. I'm going to have to pray five times a day. I'm going to have to do this. And that's not it at all. This actually will transform you. And that fear will go away. And the Lord loves when I do this. But maybe the next day I got to get up and I got to take kids to school and stuff like that. He's not mad at me. I still converse with him later on during that day, but he's not mad. He loves that I'm loving all my children and then I'm making them laugh and he loves that because he's in there with that too. And you know I end up driving the car and just saying father thank you for loving me and thank you for this beautiful day and look at that tree over there. It is beautiful it's almost like you made that tree just for me today and it's just having that conversation with him. I don't use him as a butler anymore. And that's another freeing thing too, because when you use God as a butler, and you say, please make this go my way, what happened was it when it doesn't go your way. Now you're wrecked, and now you're mad at him, because you think he had something to do with it. And it's like, that's not the way God works. No, it's not. Yeah, I come to Him with all my requests. The Bible says I can come with my requests. I'd like things to go this way. I'd like things to go this way, Father, but I know that you know best and I trust any outcome that you have because you're good through all of it. And I may have to walk through some more suffering. And you know what? I'm not going to like it, but I understand what suffering is now. I'm going to have to walk through that. So I become a better person so then I can walk somebody else through it when they go through it. That's all life is. Yeah. Well, when you look at what refining is. I lived in Detroit. We used to take the tour of the auto factory where they refined the steel. And they'd take this really nasty, horrible stuff and they would melt it down. And they would scrape off that layer of yuck. They'd it. And they'd it up again and more yuck would come to the surface and they'd scrape it off again. And they'd repeat the process until it was steel. It was pure. it was almost as good as it could get and then they would use it. Well, that's kind of how life is with God. He doesn't do it to us, but he allows it to happen so that the yuck that this world has imprinted on us, the way that we think, the way that we act, the input that we've had from reading, television, movies, all this stuff that tells us how we're supposed to be. He can slowly but surely scrape off all of that so the real who we are finally can come to the surface. we can become that person that he's always wanted us to be. And we can love people the way he's always wanted to love through us. Amen. He is the refining fire. And when you go through the sufferings, you can either go through it using your old Adam self, or you can go through it using your newborn identity in the blood of Jesus Christ and respond that way. Which one's gonna be easier? Well, they're both gonna be hard, but one's gonna feel a lot more peaceful than the other one. Because usually the other one's going to trigger some more issues that are going to come along with, you know, can either just do the one line of surrendering with God, or you could do the one line of surrendering in your old self and cause all kinds of trickle effects because you responded everything the wrong way and you didn't respond like Jesus would. Well, have you noticed that? In many churches, when someone gives their hearts to the Lord, they're told, now you belong to Jesus, it's gonna be great. You're gonna have things better than they were. And they paint this almost utopistic, you know, what's gonna happen next. And it starts out where everybody believes that. And then all of a sudden one day they get slapped in the forehead with, wow, I belong to Jesus, but I'm still stuck in this yuck. and book that's teaching them yet how to swim in the yoke or get out of the yoke or move past all of that. And that's what we're talking about now is when we trust in Jesus and get close to him. His Holy Spirit can work in us and teach us how to grow out of all that and become who we really are. By the difficulties and the scraping off or the refining, we become something more beautiful and something people are desiring to be around. And that's the passion today. He's brought me back into ministry for that reason, is to help people. that are believing a lie and to help people that are with some unhealthy habits. So if we were to say, now Steve, here's your chance, talk to us, tell us what's on your heart, give us the nugget that we need to know for today. What is the truth? You've got 15, 20 minutes here, but make sure we get something out of it that we can take home with us, please. I only have 15 or 20 minutes, I don't know, I've been preaching pretty good. First of all, The truth will set you free. And once you get into the truth of the word, you'll start to peel off the layers. surrendering is important in this process. You have to surrender everything that you're locked down into, holding on to, putting in the deep, darkest corner of your soul that you won't let God into. You have to open those doors. You have to let Him in to surrender. I wanted to get back into ministry. And I was out of ministry for 12 years going through healing, getting remarried, doing all this great stuff. But I also was going, Father, I guess, did I blow it? Are you never gonna use me again? Am I not good enough? I started to kind of go down that road again. And he's like, no, I've got great things that are going to be on your heart. And he said, you just need to forgive. And I'm like, Father, I forgave my dad. I love him for who he is. We have a great relationship now. I've forgiven the people that have crossed me. I've forgiven the people in ministry that turned their back against me. I've forgiven my... ⁓ wife, my ex-wife, for what she's done, her part. I said, I don't understand. And he's like, you've never forgiven yourself. And I just broke down and started crying. And he showed me that I never forgave myself for not being able to fix my ex-wife. And I never forgave myself for being a horrible father to my kids. And once I was able to unpeel that in that darkest, deepest corner, he was able to work on me. And then a ministry started to sprout up. And then all these ideas that he wanted me to do started to happen. And now that he's stepping before me, I'm just following now. Now I'm just, I'm just going where he's leading me. Exactly. But there is victory. There's victory through this trauma. Yes. And you're like, well, I'm not like an addict and I don't have an alcohol problem. No, but you have a less than problem. You think less of yourself. You think that you're not good enough in some area of your life and it can turn into an unhealthy habit or an addiction, or you just think you're not good enough. And you've always struggled with not good enough. mean that is what we lived in from Adam and Eve. That's the curse. But you have to understand that the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ removed all that. And that's what I'm talking about. You have to live out Ephesians. You know we're stepping from the old into the new. You can't keep going back to the old self. You can't keep going stepping into that. You can't have a foot in your old self and have a foot in the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. You can't pick one or the other. what he says you can't serve two masters we make it seem like you can't serve a sinful life which is behavior modification no it's a less than it's it's a it is not a behavior modification it's a this is not who I created you to be issue If you don't understand that you were created in the image of Jesus Christ before the foundations of the world, before anything was even created, you had a relationship with God and you created this beautiful person, until you can understand that, it's going to be a struggle, but you can get through it and there is victory. Exactly. So now what? What's our hope, our dream for the listeners? Well, I created a ministry called Walk Right Ministries. And in that ministry, I speak. I try to bring this truth to different people at different events or retreats, whatever. I do have a recovery, I created a 12-step recovery community that's online. It's a community that's like any other 12 step program. don't be afraid when I say 12 steps because people are like, ⁓ drug users and alcohol. No, this 12 step is designed for anybody that was going through what I was going through. Anybody that feels less than anybody that doesn't feel good enough. Anybody that has anxiety, depression, anger, any kind of issue. This 12 step programs for you because it doesn't yell at you to stop the unhealthy habit. It works on your inside to let you know who you are to transform you. So you'll not want to do the unhealthy habit or believe the lies. Yes. And it's an online community that can go along with your 12 step. I know I was a part of Celebrate Recovery. I was the director of Celebrate Recovery for a long time. But. Sometimes I couldn't wait till Thursday at six o'clock. I needed to get in a meeting. need to get with people. So I created this online community that's there 24 seven. You can do step work, principal work 24 seven. There's engaging videos. There's devotionals. There's other people on this community that can, or I'm hopeful we're getting ready to launch this, that other people on this community can help you. I designed it as it's a big party. I'm inviting all these people in and you guys are having such a great time that I can go upstairs and go to bed because you're all helping each other. It's not a, this is the Steve show. It's a community for people to heal and grow and walk with each other. As Paul says, we go through all our sufferings so we can step out and walk next to somebody else that's going through that suffering and lead them through it. And then when we go through suffering again, hopefully there'll be somebody more mature there to walk me through it because they went through it. That's the kingdom. That's love and that's light. Amen. Is there a website? Yeah, it's www.walkrightministries.com. www.walkrightministries.com Okay. And you can find the community, can find about the speaking, I do coaching one-on-one with people. And I have a brand new podcast I just started called Recovery and Identity. And it is all about what we're talking about here today. It's about releasing that stuff. talks about, you know, the first three episodes talked about denial and anxiety and surrender. And those are the three important things that we need to know to get to get this healing process going. But it comes out every Thursday. It's just a half an hour podcast. It's just, it's a recovery podcast. I'm excited. That's a great concept. I don't know that there is anything out there doing that. So it's meeting an important need. Yes. That's the plan. So I understand you wrote a book. I did. and it is called God's Imperfect Plan is Perfect and it is available on Amazon. Now I'll tell you it's a short read, it's not a very long book. ⁓ I didn't write it to be a number one seller or to get rich off a book. God had me write it for healing. And as you know, if you journal and write down stuff and your feelings, but I journaled for a very long time and he says, you know, that journal would make a great book. It's basically my life story. It's, you know, we've kind of paraphrased everything here today, but it's long and drawn out of all the issues I had and everything we went through. And then being in that church setting for such a long time and the feelings of the shame and the guilt and the anger and believing God didn't want to work with me and then stepping out of that and then coming back completely transformed in what he's taught me. And God's imperfect plan. You know, I taught it to kids in ⁓ ministry. God's got a great plan for you. You touched on it. It's going to be a wonderful life. You're going to be married and have four kids. You're going to live in a blue house. You're to have a dog named Boomer and you're going to work at the accounting firm. What happens when you get married and your husband fight all the time? You only have one child because you can't have any more. The house is yellow. The wife won't let you have a dog you have to have a cat but you can't even name it boomer and you're working at a gas station not at the accounting firm who are you going to be upset with? God God why you know your plan sucked and that's what I thought God your plan for my life sucked because what happens when I understand that if I make a bad decision I'm gonna have a bad consequence I get that but what happens about all those things that we weren't We didn't have a choice. I didn't have a choice to have my mother abandon me. I didn't have a choice for my dad to be an alcoholic and belittle me. I didn't have a choice to be sexually molested for a season. I didn't have a choice to have a wife that turned to prescription medication, then heroin, then meth and destroy a family. I didn't choose any of that. So God's plan sucked. It really did. But through healing, he'll show you that he was in all of it. and with you in all of it. And once you realize, John 14, 20, that Jesus said, that day you'll know that I'm in the Father, the Father's in me, we're in you, and we're doing this life together. Once you can fully embrace that and understand that and know that they're in every aspect of your life, it's changing. And you'll understand that God's imperfect plan is actually perfect. So I would highly recommend that Everybody get the book that read it them, you know I always say read the book before you give it to someone Because you can't tell them how great it is if you don't know yourself Right. So I would encourage people to buy two one for themselves and one to give away and You know, I've written a book and that's how I tell people about my book to you know buy it to read it to share Don't buy it to read to store because somebody else will need what you read more than you did. And now that you know what it says, you can target who gets it the right way with a pure heart. and it can be a tool of encouragement instead of a tool of, you need this more than I did. No, we both need this, but it spoke to me and I think you'd enjoy it too. And the difference in just because you read it and you received it, now you can share it with love. And then God can use it as a tool to make a difference in lives. And that's why we put it down on paper, not so we can just have it on paper. That's what you write on paper, call that therapy. But when you write it to publish so others can read it, that's called ministry extended, where God uses that to extend his love to even more people. Yes. So all this is not to sell books. It's, you know, it's actually therapy. The more I talk about it, the more I keep sharing my story. People are like, man, it's amazing and it's incredible that you're so vulnerable and open. And it's like, you don't understand how freeing it is. The more I talk about it, lets me realize that the more God loves me and has transformed me. And it's the same with the book. You can read the book and see it all through there. It's just, it's just amazing. That's the funny thing. I've had people tell me after having read my book. Why did you have to give all these details? Why did you have to explain those things? And the answer is because I live transparent I Hide nothing because God is in every part of me now and I'm telling the story so people can Understand how good God is on mountaintops and in deep valleys that he's still there and he still loved me But if I hadn't gone through those things, I wouldn't now realize how deep that love is. And I wouldn't be trying to perform for everybody else. I just live for Him. Living through Him is the most freeing thing that's ever happened to me. It is. you have to, like I said, if you lock down those certain areas and don't let God fix you, it's, you know, you're harboring something that's going to continue to bother you. I didn't say anything to anybody, not even my wife, my ex-wife. that I was sexually molested. I carried that around for 40, 30-something years. I didn't say it until I got in front of that counselor at the age of 43. And that was probably one of the biggest things that was so freeing was to finally let that out. And that's why you have to be vulnerable and honest. Now you can write it in a journal. You don't have to write a book and it out there for the public. But in your own healing journal, write it, get everything out and just tell God how you feel and listen for him to answer because he will. Well, let me ask a different question. What happens to people who don't journal or hate journaling? They're unwilling to write it down. How can they process this? There's got to be another another venue to do the same thing. How does someone get past that? Yeah, I mean, you don't have to journal, but get into a quiet space and then just tell God and just dump out all your feelings. Some people don't want to journal every day. Write a letter to somebody, but don't send it. It's probably one of the most important things my father ever told me. even in all his mess, even in all my mess. He's like, one of the most important things you can do is write the first letter, but don't send it. And then write the second letter. Well, I like that one. Cause the first one, if you're responding to somebody in anger or you're responding to somebody, just a one-off, it's going to be wrong and come across the wrong way. So. Just write a letter, but don't send it to somebody. And then you write another letter and then you write another letter and you're gonna see how you start to transform and how your feelings do not start to take control of you. But you can do that by speaking if you don't like to write or type or whatever, but you have to release that somehow. It has to come out of you from your heart with passion. you know, speaking it or writing it's pretty much the only way you can get it out. I mean, you can punch a punching bag all you want, that's not going to really release it. It'll make you feel good for a while. I've tried it. Yeah, you know, the funny part is that God has created us individually, so He's okay with us doing things uniquely us. We don't have to become somebody else to get there. You know, for the people, like for people who are writers, journaling it is a great, great venue to somebody who writes terribly. And they look at their handwriting and feel even worse. To be able to find a secondary way to do it, where they don't automatically feel like, know, here I am making another mess, but I need to get this out. A second venue is important, the letter writing. You can write it, you can type it, you can put it on as an email and then just not send it. The point is to get it out of you where God can see it, you can see it, and you're honest about it. Yes. And I'm safe. I've got both because I journal all the time and I don't have to worry about anybody. coming in and read my journal because it's so messy, they're not gonna be able to understand it anyway, but I do. Well, I agree. Well, Steve, think, you we've covered a lot of ground in just a little while. And I am so grateful that not only we got to know each other, but our ministry paths have crossed in ways that actually are very, very side by side. We believe the same things. I've always been about finding people where they're at, loving them for who they are, and then helping them see that God's love for them loves them where they're at, but would love to do beautiful things through them and in them when they just say, okay, God, I'm opening the door. It hurts. I'm scared. But if I don't jump off this cliff and trust you, I'm going to be who I am right now forever, and I don't want that. So here I am, I open my heart, let's do this. Whether they write it, whether they say it, whether they write it as a letter, whether they talk to a counselor, whether they sit down with their pastor, there's gotta be a way that you don't bottle it up. That it can come out so you and God are on transparent terms. Yes. And just to add to that, it's more effective. for me to act like Jesus than it is for me to talk about Jesus. And it is more impactful because I'll just love on somebody at Walmart, I love on somebody at McDonald's. just keep loving on them and every time I see them just like hey you're the most awesome person today that I've seen and I'm just so happy to see you and eventually they come around they're like why are you so nice to me why are you so different and that's when you're like well let me tell you about this Jesus guy because that's he's been living through me the every time that you talk to me and it's more impactful than being like hey do know where you're going if you die tonight yeah you know it's like what love doesn't know fear why would you all of a sudden start with fear It's just, it makes no sense. It's because they were taught that way. Yeah. But we need to break that because that's not effective, that's not useful. We need to earn the right to be heard. And then when we are, we've earned that right by loving them, by accepting them, by identifying with them, by being genuine. Then they're ready to listen to what it is that makes that difference. That's what we're talking about. It's kingdom living. It's love and light. That's all we're called to do. Heaven's going to be great. But we need to have heaven here now on earth. The kingdom's here. That's the first thing out of Jesus' mouth. The kingdom's here. He wants us to partake in it. This is the down payment for the rest of heaven. Yes, it is. Until it's all fully blended together, we're in a battle. We're in a war. And we just have to, you know, our weapon is love and light and truth. This has been amazing. And I am so grateful. So, so thankful that you made time to come and be on the podcast with me. And I'm honored to be here, David. And I'm praying that that people are going to feel that love and they're those that are struggling. We'll, see that ⁓ we're throwing out the life ring. you know, and for those that feel like they're drowning, we're throwing it out. You don't have to say, no, I don't know, that's, I want the pink one. You can just say, Lord, you're going to send me, you're going to send me a way out. And these guys just talked about it and I'm going to grab onto it and I'm going to have you help me step out in faith and pull me in. So I don't have to be stuck where I am. No matter what's happened to me so far, I don't have to be who I was. I can discover who I am and who you meant for me to be. And on that note, I think we've covered a of ground and I am so grateful for that. And I plan to have you back if you'll come. I'm more than happy to come back. And ⁓ for folks, you know, this podcast is new. We're learning by doing. But we're praying that something we do each time will be something that would speak to a heart. And that's our dream and our goal. And as we close, I'm gonna pray for us, just a simple prayer. And then we're gonna close after that. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for this privilege we have to share your love with the listeners and the viewers. Lord, we do this not so that people would join a building. We do this so people fall in love with you like we have. Lord, you can sort out where they go to church. You can pick out the Bible cup flavor with the type they want. But Lord, we want you to speak to their hearts so they'll open them and they can find the genuine you, the loving you, the one that accepts us, warts and all, failures and all, mistakes and all. You just love us. And I pray that that love will be felt and be real in the lives of those that are joining with us today. Father. Lord Jesus, Lord, we'll know everything we've said and done so that your love will be felt and known. And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. And thank you so much again, Steve. Until next time. I'm excited about this and we'll talk to you there. God bless. Thank you so much. God bless you. He's because he's there to help. This has been the God Says Yes Podcast with David Ebel. To connect with David, email him at godsaysyespodcast.gmail.com. You can get David's latest book, When the Doctors Say No, godsaysyes at amazon.com.