Paul Granger

David W Ebel: This is the God Says Yes podcast and I'm David Ebel, I'm your host. And I welcome you. This is a place without judgment, without people looking at us differently. This is a safe place where we can talk about our good times and our difficult times, the times that hurt. Whether you've been disappointed, you've been abused, whether you've been betrayed, or whether life just seems like it's not gone your way. This is a place where you can find hope. This is a place where new beginnings can start. And we're here for you. Not only can we do this now, but there's going to be an email at the end. You can write me and tell us about your problems and we'll address them live on our program because we're here for you, your needs, your concerns. So I want you to know you're always welcome here. I've got with me a good friend here. This is a brother of the Lord named Paul Granger. Paul has been a pastor a long time. He's a wise man. He does a lot of work dealing with people. who struggle. So he's my kind of guy and I'm looking forward to hearing what his story. So without further ado, Paul, welcome. it's great to be here, David. I appreciate it. You know, while you were talking, you talked about how this is ⁓ a place for hope. And I laughed a little in my head because ⁓ that has been a recurring theme ⁓ even today. It's just funny ways. ⁓ But also one that I know God is trying to push because, well, be honest. ⁓ Had a rough night last night, had a rough month. rough year, couple decades. It's just been a number of things that have been very hard and could be easy spaces to grow hopeless. And, you know, as you and I were talking and I was thinking about what God might use my mouth to say, ⁓ when you mentioned that this is a place for hope, what... really resonated in my mind is that part of this journey is us receiving hope when we feel like hope is impossible, coming to believe that God is a God of hope, that hope is real. But this other piece that when you hear the next parts of the story, which sometimes we don't, is how God ends up making us into a conduit of hope. that the purpose of it wasn't just for us to be in hardship, to receive hope, and then for the story to be better. You know, the apostles, one of them, probably Paul, the way he puts it is that, ⁓ you know, we're able to comfort with the comfort that we have received. That it wasn't that they were experts in comforting, it's that they needed to be comforted by God. And when God did that, he made them into conduits. And so. You as I mentioned, there's been a number of challenges and hardships and they could be separate podcasts and it of themselves. My wife and I navigating miscarriages, being in a toxic ministry environment, unjustly losing my job. My wife has been navigating some significant mental health issues and many of them spawned by an experience a couple of decades ago where she really felt as though she was in hell. ⁓ And there's these reverberations every year of that. But I feel like what God's leading me to talk about is not necessarily my story, but how he has worked in my stories has allowed him to then invite me to be a part of other stories. And the space that's most pressing on my mind right now is a community Bible study that I help facilitate. I'm very specific about using the word facilitate. Some people call me the leader of it. I'm like, nope, no. the Holy Spirit's the leader of it. I'm just the facilitator. I just work you. I have a responsibility to be mindful of what needs to happen, to become prepared, but also to hold it all loosely in case God wants to do something completely different. And there have been so many moments where that's been the case. But the reason that's so important is because if I was the leader, then I'm going to lead it based off of what I know, what I believe, what I've experienced. what I think should happen. And when we're talking about folks who are navigating hardship, ⁓ it is very common for people who haven't experienced that hardship or don't understand that hardship to make assumptions around what needs to happen, around how the person needs to be fixed. When sometimes what really needs to happen is for us to be a space in which the Holy Spirit can work. And so that's... what I really believe God wanted this community Bible study to be. And it started in 2019. ⁓ The guy who was leading it ended up rotating out, pandemic hit. But I was like, this needs to still happen. How can we make this happen? I reached out to the church and I'm like, I look, God has given me, I've been full-time volunteer in ministry for a while. God's given me the flexible schedule to facilitate this. Can we do this? And we finally brought it back. And why I think it's so important is because the folks who come through that door, so many of them are carrying some heavy, heavy weights, so heavy that they would not want to go to a normal meeting. so heavy that they don't have the strength for a traditional Bible study, where they have to think about things. Some of them are carrying weights that are so heavy that churches have actually rejected them, that they've tried to walk through the door of the church and they've been told, you don't look right, you don't sound right, you don't smell right, don't dot dot dot. And we wanna be a space where anyone can walk in whatever they're bringing to the table. and know that they are loved, not just by us, but by the God who has positioned us. Amen. And the reason that I know it's God is because there are so many times where my own hardships make me not want to facilitate something, make me want to just stay home. And the times where I say, okay, God, fine, yes, here I am, and show up ⁓ and know my limited capacity, know I have no strength to offer. are some of the most amazing times because when something does happen, I know that it's not me. I know that it's not my gifts or strengths or good ideas. The scripture talks about how God chooses those who aren't wise, those who are weak, those who are dot dot dot to shame those that are so that nobody is boasting in their own efforts, but God is giving the glory. And so I want to encourage people is. One, you and I know for a fact that God is a God of hope, that he can work in situations that seem not just improbable, but impossible. But when he does so, there is an element of that personal love, but there is also an invitation for us to be a part of this hope that he is pouring out that our lives. our stories, sometimes just our presence in spite of us, become those conduits of hope. Yes. And man, what a gift that that is. So I've said a lot of things, but I feel like some wheels are turning in your mind. They are. And, ⁓ you know, my life has been nothing but hardship. That's just how it is. Because I was born with birth defects. I've in chronic pains since I was six. ⁓ But when I met Jesus at 20, I'd already had my pity party. I'd already given up. I was three days from my fifth attempt on my life. And I went to church because the girl was cute, found Jesus, left the girl behind. God just changed my life profoundly. Now, He didn't decide to fix everything in my body. He decided to fix everything in my heart. He changed who I am, how I think. and what's going on in me and gave me the courage and the hope because I knew I was loved. And I think that's the thing that somehow in our communities these days, the idea that God loves us, it has been blown right off the chart like a leaf blower in the morning. It's like, yeah, yeah, God, whatever. But no, no, no, the God who created you, created you to love. And if he loves you, and he created you to love, he loves you anyhow, even if you goof up, even if you feel profoundly, even if you say you reject him, he still loves you. He's not firing you, even when you try to fire him. He's waiting for you to come to a place where you say, all right, I can't do this. All right, I'll trust you. And then he goes... And then he begins to show that love that he's had. Now he's done things in your life you didn't recognize as his love already. But now you get the aha moment where you go, ⁓ that's God's love. God actually loves me. And then life begins. The idea of enduring doesn't have to continue. Does it mean everything changes on the outside? Everything changes on the inside first. Now he made it choose and I've seen profound miracles. I've seen blind eyes that see again and hearing come back. We had a guy that entered one of the churches that I planted. His heart was so bad that they told him if he got excited it would explode. And so they gave him enough downers and stuff to, you know, he came to church going, hi, how are you? But we prayed for him in this little tiny handful of people. He came forward and said, I don't care whether your church believes it or not. I want you to adoint me with oil and pray for me because I can't stand this. Somebody had oil in their purse. We anointed him and prayed. And he went back to the cardiologist and the cardiologist said, ⁓ my God, let me take these tests again. After five sets of tests, They discovered that his heart was, all he had left was angina. He had a good heart. He went out and bought a farm and ripped out all the trees by the roots and planted and ran the farm for 10 years before he died silently in his sleep because he had a God moment. because God loved him even when he was at his worst and God shows in his case to physically heal him as well. But whether he touches our bodies, that's important. But what if he touches your life and your heart and takes you from the hell you've been in? and shows you that there's hope, that there's light. That's amazing. You can't buy that. You can't create that. There's no way you can even do that except by trusting Him. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah. And that trust is a journey in and of itself. As you were sharing, it made me think about the disciples. And they trusted Jesus enough to leave their livelihoods, to leave their understanding of life, to leave everybody they knew, and to follow this, I mean, stranger. And not just a stranger, but a strange stranger. He said some weird things, but they were in. They trusted him enough to do that. But we see throughout their journey moments where that trust was being invited to go deeper and deeper, to go from just being ⁓ intellectual to, you know, scripture talks about love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. They were having to learn to trust with the entirety of their being. And just when they thought that they trusted fully, you got Peter, who one has received divine spiritual revelation that Jesus is the son of God. Jesus says flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, right? So he's got access to this divine truth beyond himself versus later. Jesus is saying what he is gonna do and Peter rebukes him. No, you can't do that Jesus How dare you even say that right and then? We get the the powerful and heartbreaking passage where Jesus tells Peter that you're going to deny me and Peter knows he's not. He knows he would never, never deny Jesus. You see this resolve in him when they're in Gethsemane and the guards come and Peter pulls out the sword. Like he is willing to die for Jesus. But his trust hit a barrier where Jesus' death was not a blaze of glory. He did not look like a martyr. It was embarrassing. It was torture. And suddenly, Peter's trust was revealed to be limited. And it was heartbreaking, because he did end up denying Jesus three times and then had to live with that for the days after Jesus' death. But man, ⁓ man, when Jesus was on the shore cooking fish and Peter saw him, he was the first one jumping out that boat and swimming. And Jesus brings this restoration. But it's beautiful. It attaches to what you said. You were talking about love, and Jesus says, Peter, do you love me? Peter says, know I do. And then feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? I already told you. Yes, of course I love you. And feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Like he's, cause he is pressing Peter to not just have a gut response, but to really think about what he's saying. What does it actually mean to love Jesus? And then we get to see this lived out. And so this is the encouragement for us, right? Because even after this, Peter isn't perfect. He still makes mistakes. But that deepening level of trust allowed him to operate in ways beyond himself, beyond his understanding, beyond his capacity, beyond his desire. And this has been one of the gifts I've seen in my life. As I mentioned, ⁓ there are hardships that I could have been justified ⁓ in extricating myself from the situation. That toxic ministry environment. Pretty much everybody was coaching me to leave. And then when things got harder, they were blaming me for staying. But I had this sense that God was inviting me to stay and letting me know it would get harder. And the more I leaned into him, the more I was able to recognize when I was able to continue standing, when I was able to operate in love, when I felt peace, I knew it was not for me. I knew it couldn't be from me. I knew the times where I didn't want to show love. yet love came through me. And it comes with that willingness to be where God invites you to be. You know, I keep thinking about a friend of mine who passed this weekend. Her name was Joyce, and Joyce was a part of our community Bible study. You know, I'm very intentional about those words, community Bible study in that order, because that is the value of that space. Community first. Like, we want to be a space where anybody who's looking for fellowship, for family, for love, they can come in. Bible, the Bible's gonna be a part of it. Like, we want to talk about God's Word, because there's so much love and hope in it. And then study, that is also important, but if the spirit goes in another direction, or someone just needs to unload and vent about their life, like... the study can look different than traditional study. Now most Bible studies, it's flipped. The most important thing is we need to get through this passage. Like we need to dig into the Greek and the Hebrew and that can be great, but man, what I realized is if we do that without a willingness for the spirit to shake things up, we may miss out on things. And that's the challenge that Joyce presented because when I met her, she was already deep into navigating dementia. And the result of that is she was the most disruptive person I had ever met. Here we are trying to have conversation, trying to talk about the Bible, and in every minute she's interrupting and not interrupting on topic. but interrupting about things that had nothing to do with what we were talking about. And not just doing that, but interrupting with the same thing, because she had forgotten. She had already asked this question. She forgot. And I remember sitting there, and I'm like, this, like, we can't even get through anything. And the human logic would say that's a problem. Like, she probably shouldn't be here. This isn't the space for her. It's fine. Like, you know, there could be another space, but this is not designed for her. Except God had already said, yes, it was. Like, this is supposed to be for whoever walks in the door. So how in the world do we do a community Bible study when someone is interrupting over and over and over again? So I knew she was supposed to say, I knew that I was not supposed to stifle her, but I'm thinking about everyone else as the facilitator. I'm like, are they getting angry? Are they getting frustrated? Like, what do we do? and we go through this hour and barely make any movement in whatever passage we were reading. And at the end she, she interrupts while someone's talking and said, Pastor Paul, can I say something at the end? And I'm like, she's going to ask for something. But God said, yep, let her. And so was like, yeah, that's fine. And so at the end, she was like, I just want to thank all of you because I will sit outside my house and wave at people and no one will wave at me. No one will talk to me, but I come here and you all listen to me. And suddenly that idea of listening took a different form, right? Because we listen to get information and she's just giving the same information. So at some point it's tiresome to listen. because she said this 12 times. But the way she needed to be heard was not in the words that she was saying, but in the presence that that listening creates. And that really convicted me. Because if we cannot create spaces for someone like Joyce who's navigating dementia, if our traditional spaces don't accommodate that, then are we actually being the body of Christ as we're invited? But here is the hilarious part of this is I don't remember the exact passage that we were talking about, but I do know it was a passage about love. And what it was calling us to, if we had rejected her, if we had stifled her, we would have not been living out that passage. group had felt the same sense that she needed to be there and we needed to love her. And at the end, after she left, we looked around at each other like, ⁓ my gosh, God was trying to teach us a lesson during this Bible study. And you learned it. And we learned it. And I'm still learning it, right? We don't just learn a lesson once and then we got it. Like Peter, I gotta keep on learning it. Well, but one of the interesting things in ministry is when you start out, especially when you get trained into ministry, they say, this is the box. You're going to minister here. This is what we expect from you. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And you do that. And then you look around and you see all the stuff that's not in the box. And you try to reach out a little bit and they go, no, no, no, no, no, no, the box is over here. And as time goes on and you grow, you push back a little bit. You say, I'll do what you asked, but I'm going to do this Bible study. But I'm going to run a Christian coffee house. But I'm going to do a visitation for people who are shut in in a nursing home and do a church service for them. But it doesn't matter what it is, as long as I've been faithful to the box, then I still have room to be Jesus with skin on, to be that warming person. And you know, even if you don't have a group to go to. you can still go and be that person in a nursing home. Boy, they need someone to listen to them. Or, I mean, there's a lot of places you can be. You know, somebody's in hospice. guarantee you that there's nothing they'd rather do than have someone listen. Just lovingly hear them. So we're on the same tone right here. This is exactly where we need to be. yeah. And what I hope people hear is, that this really is accessible to anyone because it's not because of you, it is because of the spirit working through you. I wanna make sure people hear that because what usually happens is there are the separate boxes of this is mercy ministry, this is outreach ministry, this is dot, dot, dot, this is addiction ministry, right? And... The people who serve in those spaces are the people called to those spaces, gifted in those spaces, knowledgeable in those spaces. And while that is true, there will be individuals ⁓ equipped for those spaces. ⁓ What unfortunately happens is then everybody else avoids those spaces. Because that's for the outreach ministry. That person walking in who is clearly homeless, like, I'll let the outreach person deal with them. Because they're equipped, and I'm not equipped. Well, what you and I know is how many times in our life we knew for a fact we were not equipped. We were not the right person for the job. All the And yet God's, right? And this is scripture, right? Moses. God knew who Moses was. He created Moses fearfully and wonderfully made knit together in his mother's womb, kept him alive, brought him to the burning bush. And he said that Moses, this is what you're going to go do. And Moses's response was, you got the wrong guy because I can't talk well. You got any, he pushes back over and over because he knows what he is incapable of God of doing. And God knew Yeah, you are incapable, but I am capable. know, as Paul puts it, ⁓ my weakness, God is so strong. And so I want to encourage anyone who feels these limitations, who's like, I don't know what I would do in that situation. I don't know how to talk to that person. Great. You are actually in a better position than many people who might be in ministry but feel like it's based off their own strength and understanding. When we go into these spaces with that level of humility saying, I can't do this, but God can, so here I am, then we actually are following in the footsteps of so many of the heroes of the faith who were not experts. And then when we see God work, it's like we said over and over. We know it was him and suddenly we are drawn deeper into relationship with him, which means we've become conduits of him at a deeper level. Amen. Well, we've only gone through half of our hour and we nearly hit some wonderful and valuable things. Well, I thought maybe we take a little bit of a left turn. if you had 15 minutes to really look into the hearts of the people who were listening. What would be the golden nugget? What would be the most valuable thing you could share with them that would help them the most? Why don't you take a minute and mull that over? Because I think that you've got something God wants you to say, and I don't want to be in your way, but I sense that we're aimed in the same direction and we're not here by accident. That doesn't do oops, he does define greatness. I appreciate that. And I appreciate your willingness to take the left turns. Because in the world of podcasting, that's a dangerous thing to do, you know? But you're not in the world of podcasting. You're in the world of, you know, being who God wants you to be and doing what God wants you to do. ⁓ I'm at Hopecasting. There you go. And as you said it, like it was pretty immediate. I don't have all the words yet, but the core of it is there. it really hits on this idea of how we understand this journey that we are on. If we are trying to know God, if we're trying to live for God, we have this profound misunderstanding of how the journey works. And it's understandable because we exist in a culture, we are raised in ways that are very much about the point A to point B. And that's often how Christianity has been presented. You were dead in your sin. and you want to get to heaven. boom. And the reality is, it's actually more like what we talked about with Peter. that Peter was on this ongoing journey where he was constantly learning more about who God is, who Jesus is, who the spirit is. And mind you, he had gone to temple, he had heard the scrolls read. He knew a lot of stuff intellectually. ⁓ But it's amazing how we can know so much and still miss so much. And so my big encouragement for those listening is The normal ways of seeking God are great when they're going great. But when we feel like we are not worth God's love, when we have messed up again for the 20th time just today, when we're like, I'm just the chief of sinners. You the apostle Paul has nothing on me because I'm worse than he is. When we have tried to seek God and all we hear is silence. Like in all these scenarios, journeying towards God doesn't just become difficult. It can start to feel hopeless. And eventually we could start to question whether the journey was right at all. Because we have in our mind the destination. That if I seek God then I will be a super Christian or at least I'll be a good Christian I'll be you know, I'll be living in certain ways. I won't be doing this anymore. I won't be doing that anymore I will know this about God. I will pray regularly. I will read my Bible regularly We get all these ideas around what a good healthy Christian is and then when we aren't living it Everything gets confusing and frustrating and again hopeless and The picture in my mind was if that's what we're thinking about, it's like if I was trying to go from Richmond to California, ⁓ there's two ways to get there, right? One is destination focused. It is I'm trying to get to the other coast, therefore I'm gonna hop on a plane because then it's just a number of hours instead of days or weeks. But if it's actually, about the journey, that the destination matters, but there is something about the journey. That's where you get something like a road trip, a family, rents an RV, they hop in and they start going and yeah, they're going to different destinations, but deep down, it's their connection to each other, their experience with each other. And what if that's what God has for us? Not that we immediately get to this destination, but that we are actually journeying with Him. And so the encouragement for those listening is that that starts today. The journey is already happening. And I want to give you peace in knowing that you may want to take these faithful leaps. But what if, what if all you have to offer today is the toe nudge forward? That toe nudge not just feels like nothing, but actually looks like nothing. But if you take a million toe nudges forward, you're going to make some distance. God can control the time of it, right? Like, Step today in whatever way you can, releasing all the expectations that you carry with it because you said something earlier and I can't remember what it was, but it touches at this idea that God already loves us. He's already chosen us. We did not choose him. He chose us. And so that's the hard part. We don't have to prove that we're worthy of his love. We don't have to prove that we're worthy to be Christians. The apostle Paul was chosen and after being chosen, after preaching in churches, after missionary journeys, after writing books that we now read, he's sitting there and thinking, I don't understand what I'm doing because what I know I'm supposed to do, I don't do it. And what I don't want to do. That's the thing I keep on doing. And I know what I'm supposed to do, and yet I keep on doing the wrong thing. And it's the sin living in me and what a wretch I am. What hope is there? Because again, he should know better more than anyone else. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, a Hebrew of Hebrews, unto the law blameless. If anybody should be getting it right, it should be him. And he is doing what he hates to do. He says, what a wretch I am. What hope is there for me? And then he says, thanks be to Jesus. He said, that's the encouragement. No matter how broken you feel, no matter how lost you feel, no matter how much you think you've ruined your chances, God already loves you. Amen. He's already chosen you. And he's inviting you to step today. Mm-hmm. You know, what's amazing to me is that you can't feel God. can mess up, but the love is still there. It's like a three-year-old child who sees the ice cream truck. And you're the good parent, and you see the car coming. And that child sees the ice cream truck. ⁓ And the good parent reaches out and says, no, you're not going over there. Even though the three-year-old throws a hissy fit, he doesn't understand because he doesn't see the greater picture. That dad just saved his life. He just says, want ice cream. He doesn't think about the ice cream in the freezer. He doesn't think about how mom and dad treat him well all the time. He just wants what he wants right now. And that's really the behavior of a lot of us. We want what we want right now, even if we know that God has a different plan, we don't stop long enough to find out what His plan is. We want to write that plan for Him, and that's when we crash and burn. When we hear God, let me do this in your name. That's a recipe and disaster with His name all over it, even though He didn't invite it. Yet, I mean, in my early days of ministry, I'm guilty of that like crazy. It took life and mentoring to get me past stupid. Because I did stupid so well, it took people being patient with me to talk me out of doing what my flesh told me was what I should be doing for God. Your old fleshly nature is at war with the things of God. So it's gonna be a battle. It just is. But the person who loves him enough says, I don't care what my body says. body shut up in the name of Jesus I'm gonna do what it is. If I go love people I'm gonna love twice as many. If he gives me a bad day I'm gonna go do twice as much good. No matter what's going on I'm gonna glorify God anyhow because I love him anyhow. don't look for what he... he's not my cosmic Santa Claus. He's the reason I'm alive. He's the reason I have purpose. He's the reason I have enough health to be here today. He's given me children. He's given me a life. I don't deserve anything, Based on the life I started with, I deserve hell. know, Mr. Parking. I certainly did enough wrong that I certainly didn't deserve anything with God's. Yet, He waited for me to hit my bottom. When I no longer could intellectually worm my way out of things, which was my biggest guilty pleasure, was me being in control. When I asked him for forgiveness, he forgave me. And then he slowly taught me how to forgive myself. And that's when life started to get good. And if he did it for me, with all my problems, shoot, he should be able to do that for anybody. because we're not much better or smarter or more talented or more skilled. They have a few extra skills one way or the other. mean, guy can open the hood and fix his car. I open the hood and make a ⁓ mechanic money because I'll break it worse. So we all have different skills, but we all have the same need to get beyond what we can do. and start trusting God for what He'd love to do in our lives. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the real challenge is... Maybe we get on board with that, but we don't really internalize the deep truth of a verse like Ephesians 3.20, which says, him who's able to do immeasurably more than we ask for or imagine because of the power at work within us. There's a few things we miss in that. That last piece is usually left out because of the power at work within us. That's important because it's like we said, it's not just about my understanding, my gifts, my skills. It is about this helper, this advocate that Jesus talked about. actually working through us. But that middle piece, we take it as a really great thing that, ⁓ God's doing greater stuff. Yay! And yes, but we miss that important piece right after. He can do immeasurably more than we ask for or imagine, which means whatever we're asking for is actually small, if not wrong compared to what he is trying to do. What we're imagining is limited. Like our creativity is junk compared to God's creativity. And a lot of times when we're in these situations and we have the plans that God should be doing, it's hard because we know our plans are good. God, wouldn't it be better for you as well if my body was healed, if this job worked out, if dot dot dot. And meanwhile, you see Jesus in his ministry, one thing he didn't do was physically heal everybody. He healed people. There's a lot of people he didn't heal and we don't really contend with that reality. There's this story where these friends have a friend who is crippled and can't even walk to Jesus. And so they put him on a cot and they can't get through. There's so much grass. So they go up on the roof, tear up this stranger's roof, lower this friend down. because they want Jesus to heal them. The guy wants to be healed by Jesus. And you know what Jesus does? He doesn't heal them. Not at first, at least. The first thing he does is actually the deeper healing, a spiritual healing. He says, your sins are forgiven. ⁓ What Jesus knew in that moment is that that was the true healing the friend needed. That he could actually continue his life bound to a cut and yet have the most fulfilling reality he'd ever known. Exactly. He did choose to heal him, but it wasn't because the person needed it. Jesus recognized the scoffing and thoughts of the Pharisees in the corner and he's like, all right, so that you can understand what's really going on here, also go ahead and get up, take your mat and go. And so when we think of healings, when we think of God's plans and work, we're usually limited to what would make for a better life for me. And you know what? Sometimes we are right. actually that might actually be the best plan if the most important thing was our here and now life. But what if God is inviting us to something beyond ourselves? What if God is inviting us to something beyond these bodies and these lives which will eventually fade away to something eternal? And how beautiful is it when we begin to lean into and understand that because now everything that was great in the temporal unlimited is small compared to the stuff that's eternal, the stuff that goes beyond body to heart, mind, soul and strength. And we're, like you said, all invited to this space to be a part of this because God is already choosing to work in and through our lives. I love it. You know, and people limit God so much. ⁓ live in a world now of instant gratification. We live in microwave faith. When we want lunch, we throw it in the microwave. Two minutes later, we get a pot pie. We can eat an actual heated meal in two minutes. We watch a program. If you don't like it, click. Click. Click. And then when we pray and God doesn't do it, we want to go click. Click. We want to say, OK, well, I'm praying. Do something. But sometimes, God has three answers. He says yes. He says no. He says wait. And all three of them are valid because he's the dad that's protecting the child from getting wiped out by the ice cream truck. He sees the big picture. He knows what yes, no, and wait mean to what's greatest for us eternally. Mm-hmm and some you know, I mean people have in their intentions have prayed for me and anointing me with oil I've been praying with I've been anointed with every kind of oil, but 10w 40 I've been giving whale oil and all kinds of stuff. So, I mean if if God had every shot And I believed that if God wanted to I Was ready He may be better. There's some things he did heal I wouldn't be here right now. But he did sort of targeted things. I'll do this and you'll hang around longer. But he didn't do that or the other thing. And you know, it's worked out okay. My life's been good. I can't really regret. Matter of fact, I can't regret at all ⁓ how good he's been to me in spite of everything this world would try to throw at me. And that's the same with what we're talking to our listeners, to our viewers. No matter what's been thrown at you, God's got a better way. You go to church and you hear da da da da. That's a good piece of it. But there's even more that you can learn. There's even deeper you can go. And I don't mean leave the church and go out and do something strange. You can do just, God, I'm hungry for more of you. as I read your word teach me something to your Holy Spirit which is supposed to teach me teach me show me something and then go to church and say Lord I don't know what the pastor is going to preach but please make my heart open so I learn something it's about being hungry and open we want God to do stuff we got to leave him room when company comes you don't just let the house be the way it is you spiff it up a little bit so that he feels welcome she feels welcome And don't tell me people don't do, they don't clean their house. I've been married 52, almost 52 years. And I guarantee you that even now my wife knows somebody's coming, boom, we're cleaning. That's just how it is. And I'm gonna turn the phone off. I don't know who that is, but I don't care. So more importantly though is you and me. You and I are on our way. ⁓ We're trusting God for special and amazing things. And I am excited with what God can do and will do and is willing to do with every one of us who's hoping to trust Him. So we're down to closing words. And that's great. So first thing is, Paul, I want you to tell us about any books that you've written that you've asked for before. Yeah. What I feel like God's invited me to is not traditional ministry. is ministry as a lifestyle. That my life would be trying to figure out what it means to be an ambassador of Christ. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, and even while I'm dreaming, I guess. And one of the clear invitations I've since from God is to cultivate authentic, accessible space. And that can be through content, through community, through connection, through conversation, big ways, small ways. And so you mentioned books. I started creating podcasts back in 2018, and then I felt like God was inviting me to actually write. 2019 is when I felt a clear sense from God. But in the last few years, I've self-published around two dozen books. and everything from devotionals to fiction. And I laughed earlier talking about hope ⁓ because I mentioned there's been a lot of different things that have happened. And I went to grab a very different book and I couldn't find it. And so was like, I'm just going to grab whatever. And this is the book that I grabbed, Hope and Affliction, 52 Reflections Amidst a Difficult Year. This was not a book I set out to write. What this was was a step of obedience. I served with Youth with a Mission, ⁓ River City, YWAM River City. And one of the ways that I felt like God was inviting me to serve them in 2024 was we had this new website, it needed content. And so I felt like God was saying, I want you to write a reflection each week. He did not say I want you to write a blog, even though it became a blog. What he was inviting me to was to sit with him. at the computer and process through my fingers onto the keys, letting the spirit guide it wherever. And it was amazing. It was particularly amazing because it was a very difficult year. I did not want to write. I did not want to do much of anything, but I had committed. I had said, yes, God, I will spend this time with you. And what came out of that? Sure, hopefully encouraging to other people, but... there was a lot that God did within me through those weekly reflections. And then I get to the end of the year and I feel like God's saying, Hey, Paul, guess what? I gave you a book. You've already written it. You've been writing it all year and you didn't know it. And so these are 52 of those ⁓ reflections with this through line of as I wrote them, I was at the end of myself sometimes. I was frustrated with God sometimes. I didn't have answers sometimes. And yet, God brought me to a place where I left each time understanding him a little more deeply or leaning into hope a little more hopefully. And so, you know, my hope in this is that somebody who is feeling like they're in the midst of a difficult year can find encouragement. If they flip to a random page, My hope is that God's like, ⁓ no, that wasn't random. I needed you to read this thing. But that's the deeper hope for anything I do. It's not any acclaim. I don't make money off of it. I give away a lot of this stuff for free. It's not about the traditional things it's supposed to be about. It's that if at the end of my life I see no fruit, but I get to have in God's like, well done my good and faithful servant. Thank you for being responsible with that thing I gave you that brought you nothing during your life. Thank you. That's good enough for me because I trust God with it. And so that's my hope is that I can be that space for others in whatever form. I agree. I'm of the opinion that when we get to heaven, God's going to say, by the way, let me introduce you to the people you touch. And you're going to go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I just did this little thing. He said, yeah, but look what I did with that little thing. thousands of lives have been changed because you were obedient rather than talented. You did what I asked you to do, even when it didn't feel good. But shoot, that's in all of our lives. If we're obedient, God's gonna do things that we didn't even catch on that's what's going on. he wants is just, if we know he's a good father, and if we've had a bad father, don't use that as our picture. at the ideal father, the father that we dream of having, and then multiply that by a thousand that you've got God. So you've got this heavenly father who only wants good for you. And he motivates you. to start doing good in Him. He's pouring His love through His Holy Spirit through you, like a soda straw on a hot day when you're thirsty. You don't love the straw, but you're grateful it was there. And that's what we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be the conduit of love, whether we're recognized or approved of, or ad-avoid or not. But if we do these things, even if they're little, I've had people say, well, I can't do much. I can't offer much. Well, the much you can't give, how much do you got? Well, I can do this and this. Well, there you go. With what you've got, you could be an intercessory prayer warrior. I can. Well, the only reason why you haven't is because you didn't start yet. You can write little blogs, little pieces that can be put in the church bulletin. Write a few and show them to the pastor, see what he thinks. Doing nothing means you've done nothing. Ask God what you can do and let Him do it through you. And accept the freedom to, for it to not be bound to the things that we think we're supposed to do. ⁓ If you're just faithful with your life, God can work through it even though you're not doing any overt ministry thing. It makes me think of my wife and I really genuinely want to honor God by loving our kids well. And one day our neighbor came up to us and she's like, I just want you to know I've seen God so much through y'all in the way that you interact with your kids. And my wife and I's first thought was, ⁓ no, we didn't know people were watching us. I hope we were good. But then like we calmed down and realized like we were not doing that for show. We were just trying to be faithful and loving our kids. And someone we didn't know was watching saw that. And so for those listening, just be faithful to love God and love others with. what you have, with where you are, with who you are, because you have no idea in that eternity moment, somebody you've never met before comes up and says, ⁓ yeah, no, I overheard you saying this on the bus, and you're like, I don't even remember saying that, much less being on a bus, but it's not for us to craft these stories. God is an amazing author. And so all you bring to the table sometimes is just the willingness. to be written into the story, to be used in the story, and that is enough. The sermon of your life may be the only Bible some people will ever get to read. So if you live well, be a good mirror reflecting the love of God, even in the smallest ways, someone is watching. and they're going to make a decision whether Christians are grumpy old people who are miserable or they're joyous and we're curious why. And it doesn't take fancy, doesn't take going to college, it takes one thing, choosing to love God and then letting God love through you. And you know that that leads us to to is there any other links or or or websites or anything you want to talk about? Well, like I said, my main hope is to cultivate space. And so if there is any way that I can do that, where did you see God dot com is where you can find the podcasts, the books, some videos. Slow down and say that again. Yeah. People can wear. Yeah, where did you see God.com? Cool. like that. Then I've been sitting on it since 2018. So I'm glad to hear it. Right now. Where did you see God? because that's something that needs to be out there. Because people, a lot of times people watch it, they don't know what to do with it once they've seen it. So you've given them a venue, an opportunity, a place to talk about it. That's awesome. So I want to thank you, Paul. This has been splendid. This has been, I'm sure that God is up there smiling right now. Because we've... We made sure we did it right, we told the truth, we did it in love, and we promised people what God has promised us. So we did good because we've given them the hope that they can do good. And it's not about us, it's about you, the listener, the viewer. We're doing this so that you can find hope, so you can learn about God's love and apply it to your life. so that you don't have to be stuck in the gloom, in the depression, in the sorrow, in the bitterness, in the rejection, all those ugly feelings. You can rise above those with the love of God. Now, if you don't know how to do that, as we close the podcast, my email address is going to be on the screen. What it is is it's God Says Yes podcast at gmail.com and you can, like I said at the beginning, you can write me. And one, you can tell me what's concerning you, your problems. You can vent all you want. You can go to six paragraphs if you need to. Secondly, if you've got something that you think is important enough and you'd like me to consider having you on the program to work through your problem live on the program, I'll consider it. I'll pray about it and I'll talk to you. But in all cases, if you want me to respond, you provide a phone number as well. because sometimes the fastest way to get to the heart of a problem is not another email. It's a person to person connect. And I'm more than willing to connect with you. So we've done a good job today. We've told the truth. We've loved people. We've encouraged others. And I think God is proud to know that His word has been lifted up, ⁓ people know that God has got a great plan for their lives. And I'm grateful for the chance to have done that with you. So as we close, want Paul, would you like to pray us a huge prayer? Yeah, I'd love to. And I'm to pray a verse. The other reason I laughed about hope is because I've started a devotional study of working through verses on hope. And I want to read this as I go into the prayer. The one I pulled out today was Lamentations 324. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope in him. So Father God, we just thank you that you are God and you are good. And right now we acknowledge that there are so many moments where you do not feel like our portion to us. We feel hungry. We feel famished. We are longing for you. When even though our mind and our body and our strength may be failing, Sometimes our soul can pick up on what we miss that you actually are enough that you are our portion And that it is that reality that can lead us to say therefore I put my hope in you And so I pray right now father God for anyone who feels famished spiritually who feels famished physically intellectually I thank you that you already are their portion, that you already love them, that you already are with them. And I pray that they would hear that quiet voice that is speaking truth and that that truth would be enough for them to say, therefore, I will put my hope in you. I ask for your holy and precious name, amen. Amen. Again, thank you so much for being with us. This has been, God says yes, and I hope he has said yes to you today. Any way we can be a blessing, let us know and we'll look forward to talking to you next time. Keep seeking. 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.