Mike Van Pelt

David W Ebel: Welcome to the God Says Yes podcast. You are welcome here. Hello and welcome back to another ⁓ issue of God's, God Says Yes. And my name is David Ebel and my ministry for over 50 years has been showing people how God loves them and how much he wants to do beautiful things in their lives. So today in our podcast discussion, I have my friend Mike Van Pelt. And Mike and I have known each other a while and ⁓ he's an exciting guy and he's really got a mission for sharing the love of God. And that's what excites me. So I'm glad that he's here and I'm going to invite Mike to introduce himself to you and then we'll have a few questions and discussion. Mike, welcome. well david thanks for having me i love this old idea of god saying yes i i feel like he's said yes to us communing here and and and ⁓ sharing the word of god and and i'm so grateful for that yeah so ⁓ My name's Mike van Pelt or as my close friends call me MVP. Yes, it's ⁓ those are my initials. What a blessing it is. And my two younger brothers also, and Matt share those same initials. So we have a lot of fun with that, but I always remind them, David, I am the oldest and that is means I'm king of the house. So, but I am a Christian men's mentor. I'm a speaker and an author. I guess one of the things I commonly say is I help men make their mess their masterpiece and I'm a big believer in second chances redemption and comebacks and I love I love comeback stories and I love the second chances that we get in life and so I love working with men to help them reclaim that opportunity and to draw closer to Christ and find their purpose in life and And in my experience, there's no doubt about it that when you draw closer to God and you really grab hold of that intimacy with Christ, that's where you can find your purpose and that's where you can find your life. At least that's my story and I don't think I'm unique, but it's great to be here with you, David. Well, we're really glad you're here. The fact that you have a ministry to men is huge because in the multiple generations before you and I are sitting here. ⁓ The church has become increasingly female-oriented because the guys didn't know how to fit in and they really weren't invited to step in. the numerics were, you know, women 25, men 2. you grow it a little bigger, the percentages don't seem to change that much. And, but, you know, when God sees the church, he sees the church as people, not as he's and she's, as family. And in that regard, he sees us as all valuable, all important, and he has a plan for every single soul. He created us from the inside out. So we're, custom made. There's no two of us the same and that's the way it's supposed to be. It's not the outside, it's the inside. We were created in God's image. And because we're created in His image, He has great plans for us. As soon as we are willing to say, okay God, I know very little and you know a whole lot, so I'm going to surround myself with you. I want to get in deep so I can learn and absorb and grow and stop being who I was and start being who you want me to be. That's the plan for all of us. And I'm glad you're here to be a part of it. I always ask the question, who were you? Who are you and who do you expect to be? Wow, there's a lot in there. I can tell you at one point, and I think this is important part of my story, who was I? You know, there was a point in my life where I was suffering an identity crisis, to be sure. I had... ⁓ blast to on almost thirty years ago to have met and married my wonderful life jill and ⁓ she's been an incredible blessing in my life but we had two young kids we had just freshly moved to south carolina and i was really going through a challenge with that move i thought that I would move there with her. took a job and we moved there and I thought, well, okay, this is going to be a great opportunity for me to start over and things just weren't going well. And I remember just feeling lost. Like I've never been happy in my career. I can't find anything that I want to do. know, what are we, I just don't know what to do. And I had been in the insurance and financial services market, but I really wasn't something that I felt It wasn't driving me, but I took a six month leadership course and when it was over. I realized, and I always had been an avid lover of leadership. I wanted to understand what made leaders tick, what made coaches tick. I've always been passionate about sports and my coaches and my teachers. What made successful people tick? And so that leadership course really captured over a six month period, really captured my attention. And when it was done, I was like, now what do I do? I don't know how to follow this up. I loved learning about that. As I was talking with my wife that we were even though our kids were young we were talking about the importance of education You got to get an education and it occurred to me. I had not completed my college education and So my wife said hey, you know stay at home with the kids figure out what you want to do and we're good be a stay-at-home dad. And I did that. And I worked with a career coach and realized, you know what? I want to go back and get my college degree. I want to be a role model for my children. And so I went back. I completed my business degree, finished it in business leadership, of course, because I wanted to understand more about how to be a great leader. And during that time frame, David, I was ⁓ doing a tremendous amount of stuff in my community, volunteering in the community. ⁓ and also doing a lot of stuff in my church, committees, councils, I was doing it all. And I loved it. I really, really loved it. I loved the nonprofit community. And I thought, I think God's calling me that direction. and it was there that it was at that point I decided well maybe I can go out and work for a nonprofit. Nothing. Nobody wanted to hire me. I couldn't find anything and I thought okay I still love this. I love volunteering. I love this stuff. What do these executive directors have that I don't have? Well some of them actually have master's degrees. Mike you've been on this role go get your master's degree. So I go get my master's degree. Now I have a master's degree a massive amount of volunteer experience. I even got certified to be a grant writer, David, believe it or not. ⁓ And I go out and I'm thinking to myself, I've got a sales background, I've got business savvy, certainly somebody's going to want to hire me to ⁓ be in fundraising or something. Nothing. Complete crickets. And I began to internalize the nose. And now I'm full of shame. I'm a man, I identify with my career, that's what we were brought up to do, and everybody's saying no, and I'm a stay at home dad. And I really had to evaluate after that, what direction do I want to go? And I knew some people doing some business consulting, and so I switched gears and realized, hey, maybe you need to make it happen for you. And so I started doing some business consulting. met a man at a networking group, Paul Bailey, and him and I hit it off. And it was during our initial meeting that we had a conversation about God and the role that God played in our life. And so the networking group, we thought we would start our own networking group, never got off the ground. We immediately shifted into a men's small group outside the church walls. And I've been a Christian all my life, but I did not know intimacy with Christ. And as you know, David, there's a gap. That's a huge gap in one's life. And when Paul and I started our group, which we named True Man, name of my business, True Man Life Coaching, ⁓ podcast, True Man podcast, you can see how I just brought it along. But Paul and I, we wanted freedom. We wanted more out of life. And we were asking more than inch deep conversations. And we were really going out trying to figure out how to be the best men we could be from a Christian perspective. And I landed at a men's retreat and it was on a Saturday morning where the church, or the church, where the camp director. Got up in front of everybody and said today we're gonna play three worship songs and I want you to hear These songs as God's singing them to you and they played the first song it was by Josh Groban called you were loved I never heard that song. It's not a worship song, but it's a very godly song and It was in that moment. I heard God come to me and say you are my beloved son I want an intimate relationship with you and in an instant I almost hit the floor and I remember looking around the room going, if this happened to me, if this happened to anybody in this room outside of me, where do these men go? Who do they talk to? Where do they go? I had so many questions, but it immediately changed my life because I realized that God wanted an intimate relationship with me and I wanted it too. And so I set out to discover what that was, but it was a complete shift in my life. It was a demarcation point of everything that was to come that even, you know, takes me to this day. where I've been an author, where I'm doing a podcast, where the people that he's brought into my life are a direct result of me drawing closer to him. And in so many ways, I see it as a redemption for me, a comeback. And so as I... talk with men as I see other men who are laboring trying to figure everything out on their own. I let them know it doesn't have to be like that. And I'm here to help if you want it. All you have to do is raise your hand and ask for help, which is the ⁓ keynote speech that I now talk about. And I like a lot of men tried to go it alone. for a large portion of my life. And it just didn't work. And when I leaned in a little closer to God, when I leaned into other men that were seeking the same thing that I was seeking, my life just changed. so here we are today, David, where 10 years ago, I couldn't even tell my story. And now I can't wait to get it out, hoping. hoping that it makes a difference for somebody else. I love it. So now ⁓ with all that's going on, today's mission, what you're in the midst of right now, even as we're talking, you're putting together a summit. You to tell us about it? Yeah, this was an interesting thing that happened. ⁓ I have a friend ⁓ and I'll just tell you, is Scott Schilling. kudos Scott, he's been involved in the speaking arena for many, years. And I reached out to him and I said, know, Scott, did a chapter in a book a couple of years ago, a collaborative book called The Power of Asking for Help. And I knew when I wrote it that I felt like that that was a keynote speech. was partly my story, but I felt like it was everybody's story ⁓ from the standpoint of everybody just trying to do everything on their own. I said, Scott, I've reached a point in my life where I know I could deliver this today, but I think it would probably be mediocre at best. And I said, I don't want to be mediocre anymore. I want to be the best. want to work with the best. want to talk with the best. want to be around the best and I want to go out and impact the world for good. Do you know anybody that can help me? And Scott, of course, said, yeah, I can do it. And so we started working together to build what I consider to be a very impactful talk ⁓ on the power of asking for help. And in the middle of all that, We were having a conversation one day and I talking about how I felt like American family values had just slipped away. And I could see his wheels turning and he said to me, I keep having this word Renaissance pop up into my head as we're talking about this. And what quickly happened was we put it together and we started talking about the American family Renaissance and how we may be able to impact the world from that standpoint. Because you see, it's one thing to do things online, but of course it's different to take them out to the public. And I really want to get more out into the public and start speaking from stages and bringing this out into the world and doing workshops and those types of things. And so Scott started talking about how the important values of God, family and country had been lost. And so we sought out to do something about it. And I happened to purchase a summit package a few years ago. And so we sought out six speakers to come along with us where we could bring something together That was a quick half day online thing where we could give men the wisdom around asking for help and in bringing back the values of God family and country. And so that's what I've been working on and it's really, really been an exciting thing to pull together. And as I told you earlier, David, I'm not 100 % sure how it's all gonna come together, but I know with God on my side, we're gonna pull this together. And I think that it's ⁓ gonna be something that's really gonna be able to help a lot of men, not just men, I should say, but when I help men, I'm helping their families. And when we're helping their families, we're helping the churches you know, become stronger and we're helping communities get better. So there's a ripple effect to this because I want to see men bloom and I want to see men be the best they can be. And a lot of us just weren't raised or we don't know what does that take? And we need to get around other men to understand that. So how do we start? I think we start by coming together. One of the things I am very, very ⁓ pro on is men getting together in small group. And I'm not talking about the latest sports game or the NCAA tournament going on as we record right now. I'm talking about asking deep questions, deep stuff. You know, what I have found is when we can get deep, then we will go wide and be better men. And so it's imperative that we get together in small. What is small group? 10, maybe 12 guys tops, right? So that everybody is active and involved. Maybe you're on a weekly basis. Maybe it's every other. doesn't matter. However you want to set it up. But I believe what it intentionally becomes is not just a Bible study, but a mastermind where you guys can come together and really learn from each other. We've all had different experiences. is in our life. And one of the common things that I've heard said at many of these groups is, ⁓ you too? Like, guys, I have a news flash for you. You're not hiding your stuff trying to pack it deep down inside you. What you're experiencing, what you may have gone through when you were seven, eight, nine years old, it happened to somebody else too. Exactly. You're not alone in your stuff that's gone on. Somebody else has suffered a porn issue. Somebody else was abused. And it's important to look in the mirror and discover, you know, what those things are so you can heal from them. And God wants you to heal from them. And he wants us to be together as men learning from each other. And so I really am big in starting small group being and it doesn't matter if it's inside the church walls, by the way, I want to say that. course scripture tells us where two or more gather. It's church anyway. So it doesn't have to be a church. It could be outside the church wells. could be, I meet in a coffee shop every Friday with a group of men. And ⁓ and by the way, every day, every time I walk in on a Friday morning, there's another group sitting over to the side. So coffee shops across America or McDonald's in the corner or wherever the heck you feel like you need to meet. There's ample opportunity to gather men and be together around the old fire pit. Nothing better than the old fire pit, right David? I mean, you get around the fire pit and it breaks the walls down and you tell stories. I think it's important. I think it's really important that people realize that when men get together, without the facade, without the need to be men, to just be themselves, the first thing that happens is there's a shock. I can do this? I can actually do this? And I have been a speaker at men's camps and I've been as a pastor, I've I've taken many, many, many men to men's camp. And it's always a shock that first worship service for all these men get in a room. Yes. And the first song is me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, You know, the voice is just bellowing out and tears are running and when it's done, people who've never met each other are hugging and crying and then they calm down and go, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, don't say I'm sorry. See, my name is. Let's start with my name is. You know, there's nothing to be sorry of. We all did this together. There's none of us better or worse, no more classy or unclassy. We're just men. And we finally struck a nerve. We finally found the God in us. Yeah. And the beautiful part about getting in those environments, ⁓ getting out in the woods or wherever the heck you go for your retreat or your getaway, is it breaks down those walls. You know, for so long in life, and I'm sure many men have experiences, I thought my identity was my job. No. I didn't realize that my identity was whose I'm in. You know, I didn't realize my identity was through Christ. So the beautiful part about getting away and being around oriented men who understand this is you just drop the mask. We don't care what the name is on your business card at that point, what the title is, does not matter. You are a beloved son of God at that point when you're away. And the whole point of those retreats is to really experience God in a sweet and intimate way. And I've seen that play out over and over again at these retreats. And it's life giving. it's really, really life giving to know that you're not alone, there are men around you at that point going through the same thing that you're going through, wondering the same things that you're wondering and really looking for a life of freedom and more. And, know, when, when I found that and when I realized it was possible, I mean, you know, I just couldn't get enough. of course, here I am in the position of wondering how can I create that ⁓ for other men to experience? so that's part of this true man community that I'm trying to figure out and grow. And I'm excited for the future of what we might be able to develop. You know, back in the and David, I'm sure you remember this, back in the 80s, the Promise Keepers came along and it was a massive thing that they started. And I had to go back and research this because it wasn't something that at that point, I was involved in, was aware of, but not involved in. was young and girls and cold beer ⁓ were much higher point importance to me at that point, unfortunately. But one of the things that I found interesting about Promise Keepers is they had, they were filling football stadiums, were filling basketball arenas and they were, their message was good. But then the rah rah session ended and everybody went back to their house. We didn't really send these guys anywhere. We didn't really give them direction on where to go or her to where to turn to. I think this was a fatal flaw of the Promise Keepers. I mean, we didn't have Promise Keepers small group show up someplace. And I don't think really men knew what to do. what I have found as a leader is that sometimes you have to set these things up and really take people by the hand and direct them to what the next step is. And so... As I build things out, very cognizant of this because I would like to have a group of people where we really go out and build a speaking platform and get out and get in men's communities and talk about how we can build better families in America. And also at the same time, be cognizant of when it's over, this just wasn't a rah rah session. Here's your instructions. Here's your mission. Here's what you're charged with. to go out and build your men's small group wherever you are and we will support and help you. you know, that's really what's circling around in my head because, you know, we need that instruction. And you know, Promise Keepers is still around, by the way, so I don't want to be derogatory on them. They're really doing every effort that they can. ⁓ The gentleman now that's leading it. they've grown. They've realized some of the things they could do differently. And they are improving substantially. And I'm grateful for that because we who were involved in it in some level of leadership, we would say, wait a minute, what about, what about? And the answer was, Yeah, we'll get to that next month. It wasn't that they weren't. It was that they were so vision oriented on filling another stadium that the follow up just wasn't as organized as it could have been. So what you're doing now is the next step. You're not filling the stadium. You're filling the hearts and then you can build to a bigger. I think that's it, David. you know, I think And I'm sure these guys would admit to it. And you said it perfectly. And it began so organically. I'm not even sure that they realized what they were doing. Yeah, they were filling stadiums. But to your point, they weren't filling hearts. There was still something missing there. And I think, you know, I've been to, you know, I go to speaking events and various things and, you know, you get charged up. But then you need a place to go. You need a group behind you to, ⁓ you know, mentor you to help you stay accountable. And this is where men really can be incredibly encouraging and strong, these groups, and to continue learning. I think one of the mistakes many of us make, and I did this for a while. Life long learning life is about just a continuous learning cycle and you've got to put yourself in a position if you're going to be the best person you can be to continue being a lifelong learning from a number of perspectives you from a faith perspective Right you you're you're in the Bible you're reading scripture. You're learning about the Bible from a self-improvement perspective How can you get better? How can you be more positive? and I think all of these things are critically important. How can you get better for your health? You know? they're, they're... I've seen this so many times. They're building mannequins now. You remember you used to walk into a clothing store or whatever and the mannequins had a six pack on them. Now they're building mannequins that are obese. They're mannequins. Yeah. Well, I know, the point, but it's funny, but, but what it's done is we basically approved people being unhealthy physically, mentally, spiritually, and there's no room for that. There's no room for that. We owe it to our wives, to our families, to our girlfriends, to our communities to be as healthy as we can be physically, spiritually, and mentally. And if we're not doing those things, we're just being half the person that we can be. And I personally have challenged myself not to accept that. As a men's mentor and leader, I want to be the example. I'm not going to sit here and say I go out of my way to I fail all the time, right? I make mistakes all the time. I don't mean to come across like I'm some, you know, pompous. I'm not. I believe me. My wife will tell you I had something come out of my mouth yesterday and it got corrected right away. And she was right to do it. She was right to do it. I misspoke on something, you know, and but, you know, if we're going to be I've never run into somebody. who said yeah i don't want my kid to do well in school i don't want my kid to do well in life i mean how do you do that first and foremost you have to be the example whether you believe it or not your kids are watching you you are the example ⁓ yeah both good and bad really i mean wouldn't you rather be the best example you could be and so i think That's how we need to start looking at these things more and more all the time. God, family, and country. You know? Those things need to line up. We need to get better balance behind those. And so my mission, I feel that God has called me into is to not only go out and talk about these things and learn from other men, but, you know, be learning for myself. What do these things mean for me? How do we apply them so that we can get this country back to where it needs to be rather than shouting at each other and just acting like crazy lunatics on the news? ⁓ they've already got that one covered, but you don't need to go there. Yeah, right. But it is important that ⁓ if we're going to build a building, we don't build it from the chimney down. And if we want to if we want to build something that's going to have the good foundation, we have to plan. We have to prepare and we have to build it step by step. Yeah. And if it's a spiritual building, we need to plan. How am I going to get there? How do I prepare? How do I apply that, which would be men's group? And then how do I turn that into ministry, which is getting out and serving? One of the failures in some of the men's groups that I had been involved with was I couldn't get the guys out of the pew. They would come and have coffee with you. But when you say, let's go feed somebody or let's go do it. ⁓ no, I don't know if I want to do that or not. But the problem is that until you take it out of your head and your heart and put it in your hand and do something with it, you're not loving people like God loves them. So it's a conundrum. It's a difficulty. It's how do I get past me to please God and find out that it's really much more fun and better out there than it would be if I got past the picture in my head. Well, I think one of the most important things we can do is understand the concept of giving. It's quite simple give first and you will receive later, but you want to give without any feeling of it being reciprocated It's amazing what happens when you go out and give and give and give now people will say to me Well people take advantage of it. Well some of that's mindset, but listen if somebody's taking advantage of you because you're giving They are not the type of people you want to be around anyway, so you need to reevaluate the type of person that you're around. Exactly. And when I say this, I want to say, I love everybody, but it's their deeds that I'm eyeballing all the time. And this is very scriptural in nature. Watch people's deeds, love everybody. But listen, if their deeds are very takerish, you may need to distance yourself from them. And that's critically important because if you don't, you will become the people that you surround yourself with. And again, this probably circles back to men's groups and getting around the right people and in the right mindset and frame of mind. of the things that I noticed early on was some of the old Christians that I'm talking when I gave my life to Christ to 20, these were people in their 60s and beyond. is that when they get together, they talk about being fruit inspectors. And I had a real problem with that because I didn't get it. It just made no sense at all. So one day someone sat me down and said, I know, but the look in your eye, you're that far away look, you're not getting this. And I said, somebody noticed. Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't want to be disrespectful. I'm the new guy. And they said, no, no, let us help you understand. You know, if you plant a seed, if you plant an apple seed, you're not going to get a watermelon. If you're going to plant a tree, you're not going to get a flower. You can't get what's not there. If we're going to look for fruit of the Spirit of God, the love, the joy, the peace, the forgiveness, the mercy, all those good things, you've to plant ⁓ a good crop to get a good harvest. So it is not wrong for us to watch the lives of the people we're around to see whether they're planted among weeds. or planted ⁓ in a garden that's prepared and the ground has been turned and the fertilizer's in place, if you want to get a good crop, you've got to have a good foundation. And many times our culture now is the microwave mindset. If I can't do it in 30 seconds, bing, I'm done. And as a result, we're wanting to sprinkle seeds on dirt. We're not trying to dig it out. We're not trying to get rid of the weeds. We're just trying to sprinkle seeds and make it work. And as a result, we're not getting a harvest that's anything like it should be. And that's the same as what's happening in men's ministry is we're, we're looking for instant answers instead of investments. Yeah. Because we, if we, if we won't have something come out of it, it's going to take some work, good work, loving work. Yeah. There's a reason that the Bible spends so much time on a couple of concepts called patience and perseverance. ⁓ you know, this is, ⁓ you know, I would say men's ministry, you get into it, you better get into it for the long haul. And I commonly kind of joke around with people and say the challenge with our society and our culture as a whole. is everybody wants this fast food Jesus. They want it now. You mentioned the microwave, this microwave society. We get our packages in two days. ⁓ I have actually had an Amazon package delivered to my house over the last couple of years in about an hour and a half. ⁓ We get our packages fast. We get our internet fast. But you know what's interesting? God does not always deliver fast messages and sometimes they occur over time. The problem is everybody wants their answers now. Instinct ratification. Yeah. And here's the thing. And I've been having this discussion a lot lately with my wife. Certainty. We all want certainty, as if we can't act or move until we have the answer. And sometimes you have all you need to move. And you may not get the full answer until you move. you know David and I've been telling you this story. My wife and I are preparing. Our house has sold in Atlanta and we are preparing to move to Northwest Arkansas to be closer to her parents. And her brother, youngest brother lives there as well. What's interesting about this move and what I didn't mention was ⁓ outside of what I'm doing, my wife's job was eliminated and we're moving and she does not have a job. And my wife has always led the way. She's been highly successful. And she's talked about retirement, semi-retirement ⁓ or working. And what's interesting about this is we really looked at what we wanted in life. What did we need in life? What were we looking for? want a nice church. We want to be a part of the community. We want to get in a smaller community. We want to be around people that care about us. We want to be close to family. who's, you know, outside of God, who's in control of that? Well, we are. And so we prayed about it. We meditated on it. And we've decided we're moving to Northwest Arkansas. And if you get a job, you get a job. If you don't, you don't. But we're leaning into God on this. And you know what? He's going to pull through and take care of everything. In the meantime, we have people around us going, you guys are crazy. We've moved 29 times. I understand crazy really, really well. Yeah. And so I don't think that what's interesting about it is at least the way I feel. I don't feel like there's anything crazy about it. I feel like God is actually moving things in that direction and this is what he's called us to do. Exactly. And I, I gotta say. Outside of the fact I'm a little tired, it's been, you know, there's a lot that goes into relocation and selling your house and going through some of the things we're going through. I'm excited. I'm excited about this piece of life. You know, it sounds like our son is not going to come with us. We're going to be empty nesters. Our daughter has informed us she's going to go to Norway and spend her first semester of her senior year of college. we're kind of going, holy cow. It's like we felt like we had, you know what? what we've learned the certainty that we thought we had does not exist exactly except through God exactly and so we just lean in a little bit more and go what do you got for us you know I'm at the time we're recording this I'm literally getting ready to hop in the car over the next couple of days and drive someplace and go find my next home And I'm counting on the fact that God is going to just present that and roll it out, whatever it looks like, wherever it is in that little Northwestern Arkansas corner, that he's going to roll it out. And you know what? I'm discovering through this process, even more than I thought before, that that certainty through him is really all I need. Amen. It's really all I need. And, you know, In a world where we live, where we think we have to have all the answers now, I don't have all the answers right now. And that's okay. It's okay. And, you know, I talk with a lot of guys and they'll commonly say, you know, well, first, I'm sure you've heard this one a lot, you know, how do you pray? How do you pray? How do you know you're hearing God's voice? How do you lean into all that? Well, you just do. You just do. You tunnel to your walk, you walk into your run. Yeah, and so there are many things I've learned about life. but action, being in action is a biggie because God wants you being in action. He wants you moving towards Him and have noon for you. He's running at you probably in most cases faster than you're running to Him and He's always running to you. That's the beautiful part about it. He's always running to you. If you'd just stop for a second, you'd see it. You mean we're not supposed to say, here, God, let me help you? You know what I've commonly learned, and this came out by accident. When I was building the power of asking for help, I had a little speaking thing and I sent it to somebody who helps me do a little coaching. And she said, man, I love that part where you said, don't you want to know what's on the other side? of the ask. If you don't ask, you may never discover what's on the other side of that ask. And what's on that other side of the ask is a new story, a new hope, a new journey, a new place for you to hang out or find love or be loved. And if you don't ask, you will never know. you will never discover. friend Bob Titi, who's an author, he's been with crew for over 50 years. He wrote a book, he's written several books on asking questions and one of the more interesting ones he wrote was 339 Questions Jesus Ask. Now have to ask yourself. Why does a guy who knows the answers ask so many questions? because Jesus knew a thing or two about building relationships. And when we ask questions, it says to the other person, hey, he's interested in me. And don't we all want somebody to be interested in us? We're all yearning for relationship. And Jesus understood this. And the fact that he asked so many questions should be a clue to us. at what we're supposed to do in order to go out and build relationships. it comes not from, I'm digging in there. I want to know. I want to know. This is about building relationship. And we are built to build. That's why God designed us for relationship. mean, Eve was created in the garden for Adam because God didn't want him to be lonely. He wanted him to be in community. It's part of our DNA. So, you know, I think it's critically important to ask questions, to ask help and to be in community. I think that's what a lot of this comes down to. but you know, it's interesting to me that at least in my lifetime, I can't think of a time where we've been more isolated, more alone. the statistics bear this out we have these mobile phones we carry around were more connected than we ever have been but were more alone than we ever have been exactly middle-aged men are committing suicide at the highest rate of any age bracket women try more often men choose lethal means to get the job done when they do it and you know it and so we did the divorce rate is up around sixty percent You know, how could we be so connected, but yet so far apart? And so, you know, we need to discover that we all have something in common if we're alive. It's our hearts. It's our love. It's our ability to love and be connected. And I believe that God wants us connected in that way. I agree. You know, And as we get wounding, you can only do so long in a podcast. And I don't want to miss something important, and that is you've written some books. Yeah. You want to enlighten us a little bit? Sure. Well, I've been a part of some collaborative books, but I think the most important work ⁓ that I did was writing ⁓ my book called True Man, True Ways, a Roadmap of Discovery to the Masculine Heart. And part of that book was me telling my story that I talked about a little bit ago about finding an intimate relationship with Christ. And in addition to that, what I write about in the book are really some basic fundamental ideas that men need to dive into their goals. their bodies, how are we taking care of this temple? How are we taking care of ourselves financially? And one of the things that I did in the book was I checked in every chapter, no matter what the topic was that I was talking about, I checked in with scripture and I wanted to know what the Bible had to say about it. What does the Bible have to say about gold writing? What does the Bible have to say about money? What does the Bible have to say about taking care of our mind, our body, our soul? And you know, All of these things are very fundamental. But if people were doing it, I wouldn't have had to have written about it. But I think the whole basis here is this. Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth as the first and ultimate true man. He is the one and most perfect example that we have in our life. Now, we're sinners. We're all sinners. none of us are going to be perfect. The point of it is not to be perfect. The point is to follow the model that Jesus gave us. Follow the fruit of the Spirit and you will follow the heart of a true man. The most powerful words that Jesus ever spoke were simply, follow me. And if we follow him, he's the ultimate model. And if we draw closer to him, We will draw closer to ourselves. We will draw closer to our families and our communities. And to me, that's the body of work that I'm just trying to show people. A lot of people say to me, Mike, well, who are you? I'm not a pastor. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not spent years in a college campus dissecting all this stuff. I am a man just like you who found Jesus. And I'm just sharing what I learned, what I saw, what I feel with the world so that you can experience it too. Amen. So if they wanted to get your book, can they get it on Amazon or how did they get it? I would encourage you to go out to my website, True Man. life coaching dot com you will find my books listed there and you can purchase directly from my website ⁓ we had a ⁓ you can find my book on amazon but you gotta dig for it we had a ⁓ little problem with amazon ⁓ a little curve ball if you will but you know when you're doing the work of god you cannot be defeated and ⁓ so we found another way to get it printed and taken care of and and so yeah you can go out to website, trumanlifecoaching.com, and you will find my book there and the podcast, and you can be a part of the newsletter. Good. And just so I've mentioned it, this is my book. It says, When the Doctors Say No, God Says Yes. And it's the story of how God has taken me from impossible to possible, then to victory. And I would love to invite people to get a copy. electronic version is only $5 on Amazon. Or you can go to lulu.com, l-u-l-u dot com, and you can probably save some money ordering it there. There you go. And ⁓ the other thing is I'm a photographer and I have a website with award-winning photography. And I'd invite Mike for you to check it out and for others as well. It's my name, DavidWEbel.com. So this has been a delight. so glad that we stopped and did this. We tried before and it wasn't the right time. This is and it's working. And this probably will not be the last time we get together and do this because we're having way too much fun. Amen, man. We're going to have to do this again. But in the meantime, if there's a way I can be a blessing to anybody, let me know. We have an email address that you can use to reach me. If you have questions, you can write me. If you have a discussion you'd like to have discussed on this program, you can write me. If you think you've got something you want to discuss as an interview, write me and talk to me about it and I'll interview you privately on the phone. And if it's a match, then we'll even have you on the podcast. So the email address is GodSaysYesPodcast. at gmail.com. So we invite people to reach out because we're doing this for you. We're doing this so that people can learn more about God's love and fall in love with him like we have. And they get even deeper and better and more richly involved than we ever have discovered. So as we get ready to close this time together, allow me to pray as we close and then ⁓ we will challenge people to keep seeking because God is there to be found. if we're seeking after him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for each of the listeners and viewers that have joined us today. We're grateful for Mike that you've sent our way. Thank you for a story that you've given him with a passion for men and helping men to mature and grow and become men of God. We ask you to bless everything that's been said and done, that it would be something that would touch a heart, make a difference in a life, and cause people to grow and mature in the things of God. because that's what we were created for is to be in relationship with you. We pray that that relationship will be a discovery that we can't get over because it's better than we ever dreamed. Bless our time together and we ask you bless this time in Jesus' name, amen. And don't forget, keep seeking because He is there to be found. This has been the God Says Yes Podcast with David Ebel. network. You can get his latest book when the doctors say no, God says yes at amazon.com.