Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Buckle up for some genuinely amazing stories of conversions. How Jesus is directly acting in people's lives to call them to himself and how he uses us in that whole calling when we're open to it. And it turns all of life into an adventure. Buckle up. Today on the Chris Stefanick Show.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: I think the Lord is clearly moving amongst Muslims right now. He's making his presence known. All of a sudden I hear real quietly, can you tell me about Jesus Christ? And he put his hand under the stall to hold my hand.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: I don't know why we're not doing this right now.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: And there are organizations that are after. I mean, they're after Christian missionaries. Like, that's, that's their job. I was lost and I was a person in sin and I met Jesus Christ. He's here right now. Even though it seems like we're in the farthest place from God, he is asking you for your.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Chris Stefanick Show. We're here every week to give you the tools and inspiration you need to live your everyday life with joy, even when life is really hard. I want to thank our missionaries of joy for making this work possible. If you're not one, become one. Click on the link below this video. Sign up to be a missionary of joy today to fund all this work to bring the gospel of Jesus and his joy and his hope to the world today.
Are daily anchors available for free with no strings attached? Let us inspire you. Sign up for the daily anchor today. And this episode is sponsored in part by ewtn. You can catch this and so much more on EWTN Streaming link is below in the show notes. Let's dive in.
Dave, my brother, it is so good to be with you.
It's pure joy, man. Like, every time. Fellow Steve Milgrad, fellow lay evangelist.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: One of the great joys of being able to evangelize and share the faith and preach the gospel. It's like I feel like I get a front row seat to Grace having it.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: I totally. Yeah.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I feel like a spoiled brat, honestly.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: And it's almost annoyingly humbling sometimes how much I realize I'm just facilitating an encounter and like, I'm not doing a thing right.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: I did this one event in London, you know, several years ago, and this woman who wasn't involved in faith at all, like, she was having a miserable day. She's like, I don't even know why. I just went and sat in the back of the church and I was just miserable. And then all of a sudden the church started to Fill up for your event.
I'm like, what's going on?
And like, you were preaching and like, it changed my life. I'm like, well, what thing that I said changed your life? She goes, well, the speakers were really bad where I was sitting. I didn't hear anything you said, but
[00:02:39] Speaker B: it just, I know, like, I just
[00:02:41] Speaker A: saw like the Lord in the moment and like the joy. And that's things I can't even claim he just did it.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: You know,
[00:02:51] Speaker A: You've been at this for a long time.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: You do mission work yourself. You've been.
And you've incredible stories from friends of yours who do mission work in places that probably not allowed to say, we're here doing mission work like in Muslim lands. And I just want to, I just want to glorify God and hear some stories of grace that you've been hearing and experiencing yourself.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: I think the Lord is clearly moving, like amongst Muslims right now. Like, he's making his presence known.
Like, I. It seems to me that all of my friends who are working in those countries are like having these crazy moments. And even here I think I've told. I might have told you this story before, but like about eight years ago, I was going to a parish mission in Minot, North Dakota, and I had a layover in Chicago.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Dude, I've spoken in Minot.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: It's not the place you want to get by. January so small.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Right, Right. Yeah.
Anyways, I was, I was in the, like Chicago o' Hare and I was waiting to get on my next flight. It was like an hour away. I was reading my Bible.
And you know, when I was in high school, my dad took me on a trip, a life changing trip to the Holy Land with, and it is a long story, but it was with some Protestants. And every night they would pray this prayer. They would say, lord, if you set up a divine appointment for us, we'll tell people about you. And they would walk the streets and evangelize.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: I want to note that. Yeah, that is a great prayer.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I pray that everybody, every single day, I pray that prayer.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Like, lord, you open a door, I'm going to walk through it.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Even if I'm scared to know what to say.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: I'll say something.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: I've messed it up many times. Yeah. But I had just prayed this prayer. I'm reading my Bible and this large family came and sat across from me and they were very clearly very devout Muslims. Women. You could only see their eyes. They were in full burqas.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: One of them Was a young man. He's probably between the age of 20 and 25. And he looked at me, he smiled, you know? And I thought, maybe this is the guy, you know? And I kind of smiled back, and he didn't want anything to do with me at that point, you know?
So it's like an hour before I'm gonna get ready to board for my flight, and I think I'm gonna go to the bathroom before I get on the plane. Sorry, we're getting personal.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: I'm in a stall, and the stall next to me opens up.
And all of a sudden, I hear real quietly, like, are you the man who was in the gate area reading?
And I'm like, oh, it's this guy, you know, I'm like, I must have left my cell phone or my keys or something.
And I'm like, yeah, that was me. And he. And he, real quietly, first of all, he says, excuse me. And I'm thinking in my head, like, I'm not sharing toilet paper with this.
So weird. Like, yes. And he's like, are you the guy who was reading? I'm like, yeah.
Real quietly and real seriously, in broken English, he says, can you tell me about Jesus Christ? Just like that.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: You know, I'm like, thinking in my head, like, who cares about the mission in Minot, right? Like, if God sending people in the bathrooms, like, oh, that's incredible. So I. So I say, like, look, let's finish up here. We'll wash our hands, we'll go have coffee.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: And I'll tell you all about Jesus Christ. And he gets even more serious. He says, no, my family cannot know about this. You have to tell me here.
So, believe it or not, over the next 20 minutes, with the blower, the hand blowers going off and people announcing gates and people walking out of the bathroom, I told him under the stall, like, the charismatic message, right? Like, God loves you, has a plan for your life, and Jesus Christ is the answer to all of your problems.
And I could barely hear him, but I could hear him kind of responding. I said, our God, he wants sons, not slaves. And he'd be like, he wants sons, and just tear up. And at the end, I finally said, would you like to pray right now and ask the Lord Jesus encounter you? Would you like to meet him?
And he's like, oh, yes. And he put his hand under the stall to hold my hand. And I was like, oh, this is so gross.
But we prayed, and he just wept. Wept, Wept.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: And when we finished praying, he said that he Grew up in a neighborhood of Tehran, Iran, that was so culturally Muslim, so controlled by Sharia law, he had never met a Christian. He had never heard of Jesus outside of the Quran, ever.
But a month ago, his dad was in the oil business and he had been transferred to America. And for a whole month, every night when he went to bed, he saw. He had a. A dream of a man, bloody on a cross, looking at him and saying, I am Jesus Christ, come to know me.
When he got to the airport and he saw me reading, he said he heard an audible voice that said, follow him. He'll tell you gotta be kidding me. You talk about having nothing to do. I had nothing. Right. I mean, I had nothing to do with that other than I'm crazy enough to say in a stall, man.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: The story of Jesus Christ, you know, the missionary history of the church is people going into lands that they know could have gotten them killed. Actually, many times seeking martyrs.
I don't know why we're not doing this right now in the Middle East. Well, maybe I do. We're afraid.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah, we're afraid.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Or out of human respect.
And I say this with all due respect to people who are Muslims. I want every person alive to know Jesus Christ.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: How could I not know everybody?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: That's not just me imposing my views on someone. That's me accepting the truth that I know the fullness of God because Jesus is who he said he was. And how could I hold that back from anybody?
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Oh, of course.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: But the beauty of that story you just told, like, when we don't do it, Jesus is like, okay, I'm gonna do it myself.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Here I am in a dream that's happening. Tell me more stories from your missionary friends where Jesus is literally showing up in dreams and reaching people.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I have a good friend who's a missionary in Africa. And again, it's completely private. Like, he doesn't talk about it, but he's.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: He could get killed.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah, he could get killed. Yeah.
And he. And there are organizations that are after. I mean, they're after Christian missionaries. Like, that's their job, right?
[00:08:26] Speaker A: So I have to kill.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Seriously? Yeah, It's a serious thing.
And he said that one night he was praying and he was told to take a truck full of Bibles into the middle of nowhere. And he knew that this place in the middle of nowhere is where all the crime. This is where all, like, the. You know, the hordes were. You know, these guys who would murder you in a second.
He took. Went to a Very specific place. He said he was driving, not on a road.
And he said all of a sudden he just heard the Lord say, stop here.
And he stopped here. He sat there. He could hear lions and stuff like that. It was just like this crazy moment. And he said, just about every hour, two or three people would just come out of the darkness and walk up and say, I'm supposed to get a book from you. And they would take the book and they would walk away.
They were supposed to give this Bible. That was it. And that was his whole night. Like, just hundreds of people coming to him.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: How did they know?
[00:09:15] Speaker B: In a dream, they saw that they were supposed to go get a book from this guy. I mean, this is.
This is. I'm hearing this a lot. Like, I'm hearing about this kind of stuff often.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Tell me, tell me, tell me more. What else do you hear? It's so cool.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: You know, I even. And I'll tell you another story from me is I got. I was on a plane and started talking to the girl next to me. And she was Muslim. She was raised Muslim, but she was very into, like, an esoteric branch of Muslim of Islam and was basically a witch.
And I had.
It was during a really difficult time in my life. And I was like, oh, Lord, I am not prepared for this right now to, like, spend the next four hours arguing with this lady.
And I was real sick at the time, too. And I finally just said to her, it was right before Christmas.
And I said, look, why don't we pray? Why don't we both just pray?
And she's like, okay. And I was like, what does prayer mean for you? Like, what does it mean for you? And she's like, well, I'll meditate on this symbol that I'm supposed to meditate on.
And I was like, what's the symbol? He's like, she's a picture of a God.
And I was like, okay. And so I was praying. I was meditating on the Nativity. It was about to be Christmas.
And after about 30 minutes, right, I hear her start crying, right? She start crying, start crying, start crying.
And I finally am like, okay, I guess I should see, like, is everything okay? So I say, is everything okay? And she said, oh, yes. She said, I need to know what you were meditating on. And I said, I was meditating on this thing called the Nativity. It's a story of when our God took flesh and became a little baby. And the story of his life. And he said, who's your God? She said. I said, Jesus Christ. Wow. So we started talking and I said, what happened? She said, I was meditating on this symbol of this God, and all of a sudden, three men walked by. Three men walked by. And for the first time, my God bowed down to those three men and followed them and followed them all the way to this little cave where their God was being born.
This is the wise men like, that she's seeing. And it's like her God, like, what? Bowed. And she said she was shocked because her God got down on his face in front of this little baby.
And that was like. Yeah, like the Lord was just sovereign in that moment. You know, I had again, nothing eloquent to say, nothing catchy to say. It was just the Lord drawing people to himself.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: I'm feeling. I'm seeing a necessity right now in the church and in the world to come back to basics.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Oh, honestly, I really think if, like, if you're willing to make a fool of yourself, you know, like the Lord is ready to show up with the Holy Spirit over and over again. Like, this is happening a lot to people. And I think if they were willing to pray that prayer and then say, yeah, I'm willing to encounter. And they're not trying to force someone. Of course, you just try to love the person in front of you as much as you can when that person's
[00:12:05] Speaker A: there and he says, okay, I want to go into a little more of the conversation you had in the stall, right? Because people, we get caught up and we get lost and ground up in the gears of. If someone says, I want to know the faith, we think, okay, I'm going to think of the entire catechism. How do I downplay this into someone's head right now?
And there is first and foremost a big basic message of the Gospel.
What do you say to the guy in the stall next to you? I'm the Muslim kid. Tell me about this Jesus.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Oftentimes what I'll say is, I'll say it through my own testimony that I was lost and a person in sin and I met Jesus Christ. I had an encounter with Jesus Christ. And I know that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that that is the answer to everything I've ever needed. And I'll say that to them, Jesus Christ died for your sins as well. He loves you already. And that's a shocking. I mean, we don't. You know what they say? I mean, you know this because you worked in the church for a long way. Catholics are. Have heard the gospel so much, it's like they're vaccinated against it.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: But the idea that God loves you is novel to most people. Right. That the God of the universe who created you, that knows everything you've ever done, they've never heard of it, he's in love with.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: They've never heard it. And it is a mind shattering, sometimes soul saving truth that we could easily proclaim, you know, we could easily proclaim. And so, yeah, so when I was with him, yeah, the basic gospel message, God has a plan for your life. You were created by someone and this God, we believe, his son, Jesus Christ took flesh, you know, and died for you.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: I mean, it's, you know, it's a. It's what we need to believe to go to heaven. Right. So why would we not share it everywhere?
[00:13:43] Speaker A: It's so basic and it's so right. But you don't move past the basics. It's like a marriage that thinks, well, I've moved past this whole love experience. Of course we're into more, you know, theological and deep things. Of course we've moved past that, into. Well, what does that mean? We've moved past it into the bills, into the obligations of our marriage, into driving the kids, all these different places. And then we wonder why our marriage just feels tired. Yeah, well, because you're never supposed to move past the basic.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: And I think too, like a lot of people, they're seeing the woundedness and the depth of hurt that people are going through, and they feel like they need some sort of degree to be able to help these people, when in actuality, like God does the heavy lifting. Right. Just recently I was able to meet a girl, we'll call her Jane, say. And a priest asked if she could come and hang out with my family. And Jane had been free four years when I met her. She was trafficked from the time she was 8 years old until she was in her late 20s by a gang.
And he just wanted her to come and hang out with the kids. They were in town. And I was like, sure. Of course. When Jane came in the house, she sat down on the ground.
And I was like, jane, we don't sit on the ground in our house. You can sit on the couch. And she was like, okay. But she thought that's what she deserved.
She stood on the ground. She'd been just. Her humanity had just been torn from her over and over again.
In my house, it's pretty hard to stay anonymous and in a corner because my kids.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: You're a lot of kids.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: So Luisa, who's In a wheelchair runs the whole house. And if she sees a woman in the house, especially now, after Amber's passed away, she beelines.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: How old is Luisa again?
[00:15:23] Speaker B: She's eight now. She's little, tiny. And I hear Luisa come trucking down the hall. And first thing, she runs right into Jane and she says, hold, hold.
And Jane, I can hear, I'm in the other room preparing lunch. And Jane's like, oh, your dad wouldn't want me to hold you. No, no, no, your dad wouldn't want me to hold you. And I knew what she meant was that she thought she was too dirty, you know, not worthy to hold her. But Luisa doesn't give up. So she backed up, ran into her, harder. Hold, hold. Over. And there was this dial. And finally I walked in and I was like, jane, she'd really love it if you held her, but if she's annoying you, I'll put her in the other room. She said, I really don't think you want me to hold her. I don't think you realize what's going on. And I was like, yes, I realize what's going on. Don't worry about it. And I picked up Luis and I put her in her lap.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: So I get ready to put some chicken on the grill, and I realize I'm out of propane. I say to father, father, can you watch the kids? I'm going to run and get propane.
I come back and Jane is on the floor with Luis on top of her. And somehow they had managed to get Max, my 14 year old son in a wheelchair, out of his wheelchair. And he was there. And I had just shaved his head. And Jane shaves her head. She doesn't want to look nice at all.
And he was rubbing his head against hers, comparing this. And Jane was just crying. She was just crying. And afterwards, the kids were away and we're sitting on the deck talking. I said, jane, how was your day? And she's like, this is the best day I've ever had in my life.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: And I realized, like, so many times, like, the conversion that has to happen is not just like I acknowledge Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, but we have to move from fear to love. Right? And that is the heavy lifting that God does on his own.
All we have to do is just be there and love someone and not expect something from them, you know, and.
And just love the person in front of you. And oftentimes it's as simple as just being okay, right? Yeah. And then God shows up. Right. We make so complicated.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: We do.
And then we feel disempowered by how complicated we've made it. How could we possibly do it? And it's like, no, just do something.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: Like, anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Especially evangelization. Of course.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Yes, of course.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Just be there in love. And I love that. You start with the prayer, lord, open the door. Help. And I see it open. I'm walking through. I have no idea what I'm going to say, but I'm going to be your instrument. Right, right. But that facilitating the encounter. So when I think about evangelization and the events that I do, I do focus on how to be joyful. But before we do that, we talk about the foundation of joy, which is your relationship with God. And we talk about that there's a God, that he loves you, that we wanted from his plan. Jesus died for us. And, like, and we're supposed to accept and receive that into our lives and make a decision and live that out in the church. And this is the core message of the gospel, right?
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: But there's one part of that, Kerygma, we call it the core message that a lot of Catholics get squeamish around because, well, first off, it makes you uncomfortable to go there and ask someone for this. But also, if I get a complaint about our work sometimes, well, that sounds Protestant or sounds like an evangelical. I'm thinking you don't know what Catholic is if you think that doesn't sound Catholic.
Where I invite people to make a decision and pray with me to receive Jesus into your life.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: What does that prayer look like? What's that moment when you're talking to the Muslim kid or you're talking to Jane and saying, hey, I'm not just giving you a message. I actually believe in a living person who's here.
Let's invite him in.
I'm facilitating an encounter, not trying to hammer a message into your head. Right.
Lead us through. Like, if someone's like, yeah, I'd like to be open to doing that. What's it sound like?
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Oftentimes what I'll just say is, like, I'll say, in the case of this young Muslim man, I said, you know, he's here right now. Even though it seems like we're in the farthest place from God, he's here right in this moment, and he is asking you for your life.
And I said, all you have to do is say yes to him and he's ready to encounter you. Now, that's a nerve wracking. Thing to say.
Right? Because what if nothing happens?
Right?
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: What if nothing happens?
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Two fates to ask the question.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause what if nothing happens? And I plenty of times been in situations where I didn't feel like it resounded the way it did.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Or what if they say no?
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Or what if they say sure. Of course, if they say no, then obviously they're not ready to give their entire life. But oftentimes. What I'll say is, oftentimes we feel like we want to say no.
But our will, we know the good thing to do right now is to give our life to the one who loves you the most. And to give our lives to the one who loves you the most. So I'll invite them just to say yes, right? Just to say yes. And sometimes I'll even say, like, with Catholics, I'll do this a lot.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Hold on. Literally, what's it sound like when you're saying, just say yes? Pretend I'm the guy?
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say, like, imagine. I know this sounds crazy, but imagine your heart was like a valentine heart. And put everything in your life in that heart. Like, think of your family, your finances, your worries, every bit of you. Put it in that heart, Right?
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: And then imagine you can just give that to the Lord. Like, are you ready to do that? You know, are you ready to do it? And then they'll say. Usually they'll say yes, Right? And I'll say, now listen, you've put everything in there that you know of. Are you willing to say, like, Lord, if there's anything that I'm holding back through an act of my will, I give that to you too. Right?
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: And they'll usually say yes. And I'll say, are you willing to say that, Lord? Every bit of my being, I want to give to youo and I want yout to come and be Lord of my life. Yes, do it, do it, do it, and see what happens.
I think that this idea of, like, giving your life to the Lord, Right. They equate it with, like, getting saved or something, which is not what we're talking about.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: No. It's not the same theological understanding of what happens.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Or, like, your first encounter with Jesus Christ, Right. They kind of make it into sort of like an elementary thing. Like, that's kid stuff. Okay. But I'll tell you, example, another Muslim example, a close friend who's a religious sister that works in specifically hostile Muslim countries. They work with underground Christians. They work with. They do, like, a lot of ministry to prostitutes, things like that. And they don't dress in habits because they can't.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Because they'll get killed.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: They'll get killed. And I was talking to her one day, I said, mother, at one point they brought 400 people from Iraq over here for catechesis.
And I got to know this family.
And about eight years later, I said to mother, mother, how are they? And she said, you haven't heard? And I said, no, tell me. She said, well, ISIS came through their town, you know, after, after everything had happened. And I said, what happened? She said, well, you remember the son? His son was named, I think, Jeremiah.
They were, they were Malachi Christians or something like that, I think. And she said, he was dating this girl, he was going to marry this girl who was 16 years old, she was a Muslim.
And they wanted to go to youth group one night, just like we do in America.
And the mom said, sure, but you can't use any of the main roads. You gotta take the back roads. Because at this time, ISIS was controlling the city.
You could still practice your Christianity if you paid a tax.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Okay, wow.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: But they were in charge.
So they went and they were talking, they were deep in conversation, and they stepped out onto one of the main roads and sure enough, ran right into a group of young men who had been drinking and doing drugs all night. They were part of isis.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Dang.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: They grabbed him and they started to beat the son up. And they knew who this was. They knew who the town. The people who lived in the town were said, we're going to go get your mom. Your mom's going to watch you die unless you deny Jesus Christ.
They go and get her mom, get his mom. They say, what do you have to say to your son? And she says, son, the Lord has given us everything. Do whatever you can not to deny him.
And in front of the mom, they execute him. They cut his head off.
The girlfriend who's Muslim sees the Maccabees story, man. Right? The girl who's Muslim sees this, sees this and says, mother, I want to be a Christian too.
I want to be a Christian too. And she says, give your life to Jesus right now and you'll be a Christian.
She says, lord Jesus, I give my life to you.
The ISIS guys come to her and say, deny him now or you're going the same way. And she says, I'll never deny him. They cut her head off. Now you tell me that moment of encounter is childish or elementary, Right, man, Right. It is real. It's the most real thing you've ever done in your life, right? She gave her life to the Lord, and now she couldn't do anything but not deny Him.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Dude, there's so many saints being made that we don't.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: We have no idea. Right?
[00:23:46] Speaker A: I give my life to Jesus Christ.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And then they killed the mom as well.
They died saints.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Wow. Sorry. I'm just. That's a heaviness in that story.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's hard.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: One of the blessings of being able to do the work that we do is it keeps me centered on what this is all about, like, inviting people to it. Keeps me thinking about it. Sure. And that's the healthiest thing for a business, for a marriage, for a relationship, for faith. It's to remember your why and not get lost in the how and the what and the details, like why? Why does liturgy matter? Why do the doctrines, dogmas matter? Why does the moral life matter? Because Jesus Christ loves me and died for me on the cross, and I give my life back to Him. That's why. That's why.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Just recently, it's funny, and I don't want to get into the controversial stuff, but just recently, I was speaking in a group that would have been out of the ordinary for me to speak at.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: He wanted me to comment on all the hot button issues, Communion in the hand, all this kind of stuff. And I have opinions about all of it. No problem. I have no problem talking about it. But I said, you know what? Like the Lord has called me to at this point in my life. Most of the people who I work with are so far outside the kingdom. I wish we could get to the point where I worried about this stuff, but they don't know Jesus at all. They have no knowledge of who Jesus Christ is, you know, let alone being able to decide liturgically what they want.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: No. So many people think that if we fix that, then everything's fine.
Or they say the reason civilization's fallen away from God is because we made liturgical changes.
Do you actually think that God would
[00:25:21] Speaker B: love to know if they actually think it or not?
[00:25:23] Speaker A: I think a lot of people actually
[00:25:25] Speaker B: do, because I just can't reconcile. Don't you understand what's happening?
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Right.
But parents, we can all fall into this thinking, you know, my kid's going off the rails. If they just get moral again, which, again, it's important, of course. Look, the liturgical issues are not unimportant. The moral life's not unimportant, but they're important because of something else.
And if the kid doesn't become convinced that I should give my life to Jesus, you're never gonna convince the kid to stop smoking weed and sleep with his girlfriend.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Right? Of course.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: There's gotta be a wild.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: And I say this. All the change. I say this to parents all the time. Like, after talking to them for a little bit, I'll say, do you want to just cover up this? You want to get the scandal taken care of, or do you want them to know Jesus Christ? Because there's a difference here, right? Yeah, there's a difference. Because you have to care about the one thing, you know, that's what's important.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: C.S. lewis. Put first things first, get second things thrown in. Put second things first, lose both first and second things. Right?
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Do you follow that? The second things matter only because of the first things. Again, they're not unimportant. They matter a lot because of.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah, of course.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Because of Jesus.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: And I mean, it's impossible, you know, it's unfair. This happens a lot. You see, like, in the more social justice y diocese with youth ministries, right? They'll say, those kids should be out, like, serving the poor and doing this and doing that. And I'll say to them, don't you dare ask them to do that until you ask them to give their life to Jesus Christ.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Right?
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Because it's not fair. Right? That's gotta be first. You have to. It has to come from that.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's everything, man. It's everything.
You might be watching and confused right now.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: What, this episode?
[00:27:02] Speaker A: No, they were thinking, like, I don't even know, like, a relationship with Jesus. I go through the motions.
And going through the motions actually is important, even if you've never heard this, because it keeps you in the space of, frankly, being open to all this.
And it flows from. I mean, I can't say I'm married, therefore being faithful to my wife isn't important because I love her. Wait, no, no, no, hold on. It all matters, but because of the heart of the thing, this is just a great reminder for parents stressing about, how do I bring my kid back to the faith? Someone wondering, how do I share my faith? You're trying to facilitate an encounter. And the quicker you bring people to a prayer where they're saying, lord, I just. I give myself to you. Give yourself back to me.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Show this life. Yeah, I agree.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: I agree with that. That's the end goal of all this.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: And I think with family members in particular, family's the hardest, Right? Family' but hard to evangelize. What I would say is, like, I always tell people, like, first of all, you Take as long a time as you possibly can. Right. If you think you have a whole life, you take a whole life, that's okay. Like, you're not going to outwork God, you know? And second of all, I say, like, if you spend 98% of your time building trust, that's probably okay. Probably okay.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Because it's just we don't have that credibility that we.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: And the rest follows. I mean, you look at the. In the early church, I mean, somebody might be listening, thinking, no, just bring them back to the Eucharist. Yes. However, that's not first step into the Lord. In the early church, you didn't know what the Eucharist was until after you were baptized.
You came out of the waters of baptism. And then they said, hey, there's more, of course.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Right? And this is why this is a secret.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: They didn't want pagans to get ahold of it.
We're getting the order all wrong with everything.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: And this is why, like, I tell people all the time, like, look, gospel's. Gospel's. Gospel's God, like, you have to fall in love with Jesus Christ. The person of Jesus Christ, you have to fall in love with him again or for the first time. And that's the Gospels. And I tell this story often with my wife, Amber.
She used to say she would get really frustrated, and she would say, I'm a way better Catholic than you, but I don't understand why you have a better personal relationship with Jesus. She would say that to me. I'd be like, what the heck?
But one day we had this argument, and she was really having a hard time with Max.
How could God have done this? And I said to her one night, and it was kind of one of those things that I probably shouldn't have
[00:29:12] Speaker A: said, but I was like, it's funny if you didn't see the other episode. Max is your kid.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So cerebral palsy. Yes. Sorry.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: And she was just really struggling with the problem of pain. And I said, you know, she said something. And I said, you know, Amber, how dare you say that when you're not even trying to have a personal relationship with Jesus? And she was like, what? You know, she was pretty mad that I said this.
And the next day she's like, I want to know how to have a personal relationship. And I was like, start reading the Gospels every day and start praying and asking the Lord to encounter you. And I'm not kidding. Everyone we know commented on how she
[00:29:44] Speaker A: changed just by reading the Gospels every
[00:29:46] Speaker B: day and asking the Lord to reveal himself in that. Yeah, because that's beautiful. I mean, she became softer and just more trusting, and it was like a beautiful thing. And she was a great person before. Right. She was a great Catholic before, but she did not have that personal, like that love. Right. And that's where you get it. Right?
Yeah.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: Let's come back to basis, actually, really back to the person who was watching, who is a little confused.
Let's pray. Really, if this is kind of a foreign concept to you, I just want to pray right now and maybe show you a model too, to lead other people in prayer, to just receive Jesus into your life in maybe a new way.
You want to take it or me?
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we just place ourselves in the presence of God now and just acknowledge his presence.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Thank you, Lord.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: Lord, first of all, just acknowledge that you created us, that you, Your love is what holds us into being and that you love us.
Lord, we ask first of all that you would reveal yourself to us and not let us make an idol out of you, not let us make us make you into anything that you're not.
We want to have patience and just let you reveal yourself to us.
Lord God, we're sorry for anything that we've done to separate us from you.
And we ask, Lord, that you would be the answer to that sin, that you would be the answer to all of the ways that we've run from you.
Lord God, we're just so thankful that you're not a God who remains far off, but that you're a God who comes after us and romances us.
We pray, Lord, at this moment that we want to encounter you, not know more about you, not know more facts about yout, not know different things like theology or anything like that. But Lord, we want to know youw. We want to meet yout, Lord, in that encounter, we ask that yout would reveal who we are.
Lord God, we just ask that yout would bestow on us the sonship, that family bond that we have with you, that we might feel it, Lord, through an act of our will. We just give our lives, our hearts, totally and completely to you. Even if we don't feel it, Lord, we know that you created us and know what's best for us. And we give ourselves totally to you.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Yes, Lord.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Lord Jesus, most of all, we ask that you would reveal the Father to us.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yes, Lord.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: In your holy name we pray.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yes, Lord. And even for people who are watching, who have been just walking with the Lord for a long time, but maybe never made that act of the will, that movement of the will. Just like a couple that's been dating for a long time, but they haven't gotten married yet.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Right?
[00:32:38] Speaker A: The Lord is waiting for you to say yes to him in a deeper way. So, Lord, we just. We say yes to what you did on the cross for us. We accept you as savior. We receive you as Lord.
We say yes, Jesus. Yes, Jesus. Yes, Jesus.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Dude, what a joy to just focus on the basics and just soak in the grace with you right now.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Yeah, we all need to get back to it, right? Yeah.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Amen. Thanks, brother. Thank you. The Lord loves you so much. It's a joy just soaking in the best news in all of human history with you for the past 30 minutes. We'll see you next time.
It.
