Death to Life podcast
#133 From Scarcity Mindset to a Rich Mindset: Joe Lives In Abundance Through Christ.
Discover Joe Van den Hoven's journey from seeking career and wealth as a solution to his problems to finding faith in Christ's transformative power. Join us for a candid conversation as he shares his battles with lust, pornography, and challenges in relationships and career.
Raised as a Seventh-day Adventist, Joe's parents influenced his spiritual upbringing, despite the struggle to balance faith and personal choices. He discusses overcoming performance identity, realizing his potential in faith, and the support he received.
Joe's story unfolds through college struggles, his relationship with his future wife, Nadja, and his battle with pornography addiction. It's a testament to love, faith, and human resilience. Join us on Joe's inspiring journey to freedom in Christ.
view more resources on our website
0:00 - Death to Life
5:00 - Impact of Upbringing on Spiritual Life
15:12 - Overcoming Challenges and Finding Potential
22:53 - Struggles With Spirituality and Relationships
31:55 - Struggles With Pornography, Marriage, and Work
42:35 - Counseling, Christian Faith, Guilt, and Shame
46:36 - Navigating Identity and Challenges in Life
1:00:02 - Discovering Freedom, Letting Go of Money
1:07:37 - Finding Purpose and Resting in Spirit
1:15:56 - Overcoming Performance Identity
Looking for discipleship and fellowship? Join a Circle at lovereality.org/circles
Discover Joe Van den Hoven's journey from seeking career and wealth as a solution to his problems to finding faith in Christ's transformative power. Join us for a candid conversation as he shares his battles with lust, pornography, and challenges in relationships and career.
Raised as a Seventh-day Adventist, Joe's parents influenced his spiritual upbringing, despite the struggle to balance faith and personal choices. He discusses overcoming performance identity, realizing his potential in faith, and the support he received.
Joe's story unfolds through college struggles, his relationship with his future wife, Nadja, and his battle with pornography addiction. It's a testament to love, faith, and human resilience. Join us on Joe's inspiring journey to freedom in Christ.
view more resources on our website
0:00 - Death to Life
5:00 - Impact of Upbringing on Spiritual Life
15:12 - Overcoming Challenges and Finding Potential
22:53 - Struggles With Spirituality and Relationships
31:55 - Struggles With Pornography, Marriage, and Work
42:35 - Counseling, Christian Faith, Guilt, and Shame
46:36 - Navigating Identity and Challenges in Life
1:00:02 - Discovering Freedom, Letting Go of Money
1:07:37 - Finding Purpose and Resting in Spirit
1:15:56 - Overcoming Performance Identity
Looking for discipleship and fellowship? Join a Circle at lovereality.org/circles
Death to Life is brought to you by Love, Reality, a good gospel ministry. Our mission is to tell everyone willing to listen that in Christ, by faith, they are free from sin. Everything that we make is made possible because of the generosity of people like you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 1:In the past, I've always been looking towards the next thing to like, okay, well, I've been underperforming or I had this going on my life, but when this next thing gets here, it'll be different. Like getting married was the next thing, like that was going to fix that. Now, the next thing is I'm going to graduate school okay, I'm going to start working, we're going to start making money, we're going to get our own place. Like that's going to fix everything. I'll have a title to my name. I work in trial ICU, you know. Like that says something about me I'm valuable.
Speaker 2:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with my brother, joe Vandenhoven and man. In this episode, joe learns how to rest in Christ. He had an issue with lust and he thought beating that would make everything better, but that transitioned to marriage and ultimately the deception was that his career and money would solve all of his problems. But that did not work out. And so you will hear Joe's story of freedom from career, freedom from the safety and foundation being the money you make. You're going to love this episode. It blessed me so much, so let's just jump into it. This is Joe Vandenhoven Buckle up, strap in Love. Y'all, appreciate y'all. Joe, man, I feel like I met you and I know I started on my podcast like when I met the person. I met you. You graduated 04 from high school, yep, and I think I was your RA your first year at Union College, correct, and we don't have to go too deep into this because we've gone deep into this in a bunch of other podcasts. I'm sure you didn't like me and I know your roommate didn't like me and he and I became really great friends, but yeah, that was almost 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Man, that's crazy to say it's been that long. But yeah, dude, you were my RA freshman year. And Jason Odenthal, good guy, shout out to Jason.
Speaker 3:Love.
Speaker 1:Jason, yeah, we were in together for six months and I think that's where we first knew you, because I don't think I ever played basketball against you in high school at any tournaments, because I don't even know if we overlapped we would have at least one year. But I don't remember you in high school. But yeah, no, richard, I'm not, I won't lie, I wasn't a huge fan.
Speaker 2:So I went on by Bible study this week that went to Union with me. We went to school together and this might come to a surprise, but I didn't like you. And I'm like, oh no, not a surprise at all. And they said and then when I heard that you had a podcast talking about spiritual things, it shocked me and I'm like, yeah, ok, we've heard that, and so we all get it and praise God that he, he changes and transforms. But, joe, let's start here. Man, where does your spiritual life start in your story of the Joe Vanden Oven story? Where? Where does it start in your mind?
Speaker 1:I think. Spiritually I was formed from an early age by my parents, so I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Both of my parents were also raised Seventh-day Adventists, brought up in that tradition. We were born in Pennsylvania and I'm one of three siblings and we had a very tight knit, I would say conservative family that really put a lot of emphasis on Bible study and church and just doing all the right things. Yeah, that's that sounds familiar. Yeah, so we were there in Pennsylvania from 1985 to 1990. And what part of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Reading Pennsylvania. You and Taylor Swift she's from Reading Pennsylvania Are you serious. Yeah.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:So there until 1990. And then where'd you take off to?
Speaker 1:It's a cool story. Hearing my parents talk about this, they suddenly they decided that they need to get ready for Jesus to come back and they both didn't really know what that would look like. But God said someone to buy their house in Pennsylvania. My mom was out walking randomly and some guy approached her driving a van which is like terror See if some random driving up in the van in the age Silence of the lambs. Anyways, this guy stopped and he was like hey, I'm looking for a house to buy. I'm moving to the area. Does he know anyone that's selling a house in this area? She was like no, but let me take your phone number just in case. And things fell into place for them to be able to move to Colorado and help take care of my grandparents and ended up finding this guy's info and calling him back and bought their house. And then they decided to move to Colorado 1990. My dad took a six month sabbatical from work and we moved to Colorado and just started living with grandma, grandpa on the farm and doing that.
Speaker 2:What part of Colorado did you move to Greeley Colorado? I knew you were going to say Greeley. I don't know anything about Greeley, and so then you end up that smells. It smells like money. That's what the farmers would say, right?
Speaker 1:Yes or the ranchers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it smells like money, yeah, and so you were trained up in a just a conservative God fearing God, loving home.
Speaker 1:Then right yeah for sure, my parents were great people. They both have hearts from the board and they really wanted us to also have that same love for God. And, yeah, and that looks like every night having Bible studies for worship, being active in church, teaching Sabbath schools, things like that and as kids we just got to tag along and all that.
Speaker 2:Man. Praise the Lord for godly parents. Man, you're born on third base in a sense, where you have parents that love God, love each other and love you, and you probably, like me baby, took it for granted a little bit. Just yeah, this is life, but not everybody has that kind of upbringing. So praise the Lord for that For sure.
Speaker 1:It had a lot of benefits. No doubt I know that for me, the enemy started using that against me to then tell me that how I performed in the seventh day of this tradition, or how well I kept tradition for things that we typically do, that then influenced how God felt about me, and I think I subconsciously put that on myself, but it happened in the woods.
Speaker 2:When would you say that started happening?
Speaker 1:Probably, you know, after we moved to Colorado, and just wanting to, like on Sabbath afternoons, wanting to do other things that were technically sanctioned, or just having a desire to listen to different types of music, or not always feeling like I wanted to read the Bible or participate in family worships, and things like that and those messages. The way I interpreted that for my parents is we need to do this. We have to do this because this is how we stay close to God, and so I think I internalized that by me not wanting to participate in that, god was not close to me and he was pulling away from me.
Speaker 2:Man, that's so tough. How many kids do you have now? Three, okay, I've got two kids. And how old are your kids? Eleven, nine and five Similar ages of my kids, and at this point my daughter's 10, my son is seven. Spiritual things are still cool. They still enjoy. We have, I have family worship in the morning with them before we go to school, and they seem to be interested and I do it because I think it's a good. It's good to do these things. Now I know that life is going to come up for them and I know all these things are coming and I try to operate their freedom. But if we're not careful, we can turn this good thing into a thing that becomes rules and regulations and rules and regulations. Nobody likes to be under rules and regulations. And how we teach our children it's going to now that you and I are walking in this truth, it's going to be like how do we do it? That's the age old question, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's something that I think I'm still growing in as I see my own kids and just not wanting to have them fall into the same mistakes or pitfalls that I did. But yeah, we'll get to that a little bit later. But I think, going back to my parents, I don't want any of this to come across like I'm saying anything negative about parents or what they were trying to do the best they could in the moment, and I love my parents, but I think our picture of God is also at an early age frame by our father, specifically our dads, and how they interact or relate to us. And my dad is super analytical and very intelligent and he did super well in school and things like that, and there was always an expectation of certain performance that was acceptable and I think I internalize that to mean that's also how God sees me as well.
Speaker 2:But yeah, yeah, they say that your whole adult life you're making up for how your parents raised you. That's what they say. I don't know if they're right, but after a certain point the enemy doesn't need the help from your parents. They take all the help he can get, but then he just. Then there's lies coming from everywhere. It's coming from anything, but certainly I'm sure your dad would never say this is how you become right with me, son. He loved you with an everlasting love. He loved you with the heart of God. But, yeah, these things just sneak in there and they're not even in the front of our mind. You're not thinking, oh, this is my standing with God. It's just little things we start to believe about ourselves if we're not constantly setting our mind on truth. And then, yeah, the enemy is out there, ready to attack us and just condemn us.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, and he definitely did that. And it's the first lie that I always think that I believed about myself was that my guy he was based on my performance and that God saw me that way too performance-based. I remember I was homeschooled up until sixth grade and we were also raised on a farm, and so homeschool was like a lot of practical knowledge, very little book work. And then when I went to school in sixth grade which I had a great time, loved school I just was really behind in the actual coursework, because school goes like a certain progression, there's a structure to it, and I was just lacking that structure and so I struggled so hard in grade school and I remember sometimes coming home and having to answer my parents when my report cards were so terrible and it would be like we know that you're capable of doing so much better, like, why aren't you doing it? And I was like, oh, I'm trying. And then I had also two older sisters who were extremely high achievers Love my sisters, they're so great. But school came super easy for them and so I think I made subconsciously I made that comparison in my mind man, this seems so easy for them and I am struggling so hard? What's wrong with me?
Speaker 2:Man. That's the blessing in the curse of having smart parents. My dad is probably the smartest guy I've ever met, and then my twin sister. She's in the same line of just their geniuses, and so school just came super easy. And for me they're like Richard, you could be a doctor. I'll tell you right now, I could not be a doctor, and it's not because I'm not, I'm intelligent. I'm just not that kind of intelligent. I'm just not. I'm not the kind that can read something and grasp something super quickly and then understand tough concepts and memorize Like it's just not me, but they're like no, you can do this and they hold you to that standard and it's good, and then, if you're not careful, it can be pretty bad. So when did this performance stuff, when did it start manifesting in your life? Do you feel Like that lie started to take root?
Speaker 1:Probably when I went, started going to school and then a lot of things, things that I really had a bent for in life, like sports and other things that I wanted to do they became tied to performance. So there was like the carrot of hey, if you do X, y or Z, then you can do this thing that you really want to do. If you do this and this, then you can do this thing you really want to do, and after a while you just get to. At least from my personality, I just got to the point where I was like man, I don't think I can do that. I'm just not even going to try, just going to give up. I guess I am this thing. I guess I am not that smart or I'm lazy. I put those things on and just kind of, that's how you think what I'm being labeled as, that's who I'm going to be.
Speaker 2:Let's go yeah man, some people are cut out for it, and then they look at the rest of us who aren't. Coach Beans I don't know if he's listening. He's probably listening to this. He once told me it was between riding a bike up a hill and riding a motorcycle up a hill. He would always take the bike because then he could. He would have done it himself and he's cut from that cloth. He's a competitive dude and a high achieving and everything, and it seemed like it came easy to him. But for someone like you and me, I don't think I'm cut from that cloth and if it's on the line for me, then I might have to quit. I don't know if I have what it takes, and so it can't be about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, exactly. And now that I have my own kids and I'm on the other side of freedom, looking at it like I think that anybody, career-wise or scholastically, can really perform however they believe they can. And so the idea you talk about I can never be a doctor I disagree with you, Richard. I think you could be a doctor. Your path to being a doctor would look very different, probably than some other doctors, but I think that we can do these things. We just need the right support and motivation to do it and the tools you know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thanks. Now I feel like I'm gonna Dance of the podcast. Podcast, call it a medical school. I'm annoyed with it. Yeah, so you're in school, the things that are coming naturally to you, like running around, playing sports and all that. You're having fun there, but it's a scoreboard game. It seems like you're checking the scoreboard all the time to seeing how you're doing in life, and so you're doing. Well, sometimes you're not. Keep going, man. What happened?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So after grade school, I graduated in 2000 from eighth grade and started a campion academy. My freshman year as a village student in our house was about 25 minutes away, Drove every day 25 minutes One way, 25 minutes back, and that's where I met some of my best friends to this day, Such great relationships from campion, including Jason. We met in the greenhouse at campion academy. We both worked there in the industry and, yeah, for me starting high school, I totally felt confident. Now this is a fresh start. The slate is wet, clean. I can actually do good perform and they have high school athletics. I can do this. Now. This sounds like a lot of fun and so I was super excited. And high school was the first week I was great man, the first two weeks scholastically off the charts.
Speaker 2:You're like I can do this. No more skill pack and study book. I can do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, but very quickly. And I think my study habits were very poor. I just didn't know how to apply myself in study at the time and so very quickly fell behind scholastically. And I really wanted to play sports with my friends and obviously, with the grades that I had. It wasn't even my parents who were saying I couldn't do it. I just did not meet the qualifications to play, based on the academic standards they have to play. And so the first one year was like my mom driving me to school, hanging out with my friends that were playing sports that I really wanted to do, and just getting this feeling of less than yeah, less than low self-esteem, just struggling with all those things, and that continued into my sophomore year. I started actually driving to school then myself, which is a lot of fun, I enjoy driving, but, yeah, I think I was late so many times in the class I actually got expelled. You got expelled from campion for tardiness For tardiness, yeah, so that went over a grade, but no, I got expelled from camp from tardiness and that just further told me that I was this thing that I was becoming, and just continued on that until I convinced my parents that if they wanted me to perform all in school and do all these things, I needed to move into the dorm so I could be at school, be able to completely invest my time in this thing. Really, I just wanted to hang out with my friends all day and night. So, yeah, junior year, moving to the dorm at campion, which was the best experience I've had to date. It was really fun, met a bunch of really great people. Dean Rear he's awesome. He was the boy's dean there and he really became a second dad to me. I remember coming into his office and him just laying out Like, let's say, I got in trouble for something. Rear would sit you down and be like no, but how are things really going? Tell me about how things are going at home, tell me about what's on your mind, like how are you really feeling? And that was really awesome to have that person who really felt like they cared for you. So I really enjoyed, rear, my time at the dorm and I got it together enough to skillastically start playing sports. Junior year I started playing and that continued into senior year. But yeah man grades were still not great, maybe a C average, and I think my parents at that point just gave up to a certain extent and backed off. And yeah, so I was just living life, going to school, playing sports, doing what I loved, and now still getting bad grades and not performing well, getting in trouble. I got suspended from campion for leaving campus with a girlfriend, my roommate and I. As punishment for that, we had to paint the boys' bathrooms. So if you go into the boys' bathrooms at Camping Academy, you'll see our handiwork. But no, it was good. But things really started to change for me my senior year and senior year when I got to school. I remember just wanting to have a bunch of friends that year and do all the sports and be well-liked by people. No-transcript. The first week of school I prayed to God and I said I want to be well-liked and a friend of all people and I don't want them to like me because of like how cool I am or how well I play sports, but I want people to like me because of how I treat other people. And that was my mantra my senior year. And so I went out of my way just to be like, nice and inclusive to everybody and it paid off huge. My senior year was awesome. Such a great time and so many great memories and friends, things like that. I actually got rebaptized my senior year too. We were on senior survival and Doug Tallvin was the chaplain of Camping Academy then and I don't even remember what he was preaching that weekend, but it stirred something in me to be like I'm going to make a change. And so I got rebaptized it at Glacierview Ranch in the water and that was really cool. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:So you're going into college and you're feeling pretty good about yourself and your relationship with God. How in your mind was God feeling about you at that point?
Speaker 1:I think God was in my mind. I still felt that I wasn't leading up to my potential, like I remember having that super high moment of senior survival weekend, that high with God, and then getting rebaptized and then coming back to school and finding myself in the same ruts of performance, underperforming in school. Just my relationship with my parents was strained at this point and just the rift that we had between us and the performance issues. And, yeah, it seemed like in my mind that God saw me and he was like you have so much potential and one day I could really get on board with you. But there's a lot you got to work on first.
Speaker 2:The potential lie. So that can be a motivation and it can be a motivation killer.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure. Yeah, cause, like you know, talking about my spiritual high senior year, like I was like yeah, man, I'm going to stop all these things that I've been doing. And one of the things that I got caught up in and exposed to super young was pornography. And I was consuming pornography all through high school and I felt terrible about it. And senior year, when I had that moment, I got rebaptized. It was like I felt so great. And then coming back to school and got right back into my patterns of all behavior and it was just like, oh man, I really screwed up. Yeah, definitely not performing Mercy.
Speaker 2:Mercy. So you get to college. What's the mindset College?
Speaker 1:shifted for me, because I remember leaving Campion thinking, okay, so I had a lot of like. I spent this whole year trying to like, be nice, serve other people, be well liked because of how I treated others. And now I'm going to college and I felt like there was so much that I didn't get to do or I hadn't done with having a girlfriend or things like that. So I was like, man, college a college in my mind was like the thing that prepared you for the next step in life, prepared you to make money, those types of things, and I thought, yeah, man, I'm just going to go out and get what I can, try to gather all these experiences and live for myself now.
Speaker 2:So how did it go?
Speaker 1:Not great. No, colleges are right. Yeah, got to college and I immediately remember feeling like a fish out of water. Just came from Campion and smaller schools and I'm in this huge union's not huge, but relative For us.
Speaker 2:It was 10 people in my graduating class in high school and I was like there's people here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't even know to do myself and I had started dating my wife, naja, that summer before we went to union. And once we got to union I was just like, oh my gosh, there's so much going on here. We just grew up together and really started focusing on each other, almost to the point that we in some aspects missed out on some of the more social events, things like that. But, yeah, I had this idea. I guess I need to find a career now. Jason O'daw actually was the one that talked me into this, but I was like nursing seems like a good career. There's lots of people that can get jobs easily. Seems like they're well paid, so that's what I'm gonna do. But in my heart I kind of wanted to go to medical school, in the back of my mind, because my dad's a doctor and I always wanted to. I looked up to what he did and I kind of wanted to do that. But my grades were terrible in high school and I really wasn't encouraged to take that path because, just because of who I think I had become in my parents' eyes, they saw me according to my inability to perform and I just wasn't encouraged in that.
Speaker 2:Did you have the Jason? Seems like he had a plan and we've been talking about our buddy Jason a lot, sorry. Jason had a plan to like he was gonna be a hospital administrator through nursing. It seemed like he had that from like the first class he took. He convinced you like yo, you can do this, and you're just like okay, this is where I'm at, this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we were actually in a baseball game the end of our senior year at Campion and we were just like talking about rooming together at Union and he was asking me what do you want to study? And I said I have no idea, dude. But I had an idea what I thought I wanted to do, but I don't think I can do that. And I remember Jason being like I know somebody who's a nursing as the test and they kill it and so we should try to go for that. And I was like huh, weird, never heard of that. Okay, so that means we're gonna do nursing. He's like yeah, let's do nursing. My dad's an administrator. He does really well, like it's a good career. So Jason talked me into the nursing field and that's it. From that moment on I was like, shoot, I can do nursing, let's do it.
Speaker 2:So you're going through college, you're dating Naja. Life is good. How's God feeling about you going through college?
Speaker 1:He's still disappointed, I feel like, because again still not super performing well in school, I'm doing okay, but not killing it per se. And then I felt super guilty about a relationship. Growing up in the Adventist tradition the only way to date your spouse, there were certain things you just didn't do, like physical lines, things that you shouldn't do before marriage, and we were not operating in that mode, and so I wore that super heavily thinking that God felt a certain way about me because of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, the guilt, shame and conundation from sin. And that can man that will go with you. Man Like for me, tore me up and you don't know how to get out of it. Was that your experience? You're like man. I know this is wrong, but I don't know what to do about it because it feels like I'm stuck.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, we didn't feel good about it. I know that for a fact and we talk about, hey, let's focus on other areas of relationships, so we'd meet for a while in the cafeteria and have worships and things like that, and then we just always fell back into that pattern and, yeah, it just had a way of ensnaring us, like the enemy totally used that to at least for me specifically to say that God wasn't pleased with what we were doing.
Speaker 2:How did you move forward or what happened next in your story?
Speaker 1:My senior year of college, I decided that I wanted to marry Naja. It's not that we just fell into it. Naja is a great person. She I was attracted to her in high school because she just operated in a different way. She easily navigated all the different friend groups and cliques and was someone that was well liked and was just. Her ability to treat everybody with respect and love was just incredible. And she's an awesome person, man. She's super spiritual and for a long time she's been the rock spiritually in our family and our lives, and so I'm super blessed to have Naja in my life and I realized that, yeah, I want to marry this woman. Senior year we got engaged. Senior year yeah, no it was actually junior year we got married, moved into the basement and it was complete wedded bliss forever. No, just kidding.
Speaker 2:How long did it last?
Speaker 1:Probably like a couple of months we felt like really good about, yeah, we were just living in that new married couple space. And then, yeah, slowly think we just started looking to each other to make us each other happy and I was still dealing with the intense guilt and shame of still being caught up in pornography and trying to not do that thing and spend put my attention on my wife. Yeah, the enemy definitely capitalized on that and it was like just the guilt and shame cycle just was nonstop roller coaster. And I think that caused me to pull back from Naja a little bit, because I was constantly living under this fear of she's gonna find out, she's gonna know. She had no idea. No, not at the time. I was like I can't let her know because if she knows that, one, that's true about me. And two, like how could someone actually want to stay with someone or love someone when they've been betrayed in this manner?
Speaker 2:So one of the lies about pornography is that it is a sin that only hurts the person that's participating in it, and there's a million ways where we can say how it's hurtful to everybody, but one of the main ways it's that it leads to a condemned heart. Well, I mean not if you're not in Christ, if you don't care about God, then you got all sorts of other problems. But if you are a believer and you're participating in it, your heart is condemned, and so the intimacy that could take place between you and your spouse. Now there's something in the way. It's not like a complete freedom of giving of yourself, because there's so many things you could be condemned. And you're believing you're not pure, you're believing you're this, you're believing you're that, and so you can't even offer all of yourself because of that condemnation and someone's like well, it doesn't hurt, it just hurts me. I guess it's just racking, just messing up my brain. You're not able to share yourself, you're not able, and that's what sex is. It's like the ultimate intimacy you're giving of yourself, you're showing yourself. It's who you are, who they are, and so I don't know if this was your story. But because of that condemnation that you're dealing with You're not able to. You tell me, were you not able to? Just, was there something there that was in the way, but you couldn't even talk to her about it?
Speaker 1:For sure. Yeah, that definitely the lie that keeps a lot of people hooked in. That is, if you say anything about it, you'll be shunned, that person will cast you out, and so you do draw back to keep the secrecy, to keep that sin silent. You do withdraw into yourself and it totally hinders your ability to connect with someone On all levels, not just on a sexual level, all levels, and that's definitely I mean you talk about the lie of pornography being it just affects the person. No, the ripples carry over into every aspect of your life that your family members lies. It goes a long ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I remember not wanting to have any kind of sex with my wife for like, if I looked at something, I'm like, oh, I can't, I've got to wait at least three days or something. She has no idea what's going on, but I'm weird. You know what I'm saying. I'm acting weird. There's a yeah, not good, totally hurtful. You're dealing with that, keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dealing with that. And then, all through senior year, I'm still in nursing school, finish up my senior year, and I really thought that this is a reoccurring thing for me too. I'm always like right, in the past I've always been looking towards the next thing, to like, okay, well, I've been underperforming or I had this going on my life, but when this next thing gets here, it'll be different and things can change. And so after we got married and then I fell back into that, getting married was the next thing, like that was going to fix that. Now the next thing is I'm going to graduate school. Okay, I'm going to graduate school, I'm going to start working, we're going to start making money, we're going to get our own place. Like that's going to fix everything. Like I'll have a night play, I'll be have a title to my name, which I took a lot of pride in working towards this thing graduating and then, having that I work in trauma ICU, you know, like that says something about me. I'm valuable. The next thing was graduation and graduated in 2008, and then I had to take some summer classes to finish out my degree. So I didn't actually start working till January of 2009 and, man, I was feeling so good. I've arrived, I'm a nurse, I'm doing this thing, I'm working on the floor, I'm going to take care of patients, I'm going to be respected in the community, all these things, and that was anybody that's worked as a nurse. You just realize right away that the allure and whatever you thought it was going to be, it's a little different. Sure.
Speaker 2:That's my wife. That's that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean very quickly after graduating, I was like, man, this is not super fulfilling, it's not giving me the things I thought it would. And nothing changed at home and I was just like then, what's next? And in the back of my mind, since that conversation with Jason, I'd always had in my mind I want to go do anesthesia, because they do really well they. So I was like, okay, let's start working towards that, start taking classes part time to boost my GPA, so I could even be considered for school and start working in neuro trauma ICU. And once I started in trauma ICU, we had our first child, peter, and that was in Illinois. In Illinois, where I was like, yeah, this is going to be different. Now I've got a kid, I'm going to get my act together. Mars, same story, right, sure. So now I have this in my mind that I have to provide for my family my wife, my son go to school and I need to also further my education. And so I decided that, in order to provide for my family, I needed to make more money. In order to make more money, I needed to work, go on the weekend program. And so for the next four years, I worked every single weekend, except for two weekends a year, which was and it was night shift, because that was the highest differential weekends nights and in my mind I'm like, yeah, I'm doing this for my family. Of course I'm trying to be a good provider, trying to further my education, going to school during the week to take these remedial classes, but what it did was it completely and thoroughly isolated me from any type of community that I had at church. And, yeah, man, it was just. It was not good. Living in the trauma ICU can be very stressful, and so it was like almost I was living like two lives. Like I had the work life where we were dealing with these high stress scenarios, and like our, the staff, the family that we had there was very tight knit. And so when we got on shift, when we went to work, like we had all these inside jokes and it was like camaraderie and I almost felt like a different person in that scenario. And then Monday morning I'd come home and start my day shift life with my family and I was operating under a different circumstance or as a different person almost. So I was like living these two lives and that's exhausting.
Speaker 2:How did you make it through with sleep, man? Were you just a zombie?
Speaker 1:Oh that was so rough and shout out to your 20s. I think you can do anything in your 20s. But yeah, what I would do is Thursday. I would try to sleep in as late as I could on Thursday, I'm sorry. Friday sleep in as late as I could on Friday. So I'd usually get up around two, go to work that evening, work the next three shifts, get off Monday morning, stay up until bedtime and then flip on the days, was that? successful Were you able to flip? Were you able to do that? What ended up happening was that Monday I would stay up all day, go to bed at seven super early, and then I'd wake up at 2am. And at 2am you know what happens then. Right, shouldn't be your dot com, yeah. And then just binging like all kinds of like TV shows, and I was caught up on all the shows, all these things, and then, from starting at five o'clock, where I found those guys that I played basketball with was at the downtown YMCA, so 530 would roll around. I'd go play basketball downtown with the guys, and yeah, and then just continue my day and it finally got to the point where by Thursday I was starting to feel like a human being again, and then you'd start all over again on Friday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I only work night shift for six months and I can see it takes years off people's lives. It literally takes years off people. It's so unhealthy. And hey, if you're working the night shift and you're listening to this, God bless you. I'm sure that you're a blessing wherever you are. But get off of that mug as soon as you can. But I'm sure you're a blessing in whatever field that you're in. But it is hard, man. It takes years off of your life. How did this affect your marriage and being a dad and all that stuff?
Speaker 1:Marriage wise, it was not good. We were becoming super good roommates, meaning we were coexisting in the same space with a child. There was really no connection, and Najwa was feeling this distance as well, and so her cousin is a counselor. I believe she had been talking to her about how weird it was at home and there's got to be something going on like something weird. And I think they got put this conversation in her life, and so the Holy Spirit basically outed me right, Told not told Najwa, but Najwa from the promptings of a friend, then asked me like what's going on, what's been happening to you to make you like this? And so she listed off a bunch of things You're having a affair, you're taking pornography, like all this stuff. And she'd asked me about pornography previously, like in our first I don't know year two of marriage, and I had just adamantly denied it. No way, I'd never do that. That's weird. Who's into that? Yeah, nobody. Those from those other people? Yeah, that's actually one of the lies at porn too, is that, if you're if you, it's very isolating and you feel like you're the only person that has that struggle. But it's super common, dude, Super common.
Speaker 2:Oh, super common. I would be surprised that people aren't in and I'm not talking about in the world, I'm talking about in the church. I get surprised when I find people have never struggled with it or aren't in the middle of struggling with it. Because it is so common, because sexual immorality is the sin of the day. It is the sin of the day when Paul was around, it is the sin of the day now. It used to be about temple prostitution and that's what it was about. Now it's just, oh man, it's just, it's so poisonous and it's at your fingertips within two seconds. And so, yeah, it's not just common, right?
Speaker 1:right, yeah, and that's what society like you're saying, that's what society wants you to think is. This is normal, it's common. You know, this is what men do. For sure, I think that's the mindset that I was operating at that time. But no, she called me out on it and she was like you know, is this something that you're going through? And in the moment I was just like, okay, yes, and she was like, but I was like, yes, but this isn't, this doesn't affect you. This is my own thing. I can work on this. I could stop it. I really thought this doesn't affect you. And so we had that conversation and then, a couple of days later, she came to me and she was like have you made any steps to get treatment or anything or actually affect change? And I was like not yet. And she was like if you don't do something, I'm going to take Peter and go to your mom's house. And for me that's just like when the walls caved in and I was like, oh no.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you didn't tell her the depth of it. You're probably like, or you tell me were you like, yeah, I have a porn addiction. Or were you like I've looked at it from time to time, but it's not a huge deal.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, it's a ladder.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so even then you low keyed it, you downplayed it, but even then she was like no, I'm not having it.
Speaker 1:No, nandja was like listen, I know this isn't normal and for us to, for our marriage to succeed, like something needs to change. And she goes. I talked to my cousin and I've got the name of some counselors here in town and I want you to go see these, where I'm taking Peter to your mom's house. And I was like, oh no, then my mom's going to know. So I was like, okay, okay, at the time it was like just trying to jump to that next tube to like just quell the situation. So I went to counseling and it was this guy named Jeff in Lincoln, and Jeff from Jump was like I'm a Christian counselor. And I was like, okay, cool, he's a Christian. I was like, yeah, I am. And he goes okay, can I counsel you in a Christian manner? And I was like, okay, sure, jeff, I don't know the denomination you are, I don't know if you know what I'm saying, but the Adventist. And like we have all the truth. That's what I was thinking in the back of my mind. Oh, you're a Christian. What do you know about this, jeff? Like that's just the deception I was living. And if you eat pork, don't talk to me, that's right. Be coming up in here unless you're, unless you know the state of the dead my guy Now Jeff. He talked we, I think I did counseling for three months and we delved into a lot of things and it just really opened my eyes to like how pornography had affected every aspect of my life and it had literally stolen my joy and affected for me to connect with anyone on a more than just a superficial level. And he kept saying these things like you gotta live in the spirit. He's you need to develop your spirit man. Jeff referred to the spirit man all the time and he'd be like you need to. He's like do you go to church? I was like sometimes he goes, all right, find somebody at church that can disciple you in this. Like that you trust. And I was like, yeah, okay, I'm not gonna do that. Thanks, jeff, and he's dude. Anyways, jeff, I remember this analogy clearly. This day, at the end of the three months, I had achieved a period of sobriety and Jeff was like Joe, you've met the milestones. I'm really proud of you. You've done a lot of work here. But until you figure out your spirit man and living in the spirit, this will forever feel like you're holding on and you're just white knuckling it and I was like oh, okay. If your motivation to stop this is because of your wife. Your wife is gonna be gone someday, and then what? And I? Was like oh man Okay.
Speaker 2:Jeff had some wisdom. Dude, Jeff was on it.
Speaker 1:No doubt Love Jeff. Shout out to Jeff. I don't even remember his last name, but good guy For sure. I came out of that. Yeah, I came out of that and our marriage got instantly better. We were starting to connect emotionally. Everything was going great and then. But I still had intense guilt and shame over my past and what that meant, and I always felt super self-conscious about it. What if I don't want Naja to share this with anyone? That we did this because then, or that I've done this because then? That's going to say something about me and our marriage Basically, if I don't acknowledge that it happened, that's not who I am and it kept me super at church. Specifically, it kept me super disconnected and not uninterested. But I just didn't want to get too close to anyone because I was trying this intense shame and guilt of what I had done and what that said about who I was as a person. That just spoke over me and so I was just going through the motions at church. Yeah, it was tough, but yeah, fast forward a little bit when I started grad school in 2015. And at that time, Kessie Arraine came to call you church. Shout out to Kessie Arraine. Man, Kessie Arraine is so awesome. I loved her episode on Death to Life and I've just loved having Kessie Arraine as a family friend, and her kids are awesome and she's a good family, anyway, her husband, joshua Bennett. He came over to our house one Saturday. We had him over and he's sitting on my couch and I'm a graduate student back from clinical away at Yorker Scott's Bluff or something. I'm sitting there and Josh, I love Josh because he's super. He's not afraid to just say whatever's on his mind and he goes. He just turns to me and he's like hey man, have you ever started old pornography? And I was like internally I'm like how'd you know? But he's yeah, dude, I'm thinking about getting starting a group at church and I want to go through this series called the Conqueror series. And I just want to know if there's something you'd be interested in. And I was like, yeah, I'd do that. That sounds awesome, I'd go for it. And it was like a nebulous start date.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in the future. And I was like, okay, yeah, that's cool, I'm gonna agree to this.
Speaker 1:They're gonna come up, you know, down with the title yeah sure, yeah, we'll do it. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it, man. Yeah, I've experienced that a little bit, so that was happening. Like I said, I started graduate school and during that time, when I got into graduate school, that was a huge boost for my self-confidence, because now I'm doing the thing that I said I wanted to do and it's setting me up for success in the future. And again I had this mindset Once I graduate school, I'm going to finally make the money that's gonna make me successful, that's gonna provide for our family, that's gonna get the respect of the community things like that. Grad school is a roller coaster of emotions, because when you start out, you were just like the bottom of the totem chain in the operating room, like it can be rough and, praise God, I made it through and I graduated in 2018. And that was like I felt so good at graduation day. I just felt like I had finally arrived, like everything was gonna be better, like I now had a job that could provide for my family in a way that I had pictured being adequate and, yeah, and just all these things over my life that it said I couldn't perform in school and I couldn't do these things like I had finally beaten that and become this thing, and so now my identity on graduation day is completely wrapped up in being a nurse and a sadist. You didn't have to know I was one, because I was gonna tell you within the first five minutes of our conversation and it was a and. So I started working right away and it was going really good, did you, maybe I missed it.
Speaker 2:What happened with the group? What happened with the conquerors? Oh, no, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we I think Josh and I talked about meeting in 2015 or 16. And we actually didn't start meeting until 2018, two years later. Okay, but yeah, no, the group was awesome. The Conqueror series is a really cool tool and it's got a lot of like psychology backed behind. It Talks through the psychology of pornography and it's a Christian based program and what's funny is it's like it's all these steps that you have to do and there is value in doing Don't get me wrong all these steps that you do and then at the end they're like and then you kind of really transform your mind and the spirit. That's like the very last piece. And so we did the group and there was like four of us that went through it and it was awesome. It was super freeing, actually, to get a lot of that off my chest and have other guys that either sympathized, knew what we were going through or, yeah, just to have that off your chest down the open was very freeing.
Speaker 2:And so you're experiencing some freedom there and you're now a nurse in ethicist. So, mama, we made it, you're out there. What happened next?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, we made it until the first six months went by and then I realized not realized, but I started feeling in my heart, man, I'm being taken advantage of, like my employers are making X amount of dollars off of my work. I am worth this, like I have trained to become this thing and now I'm only being allowed to practice at a lower level and I'm not getting paid what I feel like I'm worth. So in my mind I just had so much like hate and mistrust brewing against my bosses, my employers, and it was really toxic, like to the point where I would just be like walking down the hallways, just like muttering curse words under my breath, just cursing them. And it affected my interactions with my coworkers too, because all of our conversations became about like how unhappy we were and how we thought that we deserve better and it was so. Now again I'm starting to live in lack. So that's 18, 19 and the worldwide pandemic comes and it started. I remember it starting out and being like, yeah, this just blow over, it won't be that big of a deal. And then, a month or two later, now we're talking about we're canceling all elective surgeries. I worked for an anesthesia group that had 70 providers and so if you cancel surgeries, you're not gonna need providers. Our group was super, super generous and gracious during that time and everyone still had a job, but we were doing 10 days off. So one group would work for 10 days and then the other group that was on vacation for 10 days would come on to try because we were still doing procedures and things like that. But my anxiety was just through the roof to the bar. I felt like I was having chest pains because I was like, man, my job could be gone tomorrow and then what? Then I have nothing. What are we gonna do? It was not a great time. And then that, coupled with the fact that in the back of my mind I was thinking we're gonna have to, because they were starting to look for volunteers to work in the ICU and they were starting to approach the nurse and anesthetist to be like, will you help out? And just all the anxiety and trauma that I had for working back in ICU was like I can't go back, man, I can't do it. So, yeah, it was not great. One, I didn't feel like I was getting what I deserved and two, in a moment's notice, my job was in question. My identity as a nurse and anesthetist was like dwindling, that it was on the downward. And then one night about it was like three in the morning. I was doing a 24 hour shift and there was a COVID patient that needed to be innovated and during the procedure he passed away. And in one night my entire identity as a CRNA just evaporated and I came away from that with just so much guilt and condemnation of that was your fault. If your coworkers knew that you were involved in this situation, they would run you out of town like Todd, you hadn't done anything.
Speaker 2:This is just a tragedy, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely tragedy. It was a guy who he didn't. What was upsetting was I felt like I didn't like looking back on it in the moment, I was like man, you didn't even listen to this guy and acknowledge him. He was telling me through this full face mask he's just like I don't want this, and his family and people were being like no, you need to do it. And so the decision was made that we were gonna innovate this guy. And yeah, long story short, like I've now come to realize like that man was gonna die anyways, but no, I carried that around for so long so that would have happened. I don't know, march of 21 maybe, and that just spoke over me and I just remember I was just like a shell of myself and like my whole identity now was in this profession. And now I felt like because sometimes I'm my own worst critic, and so you just constantly replay the scenario in your mind what could we have done differently? Could we have prevented this? Was this my fault? Going over and over, and yeah, it just eats away at you. So I was operating like that, just not feeling good about myself, not feeling good about my identity, not doing well, and then I think it was June 6th, 2021. I'll back up a little bit Before that, I don't know 2020, somewhere. Other Harold at Church, pastor Harold Alamie, who's been on the podcast a couple of times. It's my boy. Yeah, love Harold. He started preaching about identity and that we're son first, always son, and that landed for me in church. I was sitting there and I remember hearing that and being like man, I'm a son of God. Cool, all right. Yeah, that's cool. Okay, I still have all this other stuff going on in my life and I really don't know what that means for me right now. But yeah, I can get on board with that. And leading up to that day in June, harold had been talking about his Death to Life podcast and somebody, I think Naja, pointed out to me. It was like Richard has a Death to Life episode where he talks about himself, and so we were driving to York, nebraska, to pick up a car top carrier that we bought on Craigslist and we listened to your episode, man, and I just remember being like that's wild. Number one and two, the Richard that I knew, or at least how I perceived you. It seemed like you were a different person and the only thing in the between was you're receiving the gospel. And I remember telling Naja being like this is real because this guy's different.
Speaker 2:Like that's the evidence that what they're talking about is real, and I'm like okay, we're gonna take a quick break from this episode right now and I want to introduce to you my friend, kristin Malcom Jay Wetmore, kristen, I always say Jay Kristen, malcom Wetmore, chris man, how long have you been rocking with good gospel man?
Speaker 3:Man, I'm just looking back through our Facebook messages. December 11, 2021, I hit you up for the first time on Facebook and I think that very day I had listened to Tyler's episode and I was so moved, man, I wrote I want to support in every way possible what you're doing on the Deathly Podcast. I was so like, just in that one episode.
Speaker 2:Man alive. How has the gospel changed your life?
Speaker 3:It's changed everything you know. Not ever living in worry or condemnation, it just frees you up to do so much more with your life. You can focus on the relationships you have with the people around you and just be loved for them. You're not stressed out like man. If I make a mistake, am I gonna get jammed up? This guy gonna be mad at me? A lot of times we're like life is bang, bang, bang. It's happening so fast and God doesn't want you to be freaking out all the time. He wants you to have certainty and peace in your relationship, and I have that now, thanks to what has been taught to me.
Speaker 2:Man. Praise the Lord. You have an episode on the Deathly Podcast. What number is it? I know we changed the number. Do you know off the top of your head what number? It is 63. 63,. So if you want to hear Chris' full story, you do have to actually buckle up and strap in for that one. Not like you don't for the others, but this one wear the shoulder belt as well. Let me ask you. You wanted to support the podcast. Why is it such a big deal to you? Because you I mean you have given from your harder and finances to support this ministry going forward. Why is that a big deal to you?
Speaker 3:Man, I was like when I first contacted you I was like take all my money and you're like hold up, crow, hold up. We need to talk about something. I remember you were like what's your relationship to sin? And I remember how much it changed my life when you said that Giving back to this and making sure that this goes forward it's more than paying it forward. This is a promise God personally made to me that I would find a group of people doing the gospel in an informal and completely loving, authentic way, and anything I can do to help that move forward. It seems just so natural and real for me to do that.
Speaker 2:So yes, sir, if you would like to partner with us and get this podcast produced more and more episodes, we would love for you to go to loverealityorg slash give and you can donate to the Death of Life podcast. Again, that's loverealityorg slash give, and we've been given the message of reconciliation. We want to tell the whole world that they've been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, and you can help us do it. You can be a part of that. So thank you for considering that, chris man. I appreciate you, my brother. Thank you so much you know.
Speaker 3:the love is so real and so deep, Rich. Thank you. All right, let's get back to the episode.
Speaker 1:So I listened to your episode. I listened to Harold's episode. I don't know if Harold's was actually out then or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we recorded it then. So you're hearing these things. Did you understand outside of we're sons first? What were you starting to understand as you're hearing the stories?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. What was I understanding? The only thing I was understanding was that you guys were different, and for me that was enough evidence that what you guys were saying there was something to it, right, and it was like I think it was June 6th it's Rosie's birthday I can't remember the date, though, but we were at our friend's house, and, out of the blue, I Walk in and I sit down at the dinner table and there's this guy sitting there with a couple pizza boxes, and we just start talking and it's like he's hey man, my name's Eddie. What are you up to? Like, how are you doing? We just started chatting, and it was like that first conversation with Eddie just flowed so easy and it's like we've been friends for a lifetime, but it was. We knew each other for 15 minutes, and I don't know how we got on the subject of it, but I mentioned that I'd listened to I think maybe we were talking about love reality, but I mentioned that I listened to your episode and I was like it sounds like whatever love reality is going on is the truth, and I was like but I don't even know what it's about. And Eddie goes Do you want to know? And I was like sure, just like Half interested, okay, but he's, yeah, well, here. And he went and grabbed two Bibles and he just went into it. Man, we started there and it started out with talking about how much God loves us and like how were sons first? And then I think he went to the Prodible Son, brought that home that we never God never saw us as anything other than sons. And then he went straight to room and six and was like You're free from sin. He's like do you believe in Jesus? I was like I don't know. First he asked had he been baptized and I said yeah, he goes. Do you believe in Jesus? Yeah, he's. This is true about you today. And it was like I was reading these words on the page for the very first time. I don't remember ever seeing anything like this in the Bible and I was like oh Dang, I'm just soaking this all up. And it's three hours later and it was somebody's birthday party. So we got up and went to the other room and blew out candles and stuff. And then I'm just like walking around the house, just my mind has been blown right. And Eddie just walks over to me and he goes what is there anything In your life that you think is keeping you from receiving this thing right now or what's going on? And so I told Eddie about work, about that patient passing away, and he goes man, that's tough, but he's kind of pray for you and I was like, yeah, man. So Eddie laid hands on me and prayed and during the prayer he asked the Holy Spirit to say something to me and I was like, oh, wait a second. I didn't know, this was interactive. And he's afterwards, he's what did you hear? And I was like I didn't hear anything. Man, he's okay, that's fine. And he's like how do you feel? I was like I feel really good and I did, I had this. I just felt like this weight had dropped off me and then I was like the lightest person to remember, just floating, and he just left it, that he's cool, see you later. And we split that day and I just felt totally different, man, and I was like, wow, this is amazing. And so I started. I then went to death, to life like that night, and I started on the first couple episodes, tyler, and started listening through. And it's a couple days later and I'm laying in bed. It's two in the morning. He got my earbuds in and I'm listening to Christians episode and Christians talking about Praying for the Holy Spirit to reveal what's in your life that's been keeping you from living in freedom and I was like, okay, I stopped the episode. It was like a full moon and I'm just laying in bed just praying. Lord, please reveal to me the lies that I'm believing. And I'm sitting there with my eyes closed and nothing's happening. And then all of a sudden, on my vision it's I start to see the. If you look at a dollar bill, there's very specific line, patterns, fonts, things like that. And I'm seeing all of that in my vision and I opened my eyes and I go money. I was like that's dumb, roll over and went to sleep and the next day I was like money, that is it. Man. My entire, pretty much all of my decisions from high school on have been about acquiring status, money, wealth for myself. Like that has guided every decision pretty much I've made up until this point and I was like wow, that's it. And once I realized that I was questioning this idea with Harold a little bit later and he was like oh yeah, dude, he's don't. You know that you're not your provider. I was like what he goes yeah, man, god is your provider, like he's. You're just getting a paycheck from this, these other people. Right now, it's like it's coming from God, though, and once I realized that I'm not my whole provider, and then I'm no longer asleep to money, it was just so freeing. And the next day I'm at work and I'm seeing people in a totally different light, like All the people that I was like absolutely hating and that was just gone, like I just saw them as people who are loved, just like I, and it was incredible. And I was seeing my patients in different light too. And yeah, man, that was that's the story about money. But no, eddie asked me about that a few days later, and we confessed that lie and prayed it, prayed over it and died to it, and since then, it's been a really cool. God has been Stewarding me in generosity instead, instead of because everything I was doing with a closed hand, trying to get what I could for myself, and then I realized I've received everything. I was trying so hard to get what I wanted, but I had everything. I just didn't know. I just didn't know what I needed.
Speaker 2:Tell me about this. How new were you in this when you went to talk to ben? And for the listener, ben was one of our guests a few weeks ago, so he's episode 121.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, man, ben, okay, so that I'd I'd been living in freedom for about a year before I talked to ben and I knew of ben, but I didn't know ben, like we'd never spoken before, and so I was listed on the college of you church website for under the men's ministries, tan, and there was another guy to my brother-in-law that was on there and he sent text to both of us just saying hey, man, I'm, you know, I'm interested in getting involved with men's ministries and I'm going through some stuff in my life. And at the time this is right at the moment where I was contemplating or we were thinking about moving to main and I was like, yeah, we're not really planning on meeting any anytime soon. I'm probably moving, so I can give you the name of some people around, but I just left it at that. It's saturday before mother's day, nadja went to oma with some friends and I was at my sister's house and I was walking around. Uh, she's got this huge loop around her house. I'm walking around it and I'm just praying, like what should we do? Should we move to main? Should we stay? Um, if we move, like, we're gonna have to sell our house. What are the things I need to do to the house to make it more desirable. So like, reveal these things to me please. And the only thing I'm getting is call ben. And I was like that's weird. I don't want to call, I don't even know what I'm gonna say to ben, and I just kept walking and it's no call ben. So I got back to my sister's house and I picked up the phone and I called him and I was like hey man.
Speaker 3:The.
Speaker 1:Holy Spirit told me to call you what's going on, and so that's how ben and I came in contact and Ben just laid out his story and like what was happening, and I just remember feeling, wow, dude, I'm so sorry you're going through some stuff right now, but I can tell you that the gospel changes lives and and I'd love to get together with you, and I also know a guy who went through a similar situation. Would you be willing to meet with him? I called eddie and I was like, hey, eddie, would you be willing to meet eddie's just yes, stand it up.
Speaker 2:Whose car are we taking Exactly?
Speaker 1:And afterwards I remember just this stuck with me this day, man I was like Eddie, thank you so much. And he was like for him to be willing to meet with us. And eddie was like it's what we do. And he's hung up and I was like, oh dang man, that is it, that's our purpose, let's go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, now, man, when eddie was telling me about you receiving this, I was like, oh, we're up for real, joe, because I think that you, the way you came across is you're a really nice guy, that spiritual things were Not really a super interest Of you, of yours, but you were a nice guy. And so when he's oh man, joe vdh that's how he said brother, rich joe vdh he is, he's receiving this brother and I'm like word, because I couldn't picture it. I couldn't see it. Probably in the same way you couldn't picture me having a spiritual podcast. And so then, when he's saying this stuff and he tells me the story of ben and this was a year or so ago or maybe more than that I'm just praising the lord For you receiving this truth and that this truth is not. It's not for the spiritual people, it's for the people who need it. It's for the people who like yeah, I'm reminded of this story where Jesus pulls up on Matthew and he's hey, come and follow me. And Matthew's just a tax collector and he's okay. Then they're hanging out with some sinners and some other tax collectors and the Pharisees are like you guys hang out with these people, and Jesus is like yeah, these are the people who I came to save, not the self-righteous. And so he came to save the worst of us, those of us who were in the stuff. And the trick is, all of us were in the stuff. All of us were, but some of us don't realize it because of self-righteousness. And when that gets broken in half, when your wife calls you out on this or your job is crumbling beneath your feet, you realize, oh, I need this thing. But if that's not your situation, you might not realize how badly you need it. Ben Wackenshaw, he realized it. I need something right now. So, yeah, man, as you've been walking in this thing, man, what has God been teaching you? As you've been continuing to grow? Because this started in, just like seeds of it in 2019, where Harold's preaching this. Now it's four years ago, at the end of this month, that Harold received this thing. End of September, morgan gets free. Four years ago, harold gets free. Four years ago, september, and he started preaching this and seeds started landing. And now you've been walking and what have you been growing in through this whole?
Speaker 1:time. Yeah, oh man, so many things. One of the things that happened shortly after I received freedom was just okay. Now, what do I do with this Now? What does God need me to do now? Am I supposed to just be on blast telling everybody about this? Like, how do I operate now? And I was at work one night and there was a question of a case we need to come to the OR, and I had everything set up ready to go and I just remember closing my eyes and praying God, what should I do? And I just got a vision of a bed and I was like, okay, I'm going to the call room, everything's ready to go. If they need me, they'll call me. I went to the call room, slept like a baby until 6 am. Nothing happened. And then I got home that morning and I'm having breakfast with Peter, my son, and he's asking me like how was your night last night, dad? And I'm telling him about what happened to work, all these things, and he goes did anybody die last night? And I was like that's weird. But well, yeah, there was somebody that died because there was a trauma that came in that ended up passing away before that, and he was like he just looked straight at me and he goes the world is a better place just because you're living in it. And I was like at the moment it just hit me and I just started to weep, tears are streaming down my eyes and I was like what did you say? And that's what I would tell somebody if they were thinking about because this trauma case was a suicide, like they're thinking about suicide. And in the moment I think like that just hit me so much that that was like the spirit telling me, like I'm just happy that you're here, living in this newfound reality that you have, just rest in it. And the dream or the vision of a bed the previous night was like the spirit telling me, like just rest in this thing. Because up to this point I've been like what does this look like going forward now? And I was like just rest, I'm just happy you're here. Those are the two parts. And so for me, that's what I've been growing in is just living my authentic life in the spirit and resting in the fact that I do have the spirit of God and dwelling in me and if he needs something for me, it'll be clear.
Speaker 2:Jeff was right man, the spirit, man living in the spirit. We look at Romans, chapter seven and eight, and it is the comparison and contrast of living in the flesh and now living in the spirit. And if you're listening to this and you're like, what does that look like? Read them back to back. Read what living in the flesh looks like. It's very clear in verses 14 through 25, the things you don't want to do. You do the things you don't want to do. That's what the flesh is all about. But then in the next chapter he starts talking about what life is like in the spirit and how even death can't separate you from God's love, that nobody can accuse God's elect, that the Holy Spirit is ministering to your spirit, that you're his kid, and just let that sink in about who you are in him. And so, yeah, man, seeing you, just hearing about it, hearing about your life lived, and you've made this move across the country. Making a move across the country is a stressful thing, but it just seems like that you're moving in the truth of who you are and that you're ministering wherever you go. And when you walk into that hospital or walk into that, whatever, that care center that you're operating in. It's like Jesus is walking in, because he lives in you. You live in him, man.
Speaker 1:Let's go, it's a word.
Speaker 2:Let's take it back one. Where am I going back? Let's go back to sophomore year there in Loveland, colorado. And you just feel like you're not enough. You feel like your performance is showing that and that you'll never achieve or amount to something. If you get to run into Joe trying out for the basketball team or on the softball field, or, and you could see he's struggling with his identity, what would you tell this kid? What would you tell him?
Speaker 1:I think I'd just ask him how he's doing and I'd listen to him and then I would say, yeah, man, that feels really heavy, but but you're a good kid, you are good, even though these things feel like they're speaking over you right now, like they're telling you that you're less than you're good. Your father loves you. Your heavenly father sees you for who you are and he loves you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Thanks for sharing your story, my brother. Absolutely. You're a testimony to us that God has left man.
Speaker 1:Dude, I just have to say also thank you for the podcast. Like every single episode has been discipling me along this journey, and it's also something that I share frequently with other people too. So super thankful for your ministry, man.
Speaker 2:Thanks to the Lord brother. Let's change the world, man. Let's change the world. Let's do it.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Joe's testimony is such a huge blessing to me because of knowing him for so long and seeing his heart move for people and towards people, and how he's free from the false identity of performance. And if that's something that's in your heart, you listen to this episode and you're like man. I'm still trapped in this performance identity. I want you to pray this prayer, father, thank you that you see me as a son. Thank you that my performance doesn't change what you believe about me. Thank you that I am not my best days or my worst days, that I can just operate from your love, that I can get power from your spirit and that you have set works aside for me to walk in. Thank you that I'm free from the lies that position me as less. Than. Thank you that I'm free from trying to be enough, because I am enough from the foundation of the world. I believe this and I receive this in Jesus's name, amen.