Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#182 Breaking Free: Enoch's Journey from Legalism to Grace and Healing
Have you ever felt trapped by the crushing weight of legalism, yearning for the liberating embrace of grace? This episode chronicles Enoch's profound journey from a regimented upbringing in New York, shrouded in strict religious rules, to discovering the boundless freedom of the gospel. Enoch opens up about the intense pressures of forced obedience and the transformative power of genuine, love-filled faith that redefined his relationship with God and others.
Enoch also shares the deeply personal impact of being diagnosed with ADD in childhood, a label that cast a long shadow over his self-esteem and worldview. You'll hear poignant stories of isolation, the search for solace in intellectual pursuits, and the emotional scars left by his mother's reactions. Through this narrative, we uncover the struggles of an intellectually advanced child navigating a conventional school system, the comfort found in his bond with his father, and the gradual journey towards emotional and spiritual healing.
In a candid and raw discussion, we explore Enoch's battles with mental health, extreme legalism, and the eventual breaking point that led to surrender and healing through faith. Discover how a family's enduring process of reconciliation, the influence of scripture, and the importance of balancing logic with heart-driven desires can lead to a richer, more joyful Christian life. As Enoch steps into the light of grace, this episode underscores the transformative message of the gospel and the imperative to share its freedom and blessings with others.
Chapters:
0:00 - Journey From Legalism to Grace
12:53Overcoming Trauma, Growing Spiritually and Intellectually
28:27 - Discovering Balance Between Logic and Heart
33:36 - Healing From Mental Health Challenges
42:32 - A Journey Through Pain and Liberation
56:23 - Promoting the Message of Freedom
1:11:24 - Breaking Free From Legalism and Fear
1:25:29 - Prayer and Invitation to Bible Study
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Speaker 2:But I thought, huh, I must not be following God because I'm eating cheese. If this was really God, I would be vegan, I would be waking up each morning at 5 am to have an hour of devotions, and so I must change my behavior or I'm going to be lost. So I took control of my life back from God, who I thought was the devil, and proceeded to run my own life in the way that I thought God wanted, living like a good Adventist, by willpower not by heart, but by forcing myself. And I was producing left hemispheric dominance, pushing myself against my heart. And after six weeks I was literally rolling on the floor of my apartment, pulling my hair out, voices skimming in my head, because when you make yourself left hemispheric dominant, which is what legalism does, either you'll go insane or you will become dead in your heart and become a sociopath unable to have empathy for the suffering of your own family.
Speaker 1:Yo, welcome to the Death Alive podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with my brother, Enoch man. This guy is a ray of sunshine in my life. This episode hits close to home for me for several different reasons, a few that I'll just keep to myself. But just to see this brother and the love he's received from God man man, it makes me want to sing. So this is Enoch's story. It's probably not for young ears, so mind where you're listening to it, but be blessed by Enoch Love. Y'all, Appreciate, y'all Buckle up, Strap.
Speaker 1:In long time ago and I don't think you remember me, but I distinctly remember you because we were in this CrossFit gym in St Joseph, Michigan, and I was walking around with my brother, Christian, and we interviewed you and you were saying stuff about the gospel that was just kind of blowing my mind and I was like man, this guy really gets it. And then I would see you from time to time. Maybe I saw your pop from time to time on some of our stuff, but I really didn't get to meet you, meet you until this summer where we hung out in Firth, Nebraska, for a little get-together we've had and it seems like man, there's been stuff going on in Firth, Nebraska for a little get-together we've had, and it seems like, man, there's been stuff going on in your life. But you tell me, Enoch, where are we starting this story? It's before St Joseph, Michigan, I imagine.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, I mean it goes all the way back to the beginning, because I had an experience with intense legalism which makes me just enjoy the gospel even more, because I know how it feels to try to live my life just with effort, willpower and the right thoughts, kind of like the Buddhists do, except that I was Christian and it absolutely wore me out.
Speaker 1:So I mean, where does that story start? Where are you from man me out?
Speaker 2:So I mean, where does that story start? Where are you from, man? New York State originally? I was born there in 1981 and was born, conceived and lived until I was six years old at a self-supporting institution, which had pluses and minuses, but that kind of set me on a track that was fundamentally very legalistic.
Speaker 1:What do you remember about I mean six years old, so your first memories. What do you remember about life on that campus?
Speaker 2:Well, I remember the food was very good. It wasn't all bad. I was raised with really good vegan food and mom was German and so she would cook very well and she would clean the house very well and she had a strong personality. So whenever she'd walk around the house would shake, even though she was very fit and thin. That I remember.
Speaker 1:Did she make vegan Wiener Schnitzel? Is that German?
Speaker 2:No, I think you're thinking of something that contains pork. She didn't make the vegan version of that, but that's a German dish correct. Yeah, I believe it is. Yeah, I forget exactly what the pronunciation is, but the one that I can think of is this really good bread that my mom's aunt made, and the name for that is called Weinochsliebkuchen. It absolutely makes your mouth water.
Speaker 1:So you're growing up in this self-supporting school, your parents are there. Growing up in this self-supporting school, your parents are there. When was this legalistic? You know, background kind of put in.
Speaker 2:Well, basically, I would say there were several pieces to it. My dad had been reading a lot of things in the Spirit of Prophecy and wanted to follow them, and he wanted to live in a place that was kind of separate from the main church so it could have a more righteous atmosphere, and my mother wanted the same thing. And so, you know people, they all had the same diet, the women wore dresses. The focus was we're going to follow the writings of Ellen White in just the right way and we're going to have victory. But there was a lack of heart healing, there was a lack of joy, there was a lack of healthy relationships with other people, because healthy relationships have a foundation of love, not a foundation of obedience, of measuring other people by your view of God's law. And so I felt that I was in a special place, separate from the world. I believed that Jesus was coming so soon that I probably wouldn't make it to age 10. This also is why I'm an only child, because my father believed that if he had a second child in the mid-80s, that he would have this little toddler, male or female, running through the woods in the time of trouble, and he thought that might be an unwise option. So this is why I have no siblings and obviously my father could see things happening in the world. Could see things happening in the world, but based upon where we are now, the 80s looks quite tame.
Speaker 2:And the other piece that I want to emphasize is I had this idea that the people who weren't a part of these special communities were at a lower level of holiness, as in when they got to heaven, they probably would get dimmer crowns, you know, due to, you know, not eating the right foods, snacking, watching movies which are not righteous to watch. So I had this very judgmental view and when I had to leave that place, I kind of felt betrayed, like this is the righteous group of people. Why are we leaving? Everything is safe and holy here. What's going on?
Speaker 1:of people. Why are we leaving? Everything is safe and holy here. What's going on, man? Wouldn't that be wild if you got to heaven? When you think about the crowns that we get in heaven? They're actually not made of gold. They're uh, they're the crowns that they had back, like the words for crowns is. It's like this, this wreath like the Olympians wear, but we've always thought they're these gold crowns with jewels on them. Wouldn't it be wild if you got a crown and your cousin got a brighter crown because you had a nutty bar in between meals?
Speaker 2:That would be so crazy, because in the glory of heaven it would seem like nothing. I mean, if God was measuring every detail of our lives in the way that we think, then I think we couldn't enjoy being in his presence. He would be like a psychologist, who is not very friendly with this notepad, writing down the things we were saying wrong, our wrong attitudes, our wrong thoughts, and it would be constant writing, because our minds are constantly going and we would just feel, I think, hopelessly condemned, hopelessly behind where we were supposed to be, and I don't think that's any way to live the Christian life we were supposed to be, and I don't think that's any way to live the Christian life.
Speaker 1:So you left, we were talking behind the scenes and you were talking to me about how you were diagnosed early. Was this while you were at this place, or was this diagnosis later?
Speaker 2:This is once I moved to Berrien Springs at age nine, I was diagnosed with ADD attention deficit disorder which meant I had a hard time focusing on things I wasn't interested in, which made elementary school tough for me.
Speaker 2:And when I was 15, I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, which apparently includes unusually high intelligence, iq, but also unusually low social intelligence, low EQ, and so, because you have to be able to relate to people to get anything done in life, it was enormously frustrating, and so I had two strikes against me. As far as making friends, as I moved to Maine, homeschooled, still kind of isolated, I ended up learning to read with a phonetic system called the Writing Road to Reading, and once I learned this, I was literally spending seven hours per day in the encyclopedias just reading most of every day, just pounding the information and just thirsting after it. So I loved to learn, learn, but as far as friendships didn't really have any interest. I didn't really have an interest having friends till I was 13, which I think is kind of unusual yeah, asperger's stuff, um, it can.
Speaker 1:Uh, did you know you had a problem socially, or did you like? What did you think about that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think at the time I didn't notice very much or I didn't care, but I just observed that other people seemed to be engaging in these silly social things. I had no interest in Some of the boys my age I was afraid of because they seemed aggressive, not intelligent, not sympathetic. And to this day, you know, when I meet men like that, I think, okay, god, this man needs prayer, this man needs help. So what I do now is I just pray for them and I keep walking because, though I may feel nervousness inside inside my heart, I know that I'm safe with God.
Speaker 2:And if that man was not in heaven, I would cry, because we should think only this is a precious child of God and we shouldn't think. They make me uncomfortable, they scare me, there's something off about them. Therefore, I don't want to see them again. We should pray for everybody that hurts us that they can actually have healing, because in heaven they'll be the healed version of themselves, which, of course, you would miss if you didn't see them. So if we think like this, it does change our lives.
Speaker 1:That's powerful In getting the ADD diagnosis and the Asperger's diagnosis. What did that do for your self-esteem or how you looked at yourself, Do you know?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it really dropped it, because I remember sitting in the car with my mother outside the office where I was diagnosed with ADD I think this was like March, april, 1991, way, way back and I was upset about this. I think I was already crying because I felt that I had been diagnosed as being mentally impaired and that wasn't fun. And she looked at me and said Enoch, this isn't something that you'll ever be able to get over, and this is obviously a lie of the enemy. But when she said that, hopeless despair settled into my soul and I had this sense that, no matter how hard I worked, I would always be psychologically on a different track from others and would always have social impairments and could never fully belong to humanity like the other people did. When you feel a lack of a sense of belonging to your own race, the human race, that's a pretty serious level of pain man, I'm so sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1:So your, your self-esteem is shook and I can't imagine how it wouldn't be. As you were looking forward in your mind, what were you thinking like, how are you going to? As you were looking forward in your mind, what were you thinking? How were you going to deal with it? Were you just resigned to? Well, I guess this is it, or what was your mindset?
Speaker 2:Well, my main thought was, if Jesus doesn't come back before I get to 18, ADD or no ADD, I'm going to have a really hard time. Because to live in this fallen, sinful world as an adult actually seemed terrifying to me, because the world seemed full of unkind people, sociopaths, psychopaths. I mean I believed at that point that most adults that I saw walking around probably were child molesters. So I was quite frightened of living in this world without the safety of the cocoon of self-supporting work or other people who I figured because they thought, like I did, you know, dressed like we did, ate like we did that these people were the only safe ones. The others had kind of fallen off the ship. So it had some pretty terrifying implications for me.
Speaker 1:What was your relationship Like? Who was God at this point in your life?
Speaker 2:Well, I cite God as a person who was loving but who had very high standards, and I needed to meet them. I had been hearing some sermons, thankfully from the 1888 study committee, which had kind of, I think, saved me from going crazy. I heard Jack Sequeira since I was seven years old, this idea of people being put into Christ, and I said to my dad Dad, this is when I was nine what happens to the people who die without accepting Jesus because they're in the wrong country or in the wrong time in history? And he said to me God understands them, he knows their hearts. And so I was having the beginnings of a bigger picture of God. Because I was a deep thinker at a young age. I had lots of questions and I thought, if these people have goodness inside of them but they don't know God, then either that goodness comes from God, which means God is working with them, or that goodness comes from them, which then implies that humans aren't as fallen as we think. So you basically cannot choose the second option.
Speaker 1:Only the first one makes sense. Hmm, Did he? So it was a very intellectual idea about who God is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I was very intellectual. All the men on my dad's side of the family seemed to be quite intellectual and I was focusing on that very much. And you know trauma from my mom, fear, you know her yelling at me. You know, for embarrassing experience. You know I had nightmares about her face from age eight to 22. Because of that experience, because I came to her with a story to 22. Because of that experience, because I came to her with a story needing to recover from shame and instead of getting comfort I got yelled at for 45 minutes. So there was the intellectual support of my dad, my heart being shut down by my mom and the fear of her. You know she could be very loving and kind but when she would lose her patience I was very afraid and to the point of having nightmares about my own mother. You know, for 14 years that is a high level of trauma.
Speaker 1:So you went to Andrew's Academy. I take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went to Andrew's Academy. I went to the Village Elementary School and also the Eau Claire School in Eau Claire, michigan and first grade was homeschool in Maine. Seventh grade was homeschool between four years at the Village School and then eighth grade at the Eau Claire School. You know it was a nice one-room school there. And then high school was Andrew's Academy for two and a half years so when you graduated there, well, do you tell me what happened?
Speaker 2:well. Basically, elementary school was tough because I felt that I was much more intelligent than the other kids. I didn't have a good attitude towards them. I thought, why should I spend time with these idiots? That was my thought. You know. I was not very nice on the inside because of some wounds and because of pride, and I just thought I wish I could be homeschooled and study at my pace, because I was at the high school level in all subjects except math by age eight. And then I went to second grade and I found myself very out of place. I didn't, I couldn't really relate to the other kids and I didn't want to. When I was in Maine, my two closest friends were two men who were high school seniors because they were more at my level intellectually. And so there's a loneliness that comes from being very intellectual and a pain, because schools have a lot more services for the mentally slow than the mentally quick. And on top of that I thought I isolated in my spiritual life, like I had to hold myself together or I might be contaminated. And reading parts of the book child abuse in the classroom sure didn't help. When I was nine I read pieces of that book.
Speaker 2:My mom made food. For me Food was a big thing. I know all the cooks at these schools did their best, but for me my mom was a very good cook and so I much preferred her food to theirs. So I think, elementary school, the village school, his academy, I think I probably had six lunches for all of those six and a half years from the school. All the rest were made by mom, everything you can imagine that was healthy, combined with peanut butter. Peanut butter, you know, was one of the food groups in our home. We we had a nine-pound bucket on the table that we would refill when it was emptied, which was every week, from the 35-pound bucket under the sink.
Speaker 1:So we were Like what kind of Would she make the peanut butter?
Speaker 2:No, no, this was purchased from Country Life in 35-pound buckets, and every few months we had to buy more.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, that's a lot of peanut butter, my man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like it to this day.
Speaker 1:I love peanut butter, man. It's one of my favorites. Okay, so continue on. You're getting through academy. You're thinking about what's next.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, in the academy it was more intellectually challenging. But I encountered a problem. My social skills hadn't really grown since age eight, because I think they grow when your heart is open and you're willing to relate to people and accept them, you know, as peers equal to yourself. I couldn't do that. I was still keeping people at arm's length because I thought if I embrace these people I might get contaminated and then I will have a loss of my personal holiness and perhaps a dimmer crown. And I want to stay holy and separate from these people and that was important to me and I didn't realize the importance of relationships. Really, at that point I didn't know how to ask for help. I felt that if I asked for help from a teacher I would lose my reputation with the other students and secondly, because of being in self-supporting work, I did not see these people as a part of my community, as a part of my people. I felt like, you know, I was from a separate country, you could say even a separate universe, and so I didn't want to enter their world. I thought their world was unsafe. So I was trying to live in society without being a part of it which, as you can imagine was frustrating the banging of the lockers. You know I had auditory sensitivities. The banging of the lockers. You know I had auditory sensitivities. The banging of the lockers. You know the five minutes between classes where you know all my classes were in A-Wing and my locker was in C-Wing, so I had to walk a long distance out and back within five minutes and it was just a disconcerting environment for me and I had no real interest in getting close to these other kids.
Speaker 2:I began to grow piece by piece, but I just wanted to live a different life. I think I wanted to travel and preach. I wasn't aware that intellectual development is based upon social development. I realized that years later that literally your brain at the intellectual level is fed by social inputs at the social level. And when that's working because I've studied brain science for years you become intellectually very clear and more intelligent. And if I knew that and if I knew that text really in my heart that says knew that. And if I knew that text really in my heart that says anywhere with Jesus I can safely go. That song and as it says in Psalms, though I make my bed on the far parts of the sea, you were there, though I make my bed in hell. You were there. If I knew that, that God wanted me to reach out, he would protect me while I was witnessing. I would have had a much more fun time, I think.
Speaker 2:But I was very fearful of contamination and I was overwhelmed by my parents' poor relationship. My mom was German, my father was American, so there was a cultural difference and there was a personality difference where my mom's low energy vibe was too high for my dad to take and my dad's high energy vibe was too low for my mom to notice. So there were frustrating miscommunications every single day that I recall. There wasn't a single day I recall where there wasn't some kind of desynchronized interaction Not yelling, not screaming, just this uncomfortable elephant in the room, awkward, not synchronizing every single day. So I carried the burden of trying to be holy, to help my parents solve their issues, to be a good boy that wouldn't place too much of a burden on their marriage, because they were obviously somewhat overwhelmed in trying to relate to each other as it was.
Speaker 1:Hmm, seems kind of heavy man. So what was the plan for your life?
Speaker 2:well, I think I had about 10 plans wanted to be a scientist, wanted to be a naturopathic doctor, wanted to be a pilot, wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to be a writer um, the desire for singing came later, a bunch of things. But what happened at the academy was the pressure got greater and greater because I didn't feel I could really connect to the students or the teachers. I was just kind of playing along and I got to a point where the stress was so great it felt like something in my brain snapped. I think it was my natural way of behaving. That was kind of more isolated, very intellectual kind of broke, and I became a lot more social. It was as if I didn't care as much. I think when you're under enough pressure, the brain can have a release and you find yourself not caring about certain things that you're used to, just so you could get through it, that you're used to, just so you could get through it. So I proceeded to be a lot more social, begin the life of the party sat with every girl in the school you know, one after the other, to connect to them, because I always found females better to relate to as friends than men, because they seemed more mature, less aggressive, more able to synchronize and I think also being on the autism spectrum, their higher relational skills seem to make up for my lack. So when talking to a girl that liked me, I felt in that moment almost normal and that felt just wonderful. I think that's the reason I kept seeking it out. So I experienced that.
Speaker 2:But the pressure kept growing. I was further and further behind in my assignments. We had a meeting with all the teachers. I said I just want to learn. I said to my parents, and then we discussed this again in the teachers meeting, my assignments, and then I would go on the computer to research operating systems for sometimes three more hours at the James White Library.
Speaker 2:I was driven to learn. It's just that my drive didn't include any of the learning happening at the academy. So I felt like the things I wanted to learn were interfered with by the school. So there was a great intellectual disconnect. And the next thing that happened was we decided that I should drop out and I had this walk of shame where I'm carrying this dropout card during the school day to each teacher and I see the look on their face as they sign the card, the disappointment, which, of course, I reacted to with shame and self-recrimination, and I walked from one teacher to the next and it was a level of nervousness that was super intense, that I cannot describe, and it almost felt like my body was on fire with emotional pain, and when I finished I walked out of the academy, walked home because we lived close to it, felt like this huge burden had lifted off my shoulders, and I was also sad because I wouldn't be marching with my class and that was one of the most painful moments of my entire life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on graduation day Did you go to the graduation?
Speaker 2:I don't think I did. If I did, it was painful enough so that I have no memory of it and I have a good memory. So if I don't remember it, either I blocked it out or, I think more likely, I didn't go. It would have been too embarrassing for me.
Speaker 1:So then, what was next for you?
Speaker 2:What was next was helping my parents in their business, which is running about 16 hours a day, selling cell phones, satellite phones and long-distance phone service. My dad was a broker for six different long-distance phone companies back when you had to pay by the minute for cell phone service and long-distance phone service. So I was basically really, really stressed. I was trying to find a relief for the stress you know, because I can get, or have in the past overwhelmed, where I just have this intense emotion that it's hard to wind down from and that made my life kind of miserable. It feels like your brain's engine has no oil and that was quite painful. So I began studying the Bible a lot because I thought if I dig into scripture I'll find strength to handle this. I mean, I mean I kept going back to the academy for lunch every day for a month. My friends didn't even know I dropped out just because I wanted the social connections and my mom said, enoch, you can't go there anymore because you're not a student there, and so that was disappointing. That was the end of my social connections there and I began focusing on scripture, reading books about the gospel, listening to sermons by Robert Whelan.
Speaker 2:I went to a seminar in Tinley Park, illinois, may 99. And that's where the gospel really hit me in a deeper way. It was like, okay, our church has had a delay in Christ's return because of not accepting this message back in 1888. And because of us not knowing this gospel about how Jesus has given us the victory. We can just believe that he's done it and trust him and he will empower us to do what we can't do ourselves. Done it and trust him and he will empower us to do what we can't do ourselves.
Speaker 2:I kind of hung on to that and it was the beginnings of this gospel experience of I believe God has a plan for me, even though I'm miserable. You know I would claim these texts in Isaiah I think it's Isaiah 60, where it says I'll bring kings to the brightness of your rising. Your light shall break forth like the morning. You know these ideas of having a plan in your life, even though there was pain. So I probably was reading the Bible, maybe an hour and a half every day, just looking at Romans, looking at the Psalms, just saying God, I believe you have a plan. And I persisted. We took some family vacations and I found some peace, worked for my parents and got paid for it. Things were looking a bit better, but I still didn't know who I was and I wasn't sure where to go from there. I was just a young person working in my parents' business no high school diploma while I watched my friends move ahead without me.
Speaker 1:Still having a legalistic mindset somewhat, but trying to see something of the gospel.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think the problem was I saw that God had this unconditional love for me, that he would never reject me, that he wanted people to come to a deep knowledge of the truth, to experience this latter rain eventually. But the problem was my view of what God's law was had not changed. It was still based upon this intellectual construct in my left brain. I remember on the Dusty Boys podcast I mentioned this text that means so much to me Romans 8, 7, which says the carnal mind is enmity against God. It doesn't submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
Speaker 2:And the reason that means a lot to me is because, in my fallen human state, my intellect can easily come to the wrong conclusions, and I trusted my intellect so much that I would live exactly from what my intellect told me was the right choice, not from my heart. And so I was injuring my own heart by doing things that made sense but that I wasn't made for. In my experience, the more you push yourself to do what makes logical sense and the less you do what's in your heart, those God-given drives like to learn languages, to love people, to be a good homemaker if you're a wife All of these God-given desires start to be crushed by logic, and so our brains literally can crush our hearts and produce depression, a lack of motivation, a lack of knowledge of who you are. The intellect is like a tool the heart uses to get things done. But if you reverse this and the intellect becomes the leader and starts to direct the heart, I know by experience that can lead you to the very edge of insanity.
Speaker 1:So how did that lead you to the edge of insanity?
Speaker 2:Well, I began to experience mental health challenges, panic attacks, voices in my head, extreme legalism. I remember being in our upstairs office, spending six hours reading the testimonies while fasting, while I had just, in my mind, disowned my own parents, feeling that if I don't disown them because their theology varies from mine, they're going to contaminate me and then I won't be able to receive that crown of life. I felt very alone and very miserable, but I was 100% sure that I was right. So it took six hours of anguish to realize I'm hungry, I'm miserable. I don't take seriously anything. My parents say I'm miserable. I don't take seriously anything. My parents say I think there's a problem here.
Speaker 2:And so what I'm describing is with enough suffering, god often works to restore right hemispheric dominance when we're stuck in left hemispheric dominance. I'm right. My perception of the world is correct. Whoever disagrees with me is the enemy of the world is correct. Whoever disagrees with me is the enemy. I can interpret the Bible, ellen White and everything else just right, and none of the rest of you can.
Speaker 2:This comes from pride, left hemispheric dominance, and it'll eventually leave you, as I experienced, totally isolated, totally alone. You know, like that song Set Me Free. You know, totally alone. You know, like um, that song set me free. You know, totally alone with your demons, because when you choose that isolation from relationship, that's what the devils in heaven chose.
Speaker 2:And so one can encounter in that state demonic activity, which I did. You know I've experienced writhing on the floor, ripping a phone book in half. You know yelling. You know, in this demonic insanity I have been to the edge because I had to learn if you want freedom, you must surrender control to Jesus and say God, if your leading doesn't match what I think it is, boy, am I going to trust your leading? Because we don't know what God's will is with our intellect, only with our heart.
Speaker 2:And that's how I was able to escape total psychological meltdown. It's like a swimmer relaxing, saying okay, God, I'm going to give you full control, and then your brain begins to write itself. You remember what your interests are. You remember the people that you love. You remember what you really wanted to do, that was buried under the fear of God's rejection If you didn't do things at just the right time, in just the right way, with just the right attitude. You know, because I'm intellectual and have a high IQ, legalism for me was more nuanced, more oppressive and more intense than perhaps for some people, and I'm grateful to God that I can sit here today clothed in my right mind, both literally and figuratively, and be able to embrace people because they're God's kids, no other qualifications.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So this is going on during your 20s? You would say, yeah. Late teens, early 20s. I had my break. That was October of 2003,. I experienced that my parents had begun to search for some ministries caring for the heart ministries, with John Regeer, craig Hill's ministry, terry Wardle's ministry and several others, michael Dye, etc. Just looking for people who could help their marriage, because the 20 years of challenges in their marriage, combined with me not thriving and not being able to connect to my parents, produced in our family a crisis point where we thought we really need help. So John Regeer was a big piece and we went through some healing.
Speaker 2:You know renouncing strongholds, because the Bible talks about these strongholds people deal with. You know renouncing moral failure, renouncing the occult, renouncing fear, renouncing bitterness. Bitterness is a big one. When I got free of bitterness my life began to take off. That took a while. I remember when I made the choice to forgive my mother for the things she did to hurt me. But for the emotions to catch up to the choice has taken me 18 years. So sometimes it can take a while, especially if you have no community to really support you in that choice. But God has been good. So, yeah, now we're in our early 20s, but God has been good. So, yeah, now we're in our early 20s and we're turning the family ship because a crisis has been reached, so you saw some healing and you were moving forward.
Speaker 2:because of this, then, yeah, yeah, I saw some progress. We began to see some light at the end of the tunnel. But the really big thing that changed our lives is in 2003,. My father and I went to a conference with some other friends up in Minneapolis. The conference itself didn't do much for us. It was a Theophastic conference, a prayer ministry. What helped us was a particular speaker at that conference whose name was Dr Jim Wilder, and my dad went to one of his presentations because it was titled Brain Science and in one hour he heard the answers to all of our family challenges. He learned for the first time that the brain to function normally needs a state of being in joy with people and being quiet with people. Back and forth. That alternating process persists and that is a normal brain state.
Speaker 2:If a family is missing that, like ours, was no joy together, no quiet together, it can lead to mental illness. It can lead people to have addictions. I had a number of addictions moral failure, pornography, unhealthy visualizations, masturbation, etc. All these things because I had that drive for connection. But I couldn't connect because I didn't have the social skills to connect.
Speaker 2:And even if I did, I didn't want to connect because at a deep level I felt fearful of being contaminated by people who I thought were less holy than I was. So this drive for love that I couldn't meet because of two blocks drove me into moral failure. I got to the point where I thought that it was God telling me to go online to look at porn because my bond with my parents was broken. I was under very high stress, I was low on sleep and I became mentally confused. I'll never forget that and I understand that people struggle. They don't have connections, they feel oppressed. The devil can push buttons and they just get spun out like they're in a blender and I really feel for them because I was there.
Speaker 1:So, hearing what Jim Wilder said, you guys came back home from that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What happened after that?
Speaker 2:Well, the second thing he said was that there's four levels in the right brain, which is the ability to feel attached to people, the ability to have joy with people, the ability to relationally synchronize with people and the ability to act out of your God-given identity, to be your true self. And we realized that if you have enough trauma in your life type A trauma, the absence of good things, or type B trauma, the presence of bad things you can literally have those levels of your brain shut down, one or two or all of them. I had them all shut down and if that happens, your intellect doesn't work well. Your life is basically in a crisis. And Wilder said through community and human connections you can rebuild those levels. So I've been rebuilding those levels from 2003 to, I think, the beginning of this year, when I got to a point where my right prefrontal cortex is now always on. I always feel attached to people as a part of the human race. I see everybody as family. I now am at a place where I have joy with people, I can synchronize with them According to my friends in Hawaii, better than most people, and I know what my identity is. I can act out of it. I can keep track of five or six things at once, which I think many men cannot do. So I feel intellectually released because of this emotional healing.
Speaker 2:That's what we discovered through processing our past pain. We were discussing our issues as a family of three, four or five hours every day for about 10 years. That's how long it took us to process everything. It was like, you know, trying to drink this huge container of sewage, just you know, day by day, until it's drained to the last dregs. Some people don't have that kind of brutal, you know, walk of pain and shame to go through. But we did. And as I processed stuff, there was progressive release, restoration of trust with my parents, restoration of joy, you know, and hope began to come. But sometimes you have to walk through it because if you didn't get it at age five, you have to get it at 25, you know, and I respect my parents for having the courage to actually walk through that with me because it was very hard for all of us. But I don't know where I'd be mentally or if I'd even be alive if we hadn't done that.
Speaker 1:Wow. So as you go on into your 30s or late 20s, into your 30s, who is God then?
Speaker 2:Well, by my late 20s, I'd probably spent 10,000 hours in Scripture. I wanted to preach. My dad and I would talk about you know the depths of the gospel all the time. God was a loving God who was pursuing us.
Speaker 2:Another concept that I got, I think, in my teens sometimes I'd forget about it, but it was still there in the back of my mind that God pursues the sinner. The sinner doesn't have to seek and find God, especially if he doesn't know where to go. God comes and finds you wherever you are, Because if you don't know where you're supposed to be, he will find you wherever you are, in any religion, any addiction anywhere, and bring you out. So there are more and more truths that were coming and we were integrating these levels of the brain with our view of the gospel, and this also helped. So I was getting freer and freer, and this also helped. So I was getting freer and freer. But the next thing that happened to bring me to more healing was my mother's illness. She got sick with bladder cancer in February 2011 and passed away the 7th of August 2012, 8.53 pm.
Speaker 1:Eastern Daylight Saving Time. I'm so sorry to hear that. How did that bring what happened emotionally because of that? You said it was the next big thing.
Speaker 2:Well, I was living with my parents in 2011, and I left to be in a community that I thought might help me, and I had good intentions. You know they knew some information from Wilder, but the culture seemed too hierarchical and, number two, they were focused on helping women, and the other gentleman there who I got to know expressed the same difficulty of getting help as a man and I felt kind of abandoned. So I was saved from going totally crazy by some other people who were, um, not Christians in town but who cared enough to hang out with me and that's how I made it through. Psychologically it was a very lonely year and then my uncle shows up and he says your mom is dying. You know you need to come home Cause I hadn't called my parents for six months. I ended up back home and my mom and I talk and I'm just kind of in this painful place. Believe me, the story is about to turn, because this is kind of you a dark few chapters. Um, I just would go and watch movies. My dad said, enoch, whatever you need to do, you can do, because he knew that I was in pain.
Speaker 2:I'm grieving the loss of my mom while she's still alive and secondly because of the issues with her. My relationship with her was still not fully fixed. It was just. There was still control, there was still fear and I just couldn't break through and I thought, god, why can't I have enough faith to just break through and trust my mom? I tried and I tried, but I couldn't seem to get there.
Speaker 2:And when I had reached the point where she had passed away, I flew up to BC, british Columbia, canada, for the funeral. We had a funeral here at PMC, a second burial service in Canada. She's buried, you know, at the Richland SDA Church facing east. So at the second coming she'll come up out of the grave facing the right way with mountains around. And after that my dad returned home. I stayed with my grandmother because she had lost her grandfather, lost her husband of 65 years, my grandfather. Within three weeks of my mother Grandfather passed away July, the 9th, the 7th of August my mom was gone. So she says, enoch, you know if you could stay here for a bit because I'm just, you know, in shock and grief. So I lived with my grandmother for two months until she felt okay again to be in that house alone. So that's kind of, you know, the section of grief and then miraculously, things began to really turn like. This is kind of the end of the dark chapters in the beginning of a new beginning so yeah, what happened next?
Speaker 2:what happened was I flew back home when she said enoch, thank you for spending some time with me, you can go home now. So I flew home enjoying those. You know I love airports. I remember I flew through the calgary airport 31st of october 2012 just a nice vibe to the place. You know, I'm very geographical,000, 500 feet above sea level. So I get home, my dad has a friend over, they're discussing brain science. And my dad says the next day Enoch, there's a friend of yours that is getting married in Hawaii. You want to go? And I said yes, yes, I want to go to Hawaii. So I flew to the big island of Hawaii the 6th of November 2012. And this is where things begin to improve, Like you know, praise God, the music now shifts to a happy theme and I went to the wedding and after a couple days, I called my dad and said Dad, I think I'm going to stay here for a while. I stayed two and a half years and what I experienced, Brother Richard, I cannot put into words, because God said I'm going to dump so much love on this boy. He's going to have a whole new journey, Because I was introduced to the hippie culture and they have things about their culture that match what many Christians, what I happen to specifically believe, Other things that do not.
Speaker 2:A lot of them were organic vegan. They were very much into loving people. They told me, when someone hurts you, forgive them, Let God run your life and don't judge anybody. And those three things are very biblical. I'm not sure they knew that, but they were in many cases raised in Christian homes but they left the church because of abuse in their homes. You know terrifying views of God, you know eternally burning hell, different things that can cause us to view God with fear.
Speaker 2:And so here I am, I'm saying God, I need friends, where do I go? And so I began to hang out with these people. And I need to say this too I lived with two Adventist families where there was some oppression and where there was some pressure. And then I find myself, you know, after escaping this one home where there was a lot of work, a lot of money to be paid and no joy really, I found myself staying in this little shack with two lesbians to emotionally recover, who fed me, who were happy to be with me, who gave me these Christian virtues of hospitality and kindness and friendship that the person I was with before who was Adventist, wasn't able to and this is important to see, because god has other sheep not of this fold who he can use to reach people and, uh, I began to have joy. I moved into this hippie commune and I just hung out with them, you know what side of the island?
Speaker 1:were you on the kona side, or were you on the what's the other side called?
Speaker 2:that was on the hilo side on the hula and the people there called themselves Puna Ticks.
Speaker 2:I made friends with everybody. Now there was the Hawaiian locals, the regular Americans, the Vietnam vets, the Adventists and the hippies Five totally different cultures. I hung out with all of them. But you know, the hippies were kind of loosened up. You know They'd hang out at the nude beach every day and it was like God, I need to make a decision, and my decision, because of all that I've been through, is I won't do anything that would cause a woman to fall in love with me, Nor am I going to take any mind-altering drugs. But I was so bound up for so long that I just had to feel free. And so wherever they went, I went.
Speaker 2:I remember being on that nude beach saying God, my brain is saying you shouldn't be here, but my heart was saying, if I'm not here, I'll be in a fetal position, Because at that point, when I was alone, within 15 minutes my brain would start turning off. That's how seriously low I was in dopamine. So as soon as I prayed that prayer, I said God, I need to feel your presence here, like now. Instantly there was a flood of the Holy Spirit and this woman who I was talking to from Quebec. She began to cry and it was like God, you're with me here, I need you to be here because I can't think like. I avoid the bad things, I choose the good things, and then I find God. This kind of thinking doesn't work.
Speaker 2:So I was able to start healing by just being with my friends and after two and a half years, my four levels were back on and I was able to function because of the support of community. And then there's a bit of a story of us being home for a couple of years, my dad and I challenges there's traveling. I went back to Hawaii. A gentleman and his wife and kids put me up in their house part of hippie culture for a whole year, for free. I mean, that's hospitality I've experienced twice, being saved, you know, by people who weren't Christians from just pain, loneliness, and I was able to have a breakthrough with my dad finally, that allowed me to begin connecting to him.
Speaker 2:Breakthrough with my dad, finally, that allowed me to begin connecting to him, and at that point I was able to start to heal. I came back in 2020. And my dad and I could then be honest with each other. We could process things, and it's been a progressive process of connecting as father and son, I think for for the first time, because our bond was blocked by my mother, and I also heard love reality for the first time, Jonathan Leonardo speaking in 2019 at the PVC church there in Oregon, and I heard this idea that my identity was secure, whatever my choices were, whatever sins I was dealing with. He said you are doing as well as he's doing, and I thought that is really powerful. So I began.
Speaker 1:How did you hear that? Who gave you the YouTube link or something? Okay, we are going to take a quick break from the episode and I'm going to bring in my brother, justin Koo. Justin, how's it going, man?
Speaker 3:Oh man, it is going good. Better now that I can hear your voice.
Speaker 1:Oh man, good to see you. Good to see you. It's been a while since you've had an appearance on the Death to Life podcast. I think it was the last Bible draft we had. We need to do another one. But I have a question for you, my friend how long has it been since you've been on the good good? Have you had that good gospel in your life? How long has it been now?
Speaker 3:Oh man, it's hard for me to remember, I get the years mixed up, but I think it's somewhere around five years now.
Speaker 1:Five years, and just real quick. Has the gospel done anything to change your life?
Speaker 3:The gospel has done quite a bit to change my life. One might say it has changed my entire life. And just in case you're wondering because you're scared about embracing the gospel, it has only changed my life for the better.
Speaker 1:There's no bad news in the good news. Is that what you're trying to say?
Speaker 3:It turns out the good news is good good news.
Speaker 1:Okay, you have donated of your time, finances, energy to keep this thing going Like you had a whole, like you were doing ministry, but it was a whole different type thing. Why is this message the message that you are free from and dead to sin so important that you would, that you put so much energy toward it getting out there?
Speaker 3:Man, if our lives aren't about testifying about what God has done through us and in us, but most importantly for us, then what are we doing? And so I don't know. I'll just say that I'm completely sold out to sharing the good news in any way, shape or form that we possibly can, and I'm a firm believer that the message changes people's lives. And so if the message comes by way of glow tracks and knocking on doors, or if it comes by way of open air preaching or starting a church, or through posting content on the internet, I'm all in on doing so, and I just know that my life has been changed by this ministry, and I'm so excited to be able to throw my influence, my hard-earned doubloons, as they say, I'm just happy to support, because if it changed my life, then there's the hopefulness that one more post, one more story, one more podcast can have the same effect for someone else out there.
Speaker 1:Amen. And if you are listening and you're like man, I want to put some energy, some power behind this message. You can go to loverealityorg slash give and every dollar that you donate goes towards this message getting out there, whether it's a pod, whether it's a podcast, whether it is a Bible study, whether it is internet church, well, you know, we're just trying to get this out there. So, loverealityorg slash give and let's go. Thank you so much, justin. Appreciate you coming on Right back at you, rich. All right, this is going to be the second one and I'll just do the same thing. I'll start. I'm like, hey, okay, we're going to take a quick break. And then you just cut me off and you run the show for Okay, we're going to take a quick break. Hold on, rich, can I jump in? Yeah, justin Koo, I guess you can jump in.
Speaker 3:This is normally the part of the show where you talk to someone about how they're sacrificing and choosing to partner with this ministry, but I have it on good authority that you too, also partner with this ministry and support as well. You already know. Yeah, absolutely, man. I was actually listening back to the old log of the first couple of episodes and I just totally forgot how you started this podcast while working nights as an Amazon warehouse worker. I laughed a little inside, but I love it, man, because it shows your heart that from the beginning, it was never an influence play, Although this podcast has God is blessed has reached quite a large number of people. But that's not why you started. You started because this thing had changed your life and you wanted more people to know, and so I guess the people want to know. Is there anything else beyond that? Is it literally that simple that the gospel changes lives? Is that why you invest not only your time, influence and energy, but also your money to support the creation of resources like these?
Speaker 1:Man, I didn't know how good I had it. I really did not know how good I had it in Jesus Christ. And now that I know, as Paul is praying, that our eyes are open to the inheritance that we have in the saints, as I've seen, the inheritance that I have, it's Jesus Christ and all that comes with him, which includes every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. That's enough to radically change the way you think about things. And because I think about things differently, it changed my marriage, changed what I feel about where I'm going to work, what I'm going to do, my purpose in life. And so, yeah, people were like you should start a podcast. And I was like that's the least I can do. I want to get on top of a mountain and yell at somebody, but maybe we can do this podcast thing. So, yeah, and we donate to the ministry because we care, we want people to hear this message, because we know we just know that if they see it they'll never go back. That it's just too good.
Speaker 3:I love it. You know a lot of podcasts will say something to the effect of man. This show could not help, could not happen without supporters like y'all that are listening. And, truth be told, that's not true for us, Because even if no one gave I I, I reckon you'd still be doing the podcast uh, we were doing the podcast when nobody was giving, so, uh, we would be doing the I mean man, the.
Speaker 1:The purpose for the the finances is it's a numbers game. Right, it's like we don't want to think of it as a numbers game, like, oh, we've got to get this many people, but also we want to get a lot of people to hear this message. Yeah, we care about each individual because, I mean, that's what this podcast is all about is when that individual hears the message and it changes their life. Yeah, so we care, we want it to get as widespread as possible. So we care, we want it to get as widespread as possible.
Speaker 3:So if you're listening and you also care and also want to empower more good ministry, shoot. We could still do the podcast without the support, but there's a real sense in which we couldn't be doing all the other shows Bible study groups, internet church, all the other things that are happening. And so if you'd like to partner and to support this mission of telling everyone who's willing to listen that they are in fact in Christ by faith, free from sin, you can head over to loverealityorg slash give. That's loverealityorg slash give.
Speaker 1:Yep, justin, god doesn't even need us, right? He will build his own kingdom. Yet there is work to do and we're here to do it right. Amen, amen, all right, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:Uh, richard, all right, we'll get back to the show a gentleman in the alvinist church out there in hawaii gave me the link to the uh love reality videos and I watched. I think I watched five of them and I said this is just so healing. And I began to have more breakthroughs in my view of God and to realize, hey, if I make a wrong choice, he's still there. I became convicted that when we sin, god doesn't leave us. It just makes us feel like he's left us, which is not the same thing. If God leaves you when you sin, you would be dead before you could repent. He's always there, but the psychological pain caused by how sin reacts upon our psyche produces the perception of separation. But I'm so glad to experience that, wherever I am in my life, god is there to help me and he's never going to abandon me.
Speaker 2:And I watched a bunch of videos also when I got back to Michigan just marinating in these ideas, you know, of love and freedom, and my dad and I began to connect better and basically by the fall of last year, things began to really sing and by the spring of spring 2023, actually my heart began to come back alive and I began to have the interests that had been lost since childhood, as in, I've always wanted to make alphabets. I was researching the history of every letter of the alphabet when I was eight years old, all the encyclopedias on the floor spread out and I thought what's the history here? And then, when I was 10, I made my first alphabet for English, a second at age 14. And so last year I thought let's do this right. I have a computer, now's go. So it's just become this huge project that's given me a lot of fulfillment and I now feel that I'm living out of my identity. I know God loves me, and when I got to Nebraska is when I finally met the love reality community.
Speaker 1:How did that end up happening? How'd you end up in Nebraska? I know you guys are friends with Floyd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is how we heard about the more recent Love Reality things beginning in 2022. And he told us about the Nebraska meeting, I think about a month before. And I said to my dad we're going. This is important Because some people you know they'd been in the circles for a couple of years, then they go to Nebraska. Well, I hadn't gotten in, I think maybe one circle for a brief time, but had not met the people. So I met the people and I thought here we are, a day and a half just fellowshipping.
Speaker 2:While I was there, seven things were broken off of me. Um, let's see if I can recall them. One of them was I felt healed of asperger's. I believed this isn't my identity, nor is add, because if you believe a thing to be your identity, you're going to end up having it prove true in your life, because your subconscious mind alters how you think to match your false belief. So if you stop believing that, you may suddenly find yourself functioning a lot more normally. People said Enoch, you socialize just fine, enoch, we love your loving, kind heart. You know I was hugging a lot of people.
Speaker 2:I used to be so uncomfortable to show affection to people I would start shaking and sweating, unless they're immediate family. So what God did was I was at PMC way back in 99, and I'm in this circle of people with arms on each other and I said, god, this is making me so uncomfortable, but I love these kids. Please bring healing Instantly. I was healed and I've had this gift of being able to hug anybody as if they were family, without any blocks. It's just been there ever since. So I was healed of an eating disorder. In the past month. I no longer feel compelled to overeat to meet my emotional needs. I dealt with this for over 10 years. It's just gone. You know, I eat for strength but there's no emotional pull because God gave me healing and also just the community. The love reality. Community is so wonderful that I could describe it as what church should be. You know where there's support, openness. You know men discussing victory over their porn addiction. Women are listening. No, everything is good and that blew me away because I knew it would come eventually.
Speaker 2:I used to be in a men's group because the thing is, you know, when you have healthy bonds with women, that's the ultimate solution to that issue. You're created to need healthy bonds and if you avoid all bonds to prevent unhealthy bonds, you haven't solved the problem. It's like taking care of your addiction to McDonald's by fasting perpetually You're not going to last long. So I'm experiencing these healthy bonds with men and women in a community where there's just love and reminding each other of these awesome texts Romans 6, 7 and 6, 18 know that we are free from sin in Christ because we have this freedom that he brings us. And by believing that I'm free from sin, what I experience is my subconscious no longer sees myself as a sinner, which removes the pull of the flesh, especially because, if I have a temptation, I can literally message the entire group, which I have done once and experienced victory. I mean, openness is so much better than suffering in isolation, richard. So much better than suffering in isolation, richard. So much better than suffering in isolation.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man. You said three things. You said the Asperger's identity, the ADD identity, you said the eating disorder. You said well, you don't have to share all of them, but were there any other things that you wanted to share about that? You received healing from when you came out to Nebraska.
Speaker 2:Well, one of them was I have this sense that all of me is accepted, that who I am at every level is this loving, kind person with his unique mind, and no part of me doubts that. Now All of me believes that, instead of 85 percent of me I'll tell you what man.
Speaker 1:Um, when I met you in nebraska, we you and I didn't spend a lot of time in nebraska, but subsequently we spent some time. We probably spent three hours on the phone together.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've just seen a different kind of peace where you and I have even discussed things that I don't discuss on the Bible studies, because and you have not been shook because you know who God is.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And since you know who God is, you know who you are Talk to me about, who God is, and then what that actually says about you.
Speaker 2:Well who God is. He's a loving father. I mean, I see them as a family, like human parents are a family. God made the family to represent him. You know, god made the family to represent him and so, like God, the father is kind of in that role to me of the father, holy Spirit kind of in that role to me of the mother. You know, it's just like my needs for mother and father are literally met by the divine family, jesus, my brother. You know, I feel free to tell them anything. There's no more shame. I think in the past five years, maybe three years ago, I could tell God everything on my heart without worry or fear of rejection. God is acceptance personified. He is love personified.
Speaker 2:I've experienced feeling God's love directly one time, august 2007. It felt like I was under a rock while it was blasting off. Just the force and the power of God was so great. When you know God loves you, his power is just so thrilling. I'll never forget that as long as I live. It was like every cell of my being was screaming with joy. It was like wow. You know, I'll never forget that God has more than enough power to handle everything in our lives. He lives in me, I give him control and he acts out of my body, speaks out of my mouth, thinks through my mind.
Speaker 2:I think we're designed to live a life where, through surrender to Christ, we don't see where he stops and we begin. We're kind of just like this. We are human beings who take on divinity, just like Jesus was divine who took on humanity, divine who took on humanity. So we end up having the same authority on this earth as Jesus did, because, as he called on his father to do things, we call on him to do things. We think together. Abraham was God's friend. God doesn't have this absolute hierarchical patriarchal will. He says what do you think? Let's work together.
Speaker 2:You know, in Isaiah 44, 26, the Bible says that God listens to the counsel of his messengers. So you think about how, in the Old Testament, god's doing things. Because his committee suggests something and he's so humble he says okay, we'll try that. You know, god has more than one way of doing things. He's not arbitrary or exacting. He cares more about relationship than truth, more about love than obedience, because without relationship, truth doesn't exist. Without love, obedience is a lie. You know, you have to have that foundation and I just wake up each morning and say God, what shall we do today? And so I may read some scripture or I may sing, you know, or dance in my room to music. You know it's a free expressive thing. If you feel that you have to adjust your behavior in God's presence, you're not free. You feel that you have to adjust your behavior in God's presence, you're not free. God died to give you full freedom to be accepted as your true self in his presence. Then you can grow.
Speaker 1:Talk to me about the root of legalism now that you're on the other side of it.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's almost like I've been waiting for this question because it's like something I want to share with the world. I want to help people who are stuck in legalism, who are going crazy because of a fear of God. Legalism is the belief that I must produce goodness out of myself, using my own power and following my perception of God's will, of the Bible of Ellen White, if you're Adventist and it can be crushing because I don't have this ability to be good in my own strength, I don't have the wisdom in my own brain to know what to do. So to be relying upon my brain that cannot see and upon my being that cannot do produces eventual meltdown. My being that cannot do produces eventual meltdown. And with my parents, in the drive to be holy and do the right thing, our relationships broke up. To put God's relationship first is to say God, I trust you and I'm not going to believe my brain's view of what I should be doing.
Speaker 2:When I was in Hawaii in 2004, I had two weeks of heaven. I was having a tough time with my parents. I gave God full control and I ended up in Hawaii with a dream job, teaching at Hawaiian Mission Elementary School, living 10 blocks from Waikiki Beach in an apartment that, being subsidized by the school, cost me $40, not a week a month. So I felt very, very blessed and I was enjoying my life, teaching English to grades 6 and PE to grades K through 8, until one night, one fateful night, brother Richard crossing this bridge across the H1, where I thought, huh, I think I'm trusting God. He delivered me from living at home with my painful bond with my parents, even though I didn't have a perfect bond with them at the time, even though there was bitterness, unforgiveness, etc. But I thought, huh, I must not be following God because I'm eating cheese. If this was really God, I would be vegan, I would be waking up each morning at 5 am to have an hour of devotions, and so I must change my behavior or I'm going to be lost. So I took control of my life back from God, who I thought was the devil. So I took control of my life back from God, who I thought was the devil, and proceeded to run my own life in the way that I thought God wanted, living like a good Adventist, by willpower, not by heart, but by forcing myself. And I was producing left, hemispheric dominance, pushing myself against my heart and after six weeks I was literally rolling on the floor of my apartment pulling my hair out, voices skimming in my head. Because when you make yourself left hemispheric dominant which is what legalism does, either you'll go insane or you will become dead in your heart and become a sociopath unable to have empathy for the suffering of your own family. Those are the two results of being left hemispheric dominant. Legalism produces that and I learned through 10 years of anguish to live a Christian life, surrender control to God.
Speaker 2:Do not trust your left brain's understanding. Proverbs 3, 5 says lean, not emphasis on the word, not on understanding. In other ways, acknowledge him. The Hebrew word is yada, close relationship, same word used when Adam knew his wife Eve. So focus on the relationship with God, which requires community and emotional healing. Because in my experience my brain didn't have the wiring to have a relationship with anybody, human or divine, couldn't feel his presence. But through emotional healing I could now feel God's presence and connect to him.
Speaker 2:But a lot of people don't have the brain wiring to have relationships, but they're pushing themselves to follow the path that they see God requires out of their own willpower. From the Bible and the writings of Ellen White, I know by experience that path leads not to heaven, not to life, but to insanity, demonic harassment, even possession. We need to trust God and lighten up and enjoy life. He's our savior. He's not our probation officer or advisor who gives us tips while we work to save ourselves. This never works. When you trust God, you feel free and sometimes he leads you in places you may not expect. Eating meat while filled with the Spirit.
Speaker 2:Spending time at the nude beach filled with the Spirit it can shock some people, but I tried the alternative and I found the devil not in letting go and trusting and being in my life very free. I found the devil by self-control, by willpower, which produces psychological meltdown. I mean, I learned this so many times because for someone like me, being intellectual, being a rate and self-supporting work, do you think I could ever get to a point where I could hang with hippies you know, enjoy being with them at the nude beach, these places. How could I get there unless I was driven by desperation to take extreme steps to get my sense of connection and to realize with God relationship is first. Without that, the tower on top is not going to build. You can't build the house on sand, which is a symbol of ideas. You're going to build it on the rock, which is a relationship with Jesus and that's how I define legalism is resting upon your good works, which in Isaiah 64, 6, we are told are filthy rags, whereas to rest upon Christ is you're my Savior.
Speaker 2:I can't judge anybody. I don't know where they are on their track. I can't tell where I am on my track. I just know that if I trust you, you're going to get me there where I am on my track. I just know that if I trust you, you're going to get me there. And as we learn here, with Love Reality, I believe I'm free of sin and therefore, through understanding this reality in my identity, that God is my loving Father always, I can be free and enjoy relationships, creative projects and a life that is free of these temptations.
Speaker 1:I'm just so grateful to god, brother richard, so so grateful what he's done for me I think so many people don't understand freedom from sin because they think that we'll never be tempted. Temptations come, temptations go. Temptations don't mean. I asked this brother one. I said what does it mean if you're tempted? And he thought that there was something wrong with him if he was tempted. I said it just means you're tempted Like that's all that. It means Don't take it personally Like Jesus was tempted in every way and so when we take away morality from being tempted, then we can just see it as the temptation that it is and be like oh, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's, I think that's crucial for us to understand that.
Speaker 1:Yes, let me ask you this, as we'll wrap it up here If you could go back to this kid who gets this diagnosis that this is going to be his life there's no growing from this, or there's no healing from this, or like you're going to have to live an antisocial existence and you're never going to be able to focus If you got to pull that kid aside and this is a young kid you know, 10 years old, 13 years old how would you minister to him, knowing what you know?
Speaker 2:now. Well, I would talk to him. Talk to him. I would say those diagnoses you have are lies from the enemy. I'm going to pray over you in Jesus' name, for you to renounce those lies. I'm going to tell you that you have amazing gifts and that, no matter how emotionally abusive your mother is, if you open your heart to her and you love her, god has permission to rescue you quickly. But if you're bitter towards her, the devil has permission to cause you suffering for years.
Speaker 2:And you should pray for your parents, because I know myself, at age 10, I would have received this kind of stuff. You know, I was deep, I was smart. I just didn't have any mentors I could find who knew how to help us, and I would have said I'll be your friend. You know, do the things you love, write down the things you want God to do with pen and paper, put them on your wall and read them with texts that match that every day, and you're going to have victory. That's what I would have said to him. He would have done that too.
Speaker 1:I know myself at age 10 man, you've been a huge blessing to our community. Uh, the way you move your joy in the lord I. I don't think I'm ever going to forget seeing you in Nebraska. What's the song where everyone was jumping around? I forget the name of the song oh yes, that was.
Speaker 2:Can't count them by. Uh, brandon lake. I think I've played that 10 times since that event, because the song expresses the passion of god, the power of god. You know, the love of god, not this little metrosexual jesus that says, hey guys, do you want to step in the cloud? No, when Jesus comes back, it'll be like when Mount St Helens blew and it flattened all the pine trees. I mean, god has so much power. It's like whoa, if this is who you are, why didn't we trust you more? I mean, you got this whole thing covered. It's like a freight train doing 100 miles an hour hitting a fly. That's like, you know, god encountering the devil. Seriously, you know, keep that in your mind's eye Because if you've had trauma in your life, you can picture the devil as very big and powerful. When the freight train hits the fly, it's over. You know, god is way beyond in intelligence and love and power, past the devil, and someday there will be no more devil. Period, full stop.
Speaker 1:Amen, man. Well, I can't get that Now that you say that I'm always going to be thinking about Mount St Helens when it comes to God. And you were just praising and you know you're a blessing to our community, you're a part of our community and I believe our community is the church. You know we're a part of God's hands and feet here on planet Earth. We get the privilege of telling people about the ministry of reconciliation.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:And I'm glad I get to do that with you, man, I'm glad that you're my brother in this thing, and I think it's just going to be more. I think more people are going to see it, more people are going to receive it. And what does it say about the gates of hell? That we will storm the gates of hell. Yes, and we're going to pull these people out in Jesus's name, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, we will.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much, Enoch. You're a blessing to me, my brother.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, brother Richard. You're a blessing to me too, and all of the other. Love reality, people.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. Man, if you're thinking about your problems and you're not thinking about God like who he is, then this prayer is for you. Father, we've just been considering our problems so much. You're much bigger, you're much stronger. You that live in us is more powerful than he that is in the world. Reveal that to us in a way that we can't move past it, so we know how much you love us. Thank you for doing it in Jesus' name. Amen, man, you guys, god is good and he's all powerful, and Jesus is king. Come vibe with us Wednesday mornings. Made new 930 Central. We're going through Romans. Who knows how long we're going to be going through Romans. We might go to Ephesians after that, but come to the made new Bible study and vibe with us at Love Reality. Love y'all and appreciate y'all. Bye. Vibe with us at love reality. Love y'all and appreciate y'all. Bye.