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
#178 From Skepticism to Faith: Grant's Transformative Journey Through the Gospel
Join us on this enlightening episode of the Death to Life podcast as we feature Grant, a long-time community member. Raised in Missouri's Seventh-day Adventist tradition, Grant's journey of faith took a dramatic turn when he moved to Lincoln to be with his now-wife, Sarah. Through his story, we explore how his understanding of God shifted from a distant, academic figure to an ever-present, intimate companion.
Throughout this episode, we discuss the complexities of spiritual skepticism and the hurdles faced when accepting new religious doctrines. Grant shares his unexpected encounters and reconnections with people like Eddie and Jayla, which helped him navigate his doubts and deepen his faith. Personal stories reveal the discomfort and skepticism that arise when new theological ideas challenge our long-held beliefs. These candid reflections shed light on how grappling with personal struggles and unmet spiritual expectations can amplify one's discomfort in religious discussions.
This episode underscores the transformative power of genuine faith and God's grace, leading to a liberated and more confident life. Join us and discover how you too can experience this transformation by participating in our "Death to Life Bible Study" sessions every Monday night. Text DEATHTOLIFE to 808-204-4372 to embark on this life-changing journey with us.
Chapters:
0:00 - Transformation Through the Gospel
16:19 - Journey of Spiritual Discovery
31:25 - Free From Shame and Condemnation
39:02 - Journey to Confidence and Assurance
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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, yo. Welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with my brother, grant, and Grant has been a part of this community for a long time but we've just never gotten a chance to record. We did have a chance and to hear his story is a beautiful thing. This is a guy who was just kind of lackadaisical, trying to figure it out. Going through the motions, and the gospel radically changed how he thinks about things. So you're going to love it. It's Grant, it's a blessing. It kind of goes back to the good old old days of love reality. Buckle up, strap in Love. Y'all Appreciate y'all. This is Grant. All right, we're whittling it down.
Speaker 1:As far as families go, the Morrison's got. I think we're closing in on like nine out of nine morrisons, but right behind them are the herbals. Like you guys are closing in. We have less family members, but we're just we got. We're knocking them down one by one, and your episode, man. It's been a long time coming. I think I messaged you about it or we talked about it at some point, and it was just like yup, and now we're. Is this year four of the podcast or is it year three? I'm not sure what year it is, but we're a few in and it's your turn, grant. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:Are excited super excited, a little nervous, yeah, uh, I think, uh, god's timing is perfect on it, though couldn't have come at a better time, just because that's how it goes, and, yeah, I'm excited man, I'm excited to find out why it's the perfect time, uh, and maybe that'll happen in your story.
Speaker 1:So where, where are we going? Where are you taking me back to the show me state? Somewhere in the show me state?
Speaker 2:Of course, I have to take you to the show me state. Yeah, I grew up here and I live here again. I lived in Lincoln for about seven years and that's where we kind of overlapped just a little bit. And I say that because you visited, although we you and I talked about this on Messenger. When you messaged me it had been 13 years or something prior that we had talked, because you were the recruiter at Union when I was applying to go there back in 2012.
Speaker 1:Was that what that message was from? Was it me recruiting you to come to Union?
Speaker 2:Essentially. Yeah, I think I'd submitted an application and you were the guy who was like, let's get this going, but I don't remember actually meeting with you on campus, if that makes sense. I don't think I did a tour or anything like that and moved to Lincoln in about 2015. And that was because my girlfriend at the time who's now my wife, sarah was going to school there. I was going to community college and I thought, you know, it's time to spread my wings and just see how far I can fly. And it was to Lincoln. So got a job there Four hours, five hours, and just stepped around yeah, that's all.
Speaker 1:It was Relocated to another place in the Midwest and so Let me ask you this Growing up, your background is in Seventh-day Adventism. You grew up with Seventh-day Adventist parents. We've heard your mom's story. We've heard your sister's story. Growing up, who was God to you? Well, who was God?
Speaker 2:to me God was, I guess, looking back, I would say distant At the time. I wouldn't have said that necessarily because I didn't know the difference between what it felt like to know, the difference between what it felt like to have God close and what it felt like for him to be in heaven in my mind, you know, just somewhere else. And so I would say a lot of my relationship with God was trying to bring him closer, I would say, but in a way that I felt comfortable with, which was through learning, knowledge, understanding concepts about God, learning about God and that was my way of thinking that I was bringing Him closer or bringing myself closer to him. But at the same time, I didn't know what that looked like or what it would feel like to say God is close to me and so really, ultimately, I would say distant.
Speaker 1:Distant. How did you think like? How did he feel about?
Speaker 2:you, it was all generic terms I would say um. Somebody would ask me at the time. It would be something like um he loves me? Um, he watches over me, just things that you hear, uh, buzzwords, stuff like that. Um, if I were to really think about it I don't know that I could have given an answer at the time that resonated with me in any certain way Because, again, everything that I learned about God was secondhand in a way. I'd read books about God. It may not have been theological books like heavy concepts, but maybe, like I like the Chronicles of Narnia, that was a narrative way to learn about God. I loved allegory. I liked I'm trying to think if there are any specific examples but a lot of books that said here's what God is like.
Speaker 1:And then applying that, trying to apply that. I was at a church recently and someone was praying and they were like God, we know that you are watching us while we sleep. And I was like what? I was like I'm sure that's true, I guess. And I turned to Natalie and I was like, do they think God is Santa Claus? Like, do they really Like, is that what's going on here? And like I think that that person, this sweet person, I think that they probably were taking that from the song, because I don't think in scripture, like, yes, there's this idea that he knows the hairs on our head, he knows us very well, he knit us in our mother's womb, um, but, yeah, like, that just made me think of that. Like, who is god? Well, he's watching me while I'm asleep kind of creepy in some ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, especially when you boil it down to that it's like, well, you're not wrong, but also, is that all it is?
Speaker 1:He knows if you've been bad or good. So be good, for goodness sake. I think that's a hymn right.
Speaker 2:It's a hymn. It's a true, meaningful hymn. Actually though that's interesting that you say that, because I would say that's another aspect of how I felt about my relationship with God was almost like a give and take in a way. Well, and maybe that's not the right word, but he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, so you better be good, for goodness sake. It's like behave well essentially, and I wouldn't have said that I thought behavior gets you into heaven or whatever it is. That that we know is completely wrong at a, at a glance, but it's more like um, do what he tells you or do what he told you.
Speaker 2:Try to align yourself correctly, and then you can feel like you're in a good spot. You can. He's relating to you. You're relating to him because of your alignment at the moment, which you know is a real slippery slope, because it almost never feels like it's aligned correctly, and so there would be times where I felt like what's the point of trying to be aligned? And then there were times where I was like, wow, obviously this is what I should be doing, but it was never quite something that I felt secure in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, we get tricked into believing that God is our actual problem, because when we mess up, someone's like God will punish you, or God will be upset, or God's disappointed. And so when we're being saved, we're not being saved from sin, we're being saved. We're not being saved from sin, we're being saved from God. So God sent his son, jesus, to save you from him, like he needed Jesus to convince him to not kill you, which is a weird old theology that many people don't know that that's what they're actually believing. They don't carry it to its extent. So, um, growing up in high school and academy, um, you were doing as well as you were doing. Then, like I said, academy and homeschool, you were doing as well as it was going.
Speaker 2:Yep, you got it. Yeah, like I believed in God and in the concept of God, it was just a middle ground, I guess, and that's just what I thought it was, and just it was what it was.
Speaker 1:So when did you start dating your wife? Was it before she came to Lincoln?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it was, because she worked at camp and I worked at camp Camp's a big part of a lot of my story, I guess but uh, that was in around 2014, 2013. And um, and I moved to Lincoln a couple of years later, so she must've been in school at the time, cause you do that when you're going to school, and that's when we started. Dating was right after one summer at camp.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You worked at camp with our mutual bro Millsap Rocky on the streets. But Ryan Millsap, right Is that where you met up with him was working at camp, that's correct. So yeah, how is where you met up with him was working at camp.
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, how is it you get up to Lincoln? You have this kind of transactional relationship with God.
Speaker 2:What happened. Well, it's funny. You bring up Ryan in a way, because we're, he was going to school there too and we would hang out out, and if we were to hang out on a Friday evening, oftentimes he would come over, cause Sarah had an apartment that was near campus and I'd go hang out with there in the evenings a lot of time. And then, um, Ryan would come over occasionally in third wheel and if it was a Friday night, I'd be like, hey, could you do the this is actually kind of secondhand Cause I don't actually remember doing this, but he brings this up I would say, could you do the sundown worship, or something like that. And he'd say, okay.
Speaker 2:So, in other words, I had this desire for connection with God and I wanted to, especially when it came to like, the Sabbath, um, which was primarily for me, uh, a rule-based concept, but I still wanted to, um, honor God in that way and I enjoyed it. And so I never, just to be clear, I never really felt like God was a, like somebody I didn't want to be around, or something like that. I mean, there were times, maybe, um, where I'd feel ashamed or something like that, guilty of something, but overall I wanted to be close to God. So I had that and uh, but I just didn't know how to make it happen. And then what do I need to do? And I never really knew and that put me in this weird kind of limbo. But I guess we'll come back to that.
Speaker 2:In Lincoln I just kind of was there not super involved with anything necessarily, but eventually and I think this came up in my sister's podcast so this will overlap a little bit up in my sister's podcast, so this will overlap a little bit but ryan millsap was doing some kind of internship at a church in lincoln and part of it was he wanted to start a young adult sabbath school and so he's like, do you want to kind of help out with this? And like brainstorm this a little bit. And so he got myself and my wife and um, um, a couple other people involved and so we would have this Sabbath school, um, where he was the teacher, but we kind of had input in the background or maybe we'd bring food or whatever. But I was super uncomfortable, Um, not even entertain the idea of myself teaching.
Speaker 2:It was felt like a small group. But I would never put myself in that position to actually teach. If he went on vacation or something, then we would still meet, but I would say we're just going to read or something like that. So that gives you an idea of how comfortable I was with it in front of people. Um, we kind of moved on from that church, uh, and then started meeting at union in uh woods auditorium there. And that's when a couple of people came through town named Eddie and Jayla and oh, I know Eddie and Jayla.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you're aware of, uh, what were you?
Speaker 1:guys talking about in your Sabbath school? What were you guys covering like the quarterly? And for those who don't know, when an Adventist says the quarterly, every Adventist around the world Is usually studying the same thing For Sabbath school, which is what we call Our get-togethers on Sabbath mornings, different from Sunday school, called Sabbath school, and we usually are studying the same thing where you guys study that, or were you just let's open up the Bible and read?
Speaker 2:Let's open up Ellen White and read was the didn't happen every time, but Ryan actually always had a thought or something like that. But I mean there was a time, a good series of weeks, where we we just read the desire of ages, just read a chapter and then talked about it. So we didn't have anything in concrete, that we followed the quarterly or something like that, but it was um a little more rigid in that way, and partly that's because I was so I had zero confidence in my ability to converse about this kind of thing, that I was very little help with helping the conversation and so, unless someone else was there that kind of did help, we had to really have something to look at and have talking points about, and so that's what we did.
Speaker 1:All right, so you moved to Woods Auditorium.
Speaker 2:Eddie shows up. What was it? What's that like? Uh well, first of all, I didn't see Eddie at first, um, because my wife, um, we got married in 2017. So she was my wife at the time. This was in December 2019.
Speaker 2:She knew Jayla from growing up. I forget exactly how they knew each other, but Jayla had lived in St Joseph, where my wife is from, when they were younger, and I think that she was friends with Jaydra as well, who lived in that area and was very close with my wife's family and her, and so, anyway, they had this history. And so Jayla comes up where we were hanging out. I mean, it was a big enough gathering that if we hadn't, you know, if there hadn't been that history, I don't know if we would have really interacted per se. But Jayla came up and said, uh, hi to Sarah and sat down. Excuse me, she said hi to Sarah and sat down, and then they just started talking, and so the way that worked was kind of I don't remember how, but Jayla directed the conversation pretty skillfully to you know, where are you at with your relationship with God? Or you know how's the gospel going for you? And for a little bit of, let me back up real quick In the Sabbath school Ryan in the background, we weren't really friends with Tyler Morrison, but Ryan had been talking to him.
Speaker 2:We weren't really friends with Tyler Morrison, but Ryan had been talking to him and Tyler had been sharing things that Ryan was then talking about. And then Tyler would come occasionally to the Sabbath school as well, and then more and more to share this new gospel is what I would have probably called it at the time, and I was very skeptical of the things he was saying, and nothing ever landed for me. I would think about it and I'd be like that's okay. And then the weeks would go on and we'd talk about similar things and it would be things like Adam 1, adam 2, the idea that sin is defeated, we're free from sin in Christ, we don't have to live under sin, under the rule of sin, all this stuff that was presented in a way that I felt like I'd never heard anything like it, and so it felt like something completely different, even though it wasn't.
Speaker 2:And if the Bible had been one of those books that I read, then I probably could have seen that it was in the Bible, but it wasn't. So I didn't, and I remember telling people occasionally be like you know this, this message is coming through, um people talking about in our Sabbath school. It's kind of kind of weird. I'm trying to figure it out. And and uh, some people in our Sabbath school were saying to to uh, ryan and and myself, are we going to ever talk about anything else, like, it's good to talk about the love of God, but is there something we can move on to or whatever, and so it wasn't a good uh environment, um environment, for this to come through apparently Did you grab onto anything, or was it pretty much just straight up, Like when he says that there's, you know, Jesus is the second Adam, Adam's the first Adam and you're in one or the other.
Speaker 1:You're like, okay, like what was that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think part of the value I placed on the knowledge I acquired meant that it was very uh, it's. Let's see how do I articulate this. I placed a lot of value on knowledge I was acquiring and so, as a result, anything new had to be really considered, and I was extremely, uh, wary of what I would call new doctrine or something like that, or something outside of my own understanding. And so, um, when they were talking about this, I would think about it and I would be very on guard against it, because I would think this leans a little bit too much towards. You know, all you need is love or, uh, just whatever.
Speaker 2:I was interpreting and this was just me Um, I was, in other words, I was skeptical. I came at it with a skeptical mind and so, no, uh, nothing was landing and I, yeah it, it didn't. We could have moved on from it and I would have been fine with that, Um, but I wasn't the kind of person who was going to say we need to stop talking about this or something like that. But if it had happened, I would have been fine I don't blame you one bit, dude.
Speaker 1:I don't blame you for feeling that or believing that or thinking that. Um, I think so many people have that exact, uh, interaction with it. They're just like what this doesn't sound like what I've heard, and so if it doesn't sound like what I've heard, and so if it doesn't sound like what I've heard, and said it the way, and I'll see like the wheels in their mind turning and they'll come up with like a cliche, like that we always say that we've heard, like all of us have heard it, and trying to see like oh, are you saying something that I know? You're just saying it differently. And if it is that thing that I know, oh yeah, well then that makes sense. But if you're saying something I don't know, there's a threat there and that's uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I definitely resonate with that. Discomfort was something that I actively avoided. I'm sure we all do in in every way, but uh it uh. Discomfort was easily. I was easily discomforted by spiritual topics and so I didn't want to um experience that.
Speaker 1:How were you living your life? Were was. Was the reason you were uncomfortable because you were not living your best life, or was the reason you were uncomfortable because it's like this is not polite discussion Like?
Speaker 2:that's a good question. I think it was the first thing, uh, where I was not living the way I thought I should. Um, you know, I was seeing a disconnect between what I thought God wanted from me and what was happening, but at the same time, I was not aware of a way to change that, and so I was in this middle ground constantly, and actually it led to a lot of the things that it does for many people shame, guilt, condemnation but for me, I would say it was also a lot of fear, because, I mean, I remember having dreams about the second coming, which is always very present in the mind of Seventh-day Adventists Seventh-day Adventists and they might as well have been nightmares, because the dream never ended well. I would always think that I was not going to heaven, and so the idea of God coming back was never an idea where I felt relief or whatever else it might be joy. It was always, or whatever else it might be joy, it was always. Oh, this is it.
Speaker 2:I ran out of time to turn this around, and uh, and so that's that was always in my mind. Like you know, if I died today, then what would happen? Uh, a lot of times it was me thinking about the future, and the future was either going to heaven or not, and, uh, thinking that it, it just wasn't going to happen. There's a there's a line in a song that says something like, uh, I know St Peter won't call my name, and I remember hearing that and being like, oh man, I can't think about that, cause it's. It felt true to me. Um, so that was where I was at in this weird limbo, um, but I guess I was optimistic that things would turn around, because otherwise I would have been just, you know, in crippling anxiety all the time. I know I wasn't quite that bad, but, um, nothing ever did change.
Speaker 1:Was Sarah aware of what was going on with you in this stuff, or is this kind of like?
Speaker 2:I'm doing my own thing and I'm trying to figure it out. It was doing my own thing Because I had that discomfort. It was not something we talked about really spiritual matters. There was just a vague understanding that we would go to church and that God was real and that if we have kids, we're going to raise them, you know, in a Christian household, seventh-day Adventist, all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But we never discussed it and that was actually a source of guilt in a way, because as the head of the household, so to speak, I felt that was my role and I was not doing a good job. I felt that was my role and I was not doing a good job and I just felt bad about that, but I didn't do anything about it. Um, yeah, it was something I thought through alone and I guess I was afraid as well to come across as someone who didn't, uh, have confidence or I don't know. I don't know what that would have, why that was exactly, but I didn't have confidence, or I don't know. I don't know what that would have, why that was exactly, but I didn't want to seem vulnerable in that way to where I didn't understand who God was, or like I didn't have it together or whatever it was. So that was probably part of the reason too that I didn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1:So they keep going on with it, don't they? They just keep talking about it. There's almost nothing else to talk about. That's irritating. What happened after that?
Speaker 2:Well, so anyway, I think that's important context going up into this, because Jayla sits down, she talks to Sarah. Context going up into this, because Jayla sits down, she, she talks to Sarah, and then she says what is? And again, I don't remember exactly how she said it, but it came up and she said something to the effect of how's, how's this message landing for you? It was right after the Sabbath school, so maybe we talked about something at that time and she said something like that to Sarah. And all of a sudden, sarah just starts tearing up and I was pretty shocked actually, because I had no idea what was going through her head. And the end of the conversation she had with Sarah, which was very short actually, she said Sarah, go into the other room and just pray about this short actually. Uh, she said sarah, go into the other room and just pray about this. And so sarah gets up and she reaches for her phone and jayla says leave your phone.
Speaker 1:So sarah does, she leaves when jayla tells you to do something jayla could tell me to just get like light myself on fire. I'd be like, yes, ma'am, just give me a, let me find some matches. Like what? Like there's no question, she just speaks with authority, bro.
Speaker 2:You're just like, yeah, I'll, I'll do whatever you tell me yes, ma'am, yeah, it's very, uh, authoritative, yeah, that's, that's the right word. And in a good way she, uh, she leaves. And I was like, wow, that's. Because I guess in my mind I was thinking it 'd really be good for Sarah to absorb the gospel just weird hypocrisy. So I'm like happy, I'm like, wow, you know, jayla got through to Sarah or something. And then Jayla looks at me and she's like, so what's your deal? And that's where I was like panicking a little bit, cause I was like, oh no, she's going to ask me this question, but I'm a, I'm a spiritual guy, like I'm. I started this out of school, so how is she going to ask me? That? This was subconscious, I'm sure, but in retrospect that's what was going through my, through my mind, and so I was like I don't know whatever noncommittal answer. And she had me repeat after her a prayer where she had me actually place my hand on my heart, because that's where the Holy Spirit is in you and in your heart and in your heart, and something about that action. And then literally the, the act of stepping into speaking to God and acknowledging his presence, and then not only um, not only asking for his presence, but saying you know, thank you that you are here. You know, thank you that you are here. Um, there was something about that that stepped out of all the years leading up to that, where I had kept God in kind of a compartment in my mind, um, and really made it real in a way. And so by the end of that prayer, which was really just, you know, thank you for for living in in me and um, it's just something really basic but by the end of that I was tearing up. I was emotional not overly so, um, and I say that because, um, jayla didn't think I was emotional at the time and Ryan knew I was very emotional at the time for for who I am, but, um, yeah, that's what did it for me. From there, it was literally just that she came up and she might as well, just like. I guess.
Speaker 2:Leading up to that, I had felt like I wasn't really accepting this message or I wasn't really identifying with it or absorbing it or whatever, but I really actually was. I felt like the Holy Spirit was working on me in retrospect, because just that morning Ryan had asked me you know, what do you think about all this? And then I go off on some I don't know tangent about Paul or something like that, and he's like, oh, okay, whatever. And so, in other words, I was acknowledging it, I was trying to get it subconsciously, but then, when she came and had that prayer with me, it was like I was at the edge of a cliff. I wasn't going to take that leap of faith myself, but she pushed me in a way, and then that's where it happened, I guess. So that was when I accepted the gospel, and then Sarah came back and she had as well, and so it was at the exact same time, same day and everything, which is a huge blessing. And yeah, that was it.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to bring on my brother, Chris Morrison. Christopher Morrison, how long has it been since the gospel took over your life? How long do you think? Oh man, Probably, I don't know. 13, 14 years, 13, 14 years. What has the gospel done in changing your life? Would you say it has made the hard easier and more enjoyable.
Speaker 1:Circumstances aren't as hard when I've got the gospel in my heart. Mercy, you have dedicated time, money, energy to get the gospel out there, keeping it going. Why is that important to you, chris? Because people need to hear it so that they can live it too. To hear it so that they can live it too. Uh, fair enough. Uh, listen, if you're listening to this episode, you want to partner with love reality. Uh, we want to keep this thing moving forward. You can be a part of that. Go to love realityorg slash give this love realityorg slash give, and we can get more people, like Chris said, to know about this so we can change our lives. Loverealityorg slash give. Thanks a lot, chris. Appreciate you, man, appreciate you. So when you say accepted the gospel, it sounds like you're just starting to believe, not like a theological concept, but that the Holy Spirit lived in you.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. Yeah, it was moving from my head to my heart is the easy way to describe it. It was moving from head knowledge to an experience of faith and yeah, yeah, you said it.
Speaker 1:So then, after that, did you look at the scripture differently or, like all the stuff that he was trying to say, did it start to make sense, or what described that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything after that. I was like completely like the rest of that day and I just felt this real relaxation, I guess, because it's a little bit, it's a little bit of an active thing to try to listen to something, funnel it in through your realm of knowledge and then store it away somewhere. It's a little bit difficult and it takes energy to do that. And so once I accepted this and I said you know what, maybe it's all true, maybe I am a child of God, maybe the Holy Spirit does live in me because through you know, through Jesus, through belief, and then when she, you know this was all happening at the same time, but she walks me through this prayer and I believe it. And then, all of a sudden, it just seemed like a weight was gone of having to do that. All of a sudden, it just seemed like a weight was gone of of having to do that. And so I felt this real just sinking down into a level of just relief. Um, and so I was just like, had this smile on my face and I was like, man, this is so much better. And so you know retroactively all the stuff that we've been talking about I was like, yeah, all this makes sense. And we hung out there for a while and that's when I met.
Speaker 2:Eddie actually was after that and you know he gives me a big hug and all this different stuff and I'm just walking around talking to people and I'm just just relaxed. It's completely different frame of mind. And so when it comes to the Bible, you know, day after day after that, it just came alive because I felt like I could really just believe what was there, instead of having to pick it up, figure it out, put it over here, put it over here, bring it back together. I could just read it and believe it and that was a game changer. So that's why, you know, I'm reading Romans and reading anything could be, it's just anything it was. It took on a whole new perspective and there was no fear in it. No, um, none of the stuff that had been baggage that I would bring to any spiritual interaction, even with God, Uh, so it was just a tipping point that, yeah, changed it.
Speaker 1:As you're speaking, I'm just thinking about the first couple months of me kind of just reading the Bible and believing it and not putting it through my lens of whatever lens I'd put it in that didn't bring hope or joy or anything before. How powerful man. How powerful when you first put that lens on. The lens is good now Still good, but when you had been thinking about it a certain way for so long and it wasn't bringing life. And then you put on that new lens and you're like, oh shoot, I didn't know I was carrying all this stuff and I guess you don't know you're carrying a bunch of stuff until you're not right.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's the only way to see clearly all the things that had led to my feelings towards God and how I felt he felt about me was to see, just expose it through belief in what is true essentially.
Speaker 1:So, uh, what happened after that man?
Speaker 2:What is after that? Um just enjoying life. At that point Um so happy to not have the guilt, shame, condemnation I had a I would say, a lack of confidence throughout my life and that manifested itself in many ways, whether it was how I felt about my, my actual self, my physical self, how I felt about um. You know, talking with people about subjects, I didn't fully um feel like I had the perfect knowledge on, including spiritual things, and all that went away. That lack of confidence was the first thing to go and I just really felt um free for, like self-esteem things just evaporated. Um, I don't really have any good thing to pinpoint on that. It was just gone. So that was nice yeah.
Speaker 1:When shame leaves and you like shame is so sneaky that it disguises itself as something like pride or whatever it doesn't reveal. Like yeah, you think you're a rotten person, Like you actually think that there's something wrong with you. And when you realize like oh no, I'm good, I'm the righteousness of God in Christ, I have every spiritual blessing, and that shame has nowhere to hide you don't. You're just like oh, oh, this is different and you didn't even know what happened because you've been so used to shame, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point, I'm sure. Yeah, that's what it was. It just kind of just got expelled, um, from from my belief system and and, uh, from that, from that weight of uh condemnation I felt at all times, and so it was for the first time where I could think about the second coming and not feel upset about it, um and uh. So all of those were real game changers for my state of mind. Actually, um, like you said, you don't really realize until, uh, it's gone, and at the same time I didn't really realize that it was quite a strain on my mental health, so to speak, like my, just my wellbeing, uh, mentally, um. So that's part of the reason I was just felt that lightness and relief, um, and eventually that kind of, you know, the relief feeling goes away a little bit, just because you go for a while and you live in it, you grow in it, and I can recall it now, but it's not so recent that it's, yeah, that same feeling of relief necessarily, but I still felt, as opposed to those kind of mountaintop experiences you get, you might describe, where you have a spiritual few hours or something like that, it was completely different than that. So just growing and enjoying that. You know, talking with people.
Speaker 2:The Sabbath school was still ongoing, excuse me. So this was in December 2019 that that actually happened. And then COVID a few months later. So we stopped meeting, started doing zoom and um, so things were changing with my family. Uh, my sister had been coming, um and obviously she has her story there uh, to those Sabbath schools when she lived in Lincoln.
Speaker 2:My mom was a person who has lived with trauma and it was a lot harder for her to accept that God could be this good. I think for her, it was a real problem. I think for her, the real problem was that the way she viewed God's character was completely skewed by the things that had happened to her, and so it was hard for her to really, I mean, it was something of an obstacle to overcome, I would say. But anyway, yeah, her story is, uh, kind of resisting the gospel, almost, um, intentionally, because she just couldn't believe that it was. It was too good, it was that good Um, and so, yeah, I shared a few things with her, Um, I shared that um, you know God, god loves you, you know Ephesians, you're, you are his masterpiece, and these were things that were hard for her to hear at the time, for whatever reason, Um, but she had a conversation with a couple of our friends in Lincoln Tyler and Morgan, and that was her tipping point and that was, I don't know.
Speaker 2:A few months into after um, I'd experienced something similar. Few months into after um, I'd experienced something similar. And so she just a similar thing. She felt very relieved, um, I don't know how deep we want to go into that, I guess, but no man, that's been you.
Speaker 1:Uh, since then you've kind of just been growing and walking in this thing. I don't know if you've been aware of the controversy that love reality or whatever this like, you were on board and it wasn't really about love reality. Love reality Wasn't like this big thing, it was just like this Sabbath school and this understanding of the gospel. And then, um, you know this big thing, it was just like this Sabbath school and this understanding of the gospel. And then, you know, the next year, stuff kind of just blows up in a crazy way like COVID and all that stuff. As you're around and you're seeing all this and you're growing, what has come to the surface the most that you've just hung your hat on about you, who you are and how you get to live?
Speaker 2:I would say confidence is the big one for me.
Speaker 2:That is such a huge change from before, and so, because I lived for my entire life to that point with a lack of confidence, and that was lack in my salvation, uh, in my relationship, uh in God's closeness and in, um, his desire to actually live inside of me, uh, all these things that I had zero confidence in before changed and the growth has happened, just increasing that.
Speaker 2:So, confidence in salvation, confidence in the confidence that sin is not something that you just live with, in that it's just, it's just going to be a struggle forever, um, confidence in my relationship with God that expands out to all other aspects of my life and gives me the ability to approach God, um in prayer, with with that same confidence, instead of always, um, yeah, I think I think before it was always me coming up and and always wanting something like.
Speaker 2:It may not have been something like please give me this, like please give me some money or something like that, I don't know not just asking for that, but in this position where I wanted God, I wanted to be free of of, you know, certain sin or whatever it might be, always asking for that and then ending the conversation and just hoping something would change. Is that transactional thing? And then moving into confidence, that looks like thank you. So just a complete reversal of all that. It's an abundance of things that god has done for you and is doing in you and um it just yeah, so I think, confidence. I'm not really sure where I was going with that no man.
Speaker 1:What you're saying reminds me of first john 4, 17, which is in my top. Whatever verses it says by this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. You know, I think you and I would read those verses before and it'd be like, but not really Like, if you're not afraid of losing this, or then you're not going to try as hard and you're not going to, because that's the way we were kind of taught. Like there has to be some kind of fear, like you can't have complete confidence and complete assurance. And it sounds like, in receiving the truth, that confidence has been instilled in you by the holy spirit yeah, that is exactly right.
Speaker 2:Uh, the idea that you can't know or you can't assume your position with God was very detrimental to me, and it is, for a lot of people, meaning that God tells you who you are to Him and it's very clear. So for a lot of still is, but for most of the time since then that's been. The big thing for me was confidence in salvation, your ability to to approach God boldly, um, you can't have confidence in in any of that without the assurance of salvation, or the assurance of eternal life, um, through your union with Christ, and so, um, that was such a big change for me that that's where that's what I really like. Um, I guess that's what I would have hung my hat on still would, the idea that you can be fully assured of your salvation, in fact you should be, in your relationship with God.
Speaker 1:How many kids do you have? Dude One, is it a boy or a girl? Boy, he's two. Two, a boy or a girl?
Speaker 2:Boy, he's two.
Speaker 1:Two. What's his name?
Speaker 2:Liam.
Speaker 1:Liam. So, let's say, Liam gets to be 20 years old and is struggling with that, wants to be near God. Doesn't feel like he is. It's probably because he's doing whatever sin of the month is, whatever flavor it is in 2044, 2042. And he doesn't want to talk to you about it. But it seems like there's an opening and you get to put your arm around this kid. How would you console him or encourage him in who he is?
Speaker 2:What a good question. Probably and if he's anything like me, I would hope that this would be a way for him to rethink his standing with God would be the story of the prodigal son, and it's obviously a story where the son leaves, does whatever. What I would identify in that story in the past was this idea of creating separation between myself and God through my behavior and through my actions. And you know, in reading the story now, we see, you know, the son comes back to God, so to speak. He comes back to the father and to me. I would read that and say, wow, he really got his act together and he made the effort and he came back to the Father and everything was good. The Father received him. Of course, because the Father loves him, I would say that.
Speaker 2:But now? So I guess I looked at that parable like something to aspire to, to be the son who returned home, aspire to, to be the son who returned home. But looking at it now, I see that it is not a story about the son so much as it is, in this aspect, about who the father is and him running to meet the son and embrace him. You know, the son felt that separation, but he had intended, through bargaining and intending to bargain with his father, to cross that separation back, but the father actually closed that distance between them after the son had made that decision. But even so and so I would hope that God would speak to my son in the same way through that, saying everything you're doing to try to return to God I put in quotes is something that God already did to bridge that gap between you and brought it to nothing through Jesus' union with you. That would be a pretty big perspective shift.
Speaker 1:Um, so I'd probably say something like that Praise God, man, you're an excellent dad, you will be an excellent dad, and we just get to love our kids. We make mistakes, but uh love, uh covers a multitude of sins. And so let's love our kids, let's love our families and let's keep uh telling people that they've been reconciled to God. Should we do it, man?
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Grant man, thanks for coming on. I love your heart for God, I love what he's doing in your life and in your family's life, and you guys have been a blessing to me and, yeah, your testimony is beautiful, thank you for sharing it, man, of course.
Speaker 2:Praise the Lord, amen it's exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love Grant's story, I love his heart, I love how he's working for God, and if this is your desire, if you want a revelation, then this prayer is for you Father in heaven, please reveal to me what it means that I'm dead to sin and alive to God. Open my eyes to the fact that sin has no power over me and that I can walk in freedom from it because of what you have done through Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ, in Jesus name, amen, alright, you guys, do not forget that we Also have Internet church, other podcast Bible studies. I'm having one tomorrow night, monday night. I don't know when you're listening to it, but on Monday nights we do one called the death to life Bible study with me and my bro Elias, and it is a good time. Amazing things happen. Text the number, and when I say the number, I mean what is the number? What is the LRT number?
Speaker 2:The.
Speaker 1:LRT number is 8-Mercy 808-204-4372. Text DEATHTOLIFE to 808-204-4372. And join us Monday nights. We'll send you the links. All right, love y'all, appreciate y'all. Bye.