Free to Follow - Part 1

We're privileged to have Michael Blue join us for an intimate chat about his journey towards becoming a devoted disciple. Growing up, Michael had the benefit of having a father who was a personal finance advisor, and being the youngest of five children. His upbringing shaped his perspective on life and the importance of having a solid faith. We delve into his personal experiences, his struggles with balancing faith and professional life, as well as his observations about the dysfunctions within the church and other ministries. 

It's not every day you get to hear about someone who has walked the path of obedience and trust in God's plan, especially when it seemed to be going against His will. Michael opens up about the difficult decisions he and his family had to make when the cost of serving overseas with International Justice Mission became too overwhelming. We engage in a thought-provoking discussion about the tension between obedience and disobedience, and how, despite appearances, it's possible to trust in God's plan. 

We wrap up our conversation with Michael as he underscores the importance of acknowledging God's mercies and the strength of His grace. His life now embodies God's love for the world, a testament to his incredible journey of faith. Michael's story is truly inspiring and serves as a beacon of hope for those going through their own faith struggles. So, join us for this heartfelt discussion that will leave you pondering long after it's over. Until the next episode, keep faith and keep growing.

Chapters

• 0:07 Navigating God's Voice, Thriving as Disciple
• 11:16 Struggling With Faith and Priorities
• 22:39 Navigating Disobedience and Trust in God
• 28:51 God's Mercies and Michael's Story

Transcript

Dan Schilling: 0:07

Hey, welcome to the Feed Sheep Podcast, where we help you hear God's voice, follow His lead and thrive as a disciple. I'm Dan Schilling and I'll be one of your guides. Now let's get into today's topic. Hey, welcome to the Feed Sheep Podcast. Good to be back with you and Michael, and it's always good to be with you. Today We've got a special episode. We have a very special guest for our interview today.

Michael Blue: 0:29

I am so excited, dan, me too, me too, because the special guest.

Dan Schilling: 0:36

everybody is Mr Michael Blue.

Michael Blue: 0:39

Oh, it's a. I don't know that I can be called a special guest at this point, but I'll take it.

Dan Schilling: 0:45

Well, you're the special and maybe not, to guess, your co-host, but you know. Anyway, you're still here and we're going to have a good time. And what I want to continue to reiterate today is we talk through some of your story and if you're listening today, what we really want to see accomplished is to see you have a story where you're hearing God's voice following His lead, thriving as a disciple. And so today we're going to talk with Michael about how his journey and some of the steps he's taken on this journey of hearing God's voice following his lead and I think you're going to agree with me, there's aspects of thriving and sometimes it doesn't always feel like it. I know that, michael, and I know the bumps and bruises and twists and turns along the journey, but looking forward to having you share today, so yeah, well.

Michael Blue: 1:35

Thanks, dan.

Michael Blue: 1:36

I think, as we talked about sharing stories and doing it, there's some reluctance, I think, in each of our hearts of sharing stories, because we both know that we don't have it all together and there's shiny parts of the story that we share and oftentimes the uglier, rougher parts don't get shared.

Michael Blue: 1:56

But those certainly have come along the way and we're still working through them. So the stories, I think, are meant to say hey, we're fellow journeyers in this. Maybe in one area we've taken a couple of steps farther, but maybe you've taken a couple other steps farther. So, as believers, you want to encourage each other with story, you want to spur each other on to good deeds, and I do think we want to be people who have lives that are worthy of imitation and that we want to be careful there, but we do want to be people who we can say you know what, follow me. I feel like I'm learning. I'm not there, but I'm learning, and I think we're on a path of following Jesus. So that's hopefully what we're becoming as we learn to thrive in these lives.

Dan Schilling: 2:43

Well and to your point. We talked a few times. Maybe here I'll just reiterate again that our goal for us is to help folks like you and I on this journey as well. Continue to learn, apply, multiply, become kind of our lamb methodologies to learn hearing, to learn how to hear God's voice, learning how he wants to speak to us through His word. We apply that truth, we see that applied in our life in a lot of different ways, and then when we see that word applied, then the multiply.

Dan Schilling: 3:16

And so today the desire is, as we think about the multiplying, is that it's like seed, or its truth, and that seed is in Isaiah 55, it talks about that His word goes forth and it always bears fruit, that it's seed for the sower and bread for the eater, and I believe our stories can be bred for us as an eater, to remind us of God's goodness. But it's also seed for the future. And so, and as you said there just a minute ago, what we're becoming, and we're becoming faithful, it's our desire to become faithful followers of Jesus, and so I know that's what God's going to do, I believe, through our time today. So let me pray for us and then we're going to kick off, ask you some questions. So, father, thanks for today, thank you for this time, just to come before you posturing our hearts and say, god, we know that we're not perfect. We do want to follow you when Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. We want to be ones who live a life that's worthy of being imitated. But it isn't because of us, it's because of you and us, that hope of glory.

Dan Schilling: 4:25

And so today I do pray that, as Michael shares and gives really just testimony of your goodness and how you've directed his steps, and he and listen, their family, just ask that your word would go forth, encouragement to those listening today, that we're not special because of who we are, we're special because of who you are in us, and that's our real hope. So, thank you for this time and I pray that just the words of our mouth, meditations of our heart be pleasing to you. Love you, thank you in Jesus' name. And then, michael, let's get started. Let's take it from the top man. Give us the Michael Blue story.

Michael Blue: 5:05

All right. Well, like I said, we're going to hit some more highlights, but there's plenty of little lights that we're going to talk about as well, and actually that's a lot of my stories learning through my failures, so you'll get to hear some of those. It's not all shiny.

Dan Schilling: 5:22

We'll get forward to it. Let's go, yeah good Thanks.

Michael Blue: 5:27

I grew up in the youngest of five kids. Some of you might or might not know my father, ron Blue. I think we've talked about him a little bit on the broadcast. He's known, if you're of a certain age, probably in this world of personal finance. He wrote some books in the 80s, really, you know 90s and whatnot, but he really he was one of the first, with Larry Brickett, who talked about and wrote about what it means to obey God and our finances, and so we had a financial planning company that the goal and mission was to help Christians plan and manage their money so that they could have more to give away, and so that's kind of the ecosphere that I grew up in.

Michael Blue: 6:07

Also, along with that came speaking gigs, and so he would go speak. He'd speak at churches, he'd speak at conferences, events. I can remember going to a Promise Keepers event at the Cowboy Stadium in Dallas where he got to speak and that you know that was kind of a pretty cool, cool event for a kid to have your dad in front of I don't know 50,000 people, man at a stadium.

Michael Blue: 6:31

It's pretty, pretty neat, but I mean, and so that did, though, kind of form my view of ministry and so as a part of that, we knew a lot of People who started these organizations that you've heard of Jesus film, you know, campus crusade for Christ Bill Bright was a friend of my father and things like that. So we kind of grew up in this weird Eco-sphere, I guess you could say, of Christian ministry. There was a lot of really good, but the other side I saw was a lot of dysfunction and families that existed in ministry and so kind of as a result, I think, of living in that atmosphere, I had a desire to teach. I had a kind of a poll towards pastoral ministry and ministry, but I was honestly afraid of ministry. And the problem was is I didn't know what my own motives were. My fear was that I was Trying to get into ministry because I wanted to be famous in the Christian world. Right, I wanted, I wanted to be known, I wanted to stand on the stage in front of 50,000 people or I wanted to start an organization Like the Jesus film or like campus crusade for Christ. That that has great.

Michael Blue: 7:37

Quote. If you can't see me, I got my air quotes going. Quote impact, yep, yes, which we've talked a bit about, that. That word is a is it's not a bad word, but I think it can. It can create some false direction or even false sense of importance Over things we can't really control. If we're honest, if we really believe the Holy Spirit does the work, I can't really control impact. I can, I can control my effort, I can control my activities, but impact really isn't up to me, and so if I equate my own actions with impact, I maybe put myself at a higher spot than I ought to. So anyway, that was kind of the the.

Michael Blue: 8:17

My mentality is I came out of childhood and into adulthood was this fear of ministry and also this idea that successful ministry looked like what these, these men, that or women that we've heard of have done, and so that that's kind of. That was kind of what I came out of and how I came in into marriage. So there's there's some baggage that I brought into marriage or some really good things. I came in with no debt. I had a desire to tie that. I had a desire to, you know, live on a budget and, and quote, do the right things, and that was kind of. I would say that was, that was the knee-jerk reaction, is I lived how I was supposed to live, which led me probably, I would say, into this, this next, next journey, which was where I really began to wrestle with, with my faith.

Dan Schilling: 9:10

Yeah, yeah. Well, I just appreciate your willingness to share and and over the years I know having. You know my dad wasn't speaking in front of 50,000 people. You know we I grew up simple life farm. You know there wasn't that. But the folks I've been around in life that had notoriety or grew up around, you know, with families of notoriety and oh, one is a fellow friend of ours, lawrence Funderberg. You know play. I worked for the basketball team at house. They didn't so many of them had. There was distrust. You know, even relationally, like why do people want to be close to me? You know they want to be friends with me or they want to talk. You know, hey, I'm friends with so-and-so, I'm friends with Ron Blue or our son, and so you start wondering what's really going on. So I'm interested. You talk about, like, the dysfunction in the family. What did you see in that and how that kind of relates to fame and fame. You know how that impacted as you as part of your story as well.

Michael Blue: 10:12

Well, I saw a lot of these leaders who really didn't have very good relationships with their children and children who resented ministry, and I think you know people have terms for pastors, kids, missionaries, kids, mks and PKs and I think a lot of that is because of experiences, but also a lot of it is you live in this. You live in this spotlight, and so your interaction with your parents is more of how you behave reflects on me and my ministry, and so a lot of the discipline, a lot of the interaction, is to control how you portray yourself in public. Right, it becomes very important how you look and that can create a lot of resentment in a kid because you think what am I?

Michael Blue: 10:59

Am I just a pawn in this game? Or you know, you're not around, you don't really know what's going on in my life. All you care about is this ministry. You care about those people more than you care about me, and I think that that's a struggle that a lot of people in ministry go through. But so you see it, a lot of these, you know, successful ministries that the reason people are successful ministries oftentimes, unfortunately, is the same reason they're successful in business and it's their will and to put a ton of time into it and put their nose to the ground and work really, really, really hard. And there's, you know again, working hard for Jesus is great.

Michael Blue: 11:39

But am I trying to control results? Am I neglecting the call of my family? And so I saw that and I will give my dad a lot of credit that they had some kind of rules in the family. He was home at 5.30 every night, no matter what with work. He didn't travel more than two nights in a row, you know, it was like three nights in a month or something. They had very set limits on how much he would travel, when he would be around when he would be home, and so I do think my dad did a good job of being around, and some of that was because of what he saw. So the dysfunction I would say happened probably more than I witnessed outside. Yeah, don't get me wrong, my family's got plenty of dysfunction.

Dan Schilling: 12:19

But we all do right.

Michael Blue: 12:20

Join the club we all do, yeah, but that's what I mean so I think that's what I saw in ministry is that people would celebrate and sacrifice, or they would sacrifice their ministry, their families, on the altar of ministry, yeah, and oftentimes it was in pursuit of fame, yeah, or power.

Dan Schilling: 12:42

Yeah, right.

Michael Blue: 12:43

Well, I think back to our tagline and our lifestyle.

Dan Schilling: 12:47

We talk about hearing, following and thriving. You know you hear the call of God, you follow that. You want to help other people. Right, I mean, you get into ministry because you hopefully right that you're not doing it for a fame reason, but sometimes that starts to come with it, even on a small scale. Right, I mean, in some ways you're known, even if it's in a small community. That's the pastor, that's the leader, that's the, and the downside, obviously, is the devil's always trying to steal, kill and destroy us. Right, Keep us from thriving. And if he can get you busy, even if it's in ministry, whether it's local or national or international, the next thing, you know, you can be off track quick. And so and I know, for for Sharon, it's a guarding of our heart too. Like man, I don't want to forsake my family, so let's go back and start talking. The next step for you, then, is talking about next step of family and marriage, and yeah, so we're married Kind of through this time.

Michael Blue: 13:46

I worked as a financial planner for a few years, went to law school, became an attorney, worked in Dallas at a large law firm doing real estate law, and didn't like Dallas. So we moved to Austin, texas, and that, and we've lived, lived in Austin ever since. That was in 2007 and I was working at a big firm there as well. I got to this point. You know we lived a couple miles from downtown Austin. We just have that third kid. We're going to church, you're tithing, we're saving. You know we had the 529 plans. We had the 401k going. Like you know, we had the steps in line and we had that trajectory. You know we walked to financial plans office and, like I don't have the debt, got the savings. You know we're, we're doing pretty good.

Michael Blue: 14:32

From outside I would say we kind of look like this you know, model Christian family, but on the inside I was. I don't know what the right word is. I've struggled with it, whether it's boredom or disillusionment. This illusion is probably the right word. I was just like what, why am I doing this? Like yes, why? Why am I struggling hard and following all these rules? You know, here I am having gone. You know, I'm an attorney, I've got this high perceived view of my own intellect, which is false. But you know, you know you get to say that I went to this professional school and I really believe this stuff about God. I mean, I, all these scientists say this or that, and so I really started wrestling with my faith and saying, hey, you know, this is not the abundant life that I feel like I should be experiencing, not a lot of joy, a lot of Not a lot of joy, a lot of a lot of activity, a lot of going through the motions, and. And so I just really spent some time questioning and saying do I believe God is who he says he is?

Michael Blue: 15:31

And as I came out through that, what I was confronted with was my I know I say this my lack of care for the people that God cares about. But I might have been tithing to the church, but what I realized is my life did not reflect that I love the same things that God loved, meaning I didn't. I wasn't caring for the poor, I wasn't caring for the orphan, the widow, the alien, the stranger, like the world that God had called us to, the. You know, jesus came to set those people free, set the captives free. And here I was, you know, giving a token to the church.

Michael Blue: 16:14

I wouldn't share my faith, I didn't care if there was lots of dying people around the world who had never heard the name of Jesus, like I. Just, I really didn't, I didn't have a burden at all for it, and so that was like whoa okay. So if I actually believe these, if I've come to the point where I'm like, okay, this is, this is the best explanation for what we see in the world, and not just an intellectual experience. I, you know that's more than that I get, but intellectually there was the ability to kind of get there and from a faith perspective. But then I say, well, if, if I believe this, does my life reflect those things.

Dan Schilling: 16:56

So let me let's just kind of catch this here part of the story. So how old would you say you're here at this point time because you'd say you're you and Melissa been married for like 22 years. Is that right somewhere around there?

Michael Blue: 17:10

Yeah, now we've been at this point today it is point like during the story.

Dan Schilling: 17:14

Yeah, so 22 years ago you're married, so where were you in that journey? You know you've got. Obviously you have three boys.

Dan Schilling: 17:22

So we kind of give us like where are you at in the process? You know even I think, michael too, I want to love to hear what you your journey in terms of. You know you grew up in a Christian home, but you know when, when did you begin to really feel like you were hearing God's voice for yourself? You know, trying to follow him. You know where, where did some of that start to intersect? You know, throughout this process as well, you know, were you and Melissa walking with Lord from day one? You know, give us a little bit of that part of the story as well.

Michael Blue: 17:54

Yeah, so this is probably 10 or 12 years into our marriage at this point. You know, call it 2010. Yeah, so we got married in the year 2000 and all of our children were born. Our last was born in 2009. And so it's kind of right around that time. Yeah, and I would say, yes, I mean I, as far as kind of the, I wasn't rebellious, I grew up in church, I went to church, I went to college and I found a church right away and got involved in a Bible study. And you know, as I look back on it, the three years from my sophomore through my senior year in a Bible study, the same five guys a couple of them I still talk to. I had lunch with one of them last week. There's one of them that you know, drew, our friend. Yes, it was a really impactful time for me and so there was, there was definitely a seriousness about faith. I had regular quiet times. You know, I kind of did all those, all of those things.

Dan Schilling: 18:52

Disciplines the other, Christian.

Michael Blue: 18:53

Yep, right. And so, as a you know, getting married and all of that was a big part of of what we were seeking and we both wanted. We were both believers and wanted to have families that were, that were. You know a bio believing family Right yes.

Dan Schilling: 19:11

Christ centered. Yeah, absolutely Right.

Michael Blue: 19:16

And I think, though, a lot of, a lot of, as I've reflected, there's a lot of performance in me that that came through, you know kind of a very detailed, very ordered type of a person, and so there was. You tell me I need to do something, and I'm going to do it, whether I get something out of it or not, and so I've wrestled through, and you know, part of my, my story is, even as I was preparing a sermon five or six years ago, having this overwhelming sense of my own sinfulness, probably for the first time in my life. Wow, at what age, then?

Dan Schilling: 19:50

did you say you're what? 39, 40. Yeah?

Michael Blue: 19:54

Yeah, Preaching an elder at our church, right, and it was this. I was teaching on the Pharaoh discourse and John, John 16. And as I was praying through it, I was praying John 17, which is known as the high priestly prayer, and in 16 it goes where Jesus is talking to his disciples, telling them about the Holy Spirit, how they don't understand, they won't fully understand until the Holy Spirit comes. And their response is we, now we get it. We get it Now. You're speaking plainly to us. It's kind of the paraphrase of what they said.

Michael Blue: 20:26

And you see Jesus just grabbing his head, shaking his head, and what I just told you, you're not going to get it. And he says, as a matter of fact, not only do you not get it, then he says you're all about to run away and abandon me in my greatest time of need. And then he prays for them. And this is still before they've that all has happened. And he says to the father thank you that I have not lost a single one that you've given to me. Yes, and just hit me. It's like these people. They don't understand what he's going to do. They're about to reject him and they haven't even done it yet.

Michael Blue: 20:56

And he knows it's coming and his prayer is I have not lost a single one that you have given to me, yes, and it just it kind of hit me that, okay, this isn't about my work, Like, yes, this is about him and his work and I really am someone who will run away and reject him and he still says no, but I'm holding on to you, yes, and so I don't. I don't know that that was the point that I was actually saved. My opinion is that salvation for many of us is a process as opposed to a point in time. I do think there are points in time for people, yeah, For journeys, right, but you know even the fact of, well, you know when did you get saved? I would say, well, I don't know that I can pinpoint a time, but I can tell you kind of how my life and how God's continued to come after me and change me.

Dan Schilling: 21:46

Well, I just had a local go ahead, go ahead. Well, I just had a local pastor friend here with, and we were talking about this from the standpoint of you know, we were talking about backsliding and I said I don't really know that the term you know correctly, I think I believe I said you were still a sheep. Some sheep get lost, but a sheep still wants to be in relationship with the shepherd even if they're lost, even if they. And so at that moment you know that Kairos moment of time, when you're like my goodness, like God's word, just like, comes alive to you, have a revelation like man, I need something more. I think that's a part of the salvation journey, right, it's that sanctification, that growing in. And you were desiring then another.

Dan Schilling: 22:35

Okay, it's not just about you know. You know I just did that series. You know be, then do. And I was telling him that this, that series, continues to plow deep into my heart. You know that I can't. It's not about performance, I can't be. It's not about the doing, it's got to be about the, my sheep here, my voice, I know them. Which is that being.

Michael Blue: 22:52

We're gonna, I'm gonna be with him, then I'll go do right, right, which is so important and my doing was not coming out of being inside. That's probably. It doesn't mean I wasn't Saved, but it means that I I always I Was out of alignment with the father.

Dan Schilling: 23:13

Yeah, but you were doing a lot of good stuff. I mean, you're in Bible study, you're not. You're being a good husband. You're not cheating on your wife, you're not. You're being trying to be a good dad, being around you. I mean all the things you're doing good things, nothing's wrong.

Michael Blue: 23:25

You know you're not living a life of sin per se is what we call Dave but you still can be living a life of sin Separated from the father, even in the midst of all these doing good things right, yeah, and so that's kind of where when I found myself, and and so, as I was working in law, I started thinking, okay, if I'm starting to believe these things and I want to do it, I'm here, I am practicing law and a big law firm just working for a bunch of big, rich guys or big companies making them richer. It's the depth. That's probably the description of a lot of our jobs.

Dan Schilling: 23:58

Yeah, it is yeah.

Michael Blue: 24:01

And so I thought, well, maybe I can you know, quote, do good with my law degree. And so I had a friend who I'd worked with at Furman Dallas. It was worth working with international justice mission, which is an international organization that Really primarily works yeah, they're known for their work in human trafficking. They also do in Africa. At a place is police abuse of power and kind of help the rule of law actually come into effect in some developing countries. But so I thought, well, maybe I'll go work for for this place. They had an opening in Uganda For director of an office down there in Kampala. So I applied. My wife was like, okay, I don't know about this, but okay, and and and went through and you get three young kids.

Dan Schilling: 24:46

Three young kids.

Michael Blue: 24:48

Two five and seven, yeah yeah right, we live in a great house and in Austin and we're really in a pretty good spot and had a great job. It's from an income standpoint and anyway. So they offered me a After going through the process and look, you've never lived overseas and we've had a lot of people go overseas, get there and say this is Really hard and I can't do, especially with family. So they said what we want you to do is go live for a year in a fellowship Position in Nairobi, kenya will kind of all evaluate how it works assuming it works, then we'll try to place you as a director in an office somewhere in the world. And so we're like I don't know so who praying about it.

Michael Blue: 25:34

I, my wife, was walking to school one day, taking our kids to school, and one of our neighbors she just mentioned we were thinking about selling our house. As we were processing this and People live like six or seven houses down they happened to want to move to a bigger house, which ours was a little bigger than their house, and so they came and looked at our house that night, made an offer that next morning and and so we're like, wow, that was easy, because we had tried a couple times before to sell our house with with no lock success.

Michael Blue: 26:09

So, you know, while buyer shows up, I don't know where, by our house, okay Well, maybe God's leading us to go on this journey. So we sold our house, we started to prepare to go to Nairobi and Got pretty pretty close as we were, you know, contacting shipping companies, trying to figure out where we're gonna live, kind of going through all the logistical processes, and it got overwhelming to a point I said I don't know that we can do this when we're gonna have to live. The experience with the family and and, and the cost, quite frankly, became just too high, yes, and so we ended up not going To Africa and we called him and said we're not gonna do it. So we, we, we have no house, or we're about to have no house, and so we started staying Austin. At that point, by by another house downsized, kind of Condense our lifestyle to ministry type of a lifestyle.

Michael Blue: 27:12

I quit my job at the firm and started just a Private firm, was started to pray and ask God what he had, and pretty quickly it became real clear to my wife and I that God had made a way for us to go to this Africa and he wanted us to go and we didn't trust him. Hmm, hmm, you know, and we thought just disobeyed. You know I've had lots of people try to talk me out of that, but I'm okay with that. Like I think we disobey God and yes, we do sometimes, sometimes, that's okay.

Dan Schilling: 27:50

Yeah, well, and it's not, it's not. I just want to say this. So, folks that are listening to you, because we want to relate it back. You know, if you're listening to we want to lay it back to your story and you know you're gonna continue to tell more of your story here, michael, but you know it doesn't end there.

Dan Schilling: 28:07

Right now that that act of disobedience or that season of disobedience, whatever you want to call it, it's not the end of the journey, it was just a part of the journey. And so when we talk about a God who is the Alpha and the Omega, it's not like he's like oh man, you're so terrible. Like I'm not shocked and you're not. We're not the first ones who didn't obey you know.

Dan Schilling: 28:29

Many, many things right and so so we can look at those big moments. But if today, the spirit of God tells me to go talk to some person out here for a few minutes, I don't do it is that level of disobedience or act of disobedience any more or worse? Or then, if I don't go to Nairobi, when he calls me too, you know cuz? Sometimes I think we like oh, I was so terrible, like, no, it's. He's a father who knows us right. He knows our nature, our sin, nature in our heart, but he doesn't. I love the scripture. He says that his mercies are new every day for us. And we're gonna take a break here. I hope you were encouraged as much as I was by Michael's story. There's more to come, so tune in next time. We're gonna continue the discussion what God was doing this season in their life and how he was using it on their journey to hear, oh, I have tune in next time, see you then.