Pablo (00:00)
Hi, welcome to Words of This Life podcast. My name is Pablo, and here we share real and impactful Christian stories from believers who love the Lord and His word. Through these testimonies, we want to showcase the virtues of the one who's called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Virtues that are a work in everyday people, shaping their character, guiding their actions, and shining forth His life into the world. We're so happy you're here with us for this episode. And let's get right into it.

Ayo (00:31)
Hey guys, welcome back to the Words of This Life podcast. Today we have two very special guests. Before even I introduce the guests, my name is Ayo and this is my cohost Pablo.

Pablo (00:43)
Everyone, and we have special guests like you said. You want to introduce them?

Ayo (00:48)
Yeah, these two guys are very near and dear to my heart. If you know me, you probably know these guys. So I want to introduce Ty and Josh.

Ty (00:53)
Yeah.

Pablo (00:59)
Hey, y'all.

Ty (00:59)
I feel I'm in a room with special people. People on this couch, people even behind the scenes here and just very privileged and happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Pablo (01:12)
Yeah, thanks for making the time. I just like to say, I don't know if this is true. Did I meet these two guys before you? No, they're your boys. Sorry. That is true. I think I met Josh a while ago on a basketball court or something.

Ayo (01:21)
You have more years with that.

Ty (01:34)
At least college, not high school.

Pablo (01:38)
Yeah, maybe. So in Anaheim, you were in LA, right?

Ty (01:42)
What year did you start?

Pablo (01:44)
College 2010.

Ty (01:46)
Year that I started college. Okay, I was in college.

Pablo (01:48)
Yeah, you were right. Okay, okay, he was in prime. Yeah, that was Prime Josh on the basketball court. It was yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, anyways you go ahead, give a little intro of yourself.

Ayo (02:04)
And what you do.

Ty (02:05)
My name is Josh. I live here in Austin, Texas. I have a family. I got my wife, Jessica. I have two kids, Lenga and Noah. When we came to Austin for the first eight years here, I was doing campus ministry. That's how I met Ayo as a freshman.

Pablo (02:19)
Eight. Lenga.

Ty (02:28)
Big smile, bright-eyed, a freshman at UT. And that was now many years back. And now I'm just running a little small business, working, but enjoying Austin, Texas, enjoying my Christian community.

Pablo (02:41)
Yeah. I know you have some cute poodles, golden doodles or something. Sorry, I just heard that half an hour ago. You didn't? Yeah, they're related to the... anyway.

Ayo (02:47)
Cool.

Ty (02:48)
Always. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's true. I'm in, in, in family's family house here, Howard related. So we have a lab, a golden lab we're doing or something like that. Right. And yeah, one of her, one of, one of her litter, right, is here.

Pablo (03:14)
That's right. It's a treble. Luna. Luna. Yeah, Luna. That's right.

Ty (03:16)
Which one? Yeah.

Ayo (03:21)
Ty, you wanna give a little intro? Who's Ty?

Ty (03:24)
I'm Ty. I live in Austin and been there since college mainly. Met Pablo when I was in California a little bit. He used to have this bumper sticker. It just had Jesus. Something about the Lord's name. I'm like, okay, this guy's cool. He's repping Jesus in SoCal. I thought that was some poop when I first met him.

Pablo (03:35)
Let's.

Ty (03:49)
And then Ayo, that's thick, right before pandemic. I felt like that was one of the relationships that made me kind of go through pandemic, like, kind of spiritually, that time we got to spend during the COVID-19 and what not. Yeah, so I live here in Austin. I also was blessed to serve in campus ministry with Josh for a few years and now I work and go to school now, grad school and have a wife, Jackie. We met through a Christian club that we were campus ministers of. And we have a little son, eight month year old Josiah. He's precious. He still needs to get better at sleeping, but that's okay. You know, but glad to be here.

Pablo (04:37)
Glad to have you guys. Yeah. Oh yeah, it's gonna be fine. Yes, I'd like to get into this.

Ayo (04:42)
This is a very familiar space for me because there's a lot of times when I would be at a Bible study with you two, I would ask you guys a question and then we would walk through the Bible. Today, we're gonna try to answer one of the greatest questions.

Pablo (05:01)
Ever.

Ayo (05:03)
I think this is a question that every person deep within their heart has. The question of purpose. So.

Ty (05:11)
This.

Pablo (05:14)
That's right. Yeah. I guess we could frame it in this verse. I'll just read a verse from Ecclesiastes 3:11. Yeah. "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity in their heart." So I think that verse speaks to eternity being in every human being's heart as an insatiable desire for something, whatever you call that something. Right. And today we're gonna talk about purpose. So to some degree, we all have a purpose that we have either for ourselves, maybe it's not a grand purpose that is all encompassing, but something that's dear to our heart that we find as our purpose in life.

Ayo (05:54)
I think anybody would say that it's hard to live life without some kind of purpose. So we kind of want to speak about your experiences. You know, there was a radical shift in your life about what you felt the purpose of your life was. But maybe we want to go a little before that and want to hear what a young Ty and what a young Josh thought was the purpose of their life.

Ty (06:12)
For sure.

Ayo (06:26)
Feel free to just tell us a little bit about your childhood, your upbringing and...

Ty (06:33)
Okay, we'll go far back enough to when I was a little chubby. You know, I think boys especially, just, you want to, you want to accomplish something. You want to be something, you want to make a difference. You want to be the hero. You want to make a sacrifice, you want to make your life count. And from a young age, I, I mean, I just remember identifying with Indiana Jones and put on my Indiana Jones hat and having a whip and having like a little toy and I just, things like that. I mean, looking back, I realized there's something I identified with that. But a key part of my life when I, when I think about it...

Pablo (07:25)
Yeah.

Ty (07:30)
Is I was in seventh grade and I love sports. I just love being at recess and getting super competitive with everybody. And, but you know, I took them kind of seriously, but my mom signed me up for the summer camp and I had never been to a summer camp. And it was this amazing, it's called NBC camp. It's a Christian program up in the Northwest. I was in Washington state at that time. I grew up in a town called Spokane. I was there when Gonzaga made their first NCAA tournament. That was when I was in grade school and we got to watch it during school. I mean, not their first time, in their like, it was like first of like 25. But so basketball was my favorite sport. And I went to this basketball camp and these coaches, which were amazing believers in Christ, they, there was just something different about them. They loved us. And one of them, they really challenged me just to take on this thought that hard work pays off. Hard work pays off. Like, God honors hard work. And he just was like, you can make a goal. Like you determine your future, what you would be. And so that summer before I went back to school, I made these goals. I'm like, I'm going to get a college scholarship. And then I made all the sacrifices. I wrote them all down when I was going to do it. No soda. No this, no that, and all that. I started doing all these pushups and form shooting and dribbling drills.

Ayo (09:12)
How old were you?

Ty (09:13)
I was seventh grade. So what was it? 13? Yeah. Literally...

Pablo (09:16)
It's a driven 7th grader.

Josh (09:19)
From Lissando.

Pablo (09:20)
Different.

Ty (09:21)
And I had set... Yeah, yeah, and I said it and I went back, we called it pop and I didn't have any more of it. I mean, pop, soda, soda pop. Okay, I don't think it's an earth thing as much as geography and I mean now there's social media, everyone says the same thing. Was it?

Pablo (09:30)
Listen. I'm burning, yeah.

Ayo (09:39)
Yeah. You don't have to defend yourself.

Josh (09:48)
You.

Ty (09:49)
There was... So anyway, it set this course for sure. I look back and I'm just... Rosie, it's something in my life that the Lord was there. He was... You know, I barely knew him. I had believed into the Lord a little before the time, but I barely knew him. I definitely didn't know what he wanted from me or what he wanted to do on this Earth. But the Lord was there more than just, like he is today. He was there with me, preparing and doing an awesome work, you know, just his work in us. So I, anyway, I started to take on this identity of like, I'm like, okay, I might not be the tallest. I might not be the fastest, but I can work, make sure no one outworks me. And I just had this identity. And I think from seventh grade till college...

Pablo (10:42)
To nominate.

Ty (10:48)
I don't think you can for sure count on a hand of days I missed a workout. And I know there was 1000 straight days where I never missed a workout and I just...

Pablo (10:56)
I call them mamba.

Ty (11:01)
I definitely can't claim to be different mamba, but yeah, it was something I latched onto and really found my identity in as a young kid. And so, anyway, that was awesome. Just at a young age, I felt like I had direction. Like I remember all my friends, and I mentioned I was a little chubby because I came back to school and I looked different and my friends were like... and people would just realize I had a direction. And if you had to ask me exactly what my direction was, like, well, I know I want to have a goal and I know I'm on a track, but people respected that I had direction. I couldn't tell you exactly what it was, except I know I want to maximize. That's kind of a mamba mentality. Like, my mom is Japanese. I'm not going to be six-six, but I want to maximize my...

Pablo (11:54)
Given.

Ty (11:54)
Potentials to play basketball or do something anyway. Just admitted it. Yeah. So.

Pablo (12:00)
Wow, you know there's something about people that are driven like that and goal-oriented like that that you could tell, you know? I'm just thinking when I first started meeting you a little bit, I could tell you were headed somewhere. I know that's it, let's talk.

Ty (12:10)
Z-walk fast.

Pablo (12:13)
Anyways, people who have a certain goal, anyways, I don't know, you could just tell, know. I'm gonna get somewhere, you know, they're not hanging out too much. I just got a little bit of that glimpse when you were speaking, when I first met you.

Ayo (02:18)
And that's the path a lot of people are going on. This, there's a lot of self-actualization in setting a goal, maximizing your potential, and feeling driven. Like that's what a lot of people in the world are doing. But eventually we'll talk about the shift. And I think the shift will really hit on that. Ty, what about you? What did Young Ty want to be? What was the purpose of Young Ty?

Ty (12:56)
I said I wanted to, this is a visual. This was going to be an Academy Award. This was cool with my life. Growing up in Houston, Texas, that was just, I was going to be the third first, which is still today, crazy. I could still become the first black man to win best director, which is the Academy Award. It still hasn't happened. And that was also what it was Spike Lee, right? It was always before me to get to that level of fame. And the thing about movie making, I got into it at an early age. My dad, we would watch, you have like, okay, I'm gonna sound like a boomer now too, DVDs. DVDs, you used to have like the disc one is the movie and the disc two is the bonus features. So I would watch mainly the, I mean, I will watch the movie, but the bonus features where they had the behind the scenes, get to talk to the director and actor, the producers, like what inspired the movie. I would be riveted about watching those things with my dad and old movies, blockbusters. And so just at an early age. Old movies, like Sandlot? Sandlot, bro? Like Casablanca, bro, okay.

Pablo (14:13)
Like Gone with the Wind?

Ty (14:15)
Yeah, you know, wow. You know, real. And I wasn't... so the thing that I was not into sports. My dad was, he was born back in football in college. And so really the only thing we were born with was movies, like that was our thing. Wow. So we watched so much of it growing up and I just thought, I saw myself not really in front of the camera but behind it because I love storytelling. I love even looking at my own life as a story, parents divorce, urban youth in Houston. When I make it to the big leagues, get the Oscars, feel like that's my story. Like, wow, what a feat. I can get two or three Oscars under my belt, my own production company making content I wanna make, traveling the world, making all this money. That was just kind of what I thought my story would be for a while. And I mean, I was little making mini movies with my mom's camera. I had a PSP. I would make music videos. Yeah. I would be in front of the camera too, that's awesome. We're not going to play that, right? We're not going to do that. I edited it in. And then in high school, I did theater. Was on the director writers of doing screenplays and screen. So I would just always invested in this direction.

Ayo (15:26)
So were you a thes-?

Ty (15:44)
I was a thespian, that's what they call theater kids. Yeah. Oh, okay. So I did a lot there. And then also did this documentary in high school too. Got some awards, which I felt like that was the first glimpse of like, oh, yes, you can achieve the statue, but you get a lot of glory with people, "Oh, you know, that was a great film you made. That was a great documentary, you know, oh man."

Pablo (15:47)
Spin.

Ty (16:14)
"It's how you moved me." I started falling in love with the effect I could have on others. And so that made my passion for film just kept growing. And then, came to UT, did film undergrad and loved the program, every class. And I guess it was a turning point, obviously, in my life in college. So I guess we'll get to it later. But even that, I had some accolades from some student films I would make. And I got to a finalist of the Student Academy Awards. And that was like the pinnacle. You know, that was like, well, I'm right there, right there. I remember this one time I was premiering my student film and we're at this movie theater in Austin, the Alamo. And there was something like this, they were interviewing me after they watched my film. Like, "Ty, what inspired you to do this? You touched a lot of people." And I felt like for the first time in my life, my aspiration, my dream, I felt like, wow, this is a lot to do with me. Like, where is God in any of this? Where is, what's his dream? Or what's he after? So I started kind of asking those questions once I kind of hit a little bit of a peak of going in that direction. This is where the career is. I'm sure we're gonna lead into that maybe a little bit. But yeah, it's a little taste of what Ty wanted back in the day.

Pablo (17:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ayo (17:52)
So I'm hearing it. I'm hearing self-actualization, success, fame, seeing the fruit of your labor. That's generally what the world says should be the purpose of your life. And you guys were running towards it. I mean, you guys are kind of speaking from... I kind of have a view. Like, you guys were pretty successful at pursuing this dream. Like, Ty, not only were you a really good theater kid, you also graduated top of your class and you know, had those UT awards. And then, Josh, you were hooping in California. That's not, it's not like you were just really good in like Indiana or something.

Ty (18:38)
Instead of turning him into a huge...

Ayo (18:41)
But if I ask you how many NBA players did you play while you were coming up, you could list probably what, eight, nine, 10? Yeah. Nine and 12. What we wanna ask and kind of peek at now is this, the shift because where you guys are now is not where you thought you would be. Yeah.

Ty (19:03)
You.

Pablo (19:03)
Right. Now with that shift, how about I read another verse? So from the same book, Ecclesiastes 1:2, "Vanity of vanities," it says the preacher. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." So anyways, I'm glad you both are driven people. I think it's perfect for this episode to have you guys. But there's a moment, right, where that dream, confetti is, anyways, I'm just thinking of people who achieve things and at one point, there's that moment where that verse becomes real. Vanity of vanities. I don't know if you guys have heard of the Tom Brady quote. Have you guys heard about Tom Brady? After three Super Bowls, he said, they asked him like, you know, "You have everything. You have Super Bowl rings, have a great family, you know, you have money." And then he said, "I know there's something else out there. I just wish I knew what it was," right? So anyways, like this moment where things, where the initial purpose, like the first search, the first mountain that you're going for, it gets exposed to be vanity.

Ayo (19:51)
Thanks.

Pablo (20:01)
Was there a moment for you both where you saw it as vanity?

Ty (20:08)
I was kind of leading to that. I beat you to the punch, sorry. But it was, when I talk about my career aspirations, I get reminded of when I was sitting in that seat with that producer for the film festival thinking like that. I have this film that premiered and I'm on this streak. I'm heading in that direction, but I felt like it was too much Ty glory. Too much of me, too much of my name being recognized. And that put a pain in me that my life, I could go the next 60, 80 years. Yeah, I have complete page, IMDb, have all these accolades, all these awards on the shelf and the Lord's name would just kind of be on the back burner. He's interviewing me and I'm just like, you know, what a roomful audience, my family's there, it was one of my first film festivals I was at and it was a real honor, but I felt so, the word was empty. It was a feeling of, is this what the meaning of my life is? Just a statue that's going to collect dust or people who know my name when I walk into a public place? It just felt like this is what it's all for. While the Lord is just here in my life, because I've been a believer since I was, I mean, I was a baby Jesus in my church plays, in Christian plays. Like I was born in church, you know? Baby Jesus. I worked acting role with baby Jesus, yeah. So church was always a thing in my life. And I realized middle school, high school, college, I'm going for Ty's goal where Jesus was kind of like, he's there, he just wasn't the focus. My goals were, and I really, it was like I was in that seat at that film festival, getting interviewed for my film, and I realized I've been putting Jesus in the back seat. He hasn't been in the director's chair. I've been writing my own story. Jesus is the co-writer that I kind of abandoned. And I felt like I had a turn there. I just realized I wanted more for my life to count more, not to be remembered for. Oscar would be remembered for exalting His name.

Pablo (22:55)
Amen.

Ty (23:00)
That was a turn of faith for me at 19. Wow.

Pablo (23:04)
19? What a blessing that it was that young. 19.

Ty (23:09)
Yes, I didn't have to be like Tom Brady.

Pablo (23:11)
Yeah, that's right. It'll still be in your 40s. No, not in the 40s. Yeah. That's good.

Ty (23:17)
I've still never seen one of your movies. I will one day. I would actually like to come to your house and be there. But I remembered Ty and I were on a trip in another state and I don't, you know, Ty told me about everything he was into. We walk into a convenience store and he goes, "I saw your movie at that film festival." The biggest flex. Ty was like, "Ty, wow." Ty just looks at me and like, see.

Pablo (23:36)
Hey! No, don't.

Ayo (23:51)
See, I was somebody.

Josh (23:52)
I'm.

Ty (23:54)
I like, "Whoa, all right." I got to see. Maybe Denzel. But, yeah, you could tell that the Lord... I want to hear about it. Obviously, there's something the Lord was moving as the hidden acting God. I want to.

Pablo (23:59)
One of them stuff. No, but.

Ty (24:14)
Yeah, anyway, you hear about even... I was thinking when you were saying that, I was like, I wonder how that even happened.

Pablo (24:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ty (24:21)
But yeah, same, I mean, similar. So trying to think vanity of vanity, you know, it's like, it's these times in my life when I wasn't pursuing the Lord, I was a Christian, but I wasn't seeking the kingdom. I didn't have a king in my life. And like Ty said, just, I was making my decisions and I feel like some of the ways the Lord graces us with his presence is just this tug on our... and we... it's like he tugs that part in us that Solomon talks about that's like eternity. He gets that thing and it's like vanity, and especially as believers, the Lord is there because you had this, I mean from your youth, just like, "What about God?" And like something, you know, that deposit of eternity and of the worth of the Lord's name in it. But I realized that, and I was thankfully growing up in a Christian home...

Pablo (24:57)
.

Ty (25:21)
You know, and to an extent around believers at certain times in my life, there was something like that. And the Lord had some, you know, almost like some, there was some of the word in my heart for sure. Growing up in church, one time I... so I went on this pathway of just pursuing athletics and just, I would say more than just, it wasn't like... it was pursuing excellence and just to maximize what God gave me. But it wasn't for God. I might have said at certain times it was for God, but it was, I wanted people to know that I had less and I did more. You're taller than me and I beat you. You're faster and I still beat you, you know, and I was on the same court as you. Just when I was taking college visits to see where I was going to play basketball, go to school. It's crazy because I wasn't doing anything with the Lord at that time. Yet, like, this one college, there was this one guy on the team. And a lot of guys, you go, you play with the teams, you meet, and some of the guys are nice, some of the guys are like, you know, obviously some of the guys are like, you're going to be with the same position, and they're just whatever. There's this one guy, he... he loved the Lord and he was like, "Man, we're serious about ball here and we're serious about the Lord." And it resonated. I'm like...

Pablo (26:58)
Man.

Ty (26:59)
And one of the big... I just wanted to be somewhere where I could work on my game, not be distracted and continue to develop. But something about the Lord, like that, it shouldn't have been there, but it shot to the top of the list. And I ended up, I ended up going there. That's just one thing, but eventually, this one... the earliest sense of vanity I remember just, I mean, I was playing ball and it was anyway, early 2000s, a lot of guys that play basketball still have long hair, wear headbands, have long hair. And I just remember one time walking in the locker room...

Ayo (27:38)
Steve Nash, Adam Morrison.

Ty (27:40)
You're like Adam Morrison, don't say, yeah, Dan Dickau. These are names that only Gonzaga fans would know. But I go in the locker room and I see myself in the mirror and I stopped and had this double take. And I realized the person in the mirror wasn't happy and didn't look like they had that much meaning. And I just had this quick double take and I'm like, this isn't what your life should have been. Um, and then, yeah, and that was, and it was like, okay, silence that. You want to, you want to put it on do not disturb. Okay. And just keep going. And anyway, that just happened at a one little time in college. And then, I think probably one of the biggest moments that I can remember. And I don't know if I've ever told you this story.

Ayo (28:31)
Is it the ice cream one?

Ty (28:33)
Yes, it's somebody in our small group said, "Josh, every time I see you, I just think of ice cream," because he's probably heard that story so many times. I mean, to me, it's... that's cool. So this was my sophomore year and, you know, I'm working and I'm grinding and our team is at a point in the season where we're doing well.

Pablo (28:33)
Yeah. Would... I want to hear this ice cream.

Ayo (28:52)
So.

Ty (29:01)
And we beat a really good team, a team we shouldn't have beat. And I, as a sophomore, just started getting into the rotation and playing really well. And I had a great game, and we beat this team, and everyone was going to go out to celebrate. And I'm just like, I just felt like I wanted to just, I'm not basking in the word, but just reminisce, like, man, I want to just, like, everyone leaves, just stay in the gym a while, and then go to my dorm and eat some ice cream.

Pablo (29:29)
Sorry, did.

Ayo (29:29)
It was One Tree Hill.

Pablo (29:32)
Anyway, One Tree Hill.

Ty (29:36)
You're a Rick or Tating Heart.

Pablo (29:40)
I'll be an old showman.

Ty (29:44)
And so I go to my dorm room, my roommate who's on the team, he's gone. And I'm there, I take out my ice cream out of the freezer. And as soon as I shut my door, sit down on my bed, I don't eat any ice cream and I'm holding it and I'm just staring at... I just remember the towel on my door and I felt lonely and empty. And I'm... and I and it just... and I'm like, "Why?" There's no explanation. Why do I feel... I feel lonely and empty? Obviously I was there. And it wasn't just because I was alone in my dorm room. I'm like, I really have nobody. Am I nobody? Am I fooling myself? And it was just, and my ice cream was just melting there in my lap. And I hadn't prayed in years. You know, and I'm sure there was formal prayers at different events or things I went to and we bow our heads, but I mean like said something real to the Lord. This one thing I heard the other day touched me. It was like when the Lord was with that Samaritan woman and she's speaking all formal to him like, "Well, our father..." like the Lord responds formally to her? Yeah, she... yeah, and then the Lord says, "Well, you know," and he responds in the same tone. But then when someone says like they get real on their way, "Help," or like "Lord, I'm a dog, I need food."

Pablo (30:58)
Yes. Yeah.

Ty (31:13)
There was a woman in the Bible that said that. Then the Lord gets on that level. And so, I didn't know I was praying, I'm like, "God, I want my life to count." I remember saying that. It was like, "I want my life to count. Please help my life count." And that was it. And again, I kind of stored that away. And yeah, I forgot about it. But I think for sure, like that sense of just like God touching eternity and I'm just sensing vanity, like something that will amount to...

Ayo (31:46)
Mm-hmm. Wow. That's heavy.

Pablo (31:49)
Awesome. That's... yeah, man. That's great. I swear, it's so good to hear these stories. Wow. Yeah.

Ayo (31:58)
There's this quote by Jim Carrey that I thought about before this episode. He was like, I don't want to butcher it, but he says, "I just wish everyone got rich and famous so that they could realize that it's not what they want. It's not the thing. It's not the satisfying thing." And both of your testimonies, you guys spoke about how that thing you really, really wanted wasn't really satisfying. Ecclesiastes supports that.

Ty (32:24)
Yeah.

Pablo (32:24)
Stuff.

Ayo (32:27)
In Ecclesiastes, they kind of speak about how all things are vanity under the sun. But with you guys, there is this shift where you realize that all things are vanity. This is all vanity, just chasing after the wind. But you all were shifting and looking to God now. You were looking above the sun. You were looking to the Lord for purpose. So...

Pablo (32:28)
That's right. Right.

Ty (32:57)
What was that like?

Ayo (33:03)
No.

Pablo (33:04)
I've seen a couple of them.

Ty (33:06)
Are you okay? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if I just saw like a clip by side once like scrolling and I'm not sure he's a... he was saying something like, you know that the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross. I think that's the only real thing.

Pablo (33:12)
I might be a believer. Yeah, but I think... Yeah, I have seen...

Ty (33:22)
Yeah, the fact that he's taking God's word in the story of Jesus seriously. Yeah, someone who said that and experienced this like to the nth degree.

Pablo (33:30)
Yes. To me it's interesting that God allows us to go, like both of your stories, very driven, very desirous of getting somewhere. And it's in that journey of finding out that that is not, just the fact that God allows, even almost by design wants us to have that pursuit and get to a point, because even for Solomon to write that, "Vanity of Vanities," he had to be pursuing something, you know what I mean? He had it all.

Ayo (33:31)
No.

Pablo (33:57)
And then, and then by his mercy, just realize, you know, it's not it, you know? Yeah. But, anyways, I think, I think, I think God just put that emptiness. I like that word he used: emptiness. I feel like that feeling when you were looking at your towel, you know, a little bit of ice cream emptiness. I feel like that's just the story of all of us at some point, you know, we just feel that pursuit was empty. It was just chasing after wind. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's awesome, it's God's mercy to feel emptiness. It is. Yeah, Job felt it. You know, like so many people felt it, you know, like there's nothing here, you know.

Ayo (34:33)
Even to think about—the verse is crazy. Ecclesiastes 3:11 is crazy. There's eternity that's in man's heart. What kind of—there's an eternity hole in us? Like, is an Oscar gonna fill that? Is an NCAA championship gonna fill that? Like, it's like a God-shaped hole. Like, it's like the only person that can fill that is like the eternal one. That hit me. I don't remember which one of y'all told me that. I think it was you. But you told me that eternity can only be filled by the eternal one.

Pablo (35:08)
Right.

Ty (35:08)
Yeah, my son Josiah has these blocks of these shapes. And, you know, the triangle shape, he tries to jam a circle, a pillow, anything he can find his hands on to fit into the triangle shape. He tries as much as he can, but really, the only thing that'll fit is that triangle piece. And that was for me how I felt. And my triangle shape was, was that—eternity. It's like a fulfillment. That's the opposite of empty is being filled. And I felt like the Oscar was like me trying to put another object into that triangle space, you know? And so I guess you, you're asking about the turn. I had definitely thankful for God that I had a contrast, I know the contrast. What empty felt like, but what being filled felt like. And in college, I was discipled by this man, Trevor, his name is Trevor. And he really shepherded me in college spiritually. And we had a gospel time. And we would just walk around UT campus, preaching the gospel. You know, I'm a people person. I mean, I love people, right? But the gospel, no. That's like, come on. But Brandon Santos, San Jacinto, that's true. He prayed to receive Christ with us. And that was the first time I felt filled. I felt like this is the triangle piece to the triangle shape. It was completely opposite than my film getting premiered, getting these student awards. I felt like that was the first moment I realized, this is a different taste. Like sharing Christ with someone else, them receiving it, seeing in their eyes their face go from darkness to light. It was like, that was the first time I got to share Christ with someone. And it was another feeling. It's like another realm. I didn't even realize. I mean, I've been a Christian for years, but I never had that experience of touching something like that. Like God's plan is you're gonna be expressed, you're gonna be seen on the earth, you're gonna be heard, be glorified. And I felt like everything my film was doing was glorifying me, but in that moment I was glorifying God. And that was like an unforgettable sensation, bringing him Christ. And they were like, that was the first time in their life. Okay, I think I'm on the mark here. Okay, I like this feeling. This is super different than, you know, accepting some award. This was like something that made God smile. That bit me.

Pablo (38:23)
Wonderful. Yeah, wow. It seems like when we're pursuing these things on the earth, our eyes are on the earth, right? They're like looking down and looking at most, like, eye level. But then at some point, God has mercy on us and we look upwards, right? We look at—there's a creator that—and when you see the creator, like if you just thought that there is a creator, everything changes, right? Then you realize, okay, there's a bigger purpose. So there's a bigger will. There's a bigger...

Ty (38:39)
And...

Pablo (38:52)
Yeah. You know, intention here, that on the earth. And I think that moment is, yeah, I don't know how that moment comes. Sometimes comes through someone else, comes through the Bible, you know, but somehow it comes and it came to all of us here, sitting here, you know. He's a guy, right? Our eyes looked upward and we realized there's someone with a bigger plan, with a bigger purpose. And you maybe might not know at that moment what that purpose is, but at least you know there is a bigger purpose, right?

Ayo (39:06)
Thank you. Go. Yeah. Even, like you said, when you recognize that there's a creator, that should shift things. It even makes it absurd that us, the creation, are trying to decide a purpose for ourselves instead of looking at the creator and asking, "What do you want to do?" You know? Like, that was a frame shift for me. That was like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. And even the... even Ecclesiastes 3:11, that eternity sits in our heart, that our creator created us with this space that he's supposed to fill in us. Like, this is so, this is different, you know what I mean? It's different than the way I thought my life would go and what my life was about and what things should be about. So yeah, like it's not just like, what is going to be the purpose of my life? But now it's: what is God's purpose?

Pablo (40:19)
Yeah. You know, what they thought God's purpose was initial. What was your first thought? Like when you realize, you know, there's something bigger than basketball. There's something bigger than getting an Oscar. What were you, did you search for? What was your first thought? What does God want from me then? I think I just...

Ayo (40:20)
And keep...

Ty (40:38)
I probably... I always ignore him. So maybe, stop sinning. Be in church. Probably something along that line. I kind of always had this thought that is just really not right. But it's just, I think it's a religious thought. We're like, really religious. I thought God doesn't want me to have like, but I...

Pablo (40:55)
Thank...

Ayo (40:57)
...

Pablo (41:06)
Yeah.

Ty (41:11)
You know, like this thing that I wanted all my life or something like that.

Pablo (41:16)
Let's go. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, that's really good.

Ayo (41:23)
I had something along the same lines, like just God doesn't want me to sin and he wants me to kind of live this restricted, holy, pure life. And that doesn't sound pleasant, you know, like it may, anyway, but I know Ty, yours is a little interesting. You have a Christian background.

Ty (41:40)
Uh, yeah, I'd say the...

Ayo (41:41)
Please. Interesting.

Pablo (41:44)
Your uncles are pastors, Pastor.

Ty (41:46)
That's why I was baby Jesus. So nepotism. God's purpose. Yeah, I yeah, I mean, my uncle's examples. It was to, yeah, don't sin. Raise your family as Christians, go to church, read the Bible. I mean, that was, that's it. I mean, and that's it's growing up. That's...

Pablo (41:49)
You...

Ty (42:15)
Really what I thought was God's purpose for me. That was God's direction at that point.

Pablo (42:26)
And how long did that last? Like that, you know, not sinning, leaving what you want, leaving basketball. And then, you know, I feel like it's amazing. You're in there for a while, you know, before you find what actually it is, you know, I don't know, you know, like Saul was thinking he was serving God in a wrong, you know, he thought the purpose for his life was something and then something happened, right. And he realized, well, I'm wrong, you know. So I think a lot of times, you know, we could also have a mistaken concept what God's purpose is and we're just there but God, you know, we're there for a while, God leaves us there for a while and then with his mercy just brings us up a little higher. So.

Ayo (43:07)
I mean, these guys, these two guys are how God's purpose was unveiled to me. It was somebody sitting down with me, reading the Bible, taking me through from Genesis to Revelation, not only just in and through the scripture, but like their life was like the expression of God's purpose being fulfilled. That's what I felt like I got when I was with you guys. And I know... I know there's people like that in your lives, because you mention them all the time, but what was that experience like where your old Christian concept was now being uplifted and traded with the unveiling of God's heart?

Ty (44:00)
Yeah. Anyway, I think Pablo asked earlier, what, how did that, the shift go from like what you initially thought? And I was like, as soon as I got some light, I don't know how you could, I could, just conjure up like, I mean, who could, it's so simple and amazing, like just the words in the Bible, but who could, it's like beyond what we could ever conjure or imagine. So yeah, when I started, light came when I started reading the Bible. And I needed help, like most believers when you're brand new, you're like, which, what's the New Testament, what's the Old Testament? But yeah, where to start, to read, you know, who just start to actually read it and then understand. And then the other thing is, I think maybe the bigger light was I saw people and I didn't have these words back then, but like they were living for— they saw a purpose and like their life was just a light. Well, and it was like, and that resonated more than anything, even other guys in college. And when you give that example of someone preaching the gospel, like my— I remember this guy, Travis, from Laguna Beach. He was in college and I was in college and we met up and then he was talking to some stranger for a while. We were hanging out somewhere. I'm like, "How did you know that guy?" And he goes, "I didn't." I was like, "You're talking to him for a while." And he goes...

Josh (45:14)
Well.

Pablo (45:15)
Yeah.

Ty (45:27)
"Yeah, I I was sharing with them some from the Bible." And you can do that? What do you do? Was he mean? And he's like, "No, we had a great conversation." And I'm like, I felt like as a Christian put to shame on like, yeah, like there have been people who've done that. Yeah. But I don't know if I'd ever seen it. And someone just like you said, what you said, you touched like a... and I was like, man, there was just something I'm like, I've been missing.

Pablo (45:49)
Being filled.

Ty (45:55)
There's another level up that I've been missing in my Christian life. And that was one of them, but just you started seeing believers who were, you know, living for Christ, living to Christ. That's a light. Wow, that was a light to me. And then I'm like, okay, it's not just I need to try and be good and like give up everything that I love for Jesus. And thank God it's not that; it's so much better.

Pablo (46:18)
Hmm, yeah.

Ayo (46:19)
Amen.

Ty (46:20)
Yeah, he's a scrabble. Yes, you had the two things: the light from the Bible. That's something I, to me, I'm like, there's no way I could have seen God's purpose for himself without the Bible. Right. That's what we were able to share with you later on, because someone did the same for us. You know, it's like, it's like you're the Ethiopian eunuch with Philip, you're just like, "You know what you're reading?" Like, yeah, no. I called it in, you know. We have all these, like, veils almost. Like, we think we know the word. I grew up in church. I know what God wants, you know. That's how I came to college. It's pretty shit. And then, sat with these older staff members for our club, Christian club. And I remember in my seat, just walking back to class like a different person because I just felt like, wow, what I knew about the Bible before this, this one hour, two hour session, then afterwards, like night and day, you know? And it all was predicated on God's purpose. Like, what does he actually want for himself? As I started really looking at the whole Bible like that. I mean, Old Testament stories, you're like, you know, to me, Noah's Ark was just about the animals, you know, growing up, Sunday school, that was just awesome story, you know, but that has something to do with God's purpose too. You know, just like unveiling after unveiling, you know, just seeing more, seeing more. So the word for sure, having that opened up to me, really starting like chime away all those different concepts I had about what God wanted for me, what my life was for, what I thought he wanted. And then what Josh was hitting too is you see the people living out that purpose. To me, that was just like... that drove it home for me. I remember it was two, I'm gonna mention them again, but I'm name dropping Trevor a lot. He was an early instrument on my life. I'm Sir Walker and him and David, they were leading this Bible study in the title of Bible study. I mean, it was just like so fitting: God's purpose for himself, right? And in my life, I read the book, I mean, it's on my grandpa's shelf, Purpose Driven Life, it walks through what the life of a Christian should be, you know. But a lot of that has the arrow pointed at us. And that's what kind of concept I had. I never saw a title of an outline, a book, I don't know, a blog of God's purpose for himself. It was, even that title for that Bible study really like, it was jarring. So Trevor and David, they were spitting, they were like on fire speaking about this and about different experiences they had when they woke up and realized what God's purpose was, and I'm like, okay, these youth pastors are on it, you know? Like, man, like, they're spitting in there. And I meet them after Bible study this year, because I'm just like drawn to the light in them, you know? And they're like, "No, I'm a senior, UT," "I'm a grad student." I was just like, these young guys, I mean, I've only seen my uncles kind of speak the word like that with so much power and spirit, know? And to have like these young bros not so much older than me, be so clear about what God wants and how they're aligning themselves with this purpose and how it's lived out in them, it just like made everything so... sure. I want what they're having. For real.

Pablo (49:56)
It makes it real.

Ayo (50:00)
Yeah. Give me some of that. Yeah, know it.

Ty (50:04)
And that definitely was a turning point. Yeah, used to, I had a lot of Spike Lee, but now I just, I wanna be like these bros right here.

Ayo (50:07)
Like.

Pablo (50:15)
Awesome. I feel like in both of your stories, it's like you said, Josh, there's nothing you can conjure up. It's nothing out of yourself. Like there's no way you can find out what God wants to do in yourself, you know, or even reading the Bible by yourself. In both of your stories, there's people involved who told you something. And to me, that's something about God's purpose that it has to be revealed. It can be like, it's not logic. It's not just trying hard reading the Bible. It has to be some divine revelation. You one time I was... We're talking about, we were going to mention some verse in Job, right? One time I was in, this was in a pandemic. I'm in my apartment in Boston alone. I'm living alone at the time. And I'm going through this Bible study on Zoom on Job, and it's on Job. And afterwards I closed my laptop and I was just, I just remember like, that was some revelation because at that moment I was so impressed that God for millennia had never wavered from what he wanted. Like to me that was just like, we fall in so many times, humanity has failed so many times and again and again, but God has never wavered in what he really wants with man. To me that, but that wasn't anything like I deduced, it was just something divine. None of us are here because of anything we are. We're just here because God at some point said, "Okay that heart, that heart. I want to reveal something. This is what I want to do." So to me, I want a question out of this. I wanted to ask you all. Anyways, chat, turn this into a question. Change this into a question. Has there, yeah, maybe you can get into a specific moment of revelation that you had. I guess that Bible study that you had. To me, for the listeners, it's not something that you can go...

Ty (51:48)
I don't.

Pablo (52:11)
...you know, be upset like, I don't know God's purpose, you know, it's just something that we need to pray to God, you know, and we need to turn our hearts and there's something that the Lord sees and he's like, "Okay, to that heart, I want to reveal something." And it's not hidden, you know, it's not like it's out there, you know, God wants people to know, but anyways, make it into a question, bro.

Ayo (52:35)
One of the passages that was like light to me, where I feel like the Lord was unveiling his heart to me was Ephesians 3:8-12. And it starts with, "'To me, less than the least of all these saints was grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.'" What is the gospel? And then Paul says, "'And then to enlighten all that they may see the economy plan, dispensation of the mystery.'" So there was a little more there. And there's two things that hit me. Enlighten. So that's that revelation, that's that light coming in. But then there's this mystery. And if we go through that passage, we probably can read it. There's some heavy words there. There's eternal purpose. This purpose was within God that's being revealed in the church, that's from the ages that he's now making known. I don't know if I can just grab you the baton, we're passing the baton, like, what were some of those passages? What were some of that truth that was the unveiling or the enlightening of this mystery of God's purpose? Hopefully you can enlighten the audience. Was that a good question, Pablo?

Ty (54:04)
That's a great question. I mean, Bible is all God's word. Can glean this from anywhere in the Bible. But I feel like Ephesians is such a good— I'm just thinking back, what were some of the key verses and then just reading the gospels. Then there's so many verses on Ephesians about his eternal purpose and plan. Let me just say this. If like my real purpose— like my real purpose, like I was made to like— the goal of my life, the reason I was made was to make like a game winning three pointer. And I knew that my whole life, but I never did it. I'd be like, "I know what I'm supposed to do." But then once you do it, it's completely different. Like if, well, if I was a wire and the meaning of my life was to conduct electricity and I knew that, but then like once you just— if I, if I— my purpose was to be shocked by electricity, once you do it, you're like, "Whoa, that was— it's real though." Yeah, man. That was amazing. So, I'd say for me, like I was really slow, even going to like a Christian school and stuff, getting all the Bible verses. I was slower than a lot of people, but I remember I felt like I was touching— and I know was— we were touching Jesus. Jesus was there and I was like, well, just like you touch an electrical wire. And I was being filled when I was getting into the word for the first time out. Mine wasn't like with other costs. The first time I remember is with an older Christian brother, but he was filled with Christ and he loved the word. And he just, when he spoke to me about the Bible, it was, it conveyed something to me and it was, it was just so impactful. And so it just even just— yes, this is one of the first verses I remember: John 10:10. "Christ has come that you may have life and have it abundantly." Josh, it's not just a little and I just started to realize there's something subjective in my life that God wants to be to me. He doesn't not just objective but this hit— this purpose has something very subjective to do with God's plan, with who he is and what he wants to be to me. And I... and it's experiential. And a lot then slowly a lot of the verses came together. And especially with Ephesians, it's just like, when they talk about the dispensation, or the economy, like, you realize like, God wants is to have somebody— this hidden God who know what people can mock and say isn't real— he wants to have an entity that says, "Nope, I'm real. Whoa, I'm real." Yeah. And it's, it's his church, it's his people that are... and it's not just— I was a regenerated person all those years, but I wasn't doing that. I wasn't purposing. I wasn't, you know, living purposefully in God's purpose. I wasn't part of that expression. So, yeah. And I think that that, I don't know.

Pablo (57:22)
Wow, that's amazing. John 10:10, I didn't know that was the verse that, you know, that kind of the Lord used to reveal that to you. To me, it's amazing that any verse in the Bible, the gospels, the epistles, the Old Testament, God can use to reveal that same purpose. Like from another angle, you know, like "I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly." Like those words can reveal God's purpose to you, you know, like to me, that's amazing. You know, it's through spoken to a brother, you mentioned someone was expounding the word to you, but like it's everywhere. God wants us to know his purpose. Like just read the Bible, you know, and fellowship with someone else and you might just get some light. But I think there has to be an opening heart, you know, a desire to, to, to drop something, you know, to realize we were wrong and then to just be a little hungry. But it's amazing that the Bible can do that, you know? Yeah.

Ty (58:14)
There's one verse in the Bible that did that to me. I remember where I was sitting in college in the student activity center. It's named something else now. UT renames buildings. The seat I was in by Chick-fil-A, these two brothers blew my mind with Isaiah 54:5. If anyone ever... I don't know if you grew up reading the Bible. I didn't know that verse was in the Bible. I knew that it was in the Bible, I knew that was in the Bible. And it reads, "Your Maker is your Husband." That was, to me, the game changer for my Christian life. Because to me, I would replace "Your Maker is your King," right? "My Father," that's how I would view God. "My Ruler," right? "My Life," I would say that too, right? I never attributed God to a romantic. You know, I love stories. I'm a storyteller, right? Birth, so God is also a storyteller. He's a romantic. The Bible is a romance story. I was getting into this kind of tree very early on in college. And it revolutionized me to look at God's purpose for himself, right? It's the underlying, which I think great... talk about like, he's after a counterpart. He's after someone who spend eternity with, talking about eternal purpose in Ephesians. He's trying to gain that from beginning to end. Story after story in the Bible, his brother just showed me week after week in college, I had more of this truth, like, it's like an onion. There's more— Noah's Ark, that's related. Adam and Eve, that's related to this.

Pablo (59:49)
Right.

Ty (1:00:08)
You know, divine romance. It's just like—okay, I don't know if you remember this Pablo, me and Pablo had a Bible study in Boston. I was there for a little bit too. I've been around a little bit.

Pablo (1:00:16)
Yeah. Broke some hearts when you left. I mean, like brothers—sorry, sorry. Okay, let me for the record, there was a lot of brothers in our community and on the club that really wanted Ty to stay back and amen, the Lord brought you back to Austin, hallelujah, but I'm still scarred till today.

Ty (1:00:39)
Leave, he can't leave. But in our time in Lawson, it was so blessed and sweet. We got to do some ministry there. And there was a student who we shared this truth with on the Bibles, this romance to God and man. God's whole purpose is to gain this counterpart, right? To gain this lover for himself. And we shared this with this student. What, Pablo? Remember what he did?

Pablo (1:00:47)
Yeah, right. We were in this cafeteria and Ty is going off and we're both sharing a little bit and I think when we brought up Isaiah, the verse that you mentioned, "My Maker is my Husband," he got up and he did a full loop around the cafeteria. And we saw him—he just, he was—he got up like this and then he went around a few tables and came back to his seat, sat down and he was like, "What?" Like he just said that and he was like, "How come I've never seen this before?" And anyways, that was a concept breaker for him and it changed his life.

Ty (1:01:39)
Good day. Out of school, we were new administering, go to Bible school like the next week, you know. He's like giving himself.

Pablo (1:01:45)
You, you're like bruh.

Ayo (1:01:51)
Finish school! Bye, anyways.

Pablo (1:01:54)
He's doing great now.

Ty (1:01:55)
To show you the impact of what a truth or it can do, especially in the line of God's purpose. Yeah, it can. It can revolutionize somebody. And obviously we see that in our lives, but we can see it in someone else, too. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. And in the beginning, we talked. That's when you touch transcendent truth, so much bigger than my little dream. It's when you're on Everest and you're looking down at the little tiny hut you started.

Pablo (1:02:12)
Yeah.

Ayo (1:02:26)
Yeah.

Pablo (1:02:27)
And send them truth.

Ayo (1:02:28)
That experience that you guys spoke about reminds me of the experience I had with you, Josh, our very first Bible study. You Gen Rev me. What? Gen Rev. It was—so, you know, I'm, here I am college freshmen, pretty okay, pretty okay student. And I'm like, I met this guy, he's doing ministry and he said, "Let's have a Bible study." I think he's interesting. He also plays basketball. So I'm like, okay, cool. What are we going to talk about? And he's like, "Let's go to Genesis." I'm like, "Genesis, bro, come on. We all know this." And then he asked—he asked me about Genesis 1:26. And he's like, "What does image and dominion mean?" And you've been using this for a long time. You tell the story often. And I was like, "Yeah, image is, you know, we were made in the image of God. But dominion is when you tell a cat to, you know, scurry away, they scurry away." You just laughed at me. You laughed at me, but then he was like—he just kept expounding like, we're made in the image of God. Like a glove is in the image of a hand. And like you said, a wire's purpose is conduct electricity. Like our purpose as a glove is to be filled with God. And I was like...

Pablo (1:03:39)
You...

Ty (1:03:40)
You just, you just.

Ayo (1:04:03)
I like, what are you—I've never heard this, but it makes sense. Like it's the weirdest thing. And he's like, "Yeah, that's what the tree was for." This would have been the infilling. That would be the addition of God's life into you. You already have his image and you're meeting his likeness, but this would have been the life. So when we go to John 10:10, it's Christ says, "I came that they may have life and life abundantly." You know, that breathe the spirit into the disciples. It's like, God became a man, went through this process and he wants to get in you. That's the—it's the glove coming—that's the hand going into the glove. And then in the realm of romance, God needs to indwell you and fill you so that you match him in this way in life. Like a...

Ty (1:04:35)
He...

Ayo (1:05:02)
Like a human wouldn't have a love relationship with an animal. He needs another human. And God put Adam through that exercise, said, "Name all the animals, go ahead." And didn't find a match. But then here's Eve, who's the bone of his bone, the flesh of his flesh. And we know all the typology, but that's the first couple. And it's a picture of God's relationship with man. That was our first appointment. It changed my life. I was like, "What?" I thought I was gonna come to UT, I was gonna make my parents proud, I was gonna get a degree, I was gonna have a career, but here I am, this guy who—this guy I met a week ago is telling me you were a vessel made to be filled with God. And in a loving relationship, it's like, whoa. Change my—I didn't run around the—you know, I didn't run around, but...

Ty (1:06:03)
But you know.

Pablo (1:06:04)
Call that, bro, we got rekt. Josh rekt you but—or the Lord rekt you but, you know, always comes through someone. But doesn't the Lord do that to us? He reks us in a way, right? We're no longer good for the world in a sense. That's amazing.

Ayo (1:06:06)
Yeah. Everything seems silly.

Ty (1:06:18)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, after you see that you're like, "Okay, I wanted to do X, Y, Z." It's amazing. That's all in the first two chapters of the Bible. You could camp—doing a day in ministry, we just camp out in those chapters for so long. Never. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And does it. So UT, they had this Oscar-winning producer come to speak, do a little speaking and he got—all of us film students could hold the Oscar, you know, take a picture with it and you put it on the gram or something. So I did that, right? And that was my screensaver for most of college. Then you know what I replaced it with? I know what I replaced my screensaver holding an Academy Award. Remember Sanya? Oh, not that—came later. It was Isaiah 54:5. Oh wow. That was really.

Ayo (1:07:11)
Yeah.

Ty (1:07:16)
That verse became like—

Pablo (1:07:17)
You're a romantic, my brother.

Ayo (1:07:20)
Izzy. I have some stories about Ty and... anyway.

Pablo (1:07:21)
Yeah, that's right.

Ty (1:07:25)
But yeah, everyone got stories. But that just, that became like, I want to open my laptop to see that. Yeah. That's amazing. Why? Yeah. Yeah. And this is a way of student point. But yeah, it's just when you see that the Bible connects and that there's one lucid story and God is the author and you have not a tiny role, not a minor role, but you have a major role. Yeah. All human beings are innumerably valuable, precious because of this purpose. Yeah, I mean, there's just so much to say. Why? That puts everything into perspective and you have to—again and again and again you get away from it, you lose perspective.

Ayo (1:07:28)
Yeah, wow.

Ty (1:07:54)
Yeah.

Pablo (1:08:07)
Amen. Yeah. And you can get away from it sometimes, right? Sometimes we just, we saw it, but then we get away from it. For sure. And see it again and get the perspective and get that vision again. It happens.

Ayo (1:08:22)
Yeah. Somewhere. I like how you said "wrecked."

Ty (1:08:23)
I'm gonna take a—

Pablo (1:08:28)
Yeah, bro.

Ayo (1:08:29)
There's just a shift that happens. I remember when I had that appointment, there was this—and this is so bad—I just loved those one-on-one Bible studies that we would have. I just, there's this one psychology class that was online. I was like, "I'll just let it play on the side and I will just keep talking about the Bible because the direction of my life was changing because I wanna live according to God's purpose. I wanna live in that, towards that. Enjoy that." That happened to y'all. What did that look like? Where did it lead you? Oh, go ahead. What were you gonna say?

Ty (1:09:01)
Wow.

Pablo (1:09:09)
That's really good. Sorry, I just want to make a point. I'm glad these bros are here with that because you're saying you're at that appointment, your psychology class is playing on the side and you're like, "My life is changing." Everyone listening is going to be like, "I got to drop out of school." But there's a way. You got to graduate, guys; he has a degree and he's working as a consultant. But there's a way where you can still be in the purpose, but living a normal human life.

Ayo (1:09:24)
We didn't.

Ty (1:09:26)
You...

Pablo (1:09:36)
Glad that you bros were involved in campus ministry, but now you know, you have families, jobs, you're doing well and you're still in that purpose that you saw. So how does that look in a normal father, working man—just to be in the reality of what you saw, know? Do not let that purpose go. Like you're saying, you might not be on campus as much anymore, meeting students, but you're still in that, yeah? How's it look?

Ty (1:10:04)
You looking at me because you all made it through first? Okay, then you get to think of really good stuff. Okay, that's not good. So.

Ayo (1:10:06)
Thank you.

Ty (1:10:15)
Starts around 5 AM. I wake up with my two-year-old and four-year-old as we're doing push-ups, memorizing scripture.

Josh (1:10:22)
Wow.

Pablo (1:10:24)
Still trying to go to the NBA, huh?

Ty (1:10:26)
I say, "Repeat after me."

Ayo (1:10:29)
Bro, it was the funniest thing. He brought his—he had a picture with his son with a basketball and he's like, "I didn't put it in his hands." I'm like, "Sure Josh, you didn't put it in his hands," but go ahead.

Ty (1:10:39)
I didn't put a ball in my hands. No, no. No, no. He put the hoop out. He likes to dunk. We've talked about that another time. I shooting for him. Well, like when you're saying you get in and you get in—this is the truth. The thing about it, it's profound. And it's like, who could have ever thought about that? It's not—what's a hard class? Calculus. It's not rocket science. God is so profound. And when you see it, it's a hand in a glove. Yeah. And anything else is vanity. To put anything else in a glove is vanity. It starts there. And then that is a purpose. Then what we know—what the hand is doing in you—it's actually, there's a purpose. He's building something. He's after something. He's after people. He's after hearts. He wants to gain ground. He wants to shut down dark enterprises and he wants to release his enterprise of light, the kingdom of, right. I see I'm going first, but it is practical today. I was up super late with the kids. Kids have been sick, sleeping on the floor next to one of them. So I didn't have time to read my Bible this morning, but I did wake up and I'm like, "Lord, I need coffee. I had to go to work." To make it here in time for the end. And I committed to a phone call prayer time with another brother and I forgot about—anyway, he texts and he's like, "It's 12:30, work." I'm like—and I replied, "Yes." And so I just took my lunch in my car and...

Pablo (1:12:10)
I need you.

Ty (1:12:35)
So we talked, we caught up, but then we prayed. And I'm like—anyway, he was like, "Dude, is there anything on your heart?" I'm like, "Actually, yeah, can we just pray? I'm gonna be doing this podcast with some brothers tonight. And my life has been so busy." I was like, "You know that parable of the soil?" I was like, "I feel like—can we just pray right now? I feel like, you know, there's those thorns that are choking the seed." And I was like, "You know, the anxieties of this age, I was like, I feel like I'm dealing with those." And you know, then there's those rocks in the soil, the deceitfulness of riches. And he's like, "Yeah, what does that mean?" I'm like, "Well, I'm not sure, but at least for me, I feel like it's just selling you this dream and like, you're almost there. You have to go a little further and make a little, you know, and this—buy this bogus lie that security comes through something you can do with your hands to make money." And that being said, I'm like, "Can we just open to the Lord Jesus and pray?" We just get to just pray together. Prayed together over the phone. He prayed and I prayed and man, it was—I feel like the hand got in the glove a little more. And I mean, that's—that was from today, that was a little practical, but the Christian life is... I feel like our regenerated life is Christ lives in you, but you ignore him. It's not like what I was doing all those years. But the Christian life is you let the hand in. You let the hand in the glove and then you see what the hand is gonna do.

Pablo (1:14:04)
Wow. Amen. As simple as prayer.

Ty (1:14:07)
Prayer. Yeah. Take it from a wise marriage. Had some time. Yeah. Life is hard. Marriage is hard, kids are hard. Realizing that eight months in. And even tonight I'm like reminded, the Lord, he still has this eternal purpose. This is the busiest I've ever been in my whole life—in school, working, and a baby. I find myself coming back to Pablo's bumper sticker—had Jesus. His name. I felt like I knew what calling on the Lord was in college. I heard that kind of like, that's a way to touch the Lord in a real way, you know, just saying "Jesus," calling his name, calling it out, you know, sincerely. But now I feel like I know what calling is. Well, 4 AM, woken up by a teething eight-month-year-old. And you know, got to work later. I got to study for these counseling exams. That's when the school I work. And I'm realizing, okay, the Lord's name, that is not shaming. It still brings some supply. It still brings me back to his purpose, the romance. It still rekindles my heart. So I feel like I'm getting a little bit more reduced to just that five-letter name, a little bit more. Jesus, wow. My life is getting rough. And it's a season, know? College was a season. Serving in campus ministry was a season. This is a season, but I feel like in a real way, even just calling has made it a lot more real. That's just where I'm at. I just get to his name as I'm trying to put my boy to sleep or dead tired, gotta go to work. Got to study. I feel like that's just where I'm at. It's just making that name just the tip of my tongue. When I wash the dishes, changing the diaper, putting the sleeve on the walk with him, I just feel like that name became so much more mobile and realistic to me. It brings me back to—like, we almost have to remind ourselves like, "Wait, what are we on earth for? Even with a child? Study?" This was real to me when I was 19, but like, this is a different time now, know? So I like—we have to—you're not on the mission field. That's fair. So you're right. We have soldiers to get you started alive. We realized, yeah, it's different than even when we were serving. You're speaking about this truth or lie, you're speaking about God's purpose, seeing people walk around the room. So it's a lot more calm down now in this kind of era. But I feel like the Lord is still there. Amen, yeah. Unrelenting. He still wants—it's like an eternal, he's unwavering. So even at this stage in life, he does remind me, "Todd, I still wanna fall madly in love with you more today. I'm still your Maker." Yeah. The Husband. Wow.

Ayo (1:17:48)
Yeah.

Ty (1:17:48)
I'm still your Maker. Yeah. The husband. Wow.

Ayo (1:17:51)
Yeah.

Pablo (1:17:53)
You add anything else Josh? You had a little time to think now.

Ty (1:17:57)
Yeah, thanks for that. But I was just listening to you, Ty. In the national... I don't know, just how you... when you're speaking, totally I'm relating to that. Your... man, my thing that filled me with Christ and love was like speaking about Christ. And like, I can't do that to my two-year-old. They were like, "Didn't I remember that?" It's just not the arrangement. So like you said, you kind of end. But I will say something—that the Lord is—conversations just being real with the Lord in the car. And just the Lord reminding me every stage of life—if we don't purposely, deliberately give ourselves and the things and because as life—there's always new things we're getting new things and things were—old things were losing and as life changes and so like that—and just those things need to be handed over, you know, just as—and I just through through prayer with the Lord. But like, just so anyway, the Lord had ground and permission in our life still because our life changes. I can't keep trying to have the same experience of Christ I had from years ago. I'm just not playing that sport anymore. I'm still—but it's a lie that we're not in God's purpose. God's purpose, like you said, never stops. So we need to be in it. When they ask the Lord for the privilege and the mercy to it. Yeah.

Pablo (1:19:16)
Yeah, no.

Ty (1:19:20)
Have the same experience of Christ I had from years ago. I'm just not playing that sport anymore. I'm still—but it's a lie that we're not in God's purpose. God's purpose, like you said, never stops. So we need to be in it. When they ask the Lord for the privilege and the mercy to it. Yeah.

Ayo (1:19:40)
And I was, I, I'm gonna be honest, like when you guys were on the campus and y'all were meeting with me, I was so inspired by how you guys lived then. Cause you gave your whole time to God's purpose. If it was going across the country, you said yes. If it was going to another continent, you said yes. If it was five years, you said yes. If it was nearly a decade, you said yes. And I was like, man, these guys, they just are living for God's purpose. But then honestly, like, I mean, I saw you get married. I watched you have a kid. I watched you have two kids. I watched you guys go from ministry to school, to a job, to a small business, being a small business owner. And I'm still impressed that you guys are still living according to God's purpose even though it looks totally different, you know, it's still the same thing. Like you said, it's forever, just living for God's purpose. If you're a dad, if you're just a regular person, it's just like—don't have to—it just doesn't stop with the service, but it's every day. Like if I called Josh and I'm like, "Hey, me and my wife, we kind of need somebody to talk to," as busy as your schedule is, you find time. And it just shows like despite everything, you still have a heart for God's purpose. And I like that message is getting out. That's right. I know where—no matter what your occupation is, where you are, what you're doing.

Pablo (1:21:19)
That's right. You know, people say sometimes once you see something, you can't unsee it. You know, like you've been to the Grand Canyon. You've seen the Grand Canyon. You'll never forget that vision. You know, you'll just forever be in your brain, in your head. I feel like similar with God's purpose. You know, once you have that mercy from God to see something in the Word, life will change. You'll have one kid, two kids and small business, but it'll never not be real to you. And I just love how simple it is for you guys. Like praying with a brother, what you said, and then you said, calling on the Lord. As you—cause you could do those two things and not seeing it. You could pray and you could call, but to you it's not clear what God is doing. But once you see what God is doing, those simple practices that take like two minutes take a whole another different weight and meaning. Because you realize God is the hand that's filling the glove. And you just realize in these two minutes of praying with a brother, in these five minutes of calling on the Lord, there's a different like direction to what you're doing. And to me, that's amazing. Whether you're a mom, a dad, whatever you're doing, two minutes, three minutes, it can just change your day. And thank you, brothers, for sharing that to me as I don't have kids yet, but I know that time is coming and you just gotta get encouraged by—you get two minutes. You gotta treasure those two minutes and just touch God's purpose for a little bit. I want to ask you brothers to comment on something. That's okay if I go here. We wanted to give our listeners kind of like, you know, we're talking about really lofty high things, which is God's purpose, eternal. But we want to leave them with something to really kind of grab onto. And we thought to use two questions that Paul asked, you know, when he got saved. So this is in Acts—I think it's in Acts 22 where he actually asked these two questions. And I want you guys to comment on this, especially maybe even when you transition from doing full-time ministry to now working, you probably asked these questions again. And I think we need to ask these all the time. Paul said, "Who are you, Lord?" and he said, "What shall I do, Lord?" And to me, we never graduate from asking Lord those questions because He's ever something new to us and He's directing us all the time. So how was that for you brothers in just getting to know the Lord and leading you from one thing to another? Yeah, did those two questions ring any experience in your being that you could share with us?

Ayo (1:21:19)
God's purpose is still God's purpose. Let's live for it.

Ayo (1:23:57)
What a question.

Ty (1:24:01)
So that transition happened—actually happened the same year, right? Were, Lord let us both, after ministry. For me, definitely, "Who are you Lord?" To me that's—to me that's articulated. You know, we're in this relationship with the Lord, which is romantic, just like my wife, I got to know her—yes, first two months, you know somebody, but how I know her now after four years married is completely like a different person, right? It's deeper, different sizes and different aspects of them. And I feel like we have with the Lord, I was asking the Lord, "Who are you to me now?" especially the juncture from serving. I said it, I didn't wanna stop serving. I feel like I haven't stopped in a sense, because you just feel like you just love sharing Jesus. And to me, I never wanted to stop that, taking a last breath. I just felt like the Lord—I was asking him that, "Lord, who are you now?" and about—

Ayo (1:24:32)
To me.

Ty (1:24:57)
To—wait, but that's last year. It's crazy. Last year, I started really considering, "Lord, you know, I know you deeper now. I wanna know you more. Is it in the same way as serving?" Like, I felt like I was getting led to go into the field of counseling. That's who I'm studying now. As our Wonderful Counselor, the Lord was making that known to me too. He's the Wonderful Counselor. In anybody need to hear that tonight. And that felt like that was a new aspect of the Lord that became fresher to me in this year in school that doing ministry, there are a lot of needs from brothers I wanted to shepherd and disciple that I felt like I couldn't. I feel like didn't have enough tools in my toolkit, in my utility belt. And... I felt like I was going to the Lord a lot about just—I wanna serve more. I wanna help more. I wanna help lead a lot of brothers and dear believers and people in the world further into God's purpose. And I felt like there were a lot of barriers in someone's even mental health that might keep them from that. And I feel like I was having these new conversations with the Lord. "Lord, this brother is suffering mental health. This other brother is suffering from..." there's other—it felt like that kept rising and rising. And I felt like what I did was what I recommend for others is the fellowship. Maybe talk to an older believer about maybe where the Lord is leading you. And that's what I did too a lot. He's good. Perf has got a lot too. And I felt like that led to, "What must I do now?" For four years, what I was doing was serving full time. That's what it looked like, Ty living according to God's purpose. But then I had a fresh feeling like, "Well, what about now? I don't know, what must I do now?" To me, it just felt like I needed to update my leading of the Lord. And the opportunity came up, I get to go to school, study counseling just with this vein of just like, "Lord, this is my new service." And there are other believers that serve in this way too. And this kind of sets up professional counseling. And I feel like that the joy and the peace was there immediately, still is there. And I feel like with God's purpose, it hasn't changed. In school, working to support me going to school, the baby, I feel like so many times in my life, the Lord is still reminding me, "Yes, Todd. Well, this is it." Much like when I was on the campus serving in campus ministry, was like little pockets of time. Even though that was sometimes really hard, it was still sometimes where it was like, "Keep going, know. Wow. Pursue me in this way." And I feel like this is the next direction. This, the Lord has been pockets of time showing me that. I saw this last year at school. This is where, this is where I had it, huh? This is the campus now. School, fatherhood, working. Like this is my new avenue to live out this purpose here. Wow, that's awesome. It's a town, needs a house Lord, says the video.

Pablo (1:29:08)
Man. Thanks for sharing.

Ty (1:29:18)
Cut tie counts as me. Me too. Yeah. It's such a... Me too. ...question, I... "Who are you Lord?" I think... the... just a few... maybe one or two ways the Lord is just... in this season, touching me that he's readily found. He's... because a lot of times I question his... when you get off the treadmill of doing full-time ministry, full-time church services, and it's like, "Where are you, Lord?" The question that rises up, you're like, you're buried in paperwork, you're buried in it with floats. And it's like, "Where are you, Lord?" And the same disposition I had was doing both things, full-time ministry, and I have a very extreme disposition. It's responsible for certain successes, but also a lot of shortages. When I realized, and I just realized, and the, and the Lord is like, "I'm right here." That's one thing. And another, I just realized the Lord—needed a father. I really, I just really need a father. Cause I'm like—I feel like I was getting off a bike, learning how to live again. Wow. Learning how to—and like, I need a father to teach me. I don't know how to, I don't know how to walk with Jesus or how to talk with you. I need a father to like really guide me through this.

Pablo (1:30:46)
That's awesome. Yeah, you know, when Paul—fellowship and father—when Paul was on his way to find out what he should do, someone else came to him to help him know what he would do. You know, Ananias came to him. So I feel like the desire for a father or some fellowship is just, we're not alone, you know? Anyways, that's awesome. Sorry, sorry, Josh. No, keep going, bro.

Ty (1:30:47)
Yeah. I was just trying to talk to, know, the quote of time. I agree that we—I think all believers—but I've—I always had this feeling for like young brothers that maybe like, we need so many father figures. Especially today's and you never outgrow that. Yeah. But the Lord is our Father too.

Pablo (1:31:25)
Yes.

Ayo (1:31:31)
Amen.

Pablo (1:31:33)
Amen.

Ty (1:31:33)
I'm reminded this story early on of going this direction at counseling. One of the fathers to me, to us, he was kind of leads our campus ministry team. I remember the first conversation I had with him, like, "Okay, I want to go in this direction because the Lord is leading, go with counseling." You know, then this brother has known me since I was 18. I mean, like, he's a grandfather to me. And my wife, he really shepherds us. And I thought he would be like, "Ty, can't leave the team, the service, right?" I think, honestly, I was kind of like, well, wanting him to say, know? And he like, "Okay, this is really from the Lord. I'll drop this if he's not, you know, good for him." But he gave me the biggest amen, and assurance, like, "Ty, I think that's from the Lord. I could see that." That gave me that kind of—it's like the father's approval. I mean, obviously, God the Father, we used to kiss, but to have that kind of like, you know, flesh and blood people from the Lord, the mature believers give you that kind of like green light? That is like God on earth. That was to me, one of the biggest green flags to me, like seeking that kind of spiritual guidance. I feel like that was instrumental.

Pablo (1:32:58)
That's awesome.

Ty (1:33:01)
That's awesome.

Pablo (1:33:03)
God has given us a lot of fathers. That's awesome. I mean, I'll say that some other time, but that's my testimony too. See you for another time.

Ayo (1:33:10)
Amen. Yeah, I mean, we're kind of at time. And just before our guests leave, we want to ask a question. So this is the words of this live podcast. So we want to know how the word is affecting you in a fresh way and like a, well, what was the last thing that you enjoyed in the word or in fellowship? And can you share that with the group?

Pablo (1:33:39)
I'll give you some time to think. I have a lot of patterns that are people who have jobs. I just feel to say that. You're talking about leaving campus ministry as a—I just feel the Lord led in every way through fellowship through your personal time with the Lord. But where I am right now, I have a lot of solid patterns to our job, really busy people, with the jobs. Anyways, to me, in Matthew 24, 25, says, two will be on the field, like working. Working, know, just living a normal life, you know, so just live a normal life in God's purpose, you know? Yes. To me, I just treasure your testimonies because you're living God's purpose in your normal life. Yeah. And your family about your work life. That's awesome. Sorry. Go ahead.

Ty (1:34:26)
All right, so parting words of this life, something from the word. Yeah, I've just been, I think in Matthew and Revelation and just thinking about just the kingdom. Trying to think of verse in particular, but that's what I've gone through some audio messages and that's where that came up today when I was just like crying with that brother. I'm like, "Let's pray for Pike." I just realized like one of the things I was asking myself is like, I need Christ to be my King. Yeah, that's what the kingdom is. King over his people. Then I just you just realize, oh, there needs to be something in me that happens. And I was like, "My heart, Lord, my heart." Amen. Anyway, just being brought back to like, that's like a kingdom fundamental.

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