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 (00:32)
Hey guys, welcome back to the Words of This Life podcast. My name is Ayo and I'm here with my co-host, Bob. And we have two special guests with us today. That's right. David and Reese.

Reese (00:41)
Excited to be here.

David (00:43)
Great.

Pablo (00:44)
Thank you for.

Reese (00:44)
taking the time to be here.

Ayo (00:45)
Sure. This is gonna be a fun episode.

Pablo (00:47)
I can already feel it. Yeah.

Ayo (00:49)
So today we're gonna talk about knowing God and knowing God's will. And we're just gonna dive into David and Reese's testimony and just glean the experiences that you guys have had and we'll see where the conversation goes. But I think it's always appropriate to just start from the beginning. How did you come to know the Lord? Even what kind of household did you grow up in? And when did you receive the Lord and when did he become real to you?

David (01:15)
Yeah, I'll start. I grew up, my father went to church and I went with him. This was really one of the closest experiences I had with my dad. It was something that he and I shared. My mom didn't go to church, so this was really a time that I could get to know him. So a lot of my association with church was just with my dad. It was just, this is an activity we do together. And that lasted until I was about 11, and I began to realize that through my dad speaking to me, that this was a relationship, that he didn't go to church because that was a thing that he did. He went to church to know God in a deeper way and to know him in the other believers that we went to church with. My dad, I think he recognized that a lot of my pursuits towards going to church with him, doing them all, doing all these things with him was based on my love for him. And he was always very careful to not, I would say, take advantage of that. So when I asked him what it meant to be saved, he told me, of course, but he was very careful not to pressure me in any way, because I think he knew that if he told me that I should do this, I would do it for him, but not for the Lord. And eventually I did feel that I needed, that there was something that I needed, something. I needed a savior. And the same was true of my baptism when I was baptized about a year later. And a number of other believers had been baptized at church and it was kind of going around and I was driving back from church one day and I said, "Dad, I think I should be baptized." And he said, "Okay, ask me why." And I said, "You know, I watched the people get baptized this week and it was really powerful and I feel like I need something like that." And he said, "Okay." And then he didn't mention it again and then the next week, same thing, drive back. I said, "I want to be baptized." "Okay, I haven't brought it up because I don't want to, I want it to be your choice." And so anyway, that was kind of, that was a real experience of the Lord for me and then I kind of proceeded on that. Yeah, by the time I was baptized I was 12, yeah. And I proceeded in a pretty good way until I went to college. I'll skip forward a little bit and when I got to college, you know...

Pablo (03:48)
So you were 11?

David (04:04)
I wouldn't say I fell away, but I just let other things compete with the Lord. My time, my interest. You know, I would still go to church meetings, but I would also, I had a lot of friends who were very much not meeting, involved in a lot of drinking and things. And so I had this kind of, I felt that I had a very good balance, so to speak, of well, I'm still doing something towards God, but I'm also still doing something that's for me. You know, and this kind of proceeded in this parallel structure until I got to go on a trip through the university. We went to Europe and we were studying World War Two and the European front, and we had to spend some time in various battlefields and it felt very, felt very scholarly, felt very prestigious, and we did a lot of drinking and partying, as you might expect also. And I was on my flight back from that trip and I was actually scrolling through pictures on my phone of all the, all the very, you know, like all the cool academic sites, you know, the American cemetery there in Normandy.

Ayo (05:21)
Thanks.

David (05:31)
You know, there's a monument to the Soviet soldiers, the Soviet fallen in Berlin, kind of a monument of conquering that's still there. It's cool. And well, at least it was then. And I, you know, I was also looking at pictures I'd taken when I'd been partying and stuff, and I, you know, I just had this sense. I had this sense within me that it just, it would, it was like the bottom fell out. It was like missing a step on the stairs. And you just have this sense. What if, what if this is it? Like I just went on this great trip, you know, the university paid for it. Yeah, I had this great time. It was with all my intelligent friends. We were doing it, having so much fun. We were exercising our mind. You know, we would later say our flesh was really getting let loose. It was great. But what if I peaked when I was 21?

Pablo (06:30)
Yeah.

David (06:31)
And I just had this, you know, we're over the Atlantic, I just had this sense of dread. Like, how am I gonna top this experience? Am I just gonna be looking back to this for the rest of my life? And I had this realization, or had this sense, and it was from God in my spirit. I know now, but at the time I just said, "If there's anything real, it has to be God. If there's anything that's going to be an ongoing, a thoroughgoing, an ongoing source of fulfillment and satisfaction, it has to be God." And so when I got back, I, you know, I reached out to some of the people I went to church with. And, you know, I said, "I want God to be real to me." You know, some, one person said, you know, it was very like, "Wow, I didn't realize you were having all, you know, struggle." And then another dear brother said, "I know." That says something like, "I've been praying for this for a long time." And so that, yeah, I do believe it. So, you know, I completed school. I went to a Bible school after that. I just, you know, I certainly didn't go to school with the intention of that being my postgraduate plans, but...

Pablo (07:40)
That's why things happen.

David (08:01)
You know, the Lord really stirred in me to give more of my time to, to give myself to really be, to be for him to start to study and to dedicate my time to know him. But did that. And, you know, I again, I felt like I kind of hit a plateau, kind of like I did after I was baptized. It was very good. It was in a good spot. And I would say the next and really kind of the last watershed moment in my life was I went to Lubbock. I was helping the, you know, the church there was doing a big event for their campus group. I had gotten a chance to volunteer to go and cook, and we were, we had been there, we had cooked all day. I just kind of sat in the back of one of the, like the last session that the college students there were speaking about. Noah, the weekend time had been about Noah, about knowing, you know, Noah had this vision that God was doing something. And, you know, for however many years he built the ark, there was no evidence of rain. He just had a speaking from God: "This is happening. You need to build the ark." And as these 19, 20, 22-year-olds are speaking, God is speaking to me: "Are you building the ark? Or are you, are you living in parallel again? Are you just happy to be, you know, happily married, have a nice job and go to church? Are you happy to have, is that enough for you? Or are you building the ark? Do you go to church because you've seen that I am doing something? Or are you going to church because it feels nice for you?" And wow. Yeah, it was it was pretty strong, pretty strong. But it's a long drive back from Lubbock to Austin, let me tell you. I was sitting in the back of this pickup truck. I mean, it was in the cab, but I was sitting in the cab. We were pulling the barbecue pit back and the brothers in the front are talking, big old storm, and I'm just, I'm praying and I'm just kind of, I don't know what to say to God. I don't know what's... but I, anyway, ever since then, the Lord has really taken me to a different spot. Wow. And I hope I have not reached a plateau that he has to kind of shake me out of again. But yeah, that's really kind of been my experience.

Pablo (10:47)
I enjoy hearing about the two instances where you've mentioned kind of two structures or two parallels, you know, like God sometimes, you know, the Lord calls us and then we kind of go to a parallel life away from his calling and then sometimes we merge again. Anyways, that's wonderful that the Lord in his mercy kind called you. Yeah. And just, that's really encouraging.

David (11:11)
Yeah, you know, I mean, I like, I've monologued for a while now, but I just want one thing is, you know, the Lord's calling to me, like he's speaking to me in the airplane, speaking to me through those brothers there in Lubbock. Those, like the call when he spoke to me there on that airplane didn't lose its impact. What happened was I just kind of started to make, like I carved out space for myself. So to me, I feel when the Lord calls us, this needs to remain the front and center. This needs to be, even we need to consider, you know, praying that the call that the Lord gives to us would remain as the first thing in our pursuit. We're pursuing Him not because it's the thing we've done in the past. We're pursuing Him because He is calling us right now as He called us at whatever moment that...

Pablo (12:12)
Amen. That's wonderful.

Ayo (12:16)
Yeah.

Reese (12:17)
Yeah. So my, I grew up also in a Christian home of sorts. We were, consider us, we were Creaster Christians or Creaster goers where Christmas and Easter was the only intended church. So first time I hear that. Yeah. Yeah. So we attended pretty regularly when I was really young and then sports and Texas and stuff like that, it was like, okay, Sundays are no longer for going to church. It was for football, either watching or playing it. So anyways, I always considered myself a Christian, but, you know, wasn't a regular churchgoer, wasn't really taking that seriously. And about freshman year of high school time, which I'm sure is the case for a lot of freshmen in high school, I started to do things, some of the things that David was talking about in his college time, where you just sort of get into drinking and partying and stuff like that. And still would have called myself a Christian the whole time, but it was not the center of my life and I was living as if there was no God essentially and was really enjoying it. Lots of fun and excitement, but yeah, lack of God at that point. But I was part of a Christian ministry called Young Life. Basically everybody at my school was part of it. They were just the thing to do on Friday nights or Monday nights, depending on your age group. It was lots of fun, we'd go play sports, sing. There'll always be a little message at the end, but they have the best summer camps in the world in my opinion. I was always planning on going to camp that summer. Seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade and 10th grade I went to camp and at this point I'm probably in the lowest point when it comes to a life full of the flesh. And I'm not feeling guilty at all at this point, but you know, looking back, it was like, yeah, that was, I was in the pits. And I heard the gospel for about the hundredth time in my life, but that time, for some reason, God was calling me out. Hearing about Christ and his dying on the cross, I just had the most stark realization that he, like, I could feel his suffering and realize that that was because of how I'm living right now. And just felt so much guilt and like, what I'm doing today and what I'm living for today is the reason he had to go through this. And so it was this experience that night where the weight of my sin, I felt it for the first time. And then also that night is the first, like I felt it all lifted, like he paid the price. And I just had a very emotional night and experience of receiving Christ as my savior for the first time. I knew that something had to change in my life. So I went to my kind of mentor there and said, "Hey, so like, what do I do now?" Like, I confessed to him kind of how I've been living. He might've already known all that, but I told him, it's like, "I know I can't, I've got this girlfriend, I probably need to break up with her," all this stuff. And he probably told me a lot of things, but the one thing that he told me that stuck with me was "You need to read the Bible every day, every morning." So, and he started doing that with me, but I really took it to heart and maybe one or two days since then, since I was 16, that hasn't happened. But basically since I was 16, I've been able to read the Bible every morning. It's just testimony. Yeah. And you know, the Lord just had a ton of mercy on me because it is so easy to have that kind of camp high and then go back to your old life two weeks later. But the Lord just had a way of kind of replacing my friends. Like I stopped hanging out with them. It was like a hard cut off, but he got me other friends who were believers who had similar experiences within a week or two. And so my social life became affiliated with Christ. And also we really wanted to pursue the Lord together. And what that meant for us was we, instead of hanging out late every night on the weekends, sometimes the weekdays, it was, we're going to go to the coffee shop in the morning when it opens and we're going to read our Bibles or read some Christian books. And I just, I was not a reader before then, but I just fell in love with the Bible and Christian truth and doctrine. And not exaggerated to say that we'd probably, I probably spend four hours every morning before school because we'd get there at five when it opened and the school started at nine, just reading stuff. Yeah. Going into 11th, started 11th grade.

Pablo (17:03)
10th grade, 11th reading four hours a day.

Reese (17:09)
It started with less, there was more chatting and then reading together, but yeah.

Ayo (17:13)
It's like the...

Reese (17:17)
Well, anyways, just was voracious reader because the truth was fascinating to me. Like, I just want this experience, it just happened to me and I want to learn everything about this Jesus and the Bible and I want to understand it. And there's a big looming question right after that too, which is like, okay, what church do I go to? There's all these denominations. What's the right one? I asked my mentor that and he didn't tell me, thankfully, like his church or something. He was just like, "It's a tough question." But I just had a lot of questions bubbling up as I was trying to understand the Bible. And I think by the end of high school, all that stuff was great, but also by the end of my senior year, I had lots of opinions about what the Bible was about.

David (18:01)
So do you.

Reese (18:02)
It was a lot of it, I'd be like with a couple of my friends that I'd mentioned earlier, but we'd kind of be all reading our own thing. Sometimes we'd be reading the same thing and have more fellowship about it. But I went from reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan, some classic Christian books and Bonhoeffer, to then a systematic theology book and Calvin and stuff like that. And so I, it's all great in a sense, but also like I said, made me super... I was a hardcore Calvinist by the end of high school and also was a firm believer in the charismatic movement and gifts of the spirit, you know, that they're active today. People are still doing healings and miracles and that kind of stuff. Not so much Pentecostal, but charismatic, because the nuance doesn't matter right now. But point is, I came to college full of my own opinions about what the Bible meant. And in college, I met some Christians who really helped me to understand what the Bible is actually talking about. Because I was picking out these kind of side doctrines and really honing them in. It's like, I meet with my buddies and it's like, "Hey, so do you realize God's will is the only will? Your will really isn't a factor." I've just been picking arguments with people with my Calvinism. Yeah, so darn. You know, that's not the central purpose that God is trying, the message he's trying to convey in the word. And I got a lot of help to see what is Christ, what is God trying to do today? And that just changed my life. It was like I just had this kind of puzzle pieces of the Bible. I knew some verses that supported my doctrines, but the full picture, I couldn't quite see it. And I just really got a lot of help to see these lines in the Bible, what it's talking about and what he's been doing from seed things that were little seeds planted in Genesis, and then they're picked up on throughout, and then Christ comes as the fulfillment of these things but they're still being taken all the dereliction. I just, I probably was in more Bible studies in college than in classes just cause it was fascinating to me. So anyways, I probably spent too much time on all this. College was awesome. There were some, it was ups and downs, but I feel like that's kind of a theme through it. And yeah, I also actually ended up going to kind of a post-grad Bible school after working for a bit. Almost was gonna go to Germany to be a missionary, serve the Lord there. That didn't end up working out, but I fully believe the Lord wanted me here where I'm now and that was years ago. And now I'm a happily married man and newly married man. Yeah, I think that's a good overview, I suppose.

Pablo (21:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Ayo (21:09)
One thing that you guys both mentioned, and I'm only going to ask you guys this just so the viewer knows, these two were podcasters as well at one point. And their podcast, which was called "What does the Bible say about that?", it's now "The Bible Podcast." Check it out on Apple. But your guys' podcast really helped me when I was a student.

David (21:30)
Oh gosh.

Ayo (21:37)
The truth that you guys enjoyed, you definitely gave it to me through those podcast episodes. But you guys both mentioned that fellowship in college gave you kind of a truth, some vision of the Bible that has ruled your life. And if it's needing having the bottom taken out from you or being opinionated but also kind of confused, what happened? You know, what truths, what part of the Bible is just so striking that you had these 180 changes?

Reese (22:19)
Yeah, there are lots of truths that really jumped out when you said that, but I think one specifically is kind of what I was hinting at earlier about the central focus of the Bible. There's lots of interesting doctrines and verses you can glean from the Bible. Is baptism via immersion or sprinkling? There's kind of a hint of sprinkling in Titus, but most of them seem like immersion in Acts and in Matthew. Or the predestination stuff—Romans 9 is a Calvinist's favorite chapter, but most confusing to anyone who's honest, I think. Yeah, realizing, so one of the truths that really stuck out to me was this thought that God's purpose is not to save sinners, period, as the central focus, just rescuing people from damnation, which really kind of was maybe my central truth. I mean, I talked a lot about predestination, but that was the core of the gospel to me. But realizing that God actually created man with a purpose in mind before he'd even sinned. And that purpose being his desire to be united to man, to have a relationship with man and to transform him into this creature that's not just an animal on a low plane, but someone that can be with him for eternity, to give us immortality, as Paul says, and eternal life. And realizing there's more than just the cross and my repentance to be saved. And like, now I should give money to church and be a good person to preach the gospel. God has something past the Golgotha that he wants to do in me. That was really transformative for me, not just understanding the Bible, but direction for my life. This is what I need to be doing, or I need to be involved in this somehow. Yeah.

David (24:12)
Yeah. Well, you know, the thing that, like I mentioned, the thing that I missed the step on the stairs was this question of meaning. And that touches on what Reese just said. One of the things that really touched me was that I had seen people that I had gone to church with who I knew had meaning in their life. And I thought I had meaning when I was doing all of these both academic—I like to emphasize that wasn't all just partying—but I thought they had meaning because their meaning is church and their meaning is God and that's wonderful, good for them. But my meaning is this other thing and that's fine. And when I suddenly had this realization that there is a terminus, there's a finite end date of any meaning that is derived from the earth, I realized that lasting meaning could only be with God, someone eternal. And so what I saw, and this is coming back to your question about truth, is I realized kind of retroactively, I had unconsciously registered, these people are touching the reality of some really high and common verses among us, you know, like Galatians 2:20 and Philippians 1, "For to me to live is Christ." And my spirit had kind of absorbed even without my conscious recognition that that person I see, he's full of meaning because Christ is his life. His life is not just for Christ; Christ has become his life. And so that's what the purpose of that person's existence is, the purpose of my existence. And my meaning is going to be unfulfilled and finite and temporal, and I'll just be chasing the next high until I accept this is the meaning. So yeah, the truth that we were created that Christ would fill us, He would become our life, He would become how we live, how we interact with one another would be Christ.

Pablo (26:47)
Wow, that's really good. Yeah, I wanted to go back to David and your testimony, the moment in Lubbock when you heard about Noah from those young believers there and what was the summary message from God in that moment? What do you think? You mentioned God speaking to you: "Are you here for me? Are you here for yourself or you're here for me?"

Ayo (26:49)
Now.

Pablo (27:17)
How has God built up on that revelation? Has there been more to that revelation that started there? And what do you think really God was hinting at there?

David (27:26)
Yeah, you know, well, I mean, so we look at Noah. God says, "Surely I'm to flood the earth, so build an ark for the preservation of yourself, your family and life." And that vision governed how Noah lived. So everybody else was doing something. I've often wondered—this might be off topic—was Noah still farming or what was he doing for food? I mean, it does mention 120 years. It's something. Yeah. But he was building the ark. So that was the purpose of Noah's life based on that vision. And that vision, certainly that would save Noah, but it was about preserving life on the earth.

Ayo (28:05)
The...

David (28:24)
Preserving the animals, preserving his family. So the thing that really spoke to me that God spoke to me—I, to be clear, this wasn't like an audible voice, but it was pretty clear in my spirit. Yeah, no, that's a Reese-level experience. But "Are you doing church for yourself? Are you going because it makes you feel like, well..."

Ayo (28:43)
Ha.

David (28:53)
"This is a thing that good people do and the fact that I do it means I'm a good person. This is a place where I have some community, some social interaction and people like to do that." Or are you doing this because I, God, am doing something? I want people who are building the ark. I want people who are living according to the vision of what I've said in the Bible, that I want a people. I want a church that represents me on the earth. So are you just among them? Are you just among the people that are living for that or are you living for that? I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah.

Pablo (29:34)
Wow. Yeah, that's good. I think maybe, I don't know all believers, but most believers have that moment. You find Christ, but eventually you find what is Christ after. Yeah, like it happened to me too. I don't know, this is about you, I don't want to share too much, but I was in the book of Ephesians and then I just realized after reading it and being in it years ago, I just realized, man, when you kind of take a peek in God's heart and you just see what's in his heart, it's all the church. I just realized it's every time the church. Right. There's something there, you know, he reveals himself to you, but when he wants to reveal something else it's the church. So anyways, how about you, Reese? Is there a moment when we went from Christ to what Christ wants?

Reese (30:26)
Yeah, well, I think I'll answer that. I think it's related. I feel like more believers, and this was certainly the case for me and with all of my friends and I would ask all the time, the typical question—and there's a famous book, I forget, like "The Purpose Driven Life," what's his name? Rick Warren? Yeah, Warren, yeah. Many Christians ask, "What is God's purpose for my life? What is God's will for my life? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to be a doctor? What college do I go to?" That was my question in high school. "What, you know, it's like, am I a missionary or this or that?" And the question never really dawned on me until it was kind of presented to me that like, what does God want? What is God interested in doing? And really once you figure that out, then it's a lot easier to figure out "What do I do now?" Like if I figure out God's interested in building a giant Ark on the earth, right? I should go help Noah. Yeah, well that's parts of this thing. That's a pretty simple... I can figure out God's will for my life. Whatever it is, that line over there. Yeah, cause if I'm like "the will for Noah is the ark" and I need to go farm, like I'm gonna be dead, you know? So I did have a moment in college, but it was just a whole change in the question I was asking, from "What is God's will for my life?" to "What is God interested in? What is he doing?" And the church being kind of the answer there, with a lot of nuance and details around that, but yeah.

Ayo (32:03)
I think one thing that's interesting is that you actually posed that question to me at one point. Yeah, it wasn't anyway, you just said, most people say, "What is God's purpose for my life?" But then you were like, "Let's rephrase, let's just edit that question. What is God's purpose?" Yeah. And I remember that, I was like, "What? I've never thought about that." Yeah, you know? But anyway...

David (32:23)
Stop.

Ayo (32:33)
So you guys saw something when you were in college and you guys both decided seminary, a Bible school, some kind of program to give yourself to the Lord and what He's doing. That was what the Lord was leading you to do at that point. But then you get to a point where you leave that program and now you're back with a greater sense of independence. What did those first years look like leaving the program, and how did the Lord continue to train you to hear his voice and know his will and follow where he was leading you?

David (33:15)
You know, yeah, you're right. It was a, you can use the word of the greater sense of independence. And that was definitely my experience. You know, for myself and also Reese, actually, we both came back to where we'd been before. We both came back to Austin. We'd come from here. And so there was definitely, you know, there was a lot of pre-existing, not necessarily negative things, but things that you know, relationships and people that you don't have the thought, like, "I didn't have the thought that I needed to check with God about. I know how to interact with this person, I know how to interact with this situation, because I've done it before." And that kind of, that is a, it's a real learning, it's ongoing learning for me. We need to be actively checking with God about everything, about how we interact with other people. Believe it or not, God, the sovereign one, has a plan for all of our interactions. It's a good thing he's infinite because there's a lot of interaction. God has an intention in how we interact with coworkers, with people around us, with our spouses.

Ayo (34:36)
But, but...

David (34:44)
And we can check with him or we can just try to operate on our own. And anyway, all that to say, that was a big point of learning. I had some failures when I first got back and I had some existential thoughts about why did I do this? I spent two years, I gave myself to the Lord and now I'm just as bad as I was before. I'm worse than anything. But I feel like that time, that adjustment from a kind of a structured environment, a specific consecration that I had given myself to be under, be for the Lord, and now to consecrate in a much broader environment. Really, in a sense, it's easier to consecrate yourself when you have a structure around you. But when you need to consecrate yourself and no one but you and the Lord are there to check on it, it takes more. It takes a deeper realization of what the Lord is doing. So that was something the Lord kind of worked on me in the first two or three years after I came back.

Reese (36:03)
Yeah. And I mentioned this briefly in my testimony part, but I was actually pretty—I was planning on going to Germany after I finished actually. And that was after, you know, the question "What does God want me to do? What's the deal for my life?" is still a legitimate question. Like building the Ark is not as clear as in Noah's day, right? Like where are we going to be doing the building and in what capacity? So after a lot of, you know, prayer and consideration and then fellowship with different Christians that I respected both here and in Germany that I'd gotten connected to, it just seemed like that was where the Lord was taking me. And so I just, like, it's a little kind of a scary thought transition. I know as much German as anyone who's done Duolingo for six months would know. And it's just like, I don't think—it wasn't like I'm excited and thrilled about a foreign adventure. It was like, that's where I felt like God wanted me, even though it wouldn't be comfortable or nice. But back to the thought of, like, what is God's will for himself? Once I think you're aligned with that, you have a clear understanding and controlling vision and revelation—"This is what it's all about"—then God's leading you in the little things, where you would be, what you would do, are less important, I suppose. Or even, you know, Paul, he led Paul to Jerusalem and he got imprisoned and then was stuck in Roman imprisonment for years. And it's like, was it God's will for him to go to Jerusalem? Like, well, he wrote, you know, Philippians and Ephesians, or maybe not Philippians, Colossians. Anyways, he, like, wrote some of the greatest books in the New Testament in that time. So I think all I'm trying to say is God is perfectly within his right to lead us down a road that causes us to be hit by an 18-wheeler. And like, if that was his will, the point is not getting to the destination; it's being in what God's doing on the earth. I felt like I was to go to Germany; a lot of things happened where that just became impossible. And it was really devastating for me for a while. But looking back on it now, just seeing the Lord's been able to do a much deeper work in parts of my soul that weren't open to him at the time. And also I got to meet my lovely wife in the meantime. So yeah, there's been a lot of learnings on my part of like, what does it actually mean to be in this, like, vision of what God's doing? It means a lot of suffering and a lot of, like, feeling like you're on the right way and then getting hit, and then God's doing his central work that whole time. And that's really what he's interested in, not putting me in the right country.

David (38:56)
Yeah. Yeah, you know, on that, just, you know, like you mentioned looking back, you're seeing the Lord was able to do so much stuff in you and obviously arrange for your dear wife. Yeah, for which we are very happy. You know, I have consistently been touched by two verses at the end of Genesis, you know, I'm gonna share, but it's, you know, so Jacob arrives in Egypt and he says—Joseph brings him before Pharaoh and says to him, you know, he introduces Pharaoh and Pharaoh kind of doesn't really seem to know what to say. So he says, "You know, how old are you?" And Jacob says, "You know, few and evil have been the days of my sojourn and they have not attained to the days of my fathers." But then in the next chapter, he is blessing the sons of Joseph and he says, "The angel, the God who has shepherded me all the days of my life until this day, bless the boys." And so, you know, we have this—in our daily experience, it may seem that we are in the few and evil, but we look back and we realize that that has been God's shepherding to us. He has shepherded us all of the days, including the ones we thought were few and evil were also God's shepherding to us. A lot of times we are stuck only in the present. And of course, we're finite. We're stuck in time. This is the thing that we can see and it sucks. We realize, and the Lord is building faith in us through our experiences, that...

Pablo (40:46)
Yeah.

David (40:53)
...in the midst of those things we are being shepherded. Anyway, I've always really appreciated that pairing of verses.

Pablo (40:56)
Yeah. Yeah. Sounds really good. And hot. Bye.

Ayo (41:04)
Yeah, I just, this came up in another podcast episode, but you know, really what I want to say is, like, you helped me a lot during those years when you felt like you were being hit by an 18-wheeler. And I heard before somebody told me, it's like, sometimes the Lord has a heart to gain the worker and even transform the worker. And that was your experience. But, you know, just like you said, while Jacob or Israel at the time said those days were evil, he was able to bless someone. I felt like you, you blessed me during my college years and I didn't know you were, like, suffering. It's the craziest thing. It was this experience when we were skiing. I don't know if you remember this. It was the first time I was skiing. My gosh, it was so bad.

Reese (41:59)
Oh yeah.

Ayo (42:04)
It was so bad, I kept falling, but Reese stayed. You stayed and you kept picking me up. I kept falling, you kept picking me up. Everyone else was just... "Yeah, go away." But that meant a lot to me because when I was at that trip, I felt like an imposter. Like I wasn't supposed to be there. And honestly, each time you picked me up, it felt like the Lord was saying, "Keep going. Like, these brothers will keep you going, they'll pick you up." But anyway, like... And then we had those Bible study stories at the end of my senior year about church history. And honestly, that set the course of my life. I saw that I'm in this, like, divine history. But in an earlier podcast, we said that, you know, you don't know what happens on the residual domino effect if you say yes to the Lord in the moment. But while he was gaining you, he was also gaining me too. And it was like, anyway. I'm just enjoying what you guys are sharing, but that's real. That's real.

Pablo (43:10)
You know, a lot of our viewers, I think a good number are in their early 20s, mid 20s, early 30s, you know, like you're finishing school and facing some decisions in life, you know. Three of which I just wanted to see if you have any experiences on these: where to live, who to marry, what job to take. You know, I saw these three.

Reese (43:30)
Austin, Texas and tech sales are the answers.

David (43:34)
They do, they are first in line.

Pablo (43:37)
Everyone move to us or not? Follow the Lord. But on these three topics, these truths that the Lord has revealed in your life along the way—who He is, what He's doing on the earth—how has the Lord, yeah, when you face these decisions where to live, where not to live, you know, how has the Lord been involved with these truths operating in you about what the Lord is doing?

Reese (43:57)
There's really, I don't think there's a simple answer because God exists outside of time and doesn't usually speak audibly to us. I think there's a couple of, like, key principles that have been, like, really central in my life when I'm trying to make those kinds of decisions. One of the first is, you know, the Lord—if we come to the Lord for these big decisions, and like, those are the main times we're kind of, like I mentioned the "creaster goer," we're kind of like that type of scenario for wanting to interact with God. Like, "I'll come to God when there's a big decision to be made" and then I'll put him to the side until the next one comes up. And a lot of times if you're that kind of a Christian, which I have been several times, it's like you find he's pretty mute at that point. Like, God's hiding himself from me. So I think a key for this is having a regular time with the Lord where we are getting these little speakings. And by "speaking," I mean, like, shining light on a verse in the Bible or putting someone on your heart when you're praying to then pray for them and like learning to—because God, in my experience, isn't usually audible and clear, but there's, like, a sense within when there's light shining and there's just direction where it's like, I have—there's a verse in Romans that it's called—Paul talks about a life in peace as, like, a guiding principle. So learning to kind of get this sense with the Lord in our regular mundane lives really helps with the bigger decisions later.

David (45:36)
Yeah, I mean, totally agree. You know, it's just on your point, it's important to remember that the Lord himself is a person. And if, you know, if I have a—you know, if I only speak to you when I need something, it's going to, you know, that might make me feel a little used. Yeah. So, you know, I—well, I won't expose too much about my courtship with my now dear wife. But, you know, I felt that the Lord was putting this person on my heart. And I did not—I didn't know what to do. So I did one thing and I went and I shared with a brother that I was very close with. I said, "Hey brother, this, I don't know what this means. I mean, this is, you know, she's younger than me. She's—my wife is five years younger than me." And you know, that's, you know, I'm 26, she's 21. That's a big gap right now. I mean, now that I'm thirty-six and she's thirty-one, it doesn't feel the same, but... At school at the time, yes, she was young. Yeah, she was—had just completed her junior year. You know, I mean, still got a year of school. This is not the regular timing of things. What is happening here at Texas? Right. But so anyway, I shared with this brother that I was very close with and I said, "I don't know what to do." I like—and I kind of expected him to say, "Yeah, you should stop thinking about that." But what he said was, "We should pray about this." So we prayed and then he said, "Now you need to pray by yourself a lot." And so and then I did this and I—later on I said, "You know, it's been this period of time I've been praying. I still feel this way about this woman." And he said—well, we met again. We prayed again. And he said, "You know, really, we're just doing what John says." So John, in his epistle, he tells us that—he says that "I'm writing to you because I want you to have fellowship with me," with the John, the writer. And he says, "And indeed our fellowship is with the Father." So he was—this brother kind of without giving me the background was bringing me into this simultaneous fellowship where I'm connecting to God personally, but I'm also connecting to God through the other believers. And so there's a fellowship between us, there's a fellowship between God and myself, and then together we're going to God. So a lot of times in my experience, this is how the Lord speaks is when we involve, kind of, all of these aspects of both his speaking through himself, the head directly to us, and his speaking through the other members. You know, of course, we should be, you know, wise about who we open our situations to, of course, but I—

Pablo (49:03)
No.

David (49:13)
In my experience, a lot of times the Lord has, in a sense, it's like He's reserved His feelings, held back His response until I've been open with at least one other member. Because, you know, God's view is that we, His church, are a corporate body. There is a relatedness between the members. And if I could get, you know, all my answers just from the head, then I would never need to bring the real me, the real situation to the other brothers. And so the Lord in this way, I feel that he is waiting for us in many cases to open things to him directly and then to open them to a member of his body also and to pray together in that way. I mean, I'm not trying to make a method out of this, but this has been my experience. You know, one more smaller example: I took a promotion at work several—a couple years ago now. And I was really kind of hesitant about it because the job, the lower position I had, had given me a kind of a shortened schedule so I could really—I had a whole day on Mondays where I could be with the brothers and, you know, get into the word, pray. And it was great. And I would have to give that up to take this other position. And I opened it to a group that was meeting at my home at that time every Tuesday night. And I said, "You know, this position—I think I'm going to get it if I apply for it." You know, and we prayed together and nobody said, "Well, you should definitely do it" or "You should definitely not do it." But afterwards, I—after our prayer, I had some peace. Like you said, I had a feeling of peace as I considered the position. I considered the application. I just had this feeling of peace, like, "Go forward, do it." And I really took that as the Lord's answer through the prayer of this group that I was close with.

Reese (51:15)
I want to add to the—because that reminded me of an experience I had when I was working after college before going to the Bible program. And I just got this—the sweetest job out of college. Like, it wasn't a glamorous job when I got it, but then we got acquired. There's all this growth. And then I was able to get promoted really quickly to where I was doing really well. And but I committed to like, I want to go to this program once I've paid off my student loans. And it was like eight months into the job, I paid off the loans. It was like, done, I'm free to go. And there's a verse, I think it's in Jeremiah—correct me if I'm wrong—where it says "The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it?" And so I just appreciate what David said. Like, being in Christian community and with brothers and sisters that we can pray with and be held accountable with is crucial because our heart is easily deceived and deceives us. Because there is the Lord in our being that—he has the ability to speak to us, but we also have this evil fleshly heart that he's trying to transform that can be deceiving us. So I have this great job and then all of these excuses come up. "You know, if I work another year, I could pay my way through this program myself and have a little bit stored up. Why wouldn't I do that?" Like it makes sense to just—even though I committed like, "Once my loans are paid, I'm gone." The love of money is a root of all evil, right? And I was saying this noble reason how I would use this job for the next year, but really I just liked making money. And I was with this brother who I had been fellowshipping with this whole time and just—he was able to speak kind of a frank word to me that made it really clear and, like, shine light into my deceitful heart. And it was done and I quit the job, went, and the Lord was very gracious to give me a little outward sign in this moment because that company got acquired by a private equity group and the whole Austin office was gone in two months after I quit. It was just like the Lord. I think he did that just for my sake to show me, "Yeah, you should follow the spirit." Wow.

Pablo (53:36)
Good. So do you have a—like if you're going through a situation that needs some fellowship, you have a go-to person that—you have a person that, this brother or a...? Yep. Yeah? Yeah.

David (53:47)
For sure.

Reese (53:48)
It's changed over the years. Sure. There's always a list.

Pablo (53:51)
Find that so good that you have someone that immediately comes to head that you can think of going to. What would you say to a young believer who maybe doesn't have someone, you know, maybe is a, you know, Sunday go to church and it's just there and maybe parents are not believers or whatever and they don't have someone? Well, how would you or...

Ayo (54:07)
Or they even find it hard to open up. I don't know if you guys were like that at one point where it was hard to open up, but like what tips do you have? Because if you don't have that fellowship, you're living like a 50% Christian life, you know? But anyway.

Pablo (54:22)
Our fellowship is with one another and with the father, like...

David (54:24)
Yeah, David said...

Reese (54:28)
I'll just briefly say, I've always found it more helpful to fellowship with someone who's a little bit older than me, who's a little more experienced and seems to have been around the block a time or two with the Lord. There's just a lot of, like, wisdom and rich, like, deposits of the spirit. Saints that God's been working in for years, you know? And a lot of times it's a lot easier to approach them—like, going to a fellow believer and, like, opening up, that was always harder to me—but like going to my youth minister in high school or, you know, someone who's kind of more in a mentor role. It was always like, they're looking for that. Like, they want to shepherd Christians. So I think that's a great place to start.

David (55:12)
Yeah, I mean, my first thought when you were talking about—it's really good—it's really good to bring that matter to the Lord. You know, if you are—I mean, I know it seems like a cop-out answer to say that you should pray about it, but in reality, this is, you know, that's certainly this is something the Lord wants. You know, we see throughout especially the writings of Paul the emphasis on the body and of the other members, of considering the other members. You know, in Corinthians he talks about this, in Philippians he talks about this. And he says—so this is definitely on God's heart. And I would say if you, if you offer a prayer like this, "Lord, who can I be joined to? Lord, give me someone else that I can pray with," certainly that is something, that's a prayer God is really excited to answer. But, and you know, how can you open to someone? Well, I mean, certainly I—it's I have—that's something I struggle with even to the present, but one of the things that really helps me is, like, the brother I was thinking about—I don't say who that is—but the brother who I was thinking about, I know that whatever I share with him is—he's going to take seriously. Yeah. And he's going to pray about it. So knowing that the—knowing the other person that you're speaking to has this kind of view that our lives should be for Christ and the church, means that whatever you bring to them is—that's how they're going to take it, is that they're going to pray about it. They're going to take it seriously and they'll pray in a way that will join your problem to the Lord and his supply, the Spirit, the supply of the Spirit to you and your situation.

Pablo (57:19)
Yeah, that's really good. Just I agree with, you know, both of your points. Reese, someone older to me, that's so true. You know, has to be someone has more experience. And then to pray about it. I feel that, you know, one of you mentioned that, you know, when you go to the Lord and it's only when you have needs, it's—yeah, you almost get a non-response, right? I feel like with members of the body is the same thing. You don't just want to go. Yeah, right. You want to be known by someone in a way that is continual. I have this practice: whenever there's a conference at church or something, I always find this brother and I just have a meal with him or something. Just so that whether there's something going on or not—sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't—there's still just a continual fellowship. He just knows me, he sees my face, he's like, "Okay." And then when something's going on, then it's not as awkward, you know, to bring something up. So I think anyway, I find that. I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for those relationships that you guys are mentioning.

Ayo (58:19)
You guys both mentioned something in your decision-making that might be foreign to the viewer. But when people are making decisions, they usually make a pros and cons list. They might make a cost-benefit analysis, you know, matrix, or they might look at the risks, their assumptions and all these things. But you guys talked about having peace. What is—what does that mean? Where—where did that term come from?

Reese (58:48)
I was reminded when you were saying the pro-con list, there's a verse in—David, you can keep me honest here. I think it's in 2 Corinthians. It's either that or First. I think it's Second, but Paul is talking about—maybe it's somewhere else—but he's talking about how there was a door opened to him in Macedonia, meaning like God has opened up an avenue for the gospel to be preached. Then it says—Paul says, "But I had no peace." He said, "No peace in my spirit" because Titus, my brother, had not come yet to give news about the Corinthians. But the point is, like, environmentally the right move was to go forward into Macedonia and preach the gospel. But Paul inwardly in his spirit, it says, had no peace. And so I think that, yeah, the practical list building, which I am guilty of doing that all the time. And it's actually really smart to do in practical situations, but with the Lord, it doesn't always work. But there's like a—it's hard to describe. When you feel it or you know it, you know it. Peace is just a sense of like, "I, you know, I'm at peace." I mean, people know peace. You can be praying about something. And I think it's also helpful—sorry, there's another verse that comes to mind where, when Paul is going into Europe for the first time, I think it's in Acts 16. It says he was going into, I think, Asia and the spirit stopped him. He was going into, you know, somewhere else and the spirit—did it just prevent him? It's like Paul was moving, but the Lord was able to stop him. He was on the move, but responsive. He wasn't just praying in a room until he got an answer. It's like, as we move, as we're doing, going in a direction, there needs to be a continual kind of conversation with the Lord. We're talking about like—we're always in an open fellowship with Him so that whenever we feel that sense of lack of peace—maybe that's easier to feel than peace, is the lack of peace—then you know, "I'm off course, I need to turn, the Lord's turning me." The Lord can move a boat, right? That's moving. You turn it, that's moving. Yeah. The static boat's really difficult to turn.

Pablo (1:01:06)
Yeah, we do.

David (1:01:07)
You know, I kind of have a logjam of different things I want to say, but, you know, for the sake of time—you know, I really appreciate this definition of peace. So 2 Thessalonians 3:16, Paul concludes that—that epistle with—he says, "Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace continually in every way. The Lord be with you." And you know, their peace is—it's linked to the presence of the Lord. So when we experience, just like Reese was saying, when we're taking the step, we know if the Lord is with us or not by the turmoil in us or the complete lack of it. When we sense the stillness, that's a real indication the Lord is with us. The Lord of peace is with us. You know, just an interesting story along with the door in Second... First group? Second group? Second group. That Titus bit got me. You know, in Mark 1, the Lord has this—you know, he's in a village, he's doing—he does a miracle. And then he rises up very early while it was still night. He went out and went away. And Simon and those with him hunted for him and they found him and said to him, "All are seeking you." And you know, you would think, "This is such a great, Jesus, this is the thing, didn't you come to—for the people to see you?" But the Lord—the Lord went away and he prayed and he said—after he prayed, he said, "Situation's great, but we have to go." He said to them, "Let us go elsewhere into the nearby towns that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I came out." And so, you know, we don't follow God according to the environment. We follow God according to his speaking. You know, I can't tell you why the Lord did not stay where he was and preach to the whole town that was seeking him. This was great. Peter hunted for him. I like that verb. But the Father told him, "We need to go to another village." And the Lord just said, "That's right. That's what we're gonna do." So in our—in all of our choices, we need to—you know, we need to consider, like we were talking about, the fellowship, the prayer, the peace, the feeling that the Lord is satisfied with our choice. And you know, the environment is the environment. The Lord—it's very easy for the Lord to change the environment so easily. He's God. The thing that he won't intervene on is the human heart. For him to just, you know, uproot, you know, to say to the—so easy. Yeah, so easy. So easy. He's the creator. But for—He has said, "I'm not going to command the human heart to love me." Wow. So that is the thing that we need to—that is the thing that he is waiting on: for our choice to live.

Reese (1:04:29)
Yeah.

Pablo (1:04:30)
I like this point of peace. I think it's so sweet for us to learn to do things guided by peace. I wonder if this is related to this question on peace that you shared with us on a call we had earlier. At one point you were considering moving to another city to strengthen the community of the church there. And eventually you didn't go or something like that. Was there this peace experience there? Like having or not having peace? And that experience you shared a little bit about your experience.

David (1:04:45)
Yeah. Yeah, you know, we—my wife and I—we had been—we prayed for a while about this matter about—you know, the church community here in Austin is really strong. You know, there's a specific city that we knew that had, you know, a much smaller group and that—you know, could we go? I mean, you know, we have some flexibility. And you know, we went and visited, and you know, we—as we were—before we were going, as we were there, we of course were praying together and we prayed with the believers there as well. And of course, they, you know, they wanted us to come. You know, they said, "You know, we can't tell you, you know, it has to be from—from the head." And you know, we got back—we felt very strongly that we needed to go and visit. And when we got back, I—I didn't—I didn't really have any feeling to go. And I wondered, "You know, is this just my choice? Is this, like, my personal preference is to stay where I am and I'm not allowing the Lord to speak?" But we continued to pray. And you know, I was really confirmed by my wife having the same feeling: that we had—we definitely needed to go. We wouldn't have peace until we visited there. But once we—once we came back, we just had peace to remain where we are. And in a sense it's kind of like, did the Lord have us go? That's not my business. But we went and we had peace to be there, we had peace to come back, we have had peace to remain in Austin. So that's, you know, one of the things that I—and I know we're short on time here, but I love this verse—and another verse in Genesis—about the matter of that they are going to get Rebecca. And the servant there says, "You know, I'm taking her back." And then Laban—Laban, he says—he says, "The matter, the thing is from Jehovah. We cannot answer you good or bad." And this is really our—this is how we make choices in the Christian life, as we realize if this is of God, it's not a matter of...

Pablo (1:07:01)
Yeah, isn't that...

David (1:07:21)
...right and wrong, yes or no; it's a question of "Is it of God or is it not?"

Pablo (1:07:25)
Amen. Yeah, that's—and God is expressed by peace and right. Yeah. Wow. Well, I think we're almost there. Huh. Time. Yeah. Should we do these questions, these last questions quick? Your—your fire questions?

David (1:07:30)
Yeah.

Ayo (1:07:39)
We like to end each episode with a few rapid-fire questions. So just the first thing that comes to mind—I'll just try to get through it really quickly—but favorite book in the Bible and why.

Reese (1:07:52)
I'll go with 2nd Corinthians.

Ayo (1:07:55)
I have not heard that. Okay, cool.

Reese (1:07:57)
It's, like, the most autobiographical kind of book, a lot of in-depth stuff about Paul's life. And my favorite verse, chapter eight, verse nine, is in there. Okay. You're never going to look it up afterwards.

Ayo (1:08:09)
That was going to be the second question. You ruined it, but anyway.

David (1:08:13)
Yeah, I'll go—I'll go John. Just the depth of what is revealed about the Lord. You know, the re-editing—if you just read through John 17, viewers out there, just read through John 17 prayerfully, and it—I mean, woof, what a one chapter. All right. And the next one is the verse. Yeah.

Ayo (1:08:36)
Favorite verse in one. Gosh.

David (1:08:39)
I mean, I already know what was coming, yeah.

Reese (1:08:43)
Parallel—yours is John 17.

David (1:08:46)
No, I mean, the thing is, can't say I understand John 17. You know, I don't know what all—I'm stalling here. Yeah, probably 1 Corinthians 1:30. "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus." Yeah.

Reese (1:09:02)
So.

Pablo (1:09:03)
Wonderful, deep verse. Whoa, brothers, thank you so much. Wow, what's up? Day nine. What does it say?

Ayo (1:09:07)
What's your favorite?

Reese (1:09:08)
The verse I had about 2nd Corinthians talks about, like, definition of grace, of Christ who, being rich, became poor, you know, that we might become rich in him. When the big question is, what was he rich in prior that we're becoming rich in now?

Ayo (1:09:26)
One.

Pablo (1:09:27)
For that, go to his podcast. We're gonna put a link in the description so you can listen to that answer. But anyways, it's been great to have you, brothers. It's been very much a reason. And anyways, follow us, comment, like, and we'll be back next week with another episode. Smash the subscribe button, like Reese said. All right. Thank you for joining us today.

Reese (1:09:38)
Thanks for the invite.

Pablo (1:09:52)
Don't forget to hit that like button, subscribe, and leave us a comment below. We love chatting with you guys.

Ayo (1:09:58)
We've got so much more content and powerful testimonies coming your way. So follow us on our socials and until next time, stay safe. Keep speaking about the words of this life.

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