March 11, 2024 • 54 mins
Join Granger in this podcast episode as he delves into a perspective that may be often overlooked in the realm of personal development: the transformative power of God's spirit within us. Should we be reframing our conversations about self-improvement and growth to acknowledge that change isn't solely driven by individual effort, but rather by the divine force working through us? Join the conversation as we explore this spiritual dimension to personal development, a perspective that is rarely emphasized but holds profound implications for our journey of self-discovery.
If you find yourself at a crossroads or yearning for guidance in matters of the heart and personal growth, this segment is sure to resonate. Join me as we embark on a thoughtful exploration of life's twists and turns, seeking answers to timeless questions about love, identity, and the transformative power of faith.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Be better and quit your evil desires and lean on
your own ability. What's up, everybody, Welcome back to the podcast.
Glad you're here. Let's talk about some stuff. I answer
your email. Podcast at grangersmith dot com is the place
(00:25):
to email, and you could ask me anything you want.
We'll walk through it like the cab of a truck
or sitting around a campfire. And there's no boundaries on this.
I don't always have the right answer. I want it
to be more of a conversation. So what I mean
is I don't have like a list. I haven't prepared
these questions. I don't have a list in front of
me that has good, you know, witty answers. I don't
(00:46):
have a bunch of quotes. We're just gonna We're gonna
have a conversation. So let's have a conversation. First question
comes from to coda and the subject client says, correct
me if I'm wrong parentheses. God's spirit not talked about. Hey,
grangeer Mo. Name is Dakota from Iowa. Excuse me, Ohio.
(01:10):
I've listened to like a River in chapter seven and eight.
There is something very special about that to me. I
used to think that in order to get closer with God,
I would have to do all the right things, and
I would have to stop having fun, and that would
make me to be a lukewarm Christian all the more.
(01:31):
My question is this, should we be talking more about
how it's not us individually that can change ourselves, but
instead God's spirit inside of us that does the changing.
I feel like that is a I rarely hear it
preached that way. It's usually preached to be better and
quit your evil desires, leaning on all human ability, but
(01:54):
nothing on our full surrender and the power of God's spirit.
Ps After being re born, I now read the Bible
every night and cannot stop. Only God did this to me.
Praise him. Yeah, okay, great question to Coda, and yeah,
I agree with you that it's it's it's not preached
that way. It typically is be better and quit your
(02:19):
evil desires and lean on your own ability. It's not
said in those exact ways, but that's a lot of
times that's the intention that people preach. It's hey, man,
you gotta you gotta do this and this and this,
you got to stop doing this. Okay, there's a lot
of nuanced nuance to this and this that really could
(02:40):
take the whole podcast, and it's a good question, but
it could really take the whole podcast to walk through
this what what's happening. There's a couple of things that's happening.
One like me, your testimony, this is your ps here
after being reborn, I now read the Bible every night
and cannot stop. And you're surprised by this, saying, only
(03:02):
God did that to me, And that's my story too.
It's like, man, I was dead. God raised me from
the dead spiritually, and now I crave things of him
and only God did that. That's what you're saying. That's
where you agree with me. And you used to think
that in order to get closer to God you would
(03:23):
have to do all the right things and stop having fun.
That's a key thing right there, stop having fun, right
That's I'll come back to that. And then this whole idea.
Your main argument here is this idea that should we
be talking more, talking more about how it's not us
(03:44):
individually that can change ourselves, but instead God's spirit inside
of us that does the changing. And then you say,
I really hear it preached that way, So you know
where I'm coming from, and I know where you're coming
from from And the problem is the problem with your
argument really is that the Bible says both. It says
(04:10):
clearly that is it is God who does the changing.
Clearly it is the spirit. And the flesh is of
no help at all. So the Bible says, and we
were dead in our trespasses made alive in Christ. If
anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold,
(04:33):
the old has passed away and the new is here.
So we could read an Ezekiel about the valley of
the of the dry bones, and I think about this
a lot. How God made bones and this is this
is this is the analogy he gives to Ezekiel, essentially,
(04:55):
and Ezekiel saw this. He makes dead, dry bones alive,
and that is you know, he puts flesh on bones.
And that is really a spiritual analogy to us that
we don't do it. John six is a really interesting
chapter with this John six, Jesus is walking through some
(05:19):
difficult teaching and a lot of people start leaving him,
and there's these grump there's everyone's grumbling like, man, we're
gonna leave this guy. We're going to leave this teacher.
And Jesus doesn't appear to be desperate to save them
or desperate to keep them listening. He's like, my sheep
will hear my voice. In fact, that's in John ten.
(05:41):
John ten, he makes it's the big Shepherd analogy. He
is the great Shepherd, and he is the gate, and
he my sheep will hear my voice, and I will
lose not one of them. And so take ten and
six of John these chapters and kind of walk through them,
and you'll see that Jesus has no intention of convincing anyone.
(06:03):
He says all that the Father give me will come
to me, and whoever comes to me, whoever comes to me,
and will never cast out. And then you have to
contrast that to an equal amount of teaching in the
Bible that shows human responsibility to respond and repent to
the gospel. So here's the nuance. We are. We have
(06:30):
a human responsibility to respond and repent to the Gospel,
and we are held accountable one hundred percent to that responsibility.
Right but once you have responded, and whoever comes, whoever,
whoever believes, who is that granger, whoever believes? So might
(06:56):
that be you listening right now? It's whoever believes, he
will never cast out for God, God so little, God
so loved the world, that whoever believes in him right.
So there's a lot of there's a lot of whosoevers,
there's a lot of whoever there's there's a lot of
everyone who believes in the Bible. But once again, this
(07:21):
is this, This is an entire conversation we could have
on a podcast, and trust me, I love it and
I have this conversation quite a bit. But we are
not capable of responding unless the spirit awakens us. And
then we're not capable of living out these good works
on our own, the good stuff that you said in
(07:41):
your email, stop doing all the bad things and do
all the good things. We're not capable of stopping the
bad things and doing the good things without being enabled
by the spirit. But there is a nuance there that
it's it's I've said this before in a sermon. It's
it's like a imagine a butterfly that comes out of
its cocoon. And the reason we encourage each other and
(08:04):
there's something about telling each other to do this, and
don't do that, do this, don't do that. It would
be like telling a butterfly, an old butterfly telling a
new butterfly. Hey, stop eating leaves on those branches, on
those twigs, hanging out on the twigs. I think I said,
with all those caterpillars, you are made for so much
(08:28):
more right. And by the way, that craving you have,
that's not for twigs and leaves anymore, that craving that
you can't really describe. Let me tell you what that is.
That's for nectar. And you need to be in the
garden drinking this nectar. And those things you have on
(08:48):
your arms that used to be used to have caterpillar arms,
but now you get these big things. Those are wings
and you could fly, and in fact, that's how you
get to the flowers. You use those wings and you fly,
you drink nectar. So that's a Christian, an older Christian
telling a younger Christian, don't do this. Do this. But
(09:08):
you know what I like about this butterfly analogy that
I'm made up is that if you would think of
it in terms of stop doing things that you love,
like hanging out on twigs, and start to do things
you hate, like drink nectar. And in that scenario, you
have no idea what nectar. Nectar is so much better
than twigs. Nectar is so much better than dry leaves.
(09:32):
Stop hanging out with caterpillars. Spread your wings and see
where the real fun is. The real joy is in
on the flower, the nectar. That is the sweetest thing
you could have. You just don't know it yet. So
I say it in that way because it is really
never about stop having stop having so much fun, and
(09:54):
live a boring life of obedience to God. Because you see,
just like butterfly that doesn't know about nectar yet, that
obedience is not made to be your prison. It's made
to set you free. It's made to live in your
created purpose, and that is where the joy is. Matthew thirteen.
(10:17):
I say this parable all the time. The Kingdom of
Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field that a
man finds and covers up. Then in his joy, he
goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
That's tough selling all you have in that scenario for
that parable, It would be tough selling it. But the
joy that he had and the treasure in the field
is so much greater that it doesn't matter anymore. You
(10:39):
see what I mean, that's the nectar above these little
leaves that you used to have as a caterpillar. So
long story short to wrap this up, we have a
human responsibility to respond, and God sovereignly chooses. Those two
things are like two parallel lines that intersect only in heaven.
They both and that is most evident at the Cross
(11:03):
where God predestined Jesus to go to the cross. God
the Father predestined Jesus the Son, to go to the
cross to die for sin. That was always the plan
of redemption, to reconcile God himself to his people. That
was always the plan. But humans have a responsibility for
(11:27):
sending Jesus, the Son of God, to die. They are
guilty of murder. To be held responsible is all on
humanity for killing the son of God. And yet it
was always planned by God. So if you don't believe
in one of those two things I just said, you're
literally not a Christian. If you don't believe it was
(11:49):
man's responsibility for the murder of Jesus, you're not a Christian.
If you don't believe that God predestined the death of
Jesus and had it always planned, you're not a Christian.
Those two things work together in a missious way. The
Bible teaches both. It also teaches our responsibility to respond,
and it teaches that God sovereignly chooses and saves. It
(12:10):
is all the spirit. The flesh is of no help
at all. All that the Father gives me will come
to me, and whoever comes to me I'll never cast out.
These are all truths that exist together. And let me
wrap it up by saying one last thing. If I
were to die today and God said, why should we
(12:32):
let you in? The only answer I have is you shouldn't.
I'm undeserving to be in the presence of God. But
because you provided away through your son Jesus, I've believed
in him, so I would lean first on. It's all
(12:52):
you God, before I ever said, aren't you so happy God?
That I responded and made this decision. I'll leave it
at that long time ago I started grangersmith dot Com.
When I say a long time ago, I'm talking decades ago.
(13:12):
Started grangersmith dot com for the purpose of mainly tour
dates and you know, getting my music out there. And
the last thing that was on my mind really was
selling merch or much less. How in the world do
you sell merch like practically? How does that work physically?
How do people click on something and then end up
buying something and it charges their credit card? Well, you know,
(13:34):
fast forward all these years and now I have ye
Ye apparel. Literally, that's what we do from Yee dot
com is sell apparel, and we do that by using Shopify. See.
Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell
at every stage of your business, whether it's from the
launch your own online shop stage or the first real
(13:56):
life store stage to do we just hit a whole
bunch of orders stage. Shopify is there to help you grow,
whether you're selling scented soap or outdoor apparel like we are,
Shopify helps you sell everywhere. Basically, they are an all
in one e commerce platform, so it does all the
work for you and selling whatever product you want. They
(14:19):
have a really good way of turning browsers into buyers too.
They have they have the internet's best converting checkout that's
thirty six percent better on average compared to the other
leading commerce platforms. That's really good that you could sell
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Magic that is your AI powered all star. Look. I'm
the first to admit I'm not a techie person. I
(14:41):
can't program code. I'm just not the kind of guy
to do that. I am the guy to go, hey man,
this is a good hoodie or this is a good
hat for fall fishing, you know, But I don't want
to get into the nitty gritty of how do I
actually make the program to do this. And that's why
Shopify has been so great for me and Tyler and Parker,
my brothers. For so many years. Shopify powers ten percent
(15:05):
of all e commerce platforms in the US, and so
it's not just me. They have millions of entrepreneurs of
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Shopify's award winning help is there to support your success
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(15:25):
trial period at shopify dot com slash granger all lowercase.
Go to shopify dot com slash granger right now to
grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify
dot com slash granger. Next question, the subject line says
easy question. I'm up for that. It says, hey Granger.
(15:47):
My name is Ava and I'm from Allendale, Michigan. We
haven't met before, but I hope you come and speak
at our church in the future. My question is this,
I'd like to stop for a second and thank you
for being so kind and honest. I admire how you
genuinely care for others and are striving to be more
like Jesus, but I love that you also encourage others
(16:10):
to do the same. I read your book and I
want to thank you for being so vulnerable. Many of
those reading Like a River are people that you've never
met or barely know, and I hope you realize the
amount of lives you've influenced. That God, God did that.
I have a pretty open ended question, but I'm curious
when do you think a person is ready to date?
(16:32):
And can you elaborate as to when you think I
should date? Sorry, I have a little bit trouble reading
your question, but I think I get the gist of it.
And then you say, what should be seen in a
guy as well as a gal? What should be seen
in a guy as well as a gal? Okay, Ava,
(16:54):
thank you, thank you for emailing, And once again, it's
a good question and probably could be a question I
answer on an entire episode to talk nothing but about this,
but dating really is only the purpose of getting married.
(17:16):
That is the only purpose of dating, and there is
no other purpose of dating. You can't make an argument
that I would believe if you said there is a
purpose of dating and it ends up being good, it
only ends up hurting you in some way, And you
could say it this way, it only ends up hurting
you in more ways than it ever is helpful to date,
(17:37):
and to date a bunch of people, and to date
a bunch of people for a long periods of time.
That's really what we're talking about here. I'm not talking
about going to have coffee, going on a few dates,
learning that that person is not for you and you
move on. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about
you have declared each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and you
(17:57):
are officially going steady and months are going by. That's
what I'm talking about, And I think that's what this
question is. When are you ready to do that? So
maybe we should say the first scenario, maybe we should
call it courting. Like courting is getting to know someone
(18:19):
in preparation to decide if you're going to marry them.
And that's fine, and you should do that obviously, But
what hurts us is the long term dating, and I
don't think there's any reason for it at all. Like
I said, if you sit here in this blue chair
(18:40):
across from me, I think we could have a great discussion.
But I don't think there is a single argument of
why it's better to date a lot of people for
long periods of time and then get married later. I
probably met some people mad with that, that's okay. I
firmly believe that. So a long time ago and for
most of humanity, there were arranged marriages, and you know what,
(19:06):
surprisingly for our twenty twenty four brains to understand, arranged
marriages worked pretty well. They were, you know, two families
decided that these two people should come together, and it
just really proves the fact that they were so successful
for so many years. And of course there's bad examples,
(19:26):
of course, of course, but I think the reason they
were so successful for so many years proves to us
that love, really wholly is a decision. Who l y fully,
it's a decision, it's not. It's not some mystical spiritual feeling.
(19:47):
This Pixie starred us cupid stuff that happens to us.
And I've talked about this before and I don't want
anyone to think I'm not romantic, because that's anyone that
knows me, and my realation with the Amber would say, no,
that's not the case at all. I love Amber passionately.
And I'm trying to make a point here that on
(20:09):
those arranged marriages, and there was so much success in
that because eventually, no matter who you're dating, you have
to decide that you love them, and you have to
decide past the butterflies and your belly that say, oh,
I'm like, I'm so attracted to this person. And once
(20:29):
you get past that and hard days set in or
the newness wears off, then you rely on the decision,
just like you make when you say your vows and
you say through sickness and through health, rich and poor,
you better or worse. That's a decision. When you say
vowels like that traditional vows, you're saying, I decide, not
(20:55):
my heart, not my gut, not my feeling, not my spirit.
I decide that for better or for worse. I'm sticking
with you. That's what that means. It's a decision based
on your brain. Your brain, your cerebral cortex makes a decision,
goes I decide right now, and I make a vow
to you, I make a promise to you, a covenant
(21:17):
with you. Let's pinky swear, let's shake hands on this
that I will stick with you for better, if for worse.
It's crazy if you think of it that way. How
many people decide that they don't want to do that anymore.
I'm backing out of this. You're not living up to
what you promised, and so I'm going to back out
(21:38):
of what I promised. Last week I had Marv Miller,
a pastor, a Mennonite pastor. And it's interesting as we're
talking about the Mennonite culture, because divorce really doesn't exist
in that culture. They don't have a superior culture to
anyone else. And he would be the first to admit
(22:00):
that they don't have superior marriages to all other cultures.
That's not what he's trying to say. It's more about
in that culture, they make a decision and they stick
with it. Imagine that they decide, we're not going to
accept divorces as a natural course of what we do.
(22:23):
We're gonna make this this thing we call marriage something
we actually stick with. We're going to do it regardless
of what happens regardless of sickness, regardless of if this
person is not serving me that the way that I
wanted them to. You know me me, I want this,
I want this, and they're not doing it. And if
(22:43):
both of you thought of it in that way, then
it's a great marriage. And so back to this question
about dating, when do you think it's appropriate to start dating?
I don't think that. I don't think you expected this
long answer from me on this, but it's really interesting
if we think of it in terms of this dating.
This courting is just it's really just to see are
(23:04):
you attractive to me? Could we have good conversations? Do
you love Jesus like I do? Because that's a major
problem If you don't. All kinds of implications will happen
if you don't, These all kinds of religious fallout. What
do we do with the kids? What are we doing
on Sunday mornings? That's just a given a presupposition. I
(23:25):
hope that that's understood. You love Jesus or I could
also make the argument, or you don't love Jesus because
I don't, right, because if you do and I don't,
that's another problem, but a different question, different discussion. But
I think you get my point. You need to be
on the same page. They're not a project. They have
(23:46):
good references. I'm not saying they have great parents, or
they've brought they were brought upright, or they have a
lot of money. That's not what I mean. I mean
there are people around them in their lives that go,
this person is truly a good person for you. So
you've got references. So it's not just all on you. You've
guarded your heart. You're not just diving in and going
(24:09):
head over heels and you haven't really thought about it
with a clear brain. So those are things the courting
process should do. But I'm against dating long term. So
whatever that means to you, I'm assuming Ava that you're
pretty young and you're like Grangeer. I didn't want all that.
I just really wanted to know I'm fourteen and when
(24:31):
can I start dating. I'm thinking that that's more about
what this is about. And so the reason I kind
of set it up with all that is a little
bit of a fatherly aspect to this, because I have
a girl, a little girl that's twelve it she'll be
thirteen in October, and dating is not going to be
(24:52):
a thing in our house unless you're with a group,
and whatever you want to call it, you can call
it whatever you want. But unless you're in a group
of of several people, there's not going to be one
on one dating while you live here. And it's kind
of like the last question. We're talking about telling me
things I don't want to do, and I got to
(25:14):
give up what I love and do what I don't
want to do. That kind of thing. It's like, no, No,
I'm trying to talk about what your creative purpose is
because there's so much damage that can come from not
being prepared, and so much damage could come from bad dating. Everyone,
including me, everyone that has done this has a terrible
(25:38):
story about some kind of breakup or some kind of
problem that happened, or some kind of purity that they
lost in a vulnerable time, and you can't get that
stuff back. This is bag that you carry with you
and people go no gradeard. That's good because you learn
from your lessons and you move on. But you can't
(25:59):
know who you really want unless you date all the
people you know you don't want. That is not true.
That's just not true. That's just something we tell ourselves
to make ourselves feel better. But that's why I made
the argument about arranged marriages, because love's a decision. You
(26:20):
find someone you're attracted to, someone that loves Jesus, that
you could have good conversations with, you can agree on
basic fundamental parenting and living together roommate types things right,
and they're genuinely a good friend. And then at some
point after the attraction. Of course, you need to be
(26:40):
attracted at the beginning, but then you make a decision.
I'm gonna love this person and I'm not gonna stop.
That's it. Next question, subject line says long lost Love.
Hey Granger, my name is Lane. I'm twenty six years old.
My son's mom and I have been separated for five
years now, and I can't seem to shake the love
(27:03):
that I had while we were dating. I don't feel
like I can block her on social media because she
posts pictures of our child. What advice would you give
me in this situation? All right, Lane, thanks for the question, buddy,
and man, I love you and I don't want to
use you as an example against your will, but I
(27:25):
think I could do it in a way to help
not only you, but other people because I want to
say with your email, I want to say, look to
the last email. Or about dating, I want to say,
look look at the fallout. Really, just from this podcast
alone that I deal with every other question, it seems
like there's some kind of fallout from bad habits of dating,
(27:48):
from people falling out of situations that they should have
made a decision and stuck with it. Lane, Not on you, buddy,
That's not what I mean. This isn't a knock on you.
I'm just saying, look look at this. For all the
people that go what's wrong with dating? I say, look
at Lane twenty six years old, probably not married, but
(28:13):
had a baby with son's mom, and now he's struggling
so much to shake it the original love that he had,
and he so much so that he's like debating blocking
her and he doesn't know what to do. I mean,
she literally post pictures of his child. Let's dive into this.
(28:37):
That's Lane. That stuff's done now, so we can't. We
can't go back and fix things that have already happened.
But let's kind of unpack your life a little bit.
As much as I know, and I wish we were
in a cap of a truck together but let's talk
about twenty six years old, separated for five That means
we're talking back when you're twenty one. You had a
(28:58):
little baby boy. I don't know how old he is now.
Maybe he's four three, maybe he's five, I don't know,
maybe he's one. I don't know. I'm assuming it happened
around this before the separation, so we could say five
plus and that means you were dating before that. So
(29:19):
this goes back like a quarter of your life. Okay.
The problem always is, this is the dilemma. So that
this doesn't become generational and your son doesn't pay the
price for this whatever it is, you have to act
(29:45):
self lesslie instead of selfishly. And the dilemma is I
want to say, I'm sorry, dude, that you're twenty six
and you gotta you have to be self less now
in a time when you probably want to like go
get life or whatever, but you can't because of this.
(30:06):
I mean you can, but I I would think it
would be really tough, really tough on your boy. Here's
a scenario. A good friend of mine, another podcaster, went
through a divorce and separation with kids. She moved back
with her parents all the way across the US. He
(30:30):
was on the East coast. She moved all the way
to the West coast. He made a decision, and a
good one, I believe he made a He manned up Lane,
and he said, I'm moving with him. He left his
work in all that he knows on the east coast
(30:50):
and moved, shadowing the mom back to the West coast
and literally rented a house on the street the same
neighborhood as where the mom moved in with the parents,
not in like a weird Stocker way. I mean, she
knew it. They had the discussion, but he decided being
(31:11):
there for my kids, being the dad that they need
so close that they could just go out the front
door and go to dad's house, is more important than
whatever else I have going on in my little world.
I think in a bad situation, making it good is
about as good as it can get in that way.
(31:34):
So how does this apply to you, Lane? But if
I was in the cab of the truck with you,
I'd say you need to be there for that boy,
and so reconciling this relationship is of utmost most importance.
And whatever you did to cause this separation, and you
(31:59):
say time out, man, and it was mutual. I didn't
say what she did because I'm sure she did something,
but that's okay. I'm saying whatever you did, because it's
always there's always two sides of the street here, there's
always two stories. Whatever you did or didn't do to
cause and keep this separation, you need to fix it.
(32:21):
And if she is with someone else, she's dating or
married to someone else, then and this is all about
the boy, you need to be close to that boy,
and to be close to that boy, you love his
mother in a righteous way, and you have to learn
to love whoever mother is with, because that is the
(32:44):
way to get close to that boy and to be
there for him. And you don't talk bad about mama.
You don't talk bad about new boyfriend. Look, I hope
that that's not the case, and I'm not advocating for that.
I'm just I'm giving you your only options. If she's
single and she's not dating or married, then you need
(33:06):
to do everything you can to reconcile this relationship. If
not anything for the sake of your boy, because you
have to stop this generational problem because he will grow
up to think that's okay, and he probably will fall
into the same mess. I'm assuming you will unless you
stop it. And that's up to you. And that's up
(33:28):
to you being selfless, that's up to you swallowing your pride.
That's up to you saying, look, I'm so sorry. I
was twenty one years old and I was an idiot.
I want to earn a new chance with you. And
she goes blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. She
just you know, bark sets you and you just go,
I'll take it. I'll take it. I'll take it. I
(33:49):
deserve it. I'll deserve it. I deserve it. I'm about
serving you, not myself. People here, I say this stuff
on the podcast and people are like, man, no way, man,
you're advocating a verbal abuse. Okay, if that's how you
want to hear it. But but what I'm advocating is humility,
(34:10):
pouring out yourself, counting others more worthy than you are. Right,
So this is about your boy now, it's not about
your love and the love that you need to rekindle
this old flame that would be a byproduct of you
only you rekindling the relationship with your son. Hey, real quick,
(34:40):
if you want to get a hold of me. Did
you know that that's easy to do with cameo dot
com slash Granger Smith. Log in there. You could find
me and ask me to send you any kind of
message you want, and I do that on a phone
and I send you a video of whatever a phone
message you want. It could be happy anniversary, making some
kind of baby announced, happy birthday, a word of encouragement,
(35:02):
whatever that might be. You just tell me in the
comments how you want me to do it, and I'll
shoot it over to you super easy. You could also
download that app Cameo Cimeo and search for me Granger Smith.
I'll shoot you a video message. It's a great way
to stay in touch. Next question, subject line says feeling
(35:25):
a little lost. Hey, Granger, just found your podcast recently
and I can't stop listening. In a way, it makes
me feel a little less alone. Life is tough, and
sometimes I think I'm the only one going through something
specific and I'm not. I've opened my heart to God
after pushing him away, shutting him out for many years,
and I know I can't do this myself. I'm craving
(35:48):
his word right now. I've gotten into a good routine
of starting my day off that way, I still feel
like there is just something missing. Am I missing something?
Am I doing something wrong? I feel my faith is
stronger than it ever has been, but I still feel
a little lost. Sarah. All right, Sarah, thank you so
much for emailing and being sincere and vulnerable in this situation.
(36:14):
These I love how some of these questions will connect
with each other, and I think this kind of connects
with the first question of this podcast. First of all,
I just want to say, your faith is stronger than
it ever has been. That's amazing. Sometimes we have to
just stop right there and go, Sarah, amazing, Praise God.
(36:35):
Your faith is stronger than it ever has been. It's
I understand that you want it to be going faster,
and you want things to clear up and be better, better, quicker,
but sometimes you just have to step back and go,
Praise God. My faith right now today is stronger than
it ever has been. It's great. That's really great. And
(37:00):
if you're asking me how do I make it even stronger?
Let's talk. Okay, after I say congratulations, you're in a
good place. What we need to discuss here is spiritual disciplines.
Another subject that I feel like I could talk about
(37:21):
it every episode, and maybe I do sometimes, but it's
probably worth it. It's that important. But our spiritual disciplines
are the way that we contribute to growing our own faith. Now,
of course, that the faith is a gift from God,
and you know that the Disciple asked Jesus in the Bible,
(37:46):
or he says, increase my faith. I have faith, but
increase my faith help my unbelief. Right, that's basically the idea.
And so there's an aspect where we need to trust
in that and trust trust God's work in his gift
of grace in our faith. But the way that we
(38:08):
contribute to that to growing it, that responsibility we have
is through our spiritual disciplines. Reading is great. Reading the
Bible is the most important spiritual discipline. That's in taking
God's word. That's God speaking to us. Prayer is important,
very important, but that's us speaking to him, and when
(38:29):
he speaks back, he speaks through the Word. If you're
not reading the Word at all, if you don't have
a routine of reading the Bible at all, in any way,
that's a serious problem, and you're in serious jeopardy of
losing anything you've ever built, especially if a hard time hits.
(38:50):
But it's not always just about reading it, because there
needs to be a component of meditating on it. Otherwise
you're just going through the motions, checking a box, reading
the Bible. That's it. It doesn't matter. Just read read, read,
read it. Okay, done, got my morning reading done, Time
(39:12):
to start my day. And then a couple hours go
by and you go, do you even remember at all
what you read this morning? And the answer is probably no,
I was just reading. I was just distracted, but at
least I read right. No. This is where meditating comes in.
And I'm not talking about Eastern meditation where you empty
your mind. I'm talking about Biblical meditation, where you are
(39:36):
pouring God into your mind. You're taking captive of every
thought to Christ and so taking a scripture captive in
your mind and living with it, thinking, dissecting it. There's
a lot of ways to do this. Memorizing it is
a way. Different apps that you can memorize scripture with
(39:57):
is a great way to meditate on scripture. Meditating through memorization.
Journaling is another way to meditate on scripture. Reading you
read the scripture and then you journal a little bit
of your thoughts on it. And that journal is for
you and you alone, So it doesn't really matter what
you say, but it's about processing through what you just read.
(40:21):
I've done the journal thing and the memorization thing for
a long time, and the journaling has helped me tremendously
after my mourning Bible read, which I never ever, ever,
ever ever skip my Mourning Bible read. No matter what
I'm doing or how busy I am, I don't ever
skip that. In fact, I did four I skipped four
(40:44):
days this year because I was in Pakistan and it's
illegal to have a Bible, so I figured that was
the only time when I could. I could not read
in my plan, and then I had to just catch
up and get caught up and read double four times
in a row. That's it. So what I've done over
(41:06):
the last several years is read, journal, memorize, and then
from the journal, I make a social media post. And
some of y'all might know that that I've posted a
scripture and maybe a little bit of my own thoughts
about the scripture. But I'll post it on social media.
(41:27):
And that is not really for anyone to grow or
learn or it's really a part of my own spiritual
discipline that I know I need to read, journal and
then post because that's like completing completing my job in
journaling and thinking through things. If I don't post it,
(41:49):
then I haven't completed my spiritual discipline of the day.
One Timothy four to seven says train yourself for godliness,
and some like the King James. I believe it. It says
I forgot which one, but discipline. Think it might be
King James. Discipline yourself for godliness. So this is something
(42:12):
we're called to do, something we're required to do, and
something that is so helpful, so Sarah. Other spiritual disciplines
are prayer or listening to sermons, fasting time alone, solitude
in the wilderness like Jesus did. Jesus is actually the
(42:32):
greatest model for all spiritual disciplines because he did all
these things minus the journaling. That's kind of a we
added that kind of later, but you could understand how
it would make sense to journal. But Jesus, I mean,
his memorization was like perfect. We see so many times
him quoting scripture, including his time on the Cross, quoting scripture.
(42:56):
So how much if Jesus did it quote a scripture
in his time of suffering on the cross. What does
that say to us about why it's important to memorize
or to have good Bible intake from our reading and
not just mindlessly read through it. What does that tell us?
What does that tell us that Jesus was constantly taking
(43:16):
time and leaving and going into the wilderness time of
solitude and prayer. How does that model for us? Like,
what does that tell us that Jesus goes out in
fast so that he could he could be completely filled
with the spirit and not distracted by fleshly desires like food.
(43:41):
What does that tell us If we see Jesus modeling
these things for us, that's really a good thing. We
could ask ourselves, Sarah is like, what do I need?
Because you're saying, am I doing something wrong? Better? Said?
I think you could have better said that by saying,
(44:01):
am I should I be doing something else in addition
to this right? And the answer would be, let's look
at what Jesus was doing in this kind of scenario
as far as spiritual disciplines, fasting, meditating, solitude, prayer, Bible memorization,
(44:25):
Bible reading. We know he was reading, We know he
was sitting under sermons. Can you imagine Jesus so many
times sitting in the synagogue listening to someone else preached
to him about his word, and yet he did it
as a spiritual discipline. So this is what we need
to crank up, Sarah, and this is what I would do.
(44:47):
In addition to this, reading next question, subject line says
being a man. Hey, sir, my name is Brent. I'm
from Kansas and I'm twenty years old. I'm engaged. I'm
in the Air Force and i've been in just about
a year and I've been deployed. All that to say
(45:09):
that sometimes I struggle with being a man and not
viewing myself as a kid. I don't act like a child.
I just make childish decisions. However, I struggle with viewing
myself as a man. When do I go from being
just a kid from Kansas to the man God wants
me to be. Thanks for your time to read this.
(45:30):
I hope you have a great day, Brent. Thank you.
Brent had great question, and man, I love how this
connects to the guy that was saying Lane, who was
twenty six saying, what do I do about this girl,
my baby mama, my little boy at home? What do
I do about this girl, and I put so much
emphasis on the baby boy, not the girl, because Brent,
(45:56):
I hope there's no disrespect in saying this, but I
would I would just guess by not knowing you. And
I want to say this. I want to say this
as politely and sensitively as I can, but I have
a feeling, Brent, that your dad wasn't there in the
(46:16):
way that he could have been. Because typically when someone
is questioning, when an adult man is questioning themselves on
how to view themselves, Like you said, Brent, I struggle
with viewing myself as a man, typically that comes from
(46:38):
someone that was never verified. It was never told this
or reinforced this. They were They were never taken under
the under the wing of a man as a child,
as a boy and said this is how to be
a man. And when they became of age, no one
(47:02):
ever said you are now a man, my son. No
one ever did that to you, I'm assuming and if
they did do it, it wasn't intentional. The fact that
brings up an idea. There was a book called The
Intentional Father. Great book, Brent. It would be for you Lane,
It would also be for you the Intentional Father. There's
(47:25):
also a poem I want you to read. It's called
if I want you to read that Rudred Kipling book
or poem. If this is so good about manhood, I
think I could say this, but yeah, I think I'll
(47:46):
say it. Most people on this podcast know my friend Bernie,
who's been a guest many, many times. Well, yesterday I
went with Bernie and his son who just turned thirteen,
and several other of Bernie's Christian brothers, brothers in christ
and we all went through a right of passage for
(48:12):
his son. And each of us men had a virtue
that we taught to Bernie's son with scripture and prayer,
and then we acted on that virtue in a way
to teach him how to adopt that virtue. Now, Bernie's
going to go through this whole thing with his son,
(48:32):
and eventually it'll end up, because he's thirteen, it'll end
up in a place where Bernie says, you are now
a man. It's going to take about five years until
he's eighteen, but it starts now. This is the right
of passage begins now at thirteen. We trace back history,
almost every culture and tribe and heritage, all of them
(48:57):
had a right of passage in some way about this
age for a boy so that he knows. Unlike Brent,
you don't have to ask the question when did I
go from being just a kid from Kansas to the
man God wants me to be? That is something God
doesn't speak down through the clouds. That is something God
(49:19):
provides us the answer with through community. And God provided
the ultimate community to us through church, through his church.
And so Brent, this is a little late for you,
so that part of this can't apply. But to anyone else,
fathers and even young teenagers listening, Church provides God's way
(49:40):
of community for us, so that through community we are
given the affirmation that we are man. There's a great
book called Wild at Heart, and that I read that
book as a teenager, and then I read it again
when I was going to to be a father, and
(50:02):
Wild at Heart is great for understanding this kind of affirmation.
There are specific times in Wild at Heart John Eldridge
is their author when John walks through these specific scenarios
with his sons. As you find these moments when they
(50:23):
need they need to be told that they're either on
the right track or that they are affirmed in growing
into a man. So, Brent, none of this is answering
your question because you are past all that. I'm hopefully
just kind of building up a little information for everyone
else that might be heading towards this. But Brent, what
(50:48):
do you do now if you haven't had that affirmation,
if you're making childlike decisions and one you're struggling with
viewing yourself as a man, You're still twenty and you're
still super young, and you will make dumb mistakes as
(51:09):
a twenty year old. I certainly did way past twenty. Okay,
So being in the Air Force, being deployed is can
be a huge plus because you're going to be around
older men. But having the affirmation of older godly men
(51:29):
will come ultimately from being an active member of a church,
a god fearing Bible teaching, expositional preaching. Church sized proportionately
to the amount of sheep to the shepherd. If there's
(51:51):
too many sheep and not enough shepherds, and it can't
be healthy in that way. Instead, if you have a
lot of sheep in your church, you gotta have a
lot of efforts. Basically, it's easy math think about in
proportion to how many people, how many pastors can be
directly involved with the lives of the congregation. That kind
(52:12):
of church. That's what I'm advocating for, Brent. Being a
member active in that kind of church will provide you
with older men, younger men, toddlers, babies, men your age,
men that have been through what you've been through, men
that are grandfathers that you can go I'm having trouble
(52:33):
just being a man. I'm making stupid, child boyish decisions
and I need some accountability from you. And there are
so many godly men in these churches, planted in these
churches that just live for that live for a twenty
year old Air Force kid to come in and say
this to them, and they go, come under my wing,
(52:55):
my son. Let me show you not only the pitfall
that I don't want you to step in like I did,
but let me show you in some places I actually
made the right decisions. And let me show you those two.
Let me step in for maybe what your father didn't do,
and let me fill that gap. The only way, Brent,
(53:17):
for you to feel like a man and be affirmed
as a man is to be around other godly men.
You can't do this on your own. You can't do
it outside of community, Read your Bible, increase your prayer life,
Increase your spiritual disciplines. Like the last email, plant yourself
(53:40):
in a good church with godly men that can keep
you accountable and tell you, yes, Brent, you are a man.
We love you, guys. Let's see you next Monday. I
thanks for joining me on the grater Smith Podcast. I
appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out
(54:02):
by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube,
subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and
the notification spell so that you never miss anytime I
upload a video. If you have a question for me
that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast
at gmail dot com.
Be better and quit your evil desires and lean on
your own ability. What's up, everybody, Welcome back to the podcast.
Glad you're here. Let's talk about some stuff. I answer
your email. Podcast at grangersmith dot com is the place
(00:25):
to email, and you could ask me anything you want.
We'll walk through it like the cab of a truck
or sitting around a campfire. And there's no boundaries on this.
I don't always have the right answer. I want it
to be more of a conversation. So what I mean
is I don't have like a list. I haven't prepared
these questions. I don't have a list in front of
me that has good, you know, witty answers. I don't
(00:46):
have a bunch of quotes. We're just gonna We're gonna
have a conversation. So let's have a conversation. First question
comes from to coda and the subject client says, correct
me if I'm wrong parentheses. God's spirit not talked about. Hey,
grangeer Mo. Name is Dakota from Iowa. Excuse me, Ohio.
(01:10):
I've listened to like a River in chapter seven and eight.
There is something very special about that to me. I
used to think that in order to get closer with God,
I would have to do all the right things, and
I would have to stop having fun, and that would
make me to be a lukewarm Christian all the more.
(01:31):
My question is this, should we be talking more about
how it's not us individually that can change ourselves, but
instead God's spirit inside of us that does the changing.
I feel like that is a I rarely hear it
preached that way. It's usually preached to be better and
quit your evil desires, leaning on all human ability, but
(01:54):
nothing on our full surrender and the power of God's spirit.
Ps After being re born, I now read the Bible
every night and cannot stop. Only God did this to me.
Praise him. Yeah, okay, great question to Coda, and yeah,
I agree with you that it's it's it's not preached
that way. It typically is be better and quit your
(02:19):
evil desires and lean on your own ability. It's not
said in those exact ways, but that's a lot of
times that's the intention that people preach. It's hey, man,
you gotta you gotta do this and this and this,
you got to stop doing this. Okay, there's a lot
of nuanced nuance to this and this that really could
(02:40):
take the whole podcast, and it's a good question, but
it could really take the whole podcast to walk through
this what what's happening. There's a couple of things that's happening.
One like me, your testimony, this is your ps here
after being reborn, I now read the Bible every night
and cannot stop. And you're surprised by this, saying, only
(03:02):
God did that to me, And that's my story too.
It's like, man, I was dead. God raised me from
the dead spiritually, and now I crave things of him
and only God did that. That's what you're saying. That's
where you agree with me. And you used to think
that in order to get closer to God you would
(03:23):
have to do all the right things and stop having fun.
That's a key thing right there, stop having fun, right
That's I'll come back to that. And then this whole idea.
Your main argument here is this idea that should we
be talking more, talking more about how it's not us
(03:44):
individually that can change ourselves, but instead God's spirit inside
of us that does the changing. And then you say,
I really hear it preached that way, So you know
where I'm coming from, and I know where you're coming
from from And the problem is the problem with your
argument really is that the Bible says both. It says
(04:10):
clearly that is it is God who does the changing.
Clearly it is the spirit. And the flesh is of
no help at all. So the Bible says, and we
were dead in our trespasses made alive in Christ. If
anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold,
(04:33):
the old has passed away and the new is here.
So we could read an Ezekiel about the valley of
the of the dry bones, and I think about this
a lot. How God made bones and this is this
is this is the analogy he gives to Ezekiel, essentially,
(04:55):
and Ezekiel saw this. He makes dead, dry bones alive,
and that is you know, he puts flesh on bones.
And that is really a spiritual analogy to us that
we don't do it. John six is a really interesting
chapter with this John six, Jesus is walking through some
(05:19):
difficult teaching and a lot of people start leaving him,
and there's these grump there's everyone's grumbling like, man, we're
gonna leave this guy. We're going to leave this teacher.
And Jesus doesn't appear to be desperate to save them
or desperate to keep them listening. He's like, my sheep
will hear my voice. In fact, that's in John ten.
(05:41):
John ten, he makes it's the big Shepherd analogy. He
is the great Shepherd, and he is the gate, and
he my sheep will hear my voice, and I will
lose not one of them. And so take ten and
six of John these chapters and kind of walk through them,
and you'll see that Jesus has no intention of convincing anyone.
(06:03):
He says all that the Father give me will come
to me, and whoever comes to me, whoever comes to me,
and will never cast out. And then you have to
contrast that to an equal amount of teaching in the
Bible that shows human responsibility to respond and repent to
the gospel. So here's the nuance. We are. We have
(06:30):
a human responsibility to respond and repent to the Gospel,
and we are held accountable one hundred percent to that responsibility.
Right but once you have responded, and whoever comes, whoever,
whoever believes, who is that granger, whoever believes? So might
(06:56):
that be you listening right now? It's whoever believes, he
will never cast out for God, God so little, God
so loved the world, that whoever believes in him right.
So there's a lot of there's a lot of whosoevers,
there's a lot of whoever there's there's a lot of
everyone who believes in the Bible. But once again, this
(07:21):
is this, This is an entire conversation we could have
on a podcast, and trust me, I love it and
I have this conversation quite a bit. But we are
not capable of responding unless the spirit awakens us. And
then we're not capable of living out these good works
on our own, the good stuff that you said in
(07:41):
your email, stop doing all the bad things and do
all the good things. We're not capable of stopping the
bad things and doing the good things without being enabled
by the spirit. But there is a nuance there that
it's it's I've said this before in a sermon. It's
it's like a imagine a butterfly that comes out of
its cocoon. And the reason we encourage each other and
(08:04):
there's something about telling each other to do this, and
don't do that, do this, don't do that. It would
be like telling a butterfly, an old butterfly telling a
new butterfly. Hey, stop eating leaves on those branches, on
those twigs, hanging out on the twigs. I think I said,
with all those caterpillars, you are made for so much
(08:28):
more right. And by the way, that craving you have,
that's not for twigs and leaves anymore, that craving that
you can't really describe. Let me tell you what that is.
That's for nectar. And you need to be in the
garden drinking this nectar. And those things you have on
(08:48):
your arms that used to be used to have caterpillar arms,
but now you get these big things. Those are wings
and you could fly, and in fact, that's how you
get to the flowers. You use those wings and you fly,
you drink nectar. So that's a Christian, an older Christian
telling a younger Christian, don't do this. Do this. But
(09:08):
you know what I like about this butterfly analogy that
I'm made up is that if you would think of
it in terms of stop doing things that you love,
like hanging out on twigs, and start to do things
you hate, like drink nectar. And in that scenario, you
have no idea what nectar. Nectar is so much better
than twigs. Nectar is so much better than dry leaves.
(09:32):
Stop hanging out with caterpillars. Spread your wings and see
where the real fun is. The real joy is in
on the flower, the nectar. That is the sweetest thing
you could have. You just don't know it yet. So
I say it in that way because it is really
never about stop having stop having so much fun, and
(09:54):
live a boring life of obedience to God. Because you see,
just like butterfly that doesn't know about nectar yet, that
obedience is not made to be your prison. It's made
to set you free. It's made to live in your
created purpose, and that is where the joy is. Matthew thirteen.
(10:17):
I say this parable all the time. The Kingdom of
Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field that a
man finds and covers up. Then in his joy, he
goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
That's tough selling all you have in that scenario for
that parable, It would be tough selling it. But the
joy that he had and the treasure in the field
is so much greater that it doesn't matter anymore. You
(10:39):
see what I mean, that's the nectar above these little
leaves that you used to have as a caterpillar. So
long story short to wrap this up, we have a
human responsibility to respond, and God sovereignly chooses. Those two
things are like two parallel lines that intersect only in heaven.
They both and that is most evident at the Cross
(11:03):
where God predestined Jesus to go to the cross. God
the Father predestined Jesus the Son, to go to the
cross to die for sin. That was always the plan
of redemption, to reconcile God himself to his people. That
was always the plan. But humans have a responsibility for
(11:27):
sending Jesus, the Son of God, to die. They are
guilty of murder. To be held responsible is all on
humanity for killing the son of God. And yet it
was always planned by God. So if you don't believe
in one of those two things I just said, you're
literally not a Christian. If you don't believe it was
(11:49):
man's responsibility for the murder of Jesus, you're not a Christian.
If you don't believe that God predestined the death of
Jesus and had it always planned, you're not a Christian.
Those two things work together in a missious way. The
Bible teaches both. It also teaches our responsibility to respond,
and it teaches that God sovereignly chooses and saves. It
(12:10):
is all the spirit. The flesh is of no help
at all. All that the Father gives me will come
to me, and whoever comes to me I'll never cast out.
These are all truths that exist together. And let me
wrap it up by saying one last thing. If I
were to die today and God said, why should we
(12:32):
let you in? The only answer I have is you shouldn't.
I'm undeserving to be in the presence of God. But
because you provided away through your son Jesus, I've believed
in him, so I would lean first on. It's all
(12:52):
you God, before I ever said, aren't you so happy God?
That I responded and made this decision. I'll leave it
at that long time ago I started grangersmith dot Com.
When I say a long time ago, I'm talking decades ago.
(13:12):
Started grangersmith dot com for the purpose of mainly tour
dates and you know, getting my music out there. And
the last thing that was on my mind really was
selling merch or much less. How in the world do
you sell merch like practically? How does that work physically?
How do people click on something and then end up
buying something and it charges their credit card? Well, you know,
(13:34):
fast forward all these years and now I have ye
Ye apparel. Literally, that's what we do from Yee dot
com is sell apparel, and we do that by using Shopify. See.
Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell
at every stage of your business, whether it's from the
launch your own online shop stage or the first real
(13:56):
life store stage to do we just hit a whole
bunch of orders stage. Shopify is there to help you grow,
whether you're selling scented soap or outdoor apparel like we are,
Shopify helps you sell everywhere. Basically, they are an all
in one e commerce platform, so it does all the
work for you and selling whatever product you want. They
(14:19):
have a really good way of turning browsers into buyers too.
They have they have the internet's best converting checkout that's
thirty six percent better on average compared to the other
leading commerce platforms. That's really good that you could sell
more with your business with less effort thanks to Shopify
Magic that is your AI powered all star. Look. I'm
the first to admit I'm not a techie person. I
(14:41):
can't program code. I'm just not the kind of guy
to do that. I am the guy to go, hey man,
this is a good hoodie or this is a good
hat for fall fishing, you know, But I don't want
to get into the nitty gritty of how do I
actually make the program to do this. And that's why
Shopify has been so great for me and Tyler and Parker,
my brothers. For so many years. Shopify powers ten percent
(15:05):
of all e commerce platforms in the US, and so
it's not just me. They have millions of entrepreneurs of
every size across one hundred and seventy five countries, plus
Shopify's award winning help is there to support your success
every step of the way. Because businesses that grow grow
with Shopify sign up for a one dollar per month
(15:25):
trial period at shopify dot com slash granger all lowercase.
Go to shopify dot com slash granger right now to
grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify
dot com slash granger. Next question, the subject line says
easy question. I'm up for that. It says, hey Granger.
(15:47):
My name is Ava and I'm from Allendale, Michigan. We
haven't met before, but I hope you come and speak
at our church in the future. My question is this,
I'd like to stop for a second and thank you
for being so kind and honest. I admire how you
genuinely care for others and are striving to be more
like Jesus, but I love that you also encourage others
(16:10):
to do the same. I read your book and I
want to thank you for being so vulnerable. Many of
those reading Like a River are people that you've never
met or barely know, and I hope you realize the
amount of lives you've influenced. That God, God did that.
I have a pretty open ended question, but I'm curious
when do you think a person is ready to date?
(16:32):
And can you elaborate as to when you think I
should date? Sorry, I have a little bit trouble reading
your question, but I think I get the gist of it.
And then you say, what should be seen in a
guy as well as a gal? What should be seen
in a guy as well as a gal? Okay, Ava,
(16:54):
thank you, thank you for emailing, And once again, it's
a good question and probably could be a question I
answer on an entire episode to talk nothing but about this,
but dating really is only the purpose of getting married.
(17:16):
That is the only purpose of dating, and there is
no other purpose of dating. You can't make an argument
that I would believe if you said there is a
purpose of dating and it ends up being good, it
only ends up hurting you in some way, And you
could say it this way, it only ends up hurting
you in more ways than it ever is helpful to date,
(17:37):
and to date a bunch of people, and to date
a bunch of people for a long periods of time.
That's really what we're talking about here. I'm not talking
about going to have coffee, going on a few dates,
learning that that person is not for you and you
move on. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about
you have declared each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and you
(17:57):
are officially going steady and months are going by. That's
what I'm talking about, And I think that's what this
question is. When are you ready to do that? So
maybe we should say the first scenario, maybe we should
call it courting. Like courting is getting to know someone
(18:19):
in preparation to decide if you're going to marry them.
And that's fine, and you should do that obviously, But
what hurts us is the long term dating, and I
don't think there's any reason for it at all. Like
I said, if you sit here in this blue chair
(18:40):
across from me, I think we could have a great discussion.
But I don't think there is a single argument of
why it's better to date a lot of people for
long periods of time and then get married later. I
probably met some people mad with that, that's okay. I
firmly believe that. So a long time ago and for
most of humanity, there were arranged marriages, and you know what,
(19:06):
surprisingly for our twenty twenty four brains to understand, arranged
marriages worked pretty well. They were, you know, two families
decided that these two people should come together, and it
just really proves the fact that they were so successful
for so many years. And of course there's bad examples,
(19:26):
of course, of course, but I think the reason they
were so successful for so many years proves to us
that love, really wholly is a decision. Who l y fully,
it's a decision, it's not. It's not some mystical spiritual feeling.
(19:47):
This Pixie starred us cupid stuff that happens to us.
And I've talked about this before and I don't want
anyone to think I'm not romantic, because that's anyone that
knows me, and my realation with the Amber would say, no,
that's not the case at all. I love Amber passionately.
And I'm trying to make a point here that on
(20:09):
those arranged marriages, and there was so much success in
that because eventually, no matter who you're dating, you have
to decide that you love them, and you have to
decide past the butterflies and your belly that say, oh,
I'm like, I'm so attracted to this person. And once
(20:29):
you get past that and hard days set in or
the newness wears off, then you rely on the decision,
just like you make when you say your vows and
you say through sickness and through health, rich and poor,
you better or worse. That's a decision. When you say
vowels like that traditional vows, you're saying, I decide, not
(20:55):
my heart, not my gut, not my feeling, not my spirit.
I decide that for better or for worse. I'm sticking
with you. That's what that means. It's a decision based
on your brain. Your brain, your cerebral cortex makes a decision,
goes I decide right now, and I make a vow
to you, I make a promise to you, a covenant
(21:17):
with you. Let's pinky swear, let's shake hands on this
that I will stick with you for better, if for worse.
It's crazy if you think of it that way. How
many people decide that they don't want to do that anymore.
I'm backing out of this. You're not living up to
what you promised, and so I'm going to back out
(21:38):
of what I promised. Last week I had Marv Miller,
a pastor, a Mennonite pastor. And it's interesting as we're
talking about the Mennonite culture, because divorce really doesn't exist
in that culture. They don't have a superior culture to
anyone else. And he would be the first to admit
(22:00):
that they don't have superior marriages to all other cultures.
That's not what he's trying to say. It's more about
in that culture, they make a decision and they stick
with it. Imagine that they decide, we're not going to
accept divorces as a natural course of what we do.
(22:23):
We're gonna make this this thing we call marriage something
we actually stick with. We're going to do it regardless
of what happens regardless of sickness, regardless of if this
person is not serving me that the way that I
wanted them to. You know me me, I want this,
I want this, and they're not doing it. And if
(22:43):
both of you thought of it in that way, then
it's a great marriage. And so back to this question
about dating, when do you think it's appropriate to start dating?
I don't think that. I don't think you expected this
long answer from me on this, but it's really interesting
if we think of it in terms of this dating.
This courting is just it's really just to see are
(23:04):
you attractive to me? Could we have good conversations? Do
you love Jesus like I do? Because that's a major
problem If you don't. All kinds of implications will happen
if you don't, These all kinds of religious fallout. What
do we do with the kids? What are we doing
on Sunday mornings? That's just a given a presupposition. I
(23:25):
hope that that's understood. You love Jesus or I could
also make the argument, or you don't love Jesus because
I don't, right, because if you do and I don't,
that's another problem, but a different question, different discussion. But
I think you get my point. You need to be
on the same page. They're not a project. They have
(23:46):
good references. I'm not saying they have great parents, or
they've brought they were brought upright, or they have a
lot of money. That's not what I mean. I mean
there are people around them in their lives that go,
this person is truly a good person for you. So
you've got references. So it's not just all on you. You've
guarded your heart. You're not just diving in and going
(24:09):
head over heels and you haven't really thought about it
with a clear brain. So those are things the courting
process should do. But I'm against dating long term. So
whatever that means to you, I'm assuming Ava that you're
pretty young and you're like Grangeer. I didn't want all that.
I just really wanted to know I'm fourteen and when
(24:31):
can I start dating. I'm thinking that that's more about
what this is about. And so the reason I kind
of set it up with all that is a little
bit of a fatherly aspect to this, because I have
a girl, a little girl that's twelve it she'll be
thirteen in October, and dating is not going to be
(24:52):
a thing in our house unless you're with a group,
and whatever you want to call it, you can call
it whatever you want. But unless you're in a group
of of several people, there's not going to be one
on one dating while you live here. And it's kind
of like the last question. We're talking about telling me
things I don't want to do, and I got to
(25:14):
give up what I love and do what I don't
want to do. That kind of thing. It's like, no, No,
I'm trying to talk about what your creative purpose is
because there's so much damage that can come from not
being prepared, and so much damage could come from bad dating. Everyone,
including me, everyone that has done this has a terrible
(25:38):
story about some kind of breakup or some kind of
problem that happened, or some kind of purity that they
lost in a vulnerable time, and you can't get that
stuff back. This is bag that you carry with you
and people go no gradeard. That's good because you learn
from your lessons and you move on. But you can't
(25:59):
know who you really want unless you date all the
people you know you don't want. That is not true.
That's just not true. That's just something we tell ourselves
to make ourselves feel better. But that's why I made
the argument about arranged marriages, because love's a decision. You
(26:20):
find someone you're attracted to, someone that loves Jesus, that
you could have good conversations with, you can agree on
basic fundamental parenting and living together roommate types things right,
and they're genuinely a good friend. And then at some
point after the attraction. Of course, you need to be
(26:40):
attracted at the beginning, but then you make a decision.
I'm gonna love this person and I'm not gonna stop.
That's it. Next question, subject line says long lost Love.
Hey Granger, my name is Lane. I'm twenty six years old.
My son's mom and I have been separated for five
years now, and I can't seem to shake the love
(27:03):
that I had while we were dating. I don't feel
like I can block her on social media because she
posts pictures of our child. What advice would you give
me in this situation? All right, Lane, thanks for the question, buddy,
and man, I love you and I don't want to
use you as an example against your will, but I
(27:25):
think I could do it in a way to help
not only you, but other people because I want to
say with your email, I want to say, look to
the last email. Or about dating, I want to say,
look look at the fallout. Really, just from this podcast
alone that I deal with every other question, it seems
like there's some kind of fallout from bad habits of dating,
(27:48):
from people falling out of situations that they should have
made a decision and stuck with it. Lane, Not on you, buddy,
That's not what I mean. This isn't a knock on you.
I'm just saying, look look at this. For all the
people that go what's wrong with dating? I say, look
at Lane twenty six years old, probably not married, but
(28:13):
had a baby with son's mom, and now he's struggling
so much to shake it the original love that he had,
and he so much so that he's like debating blocking
her and he doesn't know what to do. I mean,
she literally post pictures of his child. Let's dive into this.
(28:37):
That's Lane. That stuff's done now, so we can't. We
can't go back and fix things that have already happened.
But let's kind of unpack your life a little bit.
As much as I know, and I wish we were
in a cap of a truck together but let's talk
about twenty six years old, separated for five That means
we're talking back when you're twenty one. You had a
(28:58):
little baby boy. I don't know how old he is now.
Maybe he's four three, maybe he's five, I don't know,
maybe he's one. I don't know. I'm assuming it happened
around this before the separation, so we could say five
plus and that means you were dating before that. So
(29:19):
this goes back like a quarter of your life. Okay.
The problem always is, this is the dilemma. So that
this doesn't become generational and your son doesn't pay the
price for this whatever it is, you have to act
(29:45):
self lesslie instead of selfishly. And the dilemma is I
want to say, I'm sorry, dude, that you're twenty six
and you gotta you have to be self less now
in a time when you probably want to like go
get life or whatever, but you can't because of this.
(30:06):
I mean you can, but I I would think it
would be really tough, really tough on your boy. Here's
a scenario. A good friend of mine, another podcaster, went
through a divorce and separation with kids. She moved back
with her parents all the way across the US. He
(30:30):
was on the East coast. She moved all the way
to the West coast. He made a decision, and a
good one, I believe he made a He manned up Lane,
and he said, I'm moving with him. He left his
work in all that he knows on the east coast
(30:50):
and moved, shadowing the mom back to the West coast
and literally rented a house on the street the same
neighborhood as where the mom moved in with the parents,
not in like a weird Stocker way. I mean, she
knew it. They had the discussion, but he decided being
(31:11):
there for my kids, being the dad that they need
so close that they could just go out the front
door and go to dad's house, is more important than
whatever else I have going on in my little world.
I think in a bad situation, making it good is
about as good as it can get in that way.
(31:34):
So how does this apply to you, Lane? But if
I was in the cab of the truck with you,
I'd say you need to be there for that boy,
and so reconciling this relationship is of utmost most importance.
And whatever you did to cause this separation, and you
(31:59):
say time out, man, and it was mutual. I didn't
say what she did because I'm sure she did something,
but that's okay. I'm saying whatever you did, because it's
always there's always two sides of the street here, there's
always two stories. Whatever you did or didn't do to
cause and keep this separation, you need to fix it.
(32:21):
And if she is with someone else, she's dating or
married to someone else, then and this is all about
the boy, you need to be close to that boy,
and to be close to that boy, you love his
mother in a righteous way, and you have to learn
to love whoever mother is with, because that is the
(32:44):
way to get close to that boy and to be
there for him. And you don't talk bad about mama.
You don't talk bad about new boyfriend. Look, I hope
that that's not the case, and I'm not advocating for that.
I'm just I'm giving you your only options. If she's
single and she's not dating or married, then you need
(33:06):
to do everything you can to reconcile this relationship. If
not anything for the sake of your boy, because you
have to stop this generational problem because he will grow
up to think that's okay, and he probably will fall
into the same mess. I'm assuming you will unless you
stop it. And that's up to you. And that's up
(33:28):
to you being selfless, that's up to you swallowing your pride.
That's up to you saying, look, I'm so sorry. I
was twenty one years old and I was an idiot.
I want to earn a new chance with you. And
she goes blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. She
just you know, bark sets you and you just go,
I'll take it. I'll take it. I'll take it. I
(33:49):
deserve it. I'll deserve it. I deserve it. I'm about
serving you, not myself. People here, I say this stuff
on the podcast and people are like, man, no way, man,
you're advocating a verbal abuse. Okay, if that's how you
want to hear it. But but what I'm advocating is humility,
(34:10):
pouring out yourself, counting others more worthy than you are. Right,
So this is about your boy now, it's not about
your love and the love that you need to rekindle
this old flame that would be a byproduct of you
only you rekindling the relationship with your son. Hey, real quick,
(34:40):
if you want to get a hold of me. Did
you know that that's easy to do with cameo dot
com slash Granger Smith. Log in there. You could find
me and ask me to send you any kind of
message you want, and I do that on a phone
and I send you a video of whatever a phone
message you want. It could be happy anniversary, making some
kind of baby announced, happy birthday, a word of encouragement,
(35:02):
whatever that might be. You just tell me in the
comments how you want me to do it, and I'll
shoot it over to you super easy. You could also
download that app Cameo Cimeo and search for me Granger Smith.
I'll shoot you a video message. It's a great way
to stay in touch. Next question, subject line says feeling
(35:25):
a little lost. Hey, Granger, just found your podcast recently
and I can't stop listening. In a way, it makes
me feel a little less alone. Life is tough, and
sometimes I think I'm the only one going through something
specific and I'm not. I've opened my heart to God
after pushing him away, shutting him out for many years,
and I know I can't do this myself. I'm craving
(35:48):
his word right now. I've gotten into a good routine
of starting my day off that way, I still feel
like there is just something missing. Am I missing something?
Am I doing something wrong? I feel my faith is
stronger than it ever has been, but I still feel
a little lost. Sarah. All right, Sarah, thank you so
much for emailing and being sincere and vulnerable in this situation.
(36:14):
These I love how some of these questions will connect
with each other, and I think this kind of connects
with the first question of this podcast. First of all,
I just want to say, your faith is stronger than
it ever has been. That's amazing. Sometimes we have to
just stop right there and go, Sarah, amazing, Praise God.
(36:35):
Your faith is stronger than it ever has been. It's
I understand that you want it to be going faster,
and you want things to clear up and be better, better, quicker,
but sometimes you just have to step back and go,
Praise God. My faith right now today is stronger than
it ever has been. It's great. That's really great. And
(37:00):
if you're asking me how do I make it even stronger?
Let's talk. Okay, after I say congratulations, you're in a
good place. What we need to discuss here is spiritual disciplines.
Another subject that I feel like I could talk about
(37:21):
it every episode, and maybe I do sometimes, but it's
probably worth it. It's that important. But our spiritual disciplines
are the way that we contribute to growing our own faith. Now,
of course, that the faith is a gift from God,
and you know that the Disciple asked Jesus in the Bible,
(37:46):
or he says, increase my faith. I have faith, but
increase my faith help my unbelief. Right, that's basically the idea.
And so there's an aspect where we need to trust
in that and trust trust God's work in his gift
of grace in our faith. But the way that we
(38:08):
contribute to that to growing it, that responsibility we have
is through our spiritual disciplines. Reading is great. Reading the
Bible is the most important spiritual discipline. That's in taking
God's word. That's God speaking to us. Prayer is important,
very important, but that's us speaking to him, and when
(38:29):
he speaks back, he speaks through the Word. If you're
not reading the Word at all, if you don't have
a routine of reading the Bible at all, in any way,
that's a serious problem, and you're in serious jeopardy of
losing anything you've ever built, especially if a hard time hits.
(38:50):
But it's not always just about reading it, because there
needs to be a component of meditating on it. Otherwise
you're just going through the motions, checking a box, reading
the Bible. That's it. It doesn't matter. Just read read, read,
read it. Okay, done, got my morning reading done, Time
(39:12):
to start my day. And then a couple hours go
by and you go, do you even remember at all
what you read this morning? And the answer is probably no,
I was just reading. I was just distracted, but at
least I read right. No. This is where meditating comes in.
And I'm not talking about Eastern meditation where you empty
your mind. I'm talking about Biblical meditation, where you are
(39:36):
pouring God into your mind. You're taking captive of every
thought to Christ and so taking a scripture captive in
your mind and living with it, thinking, dissecting it. There's
a lot of ways to do this. Memorizing it is
a way. Different apps that you can memorize scripture with
(39:57):
is a great way to meditate on scripture. Meditating through memorization.
Journaling is another way to meditate on scripture. Reading you
read the scripture and then you journal a little bit
of your thoughts on it. And that journal is for
you and you alone, So it doesn't really matter what
you say, but it's about processing through what you just read.
(40:21):
I've done the journal thing and the memorization thing for
a long time, and the journaling has helped me tremendously
after my mourning Bible read, which I never ever, ever,
ever ever skip my Mourning Bible read. No matter what
I'm doing or how busy I am, I don't ever
skip that. In fact, I did four I skipped four
(40:44):
days this year because I was in Pakistan and it's
illegal to have a Bible, so I figured that was
the only time when I could. I could not read
in my plan, and then I had to just catch
up and get caught up and read double four times
in a row. That's it. So what I've done over
(41:06):
the last several years is read, journal, memorize, and then
from the journal, I make a social media post. And
some of y'all might know that that I've posted a
scripture and maybe a little bit of my own thoughts
about the scripture. But I'll post it on social media.
(41:27):
And that is not really for anyone to grow or
learn or it's really a part of my own spiritual
discipline that I know I need to read, journal and
then post because that's like completing completing my job in
journaling and thinking through things. If I don't post it,
(41:49):
then I haven't completed my spiritual discipline of the day.
One Timothy four to seven says train yourself for godliness,
and some like the King James. I believe it. It says
I forgot which one, but discipline. Think it might be
King James. Discipline yourself for godliness. So this is something
(42:12):
we're called to do, something we're required to do, and
something that is so helpful, so Sarah. Other spiritual disciplines
are prayer or listening to sermons, fasting time alone, solitude
in the wilderness like Jesus did. Jesus is actually the
(42:32):
greatest model for all spiritual disciplines because he did all
these things minus the journaling. That's kind of a we
added that kind of later, but you could understand how
it would make sense to journal. But Jesus, I mean,
his memorization was like perfect. We see so many times
him quoting scripture, including his time on the Cross, quoting scripture.
(42:56):
So how much if Jesus did it quote a scripture
in his time of suffering on the cross. What does
that say to us about why it's important to memorize
or to have good Bible intake from our reading and
not just mindlessly read through it. What does that tell us?
What does that tell us that Jesus was constantly taking
(43:16):
time and leaving and going into the wilderness time of
solitude and prayer. How does that model for us? Like,
what does that tell us that Jesus goes out in
fast so that he could he could be completely filled
with the spirit and not distracted by fleshly desires like food.
(43:41):
What does that tell us If we see Jesus modeling
these things for us, that's really a good thing. We
could ask ourselves, Sarah is like, what do I need?
Because you're saying, am I doing something wrong? Better? Said?
I think you could have better said that by saying,
(44:01):
am I should I be doing something else in addition
to this right? And the answer would be, let's look
at what Jesus was doing in this kind of scenario
as far as spiritual disciplines, fasting, meditating, solitude, prayer, Bible memorization,
(44:25):
Bible reading. We know he was reading, We know he
was sitting under sermons. Can you imagine Jesus so many
times sitting in the synagogue listening to someone else preached
to him about his word, and yet he did it
as a spiritual discipline. So this is what we need
to crank up, Sarah, and this is what I would do.
(44:47):
In addition to this, reading next question, subject line says
being a man. Hey, sir, my name is Brent. I'm
from Kansas and I'm twenty years old. I'm engaged. I'm
in the Air Force and i've been in just about
a year and I've been deployed. All that to say
(45:09):
that sometimes I struggle with being a man and not
viewing myself as a kid. I don't act like a child.
I just make childish decisions. However, I struggle with viewing
myself as a man. When do I go from being
just a kid from Kansas to the man God wants
me to be. Thanks for your time to read this.
(45:30):
I hope you have a great day, Brent. Thank you.
Brent had great question, and man, I love how this
connects to the guy that was saying Lane, who was
twenty six saying, what do I do about this girl,
my baby mama, my little boy at home? What do
I do about this girl, and I put so much
emphasis on the baby boy, not the girl, because Brent,
(45:56):
I hope there's no disrespect in saying this, but I
would I would just guess by not knowing you. And
I want to say this. I want to say this
as politely and sensitively as I can, but I have
a feeling, Brent, that your dad wasn't there in the
(46:16):
way that he could have been. Because typically when someone
is questioning, when an adult man is questioning themselves on
how to view themselves, Like you said, Brent, I struggle
with viewing myself as a man, typically that comes from
(46:38):
someone that was never verified. It was never told this
or reinforced this. They were They were never taken under
the under the wing of a man as a child,
as a boy and said this is how to be
a man. And when they became of age, no one
(47:02):
ever said you are now a man, my son. No
one ever did that to you, I'm assuming and if
they did do it, it wasn't intentional. The fact that
brings up an idea. There was a book called The
Intentional Father. Great book, Brent. It would be for you Lane,
It would also be for you the Intentional Father. There's
(47:25):
also a poem I want you to read. It's called
if I want you to read that Rudred Kipling book
or poem. If this is so good about manhood, I
think I could say this, but yeah, I think I'll
(47:46):
say it. Most people on this podcast know my friend Bernie,
who's been a guest many, many times. Well, yesterday I
went with Bernie and his son who just turned thirteen,
and several other of Bernie's Christian brothers, brothers in christ
and we all went through a right of passage for
(48:12):
his son. And each of us men had a virtue
that we taught to Bernie's son with scripture and prayer,
and then we acted on that virtue in a way
to teach him how to adopt that virtue. Now, Bernie's
going to go through this whole thing with his son,
(48:32):
and eventually it'll end up, because he's thirteen, it'll end
up in a place where Bernie says, you are now
a man. It's going to take about five years until
he's eighteen, but it starts now. This is the right
of passage begins now at thirteen. We trace back history,
almost every culture and tribe and heritage, all of them
(48:57):
had a right of passage in some way about this
age for a boy so that he knows. Unlike Brent,
you don't have to ask the question when did I
go from being just a kid from Kansas to the
man God wants me to be? That is something God
doesn't speak down through the clouds. That is something God
(49:19):
provides us the answer with through community. And God provided
the ultimate community to us through church, through his church.
And so Brent, this is a little late for you,
so that part of this can't apply. But to anyone else,
fathers and even young teenagers listening, Church provides God's way
(49:40):
of community for us, so that through community we are
given the affirmation that we are man. There's a great
book called Wild at Heart, and that I read that
book as a teenager, and then I read it again
when I was going to to be a father, and
(50:02):
Wild at Heart is great for understanding this kind of affirmation.
There are specific times in Wild at Heart John Eldridge
is their author when John walks through these specific scenarios
with his sons. As you find these moments when they
(50:23):
need they need to be told that they're either on
the right track or that they are affirmed in growing
into a man. So, Brent, none of this is answering
your question because you are past all that. I'm hopefully
just kind of building up a little information for everyone
else that might be heading towards this. But Brent, what
(50:48):
do you do now if you haven't had that affirmation,
if you're making childlike decisions and one you're struggling with
viewing yourself as a man, You're still twenty and you're
still super young, and you will make dumb mistakes as
(51:09):
a twenty year old. I certainly did way past twenty. Okay,
So being in the Air Force, being deployed is can
be a huge plus because you're going to be around
older men. But having the affirmation of older godly men
(51:29):
will come ultimately from being an active member of a church,
a god fearing Bible teaching, expositional preaching. Church sized proportionately
to the amount of sheep to the shepherd. If there's
(51:51):
too many sheep and not enough shepherds, and it can't
be healthy in that way. Instead, if you have a
lot of sheep in your church, you gotta have a
lot of efforts. Basically, it's easy math think about in
proportion to how many people, how many pastors can be
directly involved with the lives of the congregation. That kind
(52:12):
of church. That's what I'm advocating for, Brent. Being a
member active in that kind of church will provide you
with older men, younger men, toddlers, babies, men your age,
men that have been through what you've been through, men
that are grandfathers that you can go I'm having trouble
(52:33):
just being a man. I'm making stupid, child boyish decisions
and I need some accountability from you. And there are
so many godly men in these churches, planted in these
churches that just live for that live for a twenty
year old Air Force kid to come in and say
this to them, and they go, come under my wing,
(52:55):
my son. Let me show you not only the pitfall
that I don't want you to step in like I did,
but let me show you in some places I actually
made the right decisions. And let me show you those two.
Let me step in for maybe what your father didn't do,
and let me fill that gap. The only way, Brent,
(53:17):
for you to feel like a man and be affirmed
as a man is to be around other godly men.
You can't do this on your own. You can't do
it outside of community, Read your Bible, increase your prayer life,
Increase your spiritual disciplines. Like the last email, plant yourself
(53:40):
in a good church with godly men that can keep
you accountable and tell you, yes, Brent, you are a man.
We love you, guys. Let's see you next Monday. I
thanks for joining me on the grater Smith Podcast. I
appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out
(54:02):
by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube,
subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and
the notification spell so that you never miss anytime I
upload a video. If you have a question for me
that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast
at gmail dot com.
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