February 12, 2024 • 43 mins
Join Granger Smith in this heartfelt podcast episode as he responds to Kyle's question about handling self-pity, selfishness, and pride in the face of a recent cancer diagnosis. Granger acknowledges the difficulty of providing advice without fully understanding Kyle's experience but offers to walk alongside him through the conversation. With empathy and sincerity, Granger emphasizes the importance of listening and support in such challenging times.
In another question, Granger responds to Anonymous question about healing from a difficult six-year relationship and regaining confidence and trust in God. Anonymous shares their journey of heartbreak and realization that the relationship was not in alignment with God's plan. Granger empathizes with Anonymous struggle and reflects on the process of letting go and prioritizing one's relationship with God. Through compassionate insights and personal reflection, Granger offers guidance on moving forward, healing, and rebuilding trust in God after a challenging experience. Tune in for a compassionate discussion on navigating emotions and finding strength amidst adversity.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
To think that a sickness from a personal perspective, it's
all about me, is a problem. If you want to
catch me speaking, I have some engagements coming up, and
(00:22):
that is starting February second at hoax Bluff, Alabama. I'm
going to be in Starkville, Mississippi, on March the eighth, Florence,
Alabama on March the ninth, Colorado Springs, Colorado on March
the twenty third, Carthage, Texas on April first, Orange County,
California on April twenty ninth, Bismarkin, North Dakota, May third,
(00:44):
and Franklin, Tennessee on May ninth. And then there'll be
some more to get added to that. Lord Willing, So
I wanted to welcome everybody to the podcast that hasn't
been here, hasn't listened to it yet. What I do
is I answer your questions and you email me podcast
at grangersmith dot com and I just walk through it.
(01:07):
I don't have any notes in front of me. In fact,
I haven't even seen these questions yet. So it's a
little bit scary because I could just fall into anything.
I have no idea what I'm getting into. But I'm
just gonna answer it as if we're just friends and
we're walking through life together again. The email is podcast
at grangersmith dot com. The first question comes from Tommy.
(01:30):
It says, Hey, Granger, how did friends and family react
to your decision to start preaching? Did you have to
cut ties with anyone? If so, do you have any
advice to others on how to deal with that separation?
I enjoy listening to your podcast, Thanks Tommy, Yeah, man,
thank thank you for emailing Tommy. Then thanks for listening
to other episodes as well. And you know, the reaction,
(01:54):
as you could probably imagine, was all over the map.
There were people that said, man, are so encouraged, you know,
this is amazing. Then we have the other people that said,
I'm so sad you're not going to be playing music anymore.
What will we do? I lived for your music. We
had people that said, don't care, never liked you anyway,
(02:16):
And then we had another group that was pretty interesting
to me, the group that said, hey, Granger, if you
ever need to talk, you ever need someone to just
talk with, I just want to let you know I'm here.
And I thought to myself, Oh, those are the people
that think I've gone crazy, so so those are the
(02:40):
different kinds of groups and a lot of different reactions.
But it's all expected, right, you expect all these different
kinds of reactions. The next part of your question said,
did you have to cut ties with anyone? No, I
definitely didn't cut ties with anyone. But there are people
that I don't don't hear from anymore that maybe I
(03:03):
used to hear from a lot, and I actually have
a list. Maybe to help you answer your question, you said,
give any advice on how to deal with that separation.
I have a list on my phone. I have an iPhone,
and I have on my notes. I just have a
long running list and it just keeps growing of people
that I need to reach out to. And I'm a
(03:27):
big voice texture. I like the voice text, which shouldn't
be as surprised as I sit here in this chair
and talking to your microphone. But I have a running list,
and there's a lot of people that I'll just reach
out and just be like, hey man, this is a
voice text. I'll just say hey, thinking about you. No
need to reply, but just thinking about you, man, and
hope you get to connect soon. Right now, that's an
(03:50):
open invitation. That message is open invitation to anyone that
wants to come back, and you actually, yeah, man, I've
been wanting to grab lunch or coffee or when's the
next time you're through this town. And then for some
of those, they don't reply at all, you know. And
so it's interesting because as I've gone from country music
(04:12):
into the guy that gives advice on a podcast and
has a radio show and travels around and preaches, I
don't ever want it to come across as man, I
haven't heard from Granger in a while. I wonder if
that means that I'm just too far gone for him
or I'm just not I'm not good enough for Granger.
(04:33):
I don't ever want that to be to be a
conversation that has had. So that's why that's what motivated
me to start this list, Like, man, I better get
this list going, and I do it. And I usually
spend time every morning going down that list and hitting
somebody up and I don't always hear back. So yeah,
it's just it's interesting. I appreciate you, Tommy. And let's
(04:55):
go to the next question from Clayton says, Hey Granger,
my name is Clayton. I'm twenty one years old. Question
on the Apocrypha and its reliability and why it is
excluded from the Bible. I was wondering if you knew
or had any books that would help with this sort
of topic. I want to be better understanding about how
we got the Bible and why things were excluded or included,
(05:18):
and I'm just now getting into apologetics and I absolutely
love it. Please recommend any books on or videos as well.
Any recommendations are greatly appreciated. Hey, Clayton, appreciate the question. Man,
I love this for anyone that's wondering. Apologetics is the
It is the way that we well. I don't want
(05:42):
to say this wrong way, because what it really means
is defending the faith, but it doesn't mean it in
like a military or aggressive type way. It's giving people
the reason for the hope that is within us. Right,
So be ready with a defense, which is in Greek apologia,
(06:07):
So that's where that word apologetics comes from. So be
ready with a defense for anyone that asked you about
the hope that's in you. That's the gist of where
that idea comes from. And then that defense, which comes
with patience and love and salt and light, it comes
(06:33):
from it could defend any any piece of our faith,
including his question, which is I had questions about the Apocrypha,
which is the extra books that are in the Catholic Bible.
I think that's the best, the easiest way for me
(06:53):
to say it. These books were added in the sixteenth century,
so it's not an ancient thing. It's not really old.
It didn't start that way, and then Protestants took books
out of the Bible. In fact, the Apocryphy was added
as a response to the Protestant Reformation. So the Protestant said, hey,
(07:16):
we're going to go back to the Bible because we
think that things are things aren't being taught from the
Bible itself, from Scripture itself, and so they broke That
was essentially a big reason why they broke They broke off,
and then Catholic leadership came back and said, well, in
response to you leaving saying you're just going to go
(07:38):
to scripture alone, because we want to we we believe
in the authority of the Church that is equal to
the authority of Scripture. So if you're going to go
do that, we're gonna go ahead and just tell you
that we're going to add some more books to this,
I'm making it sound worse. I'm making it I'm not
(08:02):
telling the full spectrum of the story because I'm trying
to make it quick. Here's the thing about the apocrypha.
You said, is it reliable? Yeah, the apocrypha is actually
not false. It's not like false doctrine or bad truth
or fake history. It's not that at all. In fact,
(08:23):
the apocrypha, I would say, is reliable, Yes, that's your question.
And it is historical and a lot of it fills
in the gaps between that, that four hundred year gap
between Malachi and the New Testament. Matthew. So you have
stories of books ancient text that fill in that gap
(08:44):
that are historically reliable, but they are not considered scripture,
which means they're not considered divinely inspired. They are not
considered the word of God, which makes it different. That's
the difference between being reliable is a historical document where
you can go, yeah, yeah, we could, we could see this,
we could, we could trace this back, and then saying
(09:06):
not only is it reliable historical document, but it's also
the word of God. There's a big difference, and that's
the cutoff there, because scripture is an errant meaning it
is it is the truth. The apocryphy is stories, real stories,
but not in ERRt okay, does that make any sense?
(09:28):
I'm trying to use the best, my best choice of words.
That makes make this a very difficult conversation easier to
digest the the canon itself, which is a cold We
can do an entire podcast on this is when you say, well,
if that's reliable and the Bible is reliable, where did
(09:49):
the canon come from? Why were why were those books
excluded in the first place. Well, the best and easiest
way to just explain that is that we look back
not because of the Council of Nicea, where it's like
a bunch of men got together and decided, of all
the books in the world, let's choose these and this
(10:09):
will be the canon. That's a false representation of the
Council of Nicia. Instead, it was a group of men
that got together and said, we know what the books
are because they've been passed down through the church through
We know these books, and so we need to fence
this off and put it in stone, put it in
(10:32):
writing that these are the books, in order to defend
it against heresy that's coming in saying this is what
about this book? What about this book? What about this book?
You see, so there's a big difference between men coming
in and going, let's get all the books on the
table and see which one we should pick for the canon,
and a group of men that said, we know the canon,
but we need to actually put it in writing that
(10:52):
this is the canon. Let's officially do that and close
it so that no more of these people could say
what about this Book of Thomas? Here there's a bunch
of reasons why we wouldn't include the Book of Thomas
and the cannon. Great conversation and so so exciting, and
so finally some straight up Indiana Jones stuff. When you
really get into that kind of the scripture and narrancy,
(11:16):
Apologetic is really really fun in a deep rabbit hole,
and like I said, could take an entire podcast to
go through. Where should you go? If I was going
to suggest a few things quickly here? That's a great question.
And there is a quick little book by Greg Gilbert
(11:39):
called Why Trust the Bible? Very short book, easy to understand.
Why Trust the Bible? You can find it on Amazon.
There's a great YouTube page called Apologia Studios could also
say it. Apologia. That's how it looks. Apologia Studios, great
YouTube page and there's a great video on that YouTube
(12:03):
page about the that's deconstructing the idea that Constantine decided
the canon. Like there's a lot of people when I've
heard this heresy many times and it came from the
I believe it came from the movie Da Vinci Code
that Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, got together, he became
a Christian and he's the one that decided the canon.
(12:26):
And it's completely false. It never happened. So look up
on YouTube Apologia Studios Constantine. Just type in that and
there's a there's there's a two part series. It's a
great historical two part series. It's going to just guide
you through facts and not not hearsay and not fiction.
(12:46):
So dude, email back. This is like I said, this
is there's so much in this email, but email back
and I'd be happy to walk through this again with
you if you haven't done it in a while. Go
to eeye dot com. That's her apparel company. Me and
my two brothers, Tyler and Parker, and I'd love for
you to see the new stuff we have. We have
the winter launch come out a few weeks ago and
(13:07):
we're gearing up for the spring launch, so we're right
in between it. I want to make sure that you're
staying up to date with what we have going on
with your favorite outdoor apparel company, yee Ye. We're also
trying to give away a bunch of stickers right now.
So if you got a cool truck, hey, message us
dm us or comment on the latest post on our
Instagram page ee Y Apparel and tell us you got
(13:30):
a cool truck and we need to send you a
free sticker. That's what we're gonna do. Also, if you
want a message from me, if you want a video
message from my phone, go to cameo dot com slash
Granger Smith and you could request anything you want. You
just type in, Hey Granger, it's my brother's birthday. Can
can you give him a video saying yeee and I
saw you at the concert a few years ago and
(13:52):
he loves EARLD Dibbles Junior. Can you give him a
shout out? Whatever you want me to say, I'll say
it for you and I'll shoot you that video message again.
That's at cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. Next question
comes from Anonymous. Hey Granger, I'm a big fan of
yours since the country music days. The podcast is amazing
and it's been great to see how God is using you.
I have been in a six year long relationship with
(14:16):
a guy who ultimately knew it wasn't who I ultimately
knew wasn't God's best. I think I know what that means. Unfortunately,
I was hurt, blindsided, ultimately heartbroken, but I let fear insecurity, etc.
Keep me from moving on. After tons of back and forth,
(14:38):
I just realized we needed to end, and most importantly
for me to let go. Although it's been a difficult process,
it has helped me reprioritize my relationship with God. What
would you advise me to do moving forward to heal
from this and gain back my confidence slash trust in God?
Lots of love, Anonymous. Let me recap so I understand
(15:01):
what you're saying here. Six year relationship that was probably bad.
I'm assuming you were blindsided, you were hurt, heartbroken, but
after that you couldn't move on. Then it probably broke up.
(15:22):
You broke up, I'm assuming, and then you just kind
of like it lingered and you got back together and
you broke up again. That that happens, and then you
realized in the end that you needed to completely cut
it off cold turkey. I'm recapping for my own brain,
and it's helped you now re prioritize your relationship with God.
So your question, I'm trying to get your question. Your
question is how do you move forward to heal from
(15:46):
this and gain back your confidence slash trust in God.
So you're implying that you lost trust in God through
this relationship. I think that, like, that's that's what I
would question. If we were riding in the truck together
and you brought this up, I would say, you're trying
to gain back confidence in God because you lost it
(16:08):
in that relationship. Or were you just so into that
relationship that you moved away and you feel that distance,
Because look, a relationship with God is like this. It's like,
imagine God is an island, and you are the canoe
and you roll around and you use your oars and
(16:30):
you drift with a tide, and you go up and
down with the storms, and you feel distant from the island.
Sometimes the island seems so small. Sometimes it seems unreachable.
Sometimes the island is hazy and hard to see it all,
and then sometimes it's very present and you're right up
against it. But in reality, the island never moves, only
(16:55):
you do as you drift. So we could think of
that as our relationship with God. God is not going anywhere.
He is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
He is unmovable. It is us that drift and bounce
with the tide constantly. So there's your first step in
(17:17):
regaining this confidence. He didn't go anywhere. In fact, he
was always there in the same place. It was you
that drifted. Okay, totally happens. I totally get it right.
And then you're wondering how to move forward. One just
piece of practical advice in this is stay out of
(17:37):
relationships for a bit. It's time to take a break.
The worst thing you could do, my counsel, would be
the worst thing you could do, is go back into
another relationship with someone else, because you have your vulnerable
right now to be open to Prince Charming to come
in and say the right things and he's a man
of God, or whatever might happen, or you meet them
(18:00):
at church, or your family introduces you, and that is
possible to happen, but most likely that's a vulnerability because
you're open. Now, You've got an open wound that has
not healed right, So be very careful with that. Pump
the brakes. Don't give your heart away. Do not give
your heart away soon, keep it guarded. Be careful with that.
(18:26):
And through time as you how do you rekindle a
relationship with God? Or if you think of that island scenario,
or he doesn't go anywhere, but you're going to try
to find anchors to that island. So in your canoe,
you got to get your ropes out, You got to
get your anchor out, you got to get your hooks out,
(18:46):
and you got to do everything. You get your oars
and you stick them in the sand. And those come
in all the kinds of ways. It comes with a
spiritual discipline of prayer, of reading your Bible consistently, make
it a daily habit, take notes. It comes with planting
yourself with your feet in the sand right at the
shore of the island, in a local church, showing up
(19:08):
on a Sunday. I don't care if you sit in
the back. I don't care if you don't know anybody there.
I don't care if you show up a little bit late.
But as long as you're showing up, it's kind of
like trying to run a marathon. How do you run
a marathon? Granger? Will you start by putting your shoes
on and going outside and going some distance. It doesn't
have to be it shouldn't be really a marathon the
(19:30):
first day, but any kind of distance, you just become
a creature of a habit of moving towards that goal.
And the goal is the marathon. The goal is knowing God,
and that's a journey we're all going to be on
for a lifetime. But it's really going to start with
putting your running shoes on and getting out there and
hitting the pavement. And a big piece of that is
(19:51):
showing up in church right, consistently being poured over with
good leadership, joining a small grip or a Bible study,
doing having lunches or coffees coffee with fellow sisters in
the faith. These are things that will ground you. These
(20:14):
are your ropes and your hooks and your oars and
your heels in the sand of the island. And this
is something I would encourage you to do to to
keep you accountable and to keep you away from that
probably selfish desire to jump into another relationship quick, to
try to heal something that needs to be healed by
(20:36):
God and consistent time with him. Next question comes from
Kyle says, Hey Granger, I'm thirty two years old and
recently diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. My question
to you is how, in difficult times do you handle
the fleshly desire of self, pity, selfishness, and pride. I
(20:56):
know this is a broad question, but any advice that
you have I would appreciate it. Oh, Kyle, I'm so sorry, buddy,
I'm so sorry, And you know what I want to
say right off the bat. First of all, I don't
(21:16):
I don't know what it's like in your shoes. And
because I don't know what it's like in your shoes,
I don't know how to appropriately answer that question. But
I will walk with you as though we're having this
conversation around a campfire. And what's difficult about that, and
(21:38):
the essence of this podcast is me answering your questions casually.
But what's difficult in this kind of scenario is that
I would listen to you way more than I talk
and Unfortunately, in this kind of setting, it's just me
in a microphone. So my first thought that comes to
(21:58):
my mind is if you're asking the question, how do
you handle the fleshly desire of self pity, selfishness, and
pride being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. First
I just hear I say, brother. The fact that you
even label it as a fleshley desire, the fact that
(22:19):
you even bring it up as an enemy that you
need to eradicate, gives me so much hope and encouragement
that you're on a really good path because I think
recognizing that that that could be an enemy, self pity, selfishness, pride.
(22:43):
The fact that you could recognize that that's an enemy,
I think is a huge mountain that most people don't
get to. We see so many people that just just
wallow in their self pity, they wallow in their selfishness.
This is why it's difficult for me to answer this
question with you, because I haven't been in your shoes.
(23:03):
But so please forgive me when I speak of selfishness
on your behalf, because I don't know you and I
don't want to unfairly label you as someone that's selfish,
But I'm just going by what you told me. And
(23:24):
to think that it's all to think that a sickness, okay,
stepping out on a limb, to think that a sickness
from a personal perspective, it's all about me, is a problem, right,
And to say anything, say I get this, I get
(23:44):
a stomach bug. And my tendency, my human tendency, is
to think, oh poor me, my day is ruined. I
have lost all this time of the last I've lost
the last two days because I've got the stum bug.
Oh poor me. Right, And that's a very light example
(24:06):
of how we could turn everything inward on ourselves and
be so selfish and just think it's all about me.
I look, I see this when couples are fighting and
they're on the brink of divorce, and so many times
when these couples are at each other, they're at each
(24:27):
other's throat and they're fighting through something. I just think
in my mind and I try to tell him in
the nicest way I can. I try to tell him,
both of you are just making everything all about you.
I have been dealing with this relationship for so long,
and I have put up with his crap for so long.
(24:49):
And his narcissism. And he doesn't do this or I
ask him to do he doesn't recognize this and this
and this, and then the guys over here going. She
just nags and nags and nags. She doesn't understand my
sensitivity towards her nagging. And she doesn't even know that
I'm actually going through this and work, and I come
(25:10):
on from work and she nags me at this and
she has no sensitivity towards us. And I'm going, both
of y'all are just being selfish. Look. Look another example.
I tell my kids Lincoln in London, when they start
fighting and they do this, he said this, she said this,
he said, And I go, who's gonna quit first? Quit? What?
Quit the selfishness? Who's gonna stop first? Who's gonna break
(25:33):
the selfishness? And go? You know, what's not all about me?
It's not all about me. How many times do we
need to hear that in our own lives? How many
times do we need to tell ourselves that it's not
all about me? Oh? Man? Can you imagine a world
if everyone looked at themselves and said that? So my
(25:56):
point with this, Kyle, is that the fact that you
even recognize it as the enemy is so huge. In
order to fight self pity and selfishness, we serve and
we give, because you can't with a full heart of
gratitude serve someone else and simultaneously have self pity for ourselves.
(26:22):
You can't wholeheartedly give and pour out to someone else
with gratitude and be full of selfishness and pride simultaneously.
Those things cannot coexist. And so you go, well, cool,
that's nice for a postcard stranger. But I've got cancer.
(26:43):
How could I possibly serve others? I'm not even capable
of serving myself right now? Right, Kyle, you know that's
not right, because I've been to those cancer wards and hospitals,
and I've seen how valuable, how valuable empathy is in
(27:06):
those cancer wards. Someone that understands when we lost River
my son and we went back to visit people in
the nick you people that were had just lost a
child or had a child that was battling for their life.
(27:26):
When we go there, when we speak to those people
even today, they will listen to us more than they
listen to someone that hasn't been through it. That's our
human nature. That's the power of empathy, right, And so you,
with this rare form of cancer being diagnosed, can serve
(27:48):
others with a similar diagnosis, and it will be more
powerful and more meaningful to everyone else, way more than
the people that have never been through it like you.
And when you do that, when you serve others, when
you say what could I do for you? How could
I help you? How could I be there for you?
(28:10):
Just even just just a talk. Can I come over
tonight and we'll just talk? By you doing that, You're
not capable of being selfish. You're not capable of drowning
and self pity. You're not capable of being puffed up
with pride. Brother, I don't know what you're going through,
(28:31):
and I don't want to pretend like I am. But
from the outside looking in, this is your roadmap to
overcoming these what you call fleshly desires. If you want
to get a hold of me some way, maybe get
a video message from me. You could do that at
cameo dot com slash granger Smith. I will see your message.
(28:53):
You send me a message and say what you want
me to say in a video, and I'll make a
quick video on my phone and say exactly that. Happy Birthday,
Happy anniversary, word of encouragement, word of prayer, something, anything
that you want me to send to someone else or yourself.
You could do that with a video message from me
from cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. Next question comes
(29:15):
from Anonymous here and it says, Hey Granger. First, I'd
like to say that your sermons have strengthened my relationship
with Christ and brought me closer to him. Thank you
for your ministry. My question is for what reasons should
you leave a local church. I have been prayerfully considering
leaving my current church for deeper scripture teaching, among other things.
I have attended this church for a long time and
(29:37):
have close friendships within the congregation. Thus I feel very
torn about leaving. Ultimately, I want to do whatever God
is asking me to do. Any advice that you have,
even tough love, would be appreciated. God blessed Anonymous. The
first thing I would say in response to this question
is I would be careful with saying I want to
(30:01):
do whatever God is asking me to do, because when
you say that, you're implying that God spoke to you
and told you to leave this church, and that's not
That's not what happened. Okay, so let's let's be careful
with the language. I'm trying to do what God is
(30:22):
asking me to do. Look, look, I get it, I
get what you're saying, but I just want to be
crystal clear as we're talking to everyone else here. Instead,
let's change it to something like I want to be
faithful to God's word or I want to be obedient
(30:42):
to my savior. Right, So let's say things like that
instead of I want to do what he's asking me
to do. Right. Secondly, you said what reasons should you
leave a local church? And then the next sentence you
gave really good reasons. You said, I have been perfectly
(31:04):
considering leaving, and here's your reason for deeper scripture teaching,
among other things. And I go, oh, amen, that's a
good reason. Maybe you emailed because you just needed me
to hear that and cheer you on a little bit.
(31:26):
You need my approval. Maybe because you literally asked a
question and then gave a really good answer to your
own question. Maybe it just takes me to just tell
you that you did that. So leaving your church for
because you crave deeper scripture teaching is valid. It wouldn't
be valid to say the pastor's not feeding me, you know,
(31:50):
or like I just I feel like I'm not growing.
That's not the pastor's responsibility to make you grow or
to feed you necessarily kind of. But he would do
that through deeper scripture teaching. So that's the answer. If
that's the way he should feed you, that's the way
(32:11):
you should grow with that. So there's a difference between
I don't feel like I'm growing and the pastor's not
teaching deep scripture. Okay, he's not teaching the full Bible,
he's not expositionally walking through different books, which is really
(32:34):
the recommended way to answer all of these questions instead
of topical series throughout the year. Here's what I think
you need from me. I think you're looking to just
get validated in this decision, and I think what you
need to hear is that you need to not sneak
(32:58):
out the exit quietly. You need to schedule lunches or
dinner with the leadership that brought you into the church
or that has counseled you through your time there. You
said you've been there a long time, and in that
(33:18):
dinner or lunch or coffee, just be very honest and
completely transparent and just go look, I love you guys,
I love the people, and I'm so torn. This is
so difficult for me. But I'm seeking deeper scripture teaching
and I'm going to go somewhere else. I don't know
(33:38):
exactly where yet, but I'm going to start my search.
But I just want to tell you that it hurts me.
It's not easy to do this, and I wanted you
to hear it from me instead of you just stop
seeing me show up and you wonder what happened to me.
I wanted to tell you that. Now, that does a
(33:59):
couple of things. One, it's just that's just a nice, generous,
respectable thing to do. It's it's it's the it's the
way to have integrity and leave a church. But the
second thing it does is it also sounds a little
bit of an alarm that says we're losing people because
we're not teaching deep scripture. Right. That's important too, and
(34:25):
so you need to be honest with that. The the
third thing that I would say that this is going
to do, it's it's going to make this church. If
they just saw you disappear, they would continue on the
(34:47):
same path. It's going to make them rethink in leadership
the way that they are presenting sermons on a Sunday morning.
Next question comes from Jason. It says, Hey, Graynard, there's
this girl who I have liked for about over a year,
(35:08):
and she is my boss's daughter. We make eye contact
whenever I see her, and she either smiles or quickly
looks away. However, she has been with her current current
boyfriend for about nine months and they've been doing long
distance and he won't be living here for a year.
(35:29):
I've been to my boss's house multiple times to help remodel,
and I've talked to the girl there. She's really sweet.
We're both twenty. What do you recommend I do? Let
me get let me hang on, say, let me get
a grip on this. Jason, there's a girl you like her.
She's your boss's daughter. Got it. You guys make eye contact,
(35:50):
which is interesting, and she smiles and say you're getting
these like this body language reading from her that she's
into you, right, recapping for my own mind. And she's
been with her current boyfriend for almost a year and
long distance. But the thing I'm missing, Jason, the thing
I'm missing is that you don't you don't say how
(36:14):
she's doing with him. That would be the first thing
I'd ask, as well, is she happy with this guy?
Because what if I was kind of expecting you to say,
she's she's got a wondering eye because he treats her
horrible and he never takes her to dinner, or or
she's very unhappy, or he's got all these different girlfriends
(36:37):
in different towns, and I thought that that's where this
was going. But you didn't say anything about that. All
you said is you've been to her house multiple times
and talk to her there, and she's really sweet. This
is something man, that you have to be really careful
(36:58):
with because you come in, you come in at this
at this juncture, when she is twenty years old and
she's dating this guy for nine months, you're you're in
(37:19):
the position where you can get in a lot of trouble. Basically,
that's what I'm saying. For instance, you go to her
and say, look, I like you, just want to be honest.
I like you. If you're into me, let me know.
Then she's like, oh my goodness, no I don't. I've
got a serious boyfriend. And then she goes back and
if if that's true, then she's gonna tell the serious
boyfriend and he's gonna be like, wait what, your dad
(37:42):
has hired this guy and now he's hitting on you
while I'm out of town, and it it creates a
really tough situation, So you gotta be really careful. I
would say the best thing to do. And there is
no right or wrong to this, for sure, But if
I was talking to you in the cap of a truck,
(38:02):
I would say, do not bring it up that you
like her. It's a dangerous thing to do. Instead, And
even though you probably want me to say that in
this podcast, and that's what your impulse probably wants me
to say, but I would just be super sweet to her,
try not to be too flirty. You're not going to
go on any dates or anything, and watch her. Look
(38:26):
this happened with me and Amber when I first met her.
I really really really liked her, and just like you,
she was really sweet and she had a boyfriend. And
I didn't come to her as some homewrecker and say, look,
not that that's the right term with a boyfriend. But
(38:48):
I didn't come to her and say, hey, I like you,
will you break up with this guy? You know? Let's
date instead. I was just as sweet as I could be.
I tried to be beckful for the situation, and Amber
reached out to me and she said, look, I just
I was wondering if the way you feel, if the
(39:11):
way you feel about me is the same I feel
about you, because I think there's more to us than friends.
That's what she said. And then guess what I did.
I pumped the brakes again. I still didn't say, yes,
I like you, I said, and I promise she could
tell you. She could back this up. I said, regardless
(39:31):
of how I feel, if you have this kind of
wondering eye, you don't need to be dating this guy.
So break up with him and then we'll talk. That
was my way of saying, look, I don't want I
don't want any part of being the bad guy here
in this situation because it wasn't my place. I didn't
(39:54):
have any claim on Amber at all. I didn't have
any right to move into that relationship and break it
up right. So I said, look, you'll show me something
huge if you break up with this guy. And she did.
She was like, okay, she broke up with a guy.
And she called me and said, I broke up with him,
(40:16):
and then guess what I did. Then I said okay,
and I let about a month go by, and then
we lived in two different towns. And then after about
a month, I said, hey, I'm playing this little acoustic
gig and walks a hatch. He's kind of close to you.
Do you want to go grab some coffee after my gig?
And she said yes. Then after my gig, which she
(40:39):
didn't go to, I didn't even tell her where it was,
went to the gig and I said, I'm finished. There's
a Starbucks ten miles from me, and it looks like
it's close to you, and she said great. We went there.
We got two coffees, probably nine thirty at night, and
we drank the coffee. We talked, and we stayed there
(40:59):
and talked until they started putting the chairs up are
the stools up onto the tables, and they said we're closing.
So I said, okay, we got to go, and I
got in my truck, she got in her car, she
went home. I went home, and we talked on the
phone on the way home, so we couldn't we couldn't
(41:21):
talk enough. It's Starbucks. We talked all the way home
and from then on we were messaging and talking back
and forth and we became best friends. So look, that's
not necessarily the right roadmap for you. But I'm partly
telling you that I don't think going in and telling her, hey,
I really like you, like you want to break up
(41:43):
with this guy's long distance anyway, I don't really think
that's the right way, or at least I could say that,
that wouldn't be what I would do. I wouldn't. I
would instead be courteous, be respectful, be sweet, be a
man of integrity, work hard for her dad, trust with
her dad, don't let the sun go down on you
(42:07):
and her in the same room, be respectful in that
aspect as well. Treat her like a lady. And then
I believe this will pan out in your favor if
it's the right thing, and if it's not, then she
might actually really like the other guy, and good for
him and good for her, And if you truly cared
(42:28):
about her, then that's what you would want anyway. Okay,
So I think that's my answer, and that's a long
way of just saying i'd be careful with this. You look.
An alternative to me saying that is you go in
you go, hey, I really like you. I know you're
dating this guy, but you want to come with me,
and she goes, yeah, I do. In the back of
(42:51):
your mind from then on, you might be thinking, if
a better guy comes along, he could easily come in
and just have the same conversation with her, and she
just moves on to the better guy. And that's just
what she does. She just upgrades constantly. Who's to say
that she wouldn't do that if she did it with you?
Just my thought. Love you guys, Thanks for being here.
(43:12):
We will see you next Monday. Thanks for joining me
on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys.
You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.
If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that
little like button and notification spell so that you never
miss anytime I upload a video. Yigi
To think that a sickness from a personal perspective, it's
all about me, is a problem. If you want to
catch me speaking, I have some engagements coming up, and
(00:22):
that is starting February second at hoax Bluff, Alabama. I'm
going to be in Starkville, Mississippi, on March the eighth, Florence,
Alabama on March the ninth, Colorado Springs, Colorado on March
the twenty third, Carthage, Texas on April first, Orange County,
California on April twenty ninth, Bismarkin, North Dakota, May third,
(00:44):
and Franklin, Tennessee on May ninth. And then there'll be
some more to get added to that. Lord Willing, So
I wanted to welcome everybody to the podcast that hasn't
been here, hasn't listened to it yet. What I do
is I answer your questions and you email me podcast
at grangersmith dot com and I just walk through it.
(01:07):
I don't have any notes in front of me. In fact,
I haven't even seen these questions yet. So it's a
little bit scary because I could just fall into anything.
I have no idea what I'm getting into. But I'm
just gonna answer it as if we're just friends and
we're walking through life together again. The email is podcast
at grangersmith dot com. The first question comes from Tommy.
(01:30):
It says, Hey, Granger, how did friends and family react
to your decision to start preaching? Did you have to
cut ties with anyone? If so, do you have any
advice to others on how to deal with that separation?
I enjoy listening to your podcast, Thanks Tommy, Yeah, man,
thank thank you for emailing Tommy. Then thanks for listening
to other episodes as well. And you know, the reaction,
(01:54):
as you could probably imagine, was all over the map.
There were people that said, man, are so encouraged, you know,
this is amazing. Then we have the other people that said,
I'm so sad you're not going to be playing music anymore.
What will we do? I lived for your music. We
had people that said, don't care, never liked you anyway,
(02:16):
And then we had another group that was pretty interesting
to me, the group that said, hey, Granger, if you
ever need to talk, you ever need someone to just
talk with, I just want to let you know I'm here.
And I thought to myself, Oh, those are the people
that think I've gone crazy, so so those are the
(02:40):
different kinds of groups and a lot of different reactions.
But it's all expected, right, you expect all these different
kinds of reactions. The next part of your question said,
did you have to cut ties with anyone? No, I
definitely didn't cut ties with anyone. But there are people
that I don't don't hear from anymore that maybe I
(03:03):
used to hear from a lot, and I actually have
a list. Maybe to help you answer your question, you said,
give any advice on how to deal with that separation.
I have a list on my phone. I have an iPhone,
and I have on my notes. I just have a
long running list and it just keeps growing of people
that I need to reach out to. And I'm a
(03:27):
big voice texture. I like the voice text, which shouldn't
be as surprised as I sit here in this chair
and talking to your microphone. But I have a running list,
and there's a lot of people that I'll just reach
out and just be like, hey man, this is a
voice text. I'll just say hey, thinking about you. No
need to reply, but just thinking about you, man, and
hope you get to connect soon. Right now, that's an
(03:50):
open invitation. That message is open invitation to anyone that
wants to come back, and you actually, yeah, man, I've
been wanting to grab lunch or coffee or when's the
next time you're through this town. And then for some
of those, they don't reply at all, you know. And
so it's interesting because as I've gone from country music
(04:12):
into the guy that gives advice on a podcast and
has a radio show and travels around and preaches, I
don't ever want it to come across as man, I
haven't heard from Granger in a while. I wonder if
that means that I'm just too far gone for him
or I'm just not I'm not good enough for Granger.
(04:33):
I don't ever want that to be to be a
conversation that has had. So that's why that's what motivated
me to start this list, Like, man, I better get
this list going, and I do it. And I usually
spend time every morning going down that list and hitting
somebody up and I don't always hear back. So yeah,
it's just it's interesting. I appreciate you, Tommy. And let's
(04:55):
go to the next question from Clayton says, Hey Granger,
my name is Clayton. I'm twenty one years old. Question
on the Apocrypha and its reliability and why it is
excluded from the Bible. I was wondering if you knew
or had any books that would help with this sort
of topic. I want to be better understanding about how
we got the Bible and why things were excluded or included,
(05:18):
and I'm just now getting into apologetics and I absolutely
love it. Please recommend any books on or videos as well.
Any recommendations are greatly appreciated. Hey, Clayton, appreciate the question. Man,
I love this for anyone that's wondering. Apologetics is the
It is the way that we well. I don't want
(05:42):
to say this wrong way, because what it really means
is defending the faith, but it doesn't mean it in
like a military or aggressive type way. It's giving people
the reason for the hope that is within us. Right,
So be ready with a defense, which is in Greek apologia,
(06:07):
So that's where that word apologetics comes from. So be
ready with a defense for anyone that asked you about
the hope that's in you. That's the gist of where
that idea comes from. And then that defense, which comes
with patience and love and salt and light, it comes
(06:33):
from it could defend any any piece of our faith,
including his question, which is I had questions about the Apocrypha,
which is the extra books that are in the Catholic Bible.
I think that's the best, the easiest way for me
(06:53):
to say it. These books were added in the sixteenth century,
so it's not an ancient thing. It's not really old.
It didn't start that way, and then Protestants took books
out of the Bible. In fact, the Apocryphy was added
as a response to the Protestant Reformation. So the Protestant said, hey,
(07:16):
we're going to go back to the Bible because we
think that things are things aren't being taught from the
Bible itself, from Scripture itself, and so they broke That
was essentially a big reason why they broke They broke off,
and then Catholic leadership came back and said, well, in
response to you leaving saying you're just going to go
(07:38):
to scripture alone, because we want to we we believe
in the authority of the Church that is equal to
the authority of Scripture. So if you're going to go
do that, we're gonna go ahead and just tell you
that we're going to add some more books to this,
I'm making it sound worse. I'm making it I'm not
(08:02):
telling the full spectrum of the story because I'm trying
to make it quick. Here's the thing about the apocrypha.
You said, is it reliable? Yeah, the apocrypha is actually
not false. It's not like false doctrine or bad truth
or fake history. It's not that at all. In fact,
(08:23):
the apocrypha, I would say, is reliable, Yes, that's your question.
And it is historical and a lot of it fills
in the gaps between that, that four hundred year gap
between Malachi and the New Testament. Matthew. So you have
stories of books ancient text that fill in that gap
(08:44):
that are historically reliable, but they are not considered scripture,
which means they're not considered divinely inspired. They are not
considered the word of God, which makes it different. That's
the difference between being reliable is a historical document where
you can go, yeah, yeah, we could, we could see this,
we could, we could trace this back, and then saying
(09:06):
not only is it reliable historical document, but it's also
the word of God. There's a big difference, and that's
the cutoff there, because scripture is an errant meaning it
is it is the truth. The apocryphy is stories, real stories,
but not in ERRt okay, does that make any sense?
(09:28):
I'm trying to use the best, my best choice of words.
That makes make this a very difficult conversation easier to
digest the the canon itself, which is a cold We
can do an entire podcast on this is when you say, well,
if that's reliable and the Bible is reliable, where did
(09:49):
the canon come from? Why were why were those books
excluded in the first place. Well, the best and easiest
way to just explain that is that we look back
not because of the Council of Nicea, where it's like
a bunch of men got together and decided, of all
the books in the world, let's choose these and this
(10:09):
will be the canon. That's a false representation of the
Council of Nicia. Instead, it was a group of men
that got together and said, we know what the books
are because they've been passed down through the church through
We know these books, and so we need to fence
this off and put it in stone, put it in
(10:32):
writing that these are the books, in order to defend
it against heresy that's coming in saying this is what
about this book? What about this book? What about this book?
You see, so there's a big difference between men coming
in and going, let's get all the books on the
table and see which one we should pick for the canon,
and a group of men that said, we know the canon,
but we need to actually put it in writing that
(10:52):
this is the canon. Let's officially do that and close
it so that no more of these people could say
what about this Book of Thomas? Here there's a bunch
of reasons why we wouldn't include the Book of Thomas
and the cannon. Great conversation and so so exciting, and
so finally some straight up Indiana Jones stuff. When you
really get into that kind of the scripture and narrancy,
(11:16):
Apologetic is really really fun in a deep rabbit hole,
and like I said, could take an entire podcast to
go through. Where should you go? If I was going
to suggest a few things quickly here? That's a great question.
And there is a quick little book by Greg Gilbert
(11:39):
called Why Trust the Bible? Very short book, easy to understand.
Why Trust the Bible? You can find it on Amazon.
There's a great YouTube page called Apologia Studios could also
say it. Apologia. That's how it looks. Apologia Studios, great
YouTube page and there's a great video on that YouTube
(12:03):
page about the that's deconstructing the idea that Constantine decided
the canon. Like there's a lot of people when I've
heard this heresy many times and it came from the
I believe it came from the movie Da Vinci Code
that Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, got together, he became
a Christian and he's the one that decided the canon.
(12:26):
And it's completely false. It never happened. So look up
on YouTube Apologia Studios Constantine. Just type in that and
there's a there's there's a two part series. It's a
great historical two part series. It's going to just guide
you through facts and not not hearsay and not fiction.
(12:46):
So dude, email back. This is like I said, this
is there's so much in this email, but email back
and I'd be happy to walk through this again with
you if you haven't done it in a while. Go
to eeye dot com. That's her apparel company. Me and
my two brothers, Tyler and Parker, and I'd love for
you to see the new stuff we have. We have
the winter launch come out a few weeks ago and
(13:07):
we're gearing up for the spring launch, so we're right
in between it. I want to make sure that you're
staying up to date with what we have going on
with your favorite outdoor apparel company, yee Ye. We're also
trying to give away a bunch of stickers right now.
So if you got a cool truck, hey, message us
dm us or comment on the latest post on our
Instagram page ee Y Apparel and tell us you got
(13:30):
a cool truck and we need to send you a
free sticker. That's what we're gonna do. Also, if you
want a message from me, if you want a video
message from my phone, go to cameo dot com slash
Granger Smith and you could request anything you want. You
just type in, Hey Granger, it's my brother's birthday. Can
can you give him a video saying yeee and I
saw you at the concert a few years ago and
(13:52):
he loves EARLD Dibbles Junior. Can you give him a
shout out? Whatever you want me to say, I'll say
it for you and I'll shoot you that video message again.
That's at cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. Next question
comes from Anonymous. Hey Granger, I'm a big fan of
yours since the country music days. The podcast is amazing
and it's been great to see how God is using you.
I have been in a six year long relationship with
(14:16):
a guy who ultimately knew it wasn't who I ultimately
knew wasn't God's best. I think I know what that means. Unfortunately,
I was hurt, blindsided, ultimately heartbroken, but I let fear insecurity, etc.
Keep me from moving on. After tons of back and forth,
(14:38):
I just realized we needed to end, and most importantly
for me to let go. Although it's been a difficult process,
it has helped me reprioritize my relationship with God. What
would you advise me to do moving forward to heal
from this and gain back my confidence slash trust in God?
Lots of love, Anonymous. Let me recap so I understand
(15:01):
what you're saying here. Six year relationship that was probably bad.
I'm assuming you were blindsided, you were hurt, heartbroken, but
after that you couldn't move on. Then it probably broke up.
(15:22):
You broke up, I'm assuming, and then you just kind
of like it lingered and you got back together and
you broke up again. That that happens, and then you
realized in the end that you needed to completely cut
it off cold turkey. I'm recapping for my own brain,
and it's helped you now re prioritize your relationship with God.
So your question, I'm trying to get your question. Your
question is how do you move forward to heal from
(15:46):
this and gain back your confidence slash trust in God.
So you're implying that you lost trust in God through
this relationship. I think that, like, that's that's what I
would question. If we were riding in the truck together
and you brought this up, I would say, you're trying
to gain back confidence in God because you lost it
(16:08):
in that relationship. Or were you just so into that
relationship that you moved away and you feel that distance,
Because look, a relationship with God is like this. It's like,
imagine God is an island, and you are the canoe
and you roll around and you use your oars and
(16:30):
you drift with a tide, and you go up and
down with the storms, and you feel distant from the island.
Sometimes the island seems so small. Sometimes it seems unreachable.
Sometimes the island is hazy and hard to see it all,
and then sometimes it's very present and you're right up
against it. But in reality, the island never moves, only
(16:55):
you do as you drift. So we could think of
that as our relationship with God. God is not going anywhere.
He is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
He is unmovable. It is us that drift and bounce
with the tide constantly. So there's your first step in
(17:17):
regaining this confidence. He didn't go anywhere. In fact, he
was always there in the same place. It was you
that drifted. Okay, totally happens. I totally get it right.
And then you're wondering how to move forward. One just
piece of practical advice in this is stay out of
(17:37):
relationships for a bit. It's time to take a break.
The worst thing you could do, my counsel, would be
the worst thing you could do, is go back into
another relationship with someone else, because you have your vulnerable
right now to be open to Prince Charming to come
in and say the right things and he's a man
of God, or whatever might happen, or you meet them
(18:00):
at church, or your family introduces you, and that is
possible to happen, but most likely that's a vulnerability because
you're open. Now, You've got an open wound that has
not healed right, So be very careful with that. Pump
the brakes. Don't give your heart away. Do not give
your heart away soon, keep it guarded. Be careful with that.
(18:26):
And through time as you how do you rekindle a
relationship with God? Or if you think of that island scenario,
or he doesn't go anywhere, but you're going to try
to find anchors to that island. So in your canoe,
you got to get your ropes out, You got to
get your anchor out, you got to get your hooks out,
(18:46):
and you got to do everything. You get your oars
and you stick them in the sand. And those come
in all the kinds of ways. It comes with a
spiritual discipline of prayer, of reading your Bible consistently, make
it a daily habit, take notes. It comes with planting
yourself with your feet in the sand right at the
shore of the island, in a local church, showing up
(19:08):
on a Sunday. I don't care if you sit in
the back. I don't care if you don't know anybody there.
I don't care if you show up a little bit late.
But as long as you're showing up, it's kind of
like trying to run a marathon. How do you run
a marathon? Granger? Will you start by putting your shoes
on and going outside and going some distance. It doesn't
have to be it shouldn't be really a marathon the
(19:30):
first day, but any kind of distance, you just become
a creature of a habit of moving towards that goal.
And the goal is the marathon. The goal is knowing God,
and that's a journey we're all going to be on
for a lifetime. But it's really going to start with
putting your running shoes on and getting out there and
hitting the pavement. And a big piece of that is
(19:51):
showing up in church right, consistently being poured over with
good leadership, joining a small grip or a Bible study,
doing having lunches or coffees coffee with fellow sisters in
the faith. These are things that will ground you. These
(20:14):
are your ropes and your hooks and your oars and
your heels in the sand of the island. And this
is something I would encourage you to do to to
keep you accountable and to keep you away from that
probably selfish desire to jump into another relationship quick, to
try to heal something that needs to be healed by
(20:36):
God and consistent time with him. Next question comes from
Kyle says, Hey Granger, I'm thirty two years old and
recently diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. My question
to you is how, in difficult times do you handle
the fleshly desire of self, pity, selfishness, and pride. I
(20:56):
know this is a broad question, but any advice that
you have I would appreciate it. Oh, Kyle, I'm so sorry, buddy,
I'm so sorry, And you know what I want to
say right off the bat. First of all, I don't
(21:16):
I don't know what it's like in your shoes. And
because I don't know what it's like in your shoes,
I don't know how to appropriately answer that question. But
I will walk with you as though we're having this
conversation around a campfire. And what's difficult about that, and
(21:38):
the essence of this podcast is me answering your questions casually.
But what's difficult in this kind of scenario is that
I would listen to you way more than I talk
and Unfortunately, in this kind of setting, it's just me
in a microphone. So my first thought that comes to
(21:58):
my mind is if you're asking the question, how do
you handle the fleshly desire of self pity, selfishness, and
pride being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. First
I just hear I say, brother. The fact that you
even label it as a fleshley desire, the fact that
(22:19):
you even bring it up as an enemy that you
need to eradicate, gives me so much hope and encouragement
that you're on a really good path because I think
recognizing that that that could be an enemy, self pity, selfishness, pride.
(22:43):
The fact that you could recognize that that's an enemy,
I think is a huge mountain that most people don't
get to. We see so many people that just just
wallow in their self pity, they wallow in their selfishness.
This is why it's difficult for me to answer this
question with you, because I haven't been in your shoes.
(23:03):
But so please forgive me when I speak of selfishness
on your behalf, because I don't know you and I
don't want to unfairly label you as someone that's selfish,
But I'm just going by what you told me. And
(23:24):
to think that it's all to think that a sickness, okay,
stepping out on a limb, to think that a sickness
from a personal perspective, it's all about me, is a problem, right,
And to say anything, say I get this, I get
(23:44):
a stomach bug. And my tendency, my human tendency, is
to think, oh poor me, my day is ruined. I
have lost all this time of the last I've lost
the last two days because I've got the stum bug.
Oh poor me. Right, And that's a very light example
(24:06):
of how we could turn everything inward on ourselves and
be so selfish and just think it's all about me.
I look, I see this when couples are fighting and
they're on the brink of divorce, and so many times
when these couples are at each other, they're at each
(24:27):
other's throat and they're fighting through something. I just think
in my mind and I try to tell him in
the nicest way I can. I try to tell him,
both of you are just making everything all about you.
I have been dealing with this relationship for so long,
and I have put up with his crap for so long.
(24:49):
And his narcissism. And he doesn't do this or I
ask him to do he doesn't recognize this and this
and this, and then the guys over here going. She
just nags and nags and nags. She doesn't understand my
sensitivity towards her nagging. And she doesn't even know that
I'm actually going through this and work, and I come
(25:10):
on from work and she nags me at this and
she has no sensitivity towards us. And I'm going, both
of y'all are just being selfish. Look. Look another example.
I tell my kids Lincoln in London, when they start
fighting and they do this, he said this, she said this,
he said, And I go, who's gonna quit first? Quit? What?
Quit the selfishness? Who's gonna stop first? Who's gonna break
(25:33):
the selfishness? And go? You know, what's not all about me?
It's not all about me. How many times do we
need to hear that in our own lives? How many
times do we need to tell ourselves that it's not
all about me? Oh? Man? Can you imagine a world
if everyone looked at themselves and said that? So my
(25:56):
point with this, Kyle, is that the fact that you
even recognize it as the enemy is so huge. In
order to fight self pity and selfishness, we serve and
we give, because you can't with a full heart of
gratitude serve someone else and simultaneously have self pity for ourselves.
(26:22):
You can't wholeheartedly give and pour out to someone else
with gratitude and be full of selfishness and pride simultaneously.
Those things cannot coexist. And so you go, well, cool,
that's nice for a postcard stranger. But I've got cancer.
(26:43):
How could I possibly serve others? I'm not even capable
of serving myself right now? Right, Kyle, you know that's
not right, because I've been to those cancer wards and hospitals,
and I've seen how valuable, how valuable empathy is in
(27:06):
those cancer wards. Someone that understands when we lost River
my son and we went back to visit people in
the nick you people that were had just lost a
child or had a child that was battling for their life.
(27:26):
When we go there, when we speak to those people
even today, they will listen to us more than they
listen to someone that hasn't been through it. That's our
human nature. That's the power of empathy, right, And so you,
with this rare form of cancer being diagnosed, can serve
(27:48):
others with a similar diagnosis, and it will be more
powerful and more meaningful to everyone else, way more than
the people that have never been through it like you.
And when you do that, when you serve others, when
you say what could I do for you? How could
I help you? How could I be there for you?
(28:10):
Just even just just a talk. Can I come over
tonight and we'll just talk? By you doing that, You're
not capable of being selfish. You're not capable of drowning
and self pity. You're not capable of being puffed up
with pride. Brother, I don't know what you're going through,
(28:31):
and I don't want to pretend like I am. But
from the outside looking in, this is your roadmap to
overcoming these what you call fleshly desires. If you want
to get a hold of me some way, maybe get
a video message from me. You could do that at
cameo dot com slash granger Smith. I will see your message.
(28:53):
You send me a message and say what you want
me to say in a video, and I'll make a
quick video on my phone and say exactly that. Happy Birthday,
Happy anniversary, word of encouragement, word of prayer, something, anything
that you want me to send to someone else or yourself.
You could do that with a video message from me
from cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. Next question comes
(29:15):
from Anonymous here and it says, Hey Granger. First, I'd
like to say that your sermons have strengthened my relationship
with Christ and brought me closer to him. Thank you
for your ministry. My question is for what reasons should
you leave a local church. I have been prayerfully considering
leaving my current church for deeper scripture teaching, among other things.
I have attended this church for a long time and
(29:37):
have close friendships within the congregation. Thus I feel very
torn about leaving. Ultimately, I want to do whatever God
is asking me to do. Any advice that you have,
even tough love, would be appreciated. God blessed Anonymous. The
first thing I would say in response to this question
is I would be careful with saying I want to
(30:01):
do whatever God is asking me to do, because when
you say that, you're implying that God spoke to you
and told you to leave this church, and that's not
That's not what happened. Okay, so let's let's be careful
with the language. I'm trying to do what God is
(30:22):
asking me to do. Look, look, I get it, I
get what you're saying, but I just want to be
crystal clear as we're talking to everyone else here. Instead,
let's change it to something like I want to be
faithful to God's word or I want to be obedient
(30:42):
to my savior. Right, So let's say things like that
instead of I want to do what he's asking me
to do. Right. Secondly, you said what reasons should you
leave a local church? And then the next sentence you
gave really good reasons. You said, I have been perfectly
(31:04):
considering leaving, and here's your reason for deeper scripture teaching,
among other things. And I go, oh, amen, that's a
good reason. Maybe you emailed because you just needed me
to hear that and cheer you on a little bit.
(31:26):
You need my approval. Maybe because you literally asked a
question and then gave a really good answer to your
own question. Maybe it just takes me to just tell
you that you did that. So leaving your church for
because you crave deeper scripture teaching is valid. It wouldn't
be valid to say the pastor's not feeding me, you know,
(31:50):
or like I just I feel like I'm not growing.
That's not the pastor's responsibility to make you grow or
to feed you necessarily kind of. But he would do
that through deeper scripture teaching. So that's the answer. If
that's the way he should feed you, that's the way
(32:11):
you should grow with that. So there's a difference between
I don't feel like I'm growing and the pastor's not
teaching deep scripture. Okay, he's not teaching the full Bible,
he's not expositionally walking through different books, which is really
(32:34):
the recommended way to answer all of these questions instead
of topical series throughout the year. Here's what I think
you need from me. I think you're looking to just
get validated in this decision, and I think what you
need to hear is that you need to not sneak
(32:58):
out the exit quietly. You need to schedule lunches or
dinner with the leadership that brought you into the church
or that has counseled you through your time there. You
said you've been there a long time, and in that
(33:18):
dinner or lunch or coffee, just be very honest and
completely transparent and just go look, I love you guys,
I love the people, and I'm so torn. This is
so difficult for me. But I'm seeking deeper scripture teaching
and I'm going to go somewhere else. I don't know
(33:38):
exactly where yet, but I'm going to start my search.
But I just want to tell you that it hurts me.
It's not easy to do this, and I wanted you
to hear it from me instead of you just stop
seeing me show up and you wonder what happened to me.
I wanted to tell you that. Now, that does a
(33:59):
couple of things. One, it's just that's just a nice, generous,
respectable thing to do. It's it's it's the it's the
way to have integrity and leave a church. But the
second thing it does is it also sounds a little
bit of an alarm that says we're losing people because
we're not teaching deep scripture. Right. That's important too, and
(34:25):
so you need to be honest with that. The the
third thing that I would say that this is going
to do, it's it's going to make this church. If
they just saw you disappear, they would continue on the
(34:47):
same path. It's going to make them rethink in leadership
the way that they are presenting sermons on a Sunday morning.
Next question comes from Jason. It says, Hey, Graynard, there's
this girl who I have liked for about over a year,
(35:08):
and she is my boss's daughter. We make eye contact
whenever I see her, and she either smiles or quickly
looks away. However, she has been with her current current
boyfriend for about nine months and they've been doing long
distance and he won't be living here for a year.
(35:29):
I've been to my boss's house multiple times to help remodel,
and I've talked to the girl there. She's really sweet.
We're both twenty. What do you recommend I do? Let
me get let me hang on, say, let me get
a grip on this. Jason, there's a girl you like her.
She's your boss's daughter. Got it. You guys make eye contact,
(35:50):
which is interesting, and she smiles and say you're getting
these like this body language reading from her that she's
into you, right, recapping for my own mind. And she's
been with her current boyfriend for almost a year and
long distance. But the thing I'm missing, Jason, the thing
I'm missing is that you don't you don't say how
(36:14):
she's doing with him. That would be the first thing
I'd ask, as well, is she happy with this guy?
Because what if I was kind of expecting you to say,
she's she's got a wondering eye because he treats her
horrible and he never takes her to dinner, or or
she's very unhappy, or he's got all these different girlfriends
(36:37):
in different towns, and I thought that that's where this
was going. But you didn't say anything about that. All
you said is you've been to her house multiple times
and talk to her there, and she's really sweet. This
is something man, that you have to be really careful
(36:58):
with because you come in, you come in at this
at this juncture, when she is twenty years old and
she's dating this guy for nine months, you're you're in
(37:19):
the position where you can get in a lot of trouble. Basically,
that's what I'm saying. For instance, you go to her
and say, look, I like you, just want to be honest.
I like you. If you're into me, let me know.
Then she's like, oh my goodness, no I don't. I've
got a serious boyfriend. And then she goes back and
if if that's true, then she's gonna tell the serious
boyfriend and he's gonna be like, wait what, your dad
(37:42):
has hired this guy and now he's hitting on you
while I'm out of town, and it it creates a
really tough situation, So you gotta be really careful. I
would say the best thing to do. And there is
no right or wrong to this, for sure, But if
I was talking to you in the cap of a truck,
(38:02):
I would say, do not bring it up that you
like her. It's a dangerous thing to do. Instead, And
even though you probably want me to say that in
this podcast, and that's what your impulse probably wants me
to say, but I would just be super sweet to her,
try not to be too flirty. You're not going to
go on any dates or anything, and watch her. Look
(38:26):
this happened with me and Amber when I first met her.
I really really really liked her, and just like you,
she was really sweet and she had a boyfriend. And
I didn't come to her as some homewrecker and say, look,
not that that's the right term with a boyfriend. But
(38:48):
I didn't come to her and say, hey, I like you,
will you break up with this guy? You know? Let's
date instead. I was just as sweet as I could be.
I tried to be beckful for the situation, and Amber
reached out to me and she said, look, I just
I was wondering if the way you feel, if the
(39:11):
way you feel about me is the same I feel
about you, because I think there's more to us than friends.
That's what she said. And then guess what I did.
I pumped the brakes again. I still didn't say, yes,
I like you, I said, and I promise she could
tell you. She could back this up. I said, regardless
(39:31):
of how I feel, if you have this kind of
wondering eye, you don't need to be dating this guy.
So break up with him and then we'll talk. That
was my way of saying, look, I don't want I
don't want any part of being the bad guy here
in this situation because it wasn't my place. I didn't
(39:54):
have any claim on Amber at all. I didn't have
any right to move into that relationship and break it
up right. So I said, look, you'll show me something
huge if you break up with this guy. And she did.
She was like, okay, she broke up with a guy.
And she called me and said, I broke up with him,
(40:16):
and then guess what I did. Then I said okay,
and I let about a month go by, and then
we lived in two different towns. And then after about
a month, I said, hey, I'm playing this little acoustic
gig and walks a hatch. He's kind of close to you.
Do you want to go grab some coffee after my gig?
And she said yes. Then after my gig, which she
(40:39):
didn't go to, I didn't even tell her where it was,
went to the gig and I said, I'm finished. There's
a Starbucks ten miles from me, and it looks like
it's close to you, and she said great. We went there.
We got two coffees, probably nine thirty at night, and
we drank the coffee. We talked, and we stayed there
(40:59):
and talked until they started putting the chairs up are
the stools up onto the tables, and they said we're closing.
So I said, okay, we got to go, and I
got in my truck, she got in her car, she
went home. I went home, and we talked on the
phone on the way home, so we couldn't we couldn't
(41:21):
talk enough. It's Starbucks. We talked all the way home
and from then on we were messaging and talking back
and forth and we became best friends. So look, that's
not necessarily the right roadmap for you. But I'm partly
telling you that I don't think going in and telling her, hey,
I really like you, like you want to break up
(41:43):
with this guy's long distance anyway, I don't really think
that's the right way, or at least I could say that,
that wouldn't be what I would do. I wouldn't. I
would instead be courteous, be respectful, be sweet, be a
man of integrity, work hard for her dad, trust with
her dad, don't let the sun go down on you
(42:07):
and her in the same room, be respectful in that
aspect as well. Treat her like a lady. And then
I believe this will pan out in your favor if
it's the right thing, and if it's not, then she
might actually really like the other guy, and good for
him and good for her, And if you truly cared
(42:28):
about her, then that's what you would want anyway. Okay,
So I think that's my answer, and that's a long
way of just saying i'd be careful with this. You look.
An alternative to me saying that is you go in
you go, hey, I really like you. I know you're
dating this guy, but you want to come with me,
and she goes, yeah, I do. In the back of
(42:51):
your mind from then on, you might be thinking, if
a better guy comes along, he could easily come in
and just have the same conversation with her, and she
just moves on to the better guy. And that's just
what she does. She just upgrades constantly. Who's to say
that she wouldn't do that if she did it with you?
Just my thought. Love you guys, Thanks for being here.
(43:12):
We will see you next Monday. Thanks for joining me
on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys.
You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.
If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that
little like button and notification spell so that you never
miss anytime I upload a video. Yigi
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