100% How to get out of a speeding ticket!

care who you are. You see those red and blue lights, your heart skips a beat and you go ah, for whatever reason you you have that feeling, you pull over. I know you guys know what I'm talking about, and I know I have a lot of law enforcement officers that listen to this podcast. But I want to talk about that, and I want to talk about That's one of the many questions we're going to discuss today. So

I have the secret. Evidently I have the secret on how to get out of a speeding ticket every single time, and I learned that today. There is one way, there's several ways you could try to do it, and you might get lucky with it. Like my concealed carry license has worked a lot, but there is one way that you can get out of it every time. Apparently this is foolproof. So we'll listen to this and see if you agree or if you disagree. I got my good buddy, Bernie.

We're gonna answer your questions Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. If you have anything in the world you want to ask, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Could be about any subject and we're gonna hash it out and I'm gonna have different guests on here helping me answer these questions. This is one of my favorites, one of my good buddies, Bernie. He is so knowledgeable on so many different subjects and he's just a good twenty year friend of mine, so

one of my best friends. This is episode seventy five. Welcome to the granger Smith Podcast. Did try to deesel my tired at schools? Long line of from my fool of a hospital down on back's Rangy covind evageon Yeah You're that s always a pleasure to have that back on the podcast, Bernie Calcot, I'm gonna keep coming back And so you guys just vote off how arger drive to get to come here to e form about thirty five minutes. All right, so that's still wild, but it's

still a commitment. This is second week in a row. You're going to be on here. Yeah, people, you're backed by popular demand of the people. Are you man? You're making you changing people's lives answering their questions. By the way, anything you guys want to ask me or Bernie Granger Smith podcast at gmail dot com could be any kind of question, could be career related, music related, tour related,

work related. Those are like all the same things I just said in a row, relationship related, the spiritual related, whatever it might be. Ask anything and we'll dig into it. Yeah, and if y'all could give us some challenging questions because these things about like divorce and you know, struggling with big life thing death and you know it's it's not

heavy enough so you just yeah. But my one request that I will say on these questions is about a page about a page like this one I have here about a page of a phone is a good link if it gets over that linth Like, if you if you're asking a question that's like four or five iPhone lengths of material, it's kind of hard. So that's my only request. I've never said that before, but if you can just keep it a little bit more brief, it's easier for me to scan through it and then read

it on the podcast. Yeah, short and sweet, guys, Short and sweet. But as a guest, I would like to take advantage because I have a couple of questions for really Granger yep, And these are, you know, things I

know that y'all are thinking. I'm just gonna ask him. Okay, So, so I know that you are a pretty tame tongue kind of guy, right, But if there's anything in life, and I'll give you an example of this, just so to help you out, give you a second to think there's anything in life that will make you curse, what will that be? It's gonna be a snake. A snake, Yeah, you come up on a rattlesnake. Okay, And what what is the one that's coming out of your mouth that's like? Is it start with an F? Is it a B?

What do we do? And is it every time or is sometimes it's something different. It's probably gonna start with an F, and it's probably gonna be like if I am whole, If Sam We'll just use a scenario of like, I'm going to get firewood right bringing it to the house, and I pick up that stick, country boy, and there's a big scorpion on the back side of that stick. I'm dropping that stick and there's some stuff coming out in my mouth. Okay, that's good, So just poisonous reptiles.

I'm sorry, Okay, what made me think of that is on my drive actually just asked how long it took to drive up here. I was trying to get here quick and sometimes my foot pushes down a little too far and I somehow like I just can't see the cops until they're like just right there. If you like scare me or sneak leslie, my wife will tell you, like what's coming out of my mouth is oh gosh,

that's my go to. I'm like, oh gosh, but I'm cruising at like eighty five and I'm not paying attention and I see a cop and every time it's oh, oh, please don't stop me, Please don't stop me, please'll stop me, and the time it works, and then I'm like, okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that, yes, And then it's like once you don't see anymore. You think you're out of the woods. But it's like he can catch up to us like this, you know, so I think once I can't see him'm like, okay, I'm good. I'm good.

This guy, if you were posted on side of Highway forty five around nine thirty this morning, thank you for not pulling me over. I was definitely speeding, definitely deserved it, but I thank you for your grace. So there's a police officers listening right now. They're probably I wonder if they feel the same way. Like if they go on vacation with their family, so they're driving to Florida, they're gonna go to Disney World or whatever, and they're from Oklahoma.

Do they think that when they when they go over a hill on the highway and there's a highway patrol at Florida Patrol? Are you sure? My dad was a police officer for thirty five years, that's right. Even after that, he still carried his badge. So as soon as they come up, right next to his driver's license is his badge. He's like, oh, yeah, I was on the fourth thirty five years. Oh well, I'm just gonna give you a warning. Miss Calco you just need to slow down. That's just

understood language, right, yes, written unwritten law. Yeah. And I don't know if we're like giving away a secret that we're not supposed to talk about it. But I don't think that my dad was too worried about it, and my mom would even use that like, oh, my dad or my husband's going to be so upset. He's a police officer. He know it's not not any speed and they would just let her go. So they have like back the blue sticker on their back of the car or anythink I have two of them right now? You do?

Hundred club member? Yeah? What's the hundred club member Hunter Club in the state of Texas. It's uh, it's an organization that supports first responders, so police fire department ems. So we give them money, they give us a sticker and maybe it gets us out of a ticket. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know, but we're supporting all. That's not why you do it. Support supporting you know that support us. My my golden ticket is my concealed carry license, Okay,

And I did. I did get a ticket recently that there was a different story, and it was it had to do with green Hall a venue and the Sheriff's department attached to Green Hall you know who you are, but that that was a different reason. But every other time since I've had my concealed carry license that has

led to a warning. Okay, what about your face? Like it has any I know it sounds weird, but like, have you ever gotten pulled over and somebody comes up there like oh, or they see your license, They're like, this is Granger Smith, what's weird? Not ever, never has that happened, but I have had them. Well I'll just say they just keep a poker face because then they come back, after they go to the car, they come back and they go, miss Smith, just do me a favorite.

Just be safe out there. I'm gon give you warning. Drive slow, love your music, keep going, keep doing what you're doing. But it's like a poker face all the way to the end. And you're like, maybe it's because they're everybody's on camera now, so they can't they can't walk up to the car and go oh dude, did you Yeah so comment below, so much interesting conversations here about law enforcement. Yep, I forgot that about your dad. Yeah you want to answer a question, yep, go for it.

This question is from Simon says, hey, grad your My name is Simon. I'm thirteen years old. I come from Everson, Pennsylvania. Elverson, excuse me, Pennsylvania. I love your music. I've been working with my uncle on his dairy farm. I enjoy working with the animals. I also started to work in the shop a little bit more. The days I work. In the mornings, I get up at five point thirty. I

read the Bible and pray. Then I normally go down to work for an hour and a half and come back, eat breakfast, then do school until two in the afternoon. Then I go down and milk till six and go home eat dinner, finishing his school work I have left. Keep in mind, I love the job. I've always had a dream of having my own dairy farm. I don't do this every day, but I'm doing school till about four on those days when I don't milk. Weekends, I don't work often, but sometimes it ends up help. I

end up helping. I can't really find the time to go out and be doing what I want because it feels like I'm either doing school or I'm not on the schedule right. I like to ride around. I'm a four wheeler, which some days is part of my job. I also like working at the house. For instance, me and my older brother and younger brother we've been working on a cabin out on thirty acres in the woods. I also love archery, hunting. How do I manage all

of these things? With first third? Yeah? Yeah, it says, how do I manage all these things versus my other siblings and family time? What's this kid's name? Simon? Thirteen? Simon? He's a mythical character. I'm convinced. But if he's not, I'm sending my kids up to stay with you for like two weeks. That's unbelievable. What thirteen year old? Like? I don't even work that hard? Like, that's incredible. I've

got how speechless. I pulled this question because it was so interesting, and I hope that he's not just like just trying to get attention from us. But I don't think he is. Well he is. It worked, So let's start with the morning. Get up at five point thirty, read Bible and pray. Who does that at thirteen? Yeah? I did not. I did not, confession, I did not know. So to get to your question, how do I manage

all these things? I think the question is good because as this, you know, Super teen has shown us everybody has like a lot going on, and you know, I think the question can be universal to everybody. How do you balance you know, all of the stuff. Is that kind of the question that he's getting to. Yeah, I would say this, Simon. First of all, you say, keep in mind, I love this job. I've always had the

dream of having my own dairy farm. Let me say this, You having your own dairy farm one day is not contingent upon how many hours you put in when you're thirteen years old. That's completely irrelevant. You're learning work ethic, which is awesome. But I think you could I think you could knock out a day or two from the farm and say knock out Mondays, or you don't go to the farm on Mondays. Those days you just you

concentrate on school and you be a kid. Just have fun, man, yep, go out with your buddies exploring in the woods, get on your four wheeler, like you said, do a little bit of nothing in the woods on Mondays, or you pick the day. The danger in what you're doing at the age of thirteen is you could have a burnout coming, and you could be you could be fifteen and go, Man, I've been doing this for two years and I ain't getting up at five thirty anymore. I'm done. I'm done

with this. And that is a little bit of a danger because you're at an age where you're you haven't developed that kind of discipline yet to stick with that kind of longevity. If you're thirty, this whole email would be different. If you're thirty years old, you got three kids and a stay at home mother, that's a totally different conversation. But at thirteen, I would say, man, back off the schedule. Back off the farm schedule. You can't. You can't get rid of the school and the school work.

You got to do that, But back off of the farm work, because surely you're you're not bringing home, you're not paying the rent, you know, for your family. You're thirteen, you shouldn't be, and that's another problem. We should time out. Yeah, and are you being held on this farm against your will to make sure you're safe? Simon, Okay, you shouldn't. You shouldn't be. No one should depend on you. This is the year twenty twenty one, now, not eighteen eighty one.

No one should be depending on you as a thirteen year old to bring home money to pay for anything

other than things that you like. Like your money at thirteen that you earn should be a learning the value of a dollar and be using that money you earn for extra things that you don't need that you just want, right like a new pair of boots that you really like, or a nice twenty two whatever, that's what you But so, I just don't want you to get burned out, and I don't want you to you don't You certainly don't have to impress me and Bernie by saying all this stuff.

You don't have to impress us. That's that's way more than my schedule. I got a lot of stuff going on. Bernie has a lot of stuff going on that's more than both of us do. Yeah, so, yeah, I think that. I also think there's a lot as far as owning your own dairy farm in the future that's probably gonna happen if you have experience in a lot of different things. I never, especially at thirteen, not even like you know

twenty three, wanted to be a business owner. But I feel like I moved into that role, and it kind of like started to go that way. I'm glad that I did a lot of different things that I was able to draw experience from to then help me with what was in front of me. Great point, man, such a great point. What you could learn from being a dairy farmer. You could do that at eighteen or nineteen and be done twenty five, twenty six. You could be done right now. It's not pivotal on now. You need

these experiences. You need these life experiences. Diversify your life, if at all other than just you're thirteen. Just have fun. You're at the end of adolescence. I know what you feel like an adult, which is awesome, But you're still at the end of being a kid. So don't leave being a kid so early. Stay there a little bit longer, you know what I mean. No, absolutely, yeah, definitely stay there. It's gonna it's all gonna happen really fast, So stay

there as long as you can. And for everybody else out there who feels like they're kind of just burning the candle at both ends and they're working for this or for that, I think that there's some truth and everything that Griz is saying about diversifying and having new experiences and just enjoying life. I think that a lot of times we get so caught up and working so hard and burning ourselves out to buy things that we don't need, but then we end up just kind of

getting into the cycle. And I think once you can kind of just gain some perspective and try to find some balance in life. Simon, this is for use for anybody else, Like I think that we both have talked a lot about trying to find that balance, you know, in our life of not just work and family, but it's,

you know, it's everything. It's it's you know, having diversity in your life and being kind of present in this moment and gaining from all of those different experiences to just make yourself a more well rounded person to be able to enjoy some things. I love my kids to death, but if I had to spend twenty four to seven with them waking up at five point thirty, and it's like sometimes them getting to experience different things make them miss me and like buy me the same, and so

then we get to enjoy that time back together. I think you'll start to enjoy the dairy farm more if you spend some time riding four wheelers and whatever else you guys do up there. Something you haven't mentioned yet, that you haven't gotten it yet, that's going to throw a monkey wrench in this whole schedule. And that's girls. Yeah, as soon as that comes in, then you're in trouble because then your schedule is really going to get messed up.

And last thing I want to say is when we come close to Elverson, Pennsylvania, I want to swing by, take the tour bus there and get us some milk from you. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, all right, question, good story. Brianna says, how do you write a song? And what's the process of writing a song? And I answer that question so many times and I feel like I probably can never answered enough because people still want to know

how do you write a song? It's good because you're a songwriter and you're on here too, so you're going to give a different perspective. I've said my typical process is I collect my ideas during the normal, normal day, and then when I'm ready to write, I then harvest those ideas. So like I'll if I hear a title or think of a title, I'll write it in my

notes on my phone. If I think, think of a melody, or if I mess around with the guitar, I'll hum it into my phone and then when I'm ready to write, which I do in the mornings, I'll get a cup of coffee and I'll try to find the marriage between the right line and the right melody and see if that kick starts. Something doesn't always start that way. But that's like an average songwriting day. And I haven't written since the new album, but that's an average day when

I plan on it. How about you, Well, first, I love that you write in the mornings. I didn't know that. I listened to the podcast from last week with Tyler, which I absolutely loved. Tyler is a machine. But you had said something in that podcast about kind of making decisions and you know, kind of heavy bandwidth stuff, being like, you know, waking up early. That's why these people do it early, so you're kind of at your most restored

state mentally and physically. And so I love that, And go back and watch that podcast with Tyle or if you haven't seen he already, I think that Griz can give a more professional approach because he's a professional and I would be uh kind of amateur. Maybe there's some like kind of weekend warrior singer songwriters out there, and that's me and you, okay, where we're having a conversation now. For me, I think that it a lot of times it does start with just sitting down and playing instruments.

So there's there hasn't been a ton of times where the lyrics have just kind of jumped out. It's more of I sit down and piano. Like recently, I just started kind of playing this progression and I was like, oh man, I like that, and then I kind of just start to feel more of the mood of it and let it, let it kind of like speak to like an experience, like what is this, what are these tones?

What are these vibrations? Kind of like telling me and then trying to like pull an experience that matches, like, oh, that is going to be really well experienced in these minor to the major. You know this is going to be. This is more upbeat, and like this is going to fit there, and from there the lyrics I don't have. I don't give it. I can't say I don't have I don't give it the amount of time that you

probably do. Let me just say because I agree, but at the same time, the difference is I just have to There's times when I have to write a batch of songs and you don't, and that's awesome that you don't. Yeah, sometimes you just have a song that has to come out of you. Yeah. Yeah. I think that I've moved into a place where that's more of the case, and so I have the ability to just kind of let them slowly progress and come out and like, not force it.

I'll just but I will say songwriting is a craft and it is a discipline, and the more, just like anything else, the more that you do it, the better that you were going to be at it. I participated this was a couple of years ago, maybe a few years ago. I participated in a songwriting experiment called seven and seven. And I know that sounds like a drink,

don't it. So yeah, I think it was called seven and seven and basically you had to write seven songs in seven days, and they could be complete garbage, but you had to start and you had to finish seven songs in seven days. And out of that seven day I stuck to it. And there's kind of a community of people that were like, hey, let's do this, and you know, you can post it a SoundCloud legal ink here and people can listen. And five of those songs

were absolute garbage. One of the songs was decent. It was like, oh, okay, one of the songs I still like play whenever I'm sitting and I'm like, man, this kind of like it wouldn't have come out if I hadn't gotten to that place. And it actually just flowed. It wasn't like one of those things where oh, I'll come back to this another time. It was like, no, force yourself, push into these lyrics, like draw it out,

and it felt like the lyrics just started coming. So I think there's something too, And I don't know if you kind of do that same thing where no, it's a discipline and I have to force myself to write and continue to write, because for every five bad ones and one mediocre one, there's a great one. And that's what we were reseearching for. That's so good. And Fish my guitar player John Marlin, he he's part of the group and I don't know if he's still doing it, but for a long time he was part of this

group too. They turned in songs like every Monday, they would turn in a song, so one a week, which is not nearly seven on seven, seven and seven, but they would on Sunday an email would go out for that week and it would have the subjects matter like this song needs to be this, and sometimes it would say it needs to include the word this and the word this. And then seven days later everyone would turn in their rough demo and then they would all listen

to each other's. It's like accountability and like you said, some of them are just total crap. But that wasn't the point. The quality was not the point. It was training that muscle, because it is a muscle. And if I, like I haven't written in several months now, if I have a writing trip coming up or I need to write, I'm going to do exercises leading up to it that week to get my brain into rhyming mode and the

thinking mode. And a lot of that has to do with cutting out devices a certain amount, because devices will kill my creativity. I could do like, for instance, if I'm mowing, mowing is a great lyric creation moment for me because I can do nothing when I'm mowing but think. So a lot of like Earl Dibbles songs were written while I'm mowing, because I could just think of rhymes and funny things and the way it flows. So I have to You're so right, you have to get that

that part of your brain has to exercise. And I don't know, Brianna, if that's your the reason you're maybe you're a writer and that's why you're asking, or you're just curious as a listener, But either way, it's it's really interesting to think of how to write a song. And it's also interesting to think how how easy it actually is to write a song. It seems impossible, like even for me right now to think I'm looking at the guitar to think about writing a song today seems impossible.

But if I actually picked it up and started messing with it, one would start coming out. And then there's always times when I think, well, that was it. I think I wrote my last song. I think that was the last one in me. I think that all the time. Yeah, do you ever think like I'm never going to write anything as great as all the time? Everyone? Every album I put out, I go, I cannot top this for another album. I've said all the ideas in my brain. Yeah,

that's everything I know. Well, I want this to go on record right now. That Grange hasn't you know. He said he hasn't been writing in a while. He's going to start fairly soon. And I promise you the stuff that is going to come out next is going to be the best stuff that you've heard. No, there's no pressure. It ain't on you, man. I'm just telling you I believe the best your best stuff is yet to come. Absolutely,

Thanks buddy, break, We'll be right back. This podcast is free to you guys, but it costs money for me to make it, so I'm lucky to have a couple of sponsors for this first of all ritual. Now, I'm not a big multi vitamin guy, just never have been. I don't really know what's in them. I don't really. I'm not going to just walk into a random Walgreens and buy something and start putting in my body twice a day because that's what people say I'm supposed to do,

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that it was a sponsor of the podcast. Bernie has talked about it. He could vouch for it. He is. No one tells him to say anything about it, but he's naturally using it and I use it to It's awesome. It's a guided meditation app to get your mind off of the day, give your brain a little bit of a rest so that it just stops that fast paced thinking that just drives you crazy sometimes. This is not a spiritual app. It's not a religious app of any kind.

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and increase your overall sense of well being. And that's what I use it for. I use it for usually in the mornings when I wake up, I like to have a little segment of my morning that's built just for calm, you know, instead of thinking about planning and thinking and devising my goals, you know, instead of all that that comes later. But when I first start, I just want to be able to breathe, you know, let

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library of meditations of every kind of situation. So this is the best deal offered right now. Go to headspace dot com slash granger today. All right, next question? You ready for this one? Yep? This is a question here, very very very short, says hey Granger. I love your content and your music and listen to your podcast all the time, but there's always a butt this guy, Bernie's

come on and no just kidding, Sorry, go ahead. But when you said God has complete control, does that mean that you yourself make no choices or God makes all your decisions? So yeah, we just went to the deep end. Guys, let me read that again. When you said God has complete control, does that mean that you yourself make no choices and God makes all your decisions? That's from Sawyer.

Thank you, Sawyer. Yeah, thanks for listening and drawing those kind of questions out of like listening you know, as intently to draw those kind of questions out and wanting to go deeper. So this is a question of a word called sovereignty, which means sovereignty basically means all controlling, all knowing, all being. And I want to say before we even start this question, because this is a very

debated topic. If you're wavering in your faith at all, don't let this topic be a breaking point for you because it's not as important as other questions. Sure in the Bible, it's more of a theological conversation. It's don't get me wrong, it's important as a fundamental backbone of knowing that God is in control. But it's if it becomes a breaking point in your mind, I just cannot understand that therefore I no longer believe then stop, just

fast forward through this this part. But I didn't. I usually I was in the mood this morning when I knew you're coming. I was in the mood to answer this, and this question came in November last November twenty twenty. And sometimes I'm just not in the mood to answer this question. Sure, yeah, because it's so simple yet so complicated for humans. And the reason I say that is because like we can't comprehend the methods of God, we can't begin to understand that. And the Bible says thousands

of times that God's in control. He's sovereign, he is, he is the creator, he is in control. So then your first question is, well, then what's the point If God's in control, And part of that control means he has a plan and he is executing that plan through human beings, and there is a beginning and there is an end on Earth of that plan. So everything in between leads to that. So then you think, well, what's the point. Who cares? I'm in the matrix, This doesn't

matter anymore. I'm a puppet. I might as well do nothing. Those are like natural reactions to a lot of people unless you've actually dug in studied this type of stuff. So I like to think of it this way. To answer your question. You said God has complete control. Does that mean you yourself make no choices. I like to think of it this way. No, absolutely not. We make choices. I make choices every day, going to pick up this cup, I'm gonna drink it. If God didn't want me to.

Does he have the power to stop me from doing it? Absolutely, But I have the choice to do it. I'm doing it right now. I'm picking up this cup. Here's the crazy thing is God already knew I was gonna do that. He already knew I was gonna pick it up, and then nothing surprises him. If you think of it this way, if you believe in God, and you believe in the power of almighty creator of the universe, you think you're

gonna surprise him. You think you're going to do something tonight that catches him off guard and he has to scramble to change a plan in his giant web of a plan that he has to go and scramble to redirect something because if an accident caught him off guard, or it's something you did or said changed now. We

said this on the last last podcast. And a great reference is Joseph and Neil Testament when he's talking to his brothers and this is coming years and years after his brothers sold him off, abandoned him, got rid of him. He goes and Ray comes up to power in Egypt, becomes the prime minister of Egypt, best friends with the pharaoh, gets all this power, and he comes back and those brothers see him and they're like, oh, no, we screwed up. We thought we got rid of him. He actually came

into power. Now he's in charge of us. And he said, say, birds, well you said in the last podcast you meant this? Oh what you Oh yeah, okay, you what you meant for evil? Yes? God intended for good. Yeah. So they made a choice. They made a choice to exile their brother. And these kind of stories, there's a lot of them, there's hundreds of They made a choice, that was their decision. They exiled their brother, they kicked him out of the family. They meant it for evil. So many times our heart,

our intentions are evil based. So it doesn't matter how bad or twisted or weird, it is everything God ends up framing for good, and it might take, it might take in many cases generations past you. We don't even see it. But you can either look at it for you listeners look at it in one or two ways. Either there is a God that created this universe and

he's in control of everything. Are there just not? I prefer to think there's just not if there's Instead of thinking that there's a weak God up there that's just just not in control, not knowing, not understanding, not in communication, I prefer to think there's just not one. Yeah. Yeah, this is a lot to unpack, and my mind's kind of going a lot of different places. But let's you

could always bring something like this. Let's start with the verse you just quoted about God works all things together for good, for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose. Okay, we could spend like all day there, which we won't, but you know that that verse who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We could divert there, but we're

not going to. I think the point I wanted to make is if you're out there and you're listening to this and you're maybe like, faith is not my thing, I just I'm going to fast forward past this. I don't really I'm not really interested. Let me just tell you have faith. You have faith in something, so stay with us. It takes a leap of faith to not believe what we're saying. That's that's right, and so I would I would push you to dive deeper into what

your faith is in. It could be just in I have faith in myself and that I'm the captain of my universe and this is the way my world and understanding of life and power and love works. And that is where you are right now, and that is That's okay. But don't dismiss the conversation. Don't disengage from the conversation. Because the faith may look a little different and ask different questions and have a different package or context than

what you're comfortable with or what you're used to. It's because there's something here for you if you're willing, So please just join us. The next part of this is to understand and that my brother used to always remind me that God is you know, you think of sovereign, it's like his sovereignty, his power. You know, it's like we think of his He's powerful, He's all powerful, like you said, and he's all knowing, but he is also

all loving. And so think about, like, you know, the question that you're asking about, like is there a choice? Do we have a choice in a loving relationship? There's it really is. God is inviting. He's pursuing us, even when we're not pursuing him, He's pursuing us. And so through these the through his plan, through this like you know,

canvas that he's drawing this. He's an artist. He's creating this thing of the world and life and your life and our lives, and it's saying something and a lot of that is not just formed in his all powerfulness, his all knowingness, but also his all lovingness, Like he is love. It's the essence. So we cannot lose that in these discussions of sovereignty and control and calling, because

it's very much you know, tied into that. You can you know, think similarly to just any relationship you know, with your son or with you know somebody, like how what are the dynamics of those you know relationships. It's not you know, like I'm gonna dictate what you do now, I'm gonna you know, there's that's a different kind of control yeah, he he knows that all joy, all satisfaction, all pleasure is found in him, in him a loan, and so what he's inviting us into is like, Hey,

I am sovereign over all of this stuff. Okay, I have this plan. I wrote the works that you're supposed to walk into before the foundation of the world, and I just want to walk with you in them because I want to be near you. I want to love you and be loved by you, and for you to experience joy the best that you possibly can. And the way that you do that is walking with me and trusting in my sovereignty. So we were plagued with this this thing of sin, and sin can look a few

different ways. There's habitual sin, but then there's like this intrinsic natural sin that we're born with. That is people say like, oh, the devil, you know, is like tempting me, and it's like, the devil's not tempting you. Like our sinful nature that's in us is constantly going to try to get us to question the sovereignty of God, which is back to the garden. What did they do? They questioned the sovereignty of God? Does he really love us? Is he really giving everything to us, should we really

trust him? Those are thoughts that we all still have now, even in light of his sovereignty. It's nothing new for him. But he wants to walk with us. He wants he sent the sacrifice for that so that we could be restored to that relationship. And I know that there's, like I said, there's a lot to unpack with a question like this, So I want to make sure that we're staying close to the question of sovereignty and control and choices.

But what was this person's name, Sawyer? If you are listening to Granger's podcast and you're listening so intently to draw questions out like this, I think that you probably could be someone that would want to continue to just dig into that word and research that word and hear commentary on that word. I think that there's a lot

that is to be learned. Like Chris said, I think that we always have to approach these things with there is a sense of mystery to God and to life, and we can't We're just not going to know everything. And so like take with what's in front of you in this moment, and don't you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say, just like start to like dig into these questions. He says, does God make all your decisions? No, he doesn't, but he knows

what you're gonna choose. I can't explain it says in the Bible. How could the Clay question the Potter? We're just the Clay. I don't know why that is it is, but I'm sure glad it is. You know, I'm really glad it is now. I wanted to say. I've been wanting to say this. I've been wanting to use this little line for a long time on this podcast, and I finally get to say it. But if there's any of you that are going but why why even believe

that stuff? Like, why even believe the Bible? I'm not gonna tell you because I just believe I have faith or host brought up this way, or because I have an interchange with him. I'm not gonna tell you that this is what this is my answer to that skeptic.

I'm gonna say because the Bible is a collection of reliable historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses that claim supernatural events that fulfilled thick prophecies that were claimed to be divine in nature and not by human origin. Written by over forty authors over the span of seventeen hundred years into sixty six different volumes, it is the most reliable collection of ancient documents in human history, way above Aristotle or Homer's Iliad or any

of This is history. So if you want to ask me first why I believe, I'm going to go there because I'm a history major. So I'm just talking. I'm talking straight facts if you want to. If you're a skeptic, and I love this. If you're a skeptic, don't take anybody's word for it just because they say they believe in their heart, don't accept that. You do research on the historical aspects, especially of Jesus and the Crucifixion and the resurrection, and then come back and tell me what

you find. Try your hardest to prove historically that the Crucifixion and the resurrection did not happen, and then come back. Because here's a side note, it's never no one has ever been able to historically prove that it didn't happen. And most of the people that have tried what's happened, they started believing that's right because they're like, man, I can't it's never been proven. And this goes back to

what Bernie said. So if so, if you don't believe, that is a massive leap of faith to not believe, because the evidence and over five hundred eyewitnesses are there and written for us to read from two thousand year old documents and Roman government records. So take that word for it, not mine or not Bernie. It's just because we say I'm so. Then once you believe at that point, then you go into the word and you go it

says God is sovereign, God is in control. So then you you keep going backwards until you go, Okay, here we are. This is why I believe. I love that. Yeah, it's great, man. I think you need to add that paragraph that you just quoted like you had it like right ready, go man, you need to put that in the comment section of this or texted to him or something that was amazing it came from voting, Okay, voting boom, amazing, amazing. I need to read that a few times. Send you

the video. There's a video by vote bacam and it's a v O D D I E B a C. H. A. M. I think. So he's an amazing evangelist from south central l A. And he is. He's got this video on YouTube and it's called I think it's called why I Believe the Bible. And the first thing he does is throw out the myths that when you say I just I believe because that's how I was raised, or I believe because there's been an interchange in me, that doesn't

mean anything to anyone else. Congratulations, you have an interchange, but that doesn't mean anything to the person you're talking to, and it's not going to convince them anymore that you've had a change a spiritual you know. But in contrast to other religions, the other religions of a dude, I fell asleep by a tree and had a dream and then wrote, you know, or it's like, this is very different.

We're talking about forty different authors over seventeen hundred years, and historical reliable documents collected together, unchanged because you hear King James and you hear these translations. That's not because the King James was translated, and then the ESV was taken from the King James, and then the NIV came

from that and one dude decided to write this. No, guys, we're talking about people, massive groups of one hundred scholars getting together and going back to the original Greek, which the oldest Greek New Testament we have. We have six thousand of them, the originals from within only a few decades of when John and these guys wrote them with

their own hands. Six thousand documents of these. So when you hear of a translation, they're going back to the Greek and they're taking that with one hundred different scholars, and they're taking word for word and translating it to whatever language. So anyway, there's this misconception of wasn't that just like some old monks, that they got the word and they just made it the way they wanted it to sound because they wanted coroll of the government or whatever.

So continue to uh, to challenge yourself, to try to debudt these yourself. Yeah, it's a crazy rabbit hole. So I just thought of something. Those you were talking to. Ask me that question one more time, and then we'll move on to the next question. Ask me Sawyer's question one more time. I just darchieved it. Let me go back to that. I think his question was it was, Yeah, it could be her her. It says, do you when

you said God has complete control? Does that mean that you yourself make no choices and God makes all of your decisions? Okay? So here here's what I start to think of whenever you have a choice to make that's really important or how your day's going to go. I know, for both of us, there, with the majority of our lives, we have found a place that we find the most. I mean, we just talked about the word right, about the Bible, the reliability, the faithfulness of it, the God's

spoken nature of it. When I have to make a choice, that's where I'm going to help me make the choice. Yep. So I think the answer, Sawyer is actually both. I think that I am making the decision, but I want God to make the decision through his word through me, because that's where I find the most joy and the most contentment and most happiness. Is this is not my life. If I was making the choice, I would have probably sold this business and taken all this money and like

done this and this. It's like, this is not my life, And there's so much freedom and joy in Him making the decisions for me through his words. So it's like, that's where we go. Is he making the choices? Is he making the decisions? I damn sure, hope, so thank god? Yeah right, because I don't want to do it. Yeah, so I don't know, just a final word on that. That's a great man. I think that it's it's it's both. It's a great point. His yoke is light. Yeah, yeah,

it's easy. So that's yeah, that's great way to look at it. I cannot believe we literally burned up this whole section on this question, and understandably, yeah, it was.

It was a deal. There's a lot to unpack. I'm I'm I'm interested in Sawyer's response, and I'm probably a little bit more interested in the in the people that are like, I don't believe any of this, because I know that there's a lot of people they're gonna be like amen, brother, Amen, yes, yes, yes, And maybe we didn't even say it right, and maybe there's some screaming you know that we should have given that. We'll think of later as soon as we turn off the podcast.

But I'm more interested in the people that are like, I don't believe any of that. I'm in control of my life. I'm running the ship whatever I do. My fate lives with me and me alone. And it's interesting. It's an interesting thought, and there's a lot of people that have always believed that and still believe it today. And I love how you said it takes faith. It takes faith either way. Yeah. Absolutely, it takes a massive leaf of faith to think you're in control. It takes

a massive leaf of faith to think God's in control. Yep. I'd love for you guys to engage and send comments on this topic, especially the folks that Granger's talking about that may not believe the same because believe it or not, I feel like we have things to learn about our faith by your experience and your response and the way that you're seeing things as as well as the others.

I think that this stuff can be real heavy, and it's like hard mentally we just want to say, oh, I just believe, but not actually take the time to be able to quote out of memory out the holster what Granger just quoted and like no and actually no, things like I don't think the faith that God is calling us to is not founded in information and in historical events. And you know, I think that there's a

lot there, and I try, and I follow. I probably need to push myself more to like, Okay, you believe that, but why do you believe that? And where did you where'd you hear that? And where'd you find that? And so now you could say because I believe the Bible, because it's a reliable source of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the course of other eyewitnesses that claim supernatural events that fulfilled specific thick prophecies that claim to be

divine in nature and not by human origin. What's hand with that? Yep? See you guys, Love you, yege. 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. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yi