#136 It's hard to stop this addiction

at gmail dot com. I love doing this. We sit down like we're in the cab of a truck driving on a road trip, and you say, hey, man, could I run something past, Just something I've been thinking about, an idea I have, or a question I have, And I'm not always righting my answers, but I'll just feed it to you as if we're friends, and I would hope the same from you, and in fact, I know

that I would get the same from you. My day gets so busy, you know, I'm do an after midnight radio show, doing the Smiths touring, making music, making a soundtrack for this movie I'm working on right now. So if all the moving parts that I have in my life, this is the time when I get to just stop and breathe for a second and go over these questions. So I'm gonna pull up my inbox from this email. I'm gonna randomly pick them. I don't have any notes in front of me, so everything that you hear is

going to be the top of my head. And like I said, it might not be right, but it's just two friends talking. Okay, here we go. First question, subject line is called my question. That's it. Hey Grangeer, my name is Dustin. I'd love to start off by saying I'm a huge fan of the podcast and your music. Thank you so much. I've been I'll be seeing you May twentieth in Nebraska. Awesomebody. I saw you in Lincoln,

Nebraska in December of twenty twenty one. My question is what are some good ways that you could move past a relationship. I was with someone for seven years that just came to an end. I'm looking for a little advice. Thanks again, love all you do. Yee Dustin. Okay, now I'm talking about heartbreak here, talking about moving on from a past relationship, and you're asking me my advice for practical ways to get past this. So we're not talking

deep emotional theological answers. We're just going practical. I'm going to say this. I'm gonna say, let's see, you said you were with someone for seven years and just came to an end, so this is new. First of all, I want to say, Dustin, I don't recommend anyone anyone is in a relationship for seven years. The longest I was in before Amber was three years, and I don't recommend that either. I was lost back then. Okay, So

I don't think it takes that long, guys. I think I think of a year is a good that's a good twelve month round number of deciding whether this is your the person you want to marry or not. And I say that in a way that I feel like you should start dating whenever you're in a place when you feel like you're ready to meet a spouse. So you don't really start seriously dating. And I'm not talking about going out and having a movie or a dinner with somebody and some friends and getting to know somebody.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a serious we're exclusive. It's been a long time. We're five months into this thing. We're not seeing anybody else. This is an exclusive, go and steady relationship. I don't think we should start that until we say, Okay, I am now looking for my spouse, for my future spouse. I'm on a mission to find my future spouse. And so when you're ready for that in your life, then you can systematically go through these the dating courting process and go Okay,

this one seems good. This one seems like we have a lot going a lot in common, and we have we're aligned on a lot of different things. I'm very attracted. So I'm now I'm gonna I'm gonna get in this boat. I'm gonna sail it until I know that yes or no. And I don't think that's going to take longer than a year. So people these days, we extend it so long, and people live together and you even make babies together. I get these questions all the time on this podcast,

and it typically just doesn't work. If you're with someone for seven years. I could have told you, Dustin, this is probably not gonna work. Man. You're you're six and a half seven years into this, and you haven't popped the question. For whatever reason. I don't know the reason, but for whatever reason you haven't popped the question, it's probably not gonna happen. Now, there's always exceptions to all this, like people will email me or they'll comment on TikTok

and go, you're wrong. I dated my wife, my current wife, for twelve years and now we've been married for fifteen and we're happy. Okay, get it. There's always exceptions, But I'm saying in general, I think it takes about a

year to find out. No more like if you're two years down the road, three years down the road in a relationship and you're still not sure if that's your spouse, And when I say not sure, how do you know, Well, you haven't popped the question yet, then you should probably get off get off the horse like it's not going anywhere, or pop the question. But one of the two things needs to happen. So that's what I think. First us into seven years is too long. That doesn't help you

because this already happened. But secondly, I would say just practically systematically, stay in groups of people, don't spend too much time alone. Right now, alone is when you're gonna get caught in your thoughts and you're gonna get sad and depressed, and you're gonna think about her, and you're gonna think about what you could have done differently. So I would say stay in groups and stay busy. So call up your friends and go what are y'all doing

Friday night? We're all hanging at so and so's house. I'm coming over there and get with those people, get in the middle of them, and get busy. You gotta get busy, get dig into whatever hobby you have. This is a good time to get into whatever you love to do. Maybe you love fishing, maybe you love riding four wheelers, maybe you love playing softball. I don't know what it is, but this is a good time to lean into a hobby. It's a good time to journal.

If you don't do that yet, I would recommend that to anyone is grab a journal, and I have one on my phone, and some people like to write. I don't care whatever, I'll do it digital. But I have one called day one. It's an app on my phone, and so every morning I have a little routine in my morning. I get up before the sun comes up, get my cup of coffee, read my Bible, and usually write.

After that, I'll go into my well. I'll post whatever scripture I read that I think is interesting on social media, and then I'll go to my daily journal, and I'm just talking to myself, so it's not it doesn't have to be formal. I'm talking to really my future self. And so I'll say, beautiful morning, drinking some coffee. Kids are getting ready for school today. I'm gonna I'm gonna go back into mixing on this movie. And then at four o'clock I'm headed to the airport. We're going to

Seattle for a show. I'm feeling allergies, you know, like I like to put that, I'm feeling allergies right now. It's allergies are killing me. And then the next thing I do is I go back and read the last four years that I've been doing this on this particular app and I'll read four years of it and I'll go, Wow, three years ago, I was doing this. And what's important about that to me is I could read back and go, I was doing this and it didn't even matter three

years later at all. It didn't matter. And so that helps me with the present moment, knowing what didn't matter when that I used to be doing that I was worried about or working hard on. And then there's other things I was doing that did end up mattering now and I could read that I had allergies three years ago, and go oh, I had allergies three years ago and I have allergies today. That must be something that happens

in the middle of May. For me, it must be you know, so that helps me and for you, Dustin, you could write, I'm I'm in a deep place, a dark place right now with this relationship, and I'm struggling, and yesterday I had an all time low, and I'm noticing. I'm noticing the fluctuations of my highs and lows. And then next year you'll read that and you'll be like, man, I'm in a new relationship now, it's better, It's it's way easier. She's way more low maintenance for me. And

look at me struggling back then. And that that little piece helps you so much, because then the next time something happens, you're gonna ask yourself when I journal this, is this gonna matter to me in a year or it's just gonna be one of those things that didn't matter. It's interesting, right talking to your future self. You could even ask your future self questions like, hey, future self, I'm really hurting over this girl. Are you still hurting

or does it not matter at all? And then you could answer back two years later, you could answer back and go, hey, twenty twenty version of myself, No, it didn't matter, And it helps a lot. It helps understand yourself, understanding the way your brain works. I would say this destin too. I want you to notice something through this heartbreak. I want you to notice that you're going through It's like you're in the ocean and you're going through waves.

So you're you're gonna notice when you're in the trough of the wave and when you're on the crest of the wave, right, And so we could say that the crest is when you're feeling pretty good, like I haven't even thought about it in the last five minutes, and I'm like, my heart is beating at a normal rate. I'm feeling pretty good. And then you could fill the descent. And sometimes this could happen like every thirty seconds, or it could happen every other hour, or it could happen

every other day or every other week. The length of the wave changes. But I want you to notice, I'm feeling like I'm going down right now, I'm feeling the descent, and you'll know pretty soon I'm going to be in the trough and it sucks down there, but I also know that I will recognize when I'm starting to go back up to the crest. And when you're in the trough, think about this, monitor yourself. Your brain is like a cpu, so you could monitor how these thoughts are fluctuating through

and you could almost leave yourself for a second. And this sounds weird, but you could transcend yourself and look down at yourself just for a second and monitor the emotional state that you're in. And this is huge. This is huge when you could finally do this Dustin, because then you could recognize, I'm in the trough and this sucks, but I know that I will feel myself going back up and I'll be back on the crest. It could be in thirty seconds or it could be tomorrow, but

I know when I'll start heading back up. And then and then you monitor yourself and you go I feel a little bit better than I was in the trough. I must be going up, and then you could recognize when you're going up. Pretty soon, I'm going to be back on the crest, and then you'll be on the crest. And the important thing about being on the crest is

recognizing what that you will go back down again. So that helps you understand that you're floating in the ocean and you're going up and down on this in this heartbreak and this ocean of pain. Right that sounds like a nineteen nineties country album Ocean of pain, But you're going up and down. And as long as you could recognize that, you know that neither one of those positions up or down last forever, and eventually you will notice dustin. How do I know this Because personal experience and the

rest of humanity has been through what you've gone through. Okay, you're not going through something alone, you're not going through something new. But what I'll tell you is these waves, the length between the waves gets wider and wider, and the distance between trough and cress gets shorter and shorter, until you eventually arrive back in calm water. Okay, all right, let's go to this. This is interesting. I don't think I've ever answered a question like I'm about to do

right now. Subject line is grandparents house and says, hey, I would like to keep anonymous. I just moved into my grandparents house. It feels like there is an angry spirit around the house. I've been talking to God about it and reading scripture. I feel that the spirit is beginning. Excuse me, I feel the spirit and it is beginning to be hard to sleep at night. Interesting anonymous. Some people are listening going, that is just not true. Other

people listening go, I know it's true. I've experienced it. I personally believe that it is true and that this is also biblical. It's very biblical. I mean, Jesus during his time on Earth, Jesus performed many miracles. He healed the sick, he provided food for thousands out of hardly anything. He turned, as we all know, water into wine. But what did he do more than any of that cast out demons. That's what he did on his work, during his work on earth. So why do we think that

that doesn't exist anymore? Well, we know it does. We just call it different things. We give it different labels, demonic possession. We give it labels because that sounds like a science fiction movie demonic possession. So we give it other names like schizophrenia, mental health disorder, that person's just crazy, that person's strung out on drugs. We give it all kinds of names. But we need to call it for what it is, because when we call it for what

it is, we reduce its power. Because as long as you're denying what it is, and you're giving it other names and denying that it exists, that gives it more power to roam free on this earth. And I believe that there's many spirits, thousands of them, and they all

have names, and they all have specific jobs. This is biblical, and it's terrifying if you don't call it for what it is, and if you don't know the source of the only thing that can defeat it, So, Anonymous, if you are not capable of defeating this on your own, you could be in trouble. And this could be a scary thing. So you say, I'm talking to God about it and I'm reading scriptures. You got to do more than that, buddy, or ma'am Anonymous. You're gonna have to

get specific with this thing. I'm talking You're gonna have to You're gonna have to walk in that house and rebuke this in the name of Jesus, and you're gonna have to be committed to this process. There's many times when demons were people tried to rebuke them but they weren't. They weren't faithful enough to do it, and so the

demon just mocks them and it stays. Now, the scary thing about it is, you are at risk here if you're not careful, if you're not grounded in the right thing foundation of Christ, you're at risk for being influenced or taken over at some point by this spirit. So long story short, believe it. Believe this gut feeling, Trust this gut feeling that there's something wrong in that there is something going on here, and then I would seek help from the church. I would go to go to

a local church. If you're not plugged into the local church, that's a huge red flag already. So regardless of the grandparents' house thing, get yourself plugged in at a local church. Everybody listening, get plugged in to the church. That's what we need to do. That's the body of Christ. So get plugged into the church. You can't just say I'm talking to God about this, what are you doing? Faith is an action, It's a verb. What are you doing? Christ says, why do you call me by name? But

you don't do what I say? Right, Hey, Lord Lord, but you don't call me I mean, but you don't do what I say. So go to go get yourself in the body with other people and tell them about this house. See, I need some help, can you have? I have personally heard many stories of this kind of house, and I've heard many stories of so many pastor friends that have gone out and successfully rebuked a demon in a house and it left forever it's gone, and they felt it leave, and they heard it leave, and they

smelled it leave. This is terrifying stuff, like straight out of Hollywood. But it's real and you got to deal with it. And I wouldn't recommend doing it alone. I don't. I don't. Something tells me that this is something you can't do alone. You need to go to a local church that you trust, with the group that you trust and bring them to the house. Otherwise you might have to leave yourself. Let's hit another one here, step Cline says pre deployment troubles. Hey Granger, my name is Caleb.

I'm twenty three from Ohio. I want to get to the point because that has a lot of details and it could be confusing, but I want to know what you could think because you are a huge spiritual mentor for me. I've been with my fiance for four and a half years and we're having big issues. Let me pause right there, first question, I said, Remember what I said, I don't think. I don't think we should be in

four and a half year relationships without being married. Okay, continuing on, We've been arguing a lot the past two months, sparking from small issues. It's been so hard for me to love her for the quirks that I always have. She grew up Catholic, I grew up non denominational. She is now trying to figure out what she and I

can agree with. In the past, we discussed beliefs and we seem to be closer to being on the same page two years ago with faith, but now she seems too worried about being Catholic and change things that we've talked about. At the end of the day, I truly want us both to be happy and need my spouse to be on the same page with me on future life endeavors and faith based choices like kids in church. My apologies on the link of this message, but I

would love my mentor's input. There are some other details, but I'm trying to make this as short as I can. Thanks so much, Caleb, Caleb, thanks man. Thanks for the email. And on a side note, thank you for being aware that we need to keep these emails shorter. So when y'all are writing emails, keep them about a page link. So thanks for doing that. Caleb. Let's dig in. I told you that I don't agree with a four and a half year old relationship. I think it's too long.

I think you should already know by now. Now there's a key thing that you said here at the end of the day. I want us both to be happy, and I'm gonna suggest that it sounds like right off the bat, it sounds like if you truly want each other to be happy, it's probably a part and not together. These are deep issues. This Catholic issue that you're dealing with is not just going to go away. This is so embedded in her. This is how this is her.

It's become so much embedded in her that it's part of her family, and it's part of her and it's her heritage, and it's I hate the word religion because it's religion is man made. We've made this up and truly, all we need is a relationship with Christ. That's all we need. And religion is not all bad because it helps collect that idea of relationship with Christ and put it in humanistic terms, and it makes us be able to to worship in a constructive environment that helps put

parameters on what we do. Does that make sense? But having having a deep problem with her Catholicism is going to affect your kids. And if you think it's bad now with no kids, can you imagine can you imagine how much worse this is going to get with kids. This is one of these things, Buddy, that ends up being a deal breaker, And that's hard to hear. It's hard for you to hear it from me, especially since

you trust this podcast. But that and I'm not always right, But this is my advice to If you were my friend Caleb, which I feel like you are, if you're sitting in this room with me right now, I would say, Buddy, I think this is time to break it off. If you have it known by four and a half years, yet you're still wondering and you're having these arguments, it's time to say, Babe, you know I love you, you know I want I want what's best for you. And from the bottom of my heart as much as it

breaks it. I feel like what's best for you is to not be with me, but be with somebody else, somebody else that aligns with what you think, especially when it comes to faith. Your subjecline was pre deployment, but you didn't mention that if you're about to go deployed, this is something that has to happen right now, and it's gonna your deployment will help in the healing process of the heartbreak. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't just keep plowing through this just we're gonna make it work. We're

gonna make it work. We're gonna make it work. Because you don't want to be saying that when you're married and you have kids seven eight years down the road. You don't want to be looking at your wife life in counseling saying we're gonna make it work. We're gonna make it work. You don't want to say that, but you can right now because you're not married. I would say, break it off. We're gonna take a break. Beerer back, Okay,

getting back into these questions. A subject line here says stage fright, Hey, grangeer, my name is Natalie I'm fifteen. I'm from West Melbourne, Florida, and I'm really leaning towards music as being a career for me one day. But I get really nervous singing in front of people. I've written so many amazing songs. I play electric, guitar, piano, drums, ukulele,

and acoustic. My problem is I could sing great, and I could play great, and I could write great songs, but that's only when I'm by myself and when I'm with close friends. But when I play for other people that I don't know, I'm always worried about what people are gonna say. Whenever I play and sing for people, my voice starts to shake and I get dizzy. I really want to be an artist one day, but I

don't know how to get over this fear. I would love to know how you handle your pre performance Jitters, and I would love some advice on how you overcome on how to overcome mine. I love your music and all you stand for. Thanks for you and Amber being such an inspiration. PS. It would be awesome if you

read this on the podcast. Well guess what, Natalie, I'm reading it on the podcast right now, and I have some answers for you, because I know where you're coming from, the only way for you to get over stage fright is to get on the stage over and over and over and over again. I could tell you a lot of other things, like make sure you're controlling your breathing before you walk on stage, because you're getting dizzy. And why are you getting dizzy. You're getting dizzy because you're

not getting oxygen. That's a simple thing. You're not getting oxygen because you're taking quick breaths, and you're taking quick breaths because your mind is taken over and you're getting nervous. So control your breathing. Be so present right before you go up that you remember a couple of minutes before you walk on stage. Breathe practice in hell slowly Exhale slowly all the way out from your diaphragm, not from

your top of your chest to your neck. Breathe all the way out, and then take a breath at the bottom of your diaphragm. Hold it, breathe it in, let it out, breathe it in, over and over and over. This is part of your exercises as you're warming up your vocal cords, which we should all do anyway, because it's like a muscle. It's like you don't just go out in the yard and sprint. You warm up your legs. The same thing with your voice. You gotta warm up your voice. It's a muscle. So on top of warming

up your voice, control your breathing. I mean, this is a good practice whether or not you're you have stage fright or not. But I could tell you all that, and I could tell you different techniques like stay away from caffeine and alcohol and things like that. You should because you're fifteen anyway. But ultimately, what's gonna get you over this is getting confidence in those kind of environments. You ask me how I handle my pre performance jitters,

I don't get them. I don't get pre performance jitters anymore. But it's also because I've just been My first album came out twenty two years ago, so I've just been doing it for two decades, and I've seen all kinds of stages and all kinds of sizes of crowds, and all kinds of TV performances and live on the radio performances and small intimate coffee shops and stadiums. I've seen all of them, and every time that I hit a new environment thing that's very different, or a new song

or a new something I haven't done. Each Each of those times I got jitters, and I could breathe, and I could do all these different things. But ultimately I just had to walk out there and do it, and then walk off the stage and think to myself, well, I screwed that one up, or I did okay on that one. Either way, got back in the saddle and

did it again as soon as I could. So I think this goes with anything if you're if you're an race car driver and you you haven't raced very much, you're gonna be nervous behind the wheel, But if you have nine hundred races under your belt, you're not as nervous as the first time. That's easy, right, public speaking, same thing if any maybe you're doing a presentation at work. The first time you do it, you're gonna have jitters, but the eight hundredth time you do it, you're not.

It's just a matter of getting back in the saddle and doing it. Natalie, over and over and over. You're fifteen, so I don't expect you to have a whole lot under your belt. I started at fourteen, and so I was nervous, so nervous I still in fact, in fact, I used to sing in these North Texas oprreys and I sang on Saturday nights and I would sing two songs, and it was a list of you know, like twelve singers, and I would look at the list and see what

time I was going to go on. So I'd be like number eight on the list, and number five would get on there, and I'd start feeling nervous, and then number six would get on there and getting more nervous. By the time number seven's up there and I'm next, I'm just shaking in my boots, you know. And then they started announcing my name and I'm just out of losing my mind. I'm so nervous. And in all those

oprys they cooked popcorn. And the other day we were playing in i think West Virginia, and in the arena we were playing in, they were cooking popcorn. And I looked at my tour manager, Chris, and I said, man, that smell makes me nervous because it reminds me of the opry's before I was gonna sing. So it's like that triggered that old feeling of those those jitters. So, Natalie, you just got to do it. You got to do it, and if you love it, and if you're good like

you say you are, then just keep doing it. And something that might help is when you get to the mic, when you start, right before you start, tell the audience i'm nervous, let it out, like, don't let it be a secret. It's worse if it's a secret. Just tell them. I'm so nervous. If you could see that my hands are shaking, look show them your hands. Look see my hands. If you could see my hands shaking right now, they are,

I'm nervous. I'm just I love this so much, but i want to do the best I can for y'all tonight, and I'm nervous about it. Let them know, and they'll smile, and it makes everyone vulnerable and they'll all go They'll think to themselves, I would be too if I were you, Natalie. And then you just go about it. And if your voice shakes, so be it. It won't shake as much the next time. Keep doing it. Next question subject line has hard decision. Hey Grangeur, I'd like to stay anonymous.

I'm twenty six years old. I'm from Northeast Texas. I'm currently in a four year relationship with the mother of my son. She got pregnant shortly after we got together. I love her because she's the mother of my son, but I'm not in love with her. I stay because of my son. I don't see myself marrying her. Looking for some advice, love your music in your podcast. Thanks Anonymous.

I actually read your question on After Midnight, partly because it was short and partly because I think it's an interesting question and I have a direct answer for you. But here we go. This is you know, this is becoming the theme of today's episode. I don't agree with four year relationships. I think it's too long. I think you could know after a year. But she got pregnant and that changes things. So, Anonymous, at some point in your relationship, probably at the beginning, in fact, you said

that shortly after we got together, she got pregnant. At some point you're gonna have to own up to a mistake that you made, and that was getting physical with this girl too early before you were married. And the reason, the reason that the Bible says no sex before marriage, it's not so that we don't have fun. It's not to put some weird handcuff on us so that we we feel like we're, you know, bound in some prison

and where our manhood is taken away womanhood. The reason is for this and many others, but this is one of the reasons, Like there's things set up that if you hold off from getting physical, then when you are married, not only is it a bigger gift that you give to your spouse, but you also get to share in the joy of child bearing and raising kids together and

teaching them life lessons together because you waited. And it's hard for me to tell you that from where I sit because I'm twelve years into a marriage and we have kids. But from your perspective, you have to understand that the more important thing right now than your feelings is your kid. I say so many times on this podcast that I'm not always right, but I know where

right comes from. My personal opinions are not always right, but when I'm pulling from biblical foundations, those are always right. And you have to choose in your brain, not your heart, not your gut, not your feeling. You have to choose with your brain. I'm gonna stay here and I'm gonna love this girl. And it's not that bad because at one point she was good enough for you to sleep with her. So she's got she's got something going on that was good enough at that time in your life.

So it's not like it's not like this is someone I could never see myself with. Well you did one night. You're gonna have to look at her and just go, I'm making a commitment to you because I'm not gonna I'm not gonna jeopardize trauma with this kid dealing with separation of birth parents. And I know that you guys could think of a million exceptions of times when this worked, but more often than not, it hurts the child. It leaves them with some kind of baggage, some kind of damage.

Is that what you want? Do you want to leave them with some kind of baggage. I know this is tough love, and I seem to do this a lot on this podcast, but I'm telling you that you got to look at her, baby mama and say, I'm going to marry you, and I'm choosing to love you, and I'm choosing to put my feelings aside. My feelings are not number one in my life. They're actually number three. You and our child are number one and two. Not didn't even mention God, but we all know how I

feel about that. I hope that makes sense, and I hope that this is tough love, and I hope that you hear me. And I don't think that's what you want to hear. But you are asking me the question looking for some advice. You're there, man, It's time to man up. That's my thought. Next question, subject line says, I have an addiction. Hey Grant, your my name is Kyle from Marylyn. Been watching you for a while now and I watch your stuff and it makes me happy,

and it makes me want to change my life. I have an opuh opioid addiction going on ten years now, and I want to make my life better. I've done rehab and it hasn't helped me, but I think it's to the point where I want to be clean and not dependent on the pills. I was just hoping you could lift my spirits and give me some advice on what I could be doing to get my mind off thinking about the pills all day every day. Thanks for everything and anything, Kyle, Thanks for listening, buddy, Thanks for

the thanks for the question. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for this struggle. It's real that you're in a ten year Opioid addiction is a real thing, man, and you are I got to tell you that this is it's more than me telling you how to get your mind off of it, because it's a chemical addiction. So you're dealing with something more than I gotta get my mind off fried chicken because I love fried chicken, and I gotta stop eating and I want to try to lose weight, and I got to think of ways to get my

mind off of it. Well, this is more than that, because you're chemically addicted, so you're gonna have the need. You're gonna have to get medical help to help downgrade you off of the opioids with lower and lower doses, which is what what a rehab will do with a chemical addiction, is that they're gonna take you and they're going to just downgrade you. They're gonna still give you the pills, but in less and less doses, because if you quit cold turkey, that could actually be worse damage

than you're experiencing right now. So that's the first step is to pull you down with slower and slower doses.

Until you lose the chemical addiction. Then when you lose the chemical addiction, now we can talk about your last question, getting your mind off of the pills, and that is going to come from a root knowledge, a foundation in your life of something that's better than pills, something that's better at easing the pain or lowering the anxiety in your life, something that can actually give you rest, long lasting, something that could satisfy a craving long lasting, not a

short time. And you know what I'm talking about it an opioid. Why can I not say that word on this podcast today? An opioid is going to give you temporary relief of pain or anxiety or stress or whatever you're going through, but it wears off. So you're going to need to replace this. After you fix the chemical addiction, you're going to need to replace that with something that doesn't wear off. That, my friend, Kyle, is where we

find Jesus. And you've heard me say this before, but this is where we go to find rest, a water that we can go to and drink and never be thirsty again. It's a living water, it's a forever food. You never crave anything else. And you could find that in many ways, but understanding that two thousand years ago God sent his only son to earth as a man in the flesh, born of a woman, a virgin woman

who lived a perfect life as an example for us. Suffered, was persecuted, healed the sick, cast out, demon, made the blind see again. He died as he predicted, was resurrected three days later, came out of the tomb. He was killed in the most terrible way of dying. Your crucifixion is the most terrible way, the most evil conceptual idea

of execution ever. Crucifixion nails through the feet and through the hands, holding up on a cross, dying of suffocation because you could the pain is so bad you can no longer hold your chest over your rib cage enough to breathe. And it takes days. It took Jesus hours, but it takes most men days to die. And that kind of suffocation, it is terrible. He went through that pain and that suffering to take it away from you so that you could find rest and him, so that

you ultimately can have eternal life through him. It's an amazing story, and some people will hear it and not believe it. But Jesus said, some will hear it and believe it's like a magic switch that goes off. Some people hear that story and they go, I want to know more about that. What's crazy about this, too, is it's not somebody's dream. It's not like some mystical myth.

This is something that was eyewitnessed by over five hundred people, three different continents, hundreds of eyewitnesses that wrote this account, and that men and women have preserved this message all the way through persecution for us to hear why so that we could be healed of our addictions, so that we could be cleansed of our sin, because we're all born sinners. It's something we're born with. Can help it. And he says, you're forgiven and all you got to

do is have faith in that. And there's steps to come after that, but that's the first one. When he was on that cross, there there was a thief next to him all life, his whole life, he'd been a sinner like all of us. And he looked at Jesus that day and he said, will you remember me when you go into your kingdom. Jesus looked back at him and said, today you will be with me in paradise. That's it. That's it. He didn't have to live a life of righteousness, he didn't have to live a life

of good works. He just believed right then at the end of his life, and he went eternally to paradise. It's incredible. It's incredible story. Man. There is no story greater than that He defeated death. It's the answer to the death problem. We all have death coming. We all have addictions of some sort, like you, Kyle, we all I'll have problems. But Jesus defeated the death and gave us an answer to it. No other religion offers an answer to death. Here's your answer. You will no longer

fear death. It has no sting anymore. It has no victory over us anymore. Death. No, that doesn't mean that we don't have problems. We're still gonna have problems. We're still gonna have suffering, We're still gonna have grieving, but we grieve with hope. Now, we don't grieve with no hope. We grieve, we cry, we have pain, we have suffering, but it's all for a purpose, and we have hope in that. That's my answer. Call. I appreciate y'all. I love you. We'll see you next Monday. IgE. 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 any time 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. Ye