#183 This Pain Doesn't Surprise Me

it in the queue. And I've got a lot to read. I will never ever get to all of the questions, but send it in. I'll put it in the queue and we'll kind of flip through like a vending machine and see what comes up. The first question here, subject line says he doesn't want it like I do. Side note here, I don't read these ahead of time. I'm not prepared. I don't have notes. I'm going blind, completely blind. There's nothing on this table but the phone I'm using

to read the emails themselves. They come straight from you. Let's get started here, says Hey Granger. My name is Kaylin Jones, Keelan Jones. Let's say it that way. K e y Li and Keelan Jones. I'm seventeen from South Carolina and my whole life, me and my dad have not had the best relationship at all. My parents got divorced when I was about eight years old, and at first they stayed friends. Then he got married and all

of that changed. He changed. I ended up quitting baseball because I realized we didn't have a relationship if it wasn't through that, so I started working. But after about a month of him being remarried, about six months of him knowing her, he stood by and watched his new wife disrespect his mother. Fast forward seven years and he still hasn't said a word to them and talks about

about my mom any chance he got. The last time I spoke to him, we got into it and he told me to get out of my house and you're fired from both your jobs. Then I wasn't welcomed back. I post myself riding bulls, and he recently a few months, after a few months of not even reaching out at all, text me and says that I'm starting to get good. I'm assuming at riding bulls, and he misses me. What should I do? All right, Kielan, appreciate your emailing brother

and man seventeen years old. I'm so sorry that this is your world and that this is your dad and your relationship with your dad and your family. It just it feels mixed up for you. I want to tell you that you're not alone. A lot of people listening are in a similar situation, similar kind of story. This is not This doesn't surprise me. I should say it that way. When I read this, I'm not surprised by a story like yours in a fallen world in twenty

twenty three. Okay. That doesn't make it better, that doesn't make it easier. It just simply allows you to know that you're not abnormal, you're not different, you're not unlucky at all. Okay, so what do you do? That's your question? What do you do? You got this dad, and he he left you. Looks like when you're eight years old, your parents got divorced, he got remarried, and it's been

rocky ever since. It was a long time ago, right, that was nine years ago, and you're trying to figure out do you respond to him now because he's hurt you and he's put you in awkward situations, he's disrespected your family. Should you reach back out because he saw you bull riding and said you're getting good and you message it? Should you just ignore him? I think that's part of your question, right, Should I just ignore dad?

He's brought so much pain to my family? Is this a point when I'm seventeen right now to Is this a point where I just gonna I'm gonna cut ties with this? Would it surprised you if I said, no, don't do that. It's hard. Being seventeen is hard enough. Having a man's problem at seventeen is harder. And that's what this is. Brother. You gotta you gotta see this for what it is. This is an adult problem and you're needing to deal with it. So how do you do it? What would a man do in this kind

of situation? What would a man of integrity do in this kind of situation? Those of that have that have listened to this podcast for a long time, No, probably you're starting to get to know a little bit. You know, after one hundred and eighty three episodes, you could probably recognize similar patterns in what I say. But the right thing to do, and Keelan is forgive him I think it was last episode I said you don't have to maybe two. You don't have to trust him. There's a

difference between trust and forgiveness. But you gotta forgive him. You gotta love him, even though you feel like you shouldn't, even like you feel like you can't forgive him. You just say, Dad, I miss you too, man. I appreciate you reaching out. And that's first of all, that's gonna surprise him to be like, wow, what And and you say, Dad, can we talk? And you be honest with you? And you say, Dad, I'm being honest with you here. I've been upset the last few years. I haven't appreciated how

you treated the family. I haven't appreciated how you treated your mum and my mom. It's been hard on me. It's you know, I try to I try to have this teenage life and and try to go through all these trials, and it's tough without having the approval of a dad. But this is Kilan, This is that part's easy. Here's where you become a man. Here's the integrity part. But Dad, but I haven't been that. I haven't been the best either. I've said some things I regret I've

done some things I probably shouldn't. I've disrespected you, Dad, in a way that I should be honoring to you. Not because you've earned it or because you've done things along my life that have earned that respect, but but because you're my dad, because you're my elder, I need to honor you. And I've failed at that, Dad, I've failed in listening and unders standing your side of the story I I I have. I've disrespected you and dishonored you in many ways, and I want to know how

I could fix that with you. I want to know how I could make this better and data. I know things aren't going to be great, and I know we both got to work on some things, but I'm not I'm not worried about what you need to do for us. I need you to tell me how you want me to act towards you, now, Kiln. These are expressions of the heart, These are expressions of humility and submission. And and you're gonna come under his authority in this way. But this this doesn't mean that you're gonna be weak.

It doesn't mean you're you're you're gonna have to trust everything that this man says. You don't have to trust him. You don't have to fulfill promises that he wants you to make to him. This is this is just an act of falling under uh a way to honor him

as your biological father. And if he says, son, I need you to do this and this and this and this, and he just comes after you with just ridiculous things, you say, Wow, okay, that's a lot of stuff, Dad, And I want to be able to honor you in these ways, and so let's be let's be reasonable about where I could start, because I want to start small. But I want to do this right. Okay. So you notice that there's no right or wrong answer to what you say. Besides, your posture is just a posture of

forgiveness and love towards your dad. This is irrelevant to how he responds to it. So he might say, I forget you kid, you're a punk, you're a punk kid, I've never liked you, blah blah blah blah blah blah. You know, he could be as mean as possible, And you go, Man, it hurts to hear you say that, Dad, But I want to tell you that that still doesn't make that doesn't change that I'm your son and you're my dad, and I forgive you. It'd be very difficult for him to continue on in the path if you

keep that up. It would be very difficult for him to be upset with you if you keep that up. You hear what I'm saying, Yes, sir Kieling, It's not easy, man. I'm sorry you're in this kind of situation. But fighting him, ignoring him, regretting him, wishing he wasn't your father, hating him, envying him, being jealous of it, whatever, is not the right way You could try those things. It will only end up back in my inbox again, I promise you. All right, Come on, guys, let's get a good one here,

just like we're riding in the truck. How about this one? Subdecline says, please please help me. Hey, Grandrid like to stay anonymous. I'm twenty four years old. I'm a woman who's been single for three years waiting for a godly man. I feel like I could marry. I believe I found him, and we have talked about marriage. We align on everything except one thing, drinking alcohol. He doesn't drink and I do occasionally. I've asked if we can compromise and I

could drink but not ever get drunk. This feels borderline toxic and controlling to me. The bottom line is alcoholism runs in my family, and he fears I might prey on him like that in the feure. Okay, I'm gonna stop right there. I'm not even gonna read the arrest of the email. Okay, alcoholism runs in your family. You're the man that you love hopes that you don't drink. Don't drink, don't drink. I'm not there's no need to read the the rest of the email. And I could

talk about this for fifteen minutes. Don't drink. It's hereditary for you. The man that you love, that you want to marry, that's his hang up. Can you sacrifice that to him? Can you give him that? Can you say yeah, if you are that serious about it, and you're right it runs in my family, then yeah, you are worth it. You're worth it. Don't drink. Next question, subject line says how do I move on from him? Hey, Grande, I'm eighteen years old. I'm a young man from a small

town in Colorado. I work sixty hours a week. I'm a part time student attending an online college taking a business class in entrepreneurship. Church is still somewhat new to me, along with living a spiritual life. My parents divorced for twelve years. Family is not religious at all, which could be one of the many struggles of mine. Recently, I've put all the focus on myself and pushed myself to achieve the many dreams I have in life. This has led me to losing good friends. However, my dad, a

lifelong alcoholic, has quite the opposite mindset from me. My dad blacks out each night from drinking and still has not learned his lesson from the numerous DUIs in jail time. He often tries to bring me down and shut my dreams of being the owner of my own business. I struggle to keep my head up in this environment. I call home and him always disrespecting me. And then in caps are in bold letters. You then typed I want to earn his respect, but it may not be possible.

How should I keep the focus on myself instead of his negativity? Okay, this letter comes from Tristan. I'm gonna recap for myself since this is new to me. You're eighteen, Colorado, Tristan, you are a very diligent worker and an online college student. You got an alcoholic dad who has just tore you down mentally, and you just want to earn his respect, and you feel like you can't move on until you get your father's respect. This is a natural psychologic thing, right.

You have deep wounds from your parents being divorced. I got I'm not I'm not a therapist here. I'm just reading like a friend. Brother, reading like a friend here. Let me read the part about churching and you said church is still somewhat new to me along with living a spiritual life. I'm not into any of that stuff, Tristan. I'm not into living a spiritual life. I'm not into

checking out church. That's not for me. I think if you're going to be if you're going to try to live a spiritual life or try to check out church and stuff, I think there's better things you could do on a Sunday. I think like watching the Dallas Cowboys play the Broncos on a Sunday is a better use of your time than checking out a spiritual life. That's

my opinion. But if you want to know your creator, if you want to know the God of the universe, that demands that you respond to his son, whom he sent on to this earth, who suffered, died on the cross, became a substitution for your sins in a way that you could never repay, and a death that you could never owe in a sentence, a judgment that only means death for you, with no way out and no form of bail. If you want to know him as he was resurrected from this death and a substitution for your sin.

And he says repent, which means turn away from your old life, shed yourself, deny yourself, all this stuff that you have written about me. Me, me, I'm trying to focus on myself, pushing myself. I want to respect myself. I want to focus And you said it again in

the last I want to focus on myself. If you want to shed yourself and deny yourself and repent and turn to Christ, to your King, to the one that died for you, and believe that he died for you, if that's if that's something that sparks something deep within you, then there is no spiritual life, there is no checking out church. It's then it becomes your family, it becomes

your life. You no longer live for yourself. You no longer work for yourself, You no longer need respect from yourself or from your alcoholic father, or you know, no longer need to earn any kind of big feelings and respectful emotions for yourself. You die to yourself and you turn to Christ. If that sparks your interest, that's what I'm talking about. Oh, by the way, and he says, if you don't, you will die in your sins. That's it. There isn't another way. He says, I am the way.

He says. No one comes to the Father but by me, And no one comes to the Father unless you die to yourself and turn to him and follow him. That's what he says. That's what the Bible says. And the Bible's trustworthy. It's twenty twenty three. We could trust the Bible. So if you want, if you want to dabble in a spiritual life, I mean, I ain't gonna work. You'd be better off watching the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos and sitting on the couch eating popcorn. You'd have

a better life doing that. But it's going to be the best life now because the next one ain't. Maybe this email caught me at the wrong time. Tristan, hear my call, brother, repent and believe in your king. He is victorious. He sits on the throne right now, and he demands that everyone turned from their sins, deny themselves, stop thinking about yourself, stop earning things for yourself, stop it, and say God, I surrender to you, my creator. You're

in control your sovereign. I trust you, and you'll be saved. Let's take a break be read back. Thanks for listening to the podcast, y'all. If you ever want a message from me, a personal message from me on a video sent to your phone saying whatever you want me to say to whoever you want me to say it too, then you need to go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith or download the cameo app and search for me Granger Smith, and I will make that very video

for you. Do these all the time, and so every once in a while on the podcast I like to bring it up just in case someone's thinking, man, I wish Granger could send me like a happy anniversary, or my son a happy birthday, or my wife a happy Valentine's Day, whatever it might be. I am here to do that for you through cameo. It's super easy, and I've been doing this for about probably four years now. So go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith or download the cameo app on your phone and search for

me Granger Smith. Thank y'all for listening. Back to the podcast. All right, back to the podcast. I am recording this pre recording this at night, and I'm kind of realizing as I took that break that my answers at night, late at night are probably gonna be different than earlier in the morning. With a cup of coffee, I might be a little sweeter, a little chippier, little a little brighter, a little quicker in the morning with some coffee, and then I might be a little a little less patient

on my nighttime recorded podcast. So episode one three, let it be known this is nighttime. I might cut you off in the middle of a question like I've done already once. Oh, I'm sorry. Both sides of me are true. This side is real. The morning the morning version of me is real, and the evening version is real. You're just gonna get a different part of the spectrum. Okay, next question here, subject line is Bible. Hey, Granger recently

started listening to your podcast and I'm hooked. I love how you're so open about religion and how God has helped you and your family and so much in life. My question is, as someone who's never really read the Bible, maybe just skimmed through, what version would you recommend for the first time reader? Thank you. Great question comes from

Nicholas and man Man, what an awesome question. And I'm happy to walk you through this because I once I would see everybody, everybody at one point was new to the Bible at some point in their life, and most likely the very beginning of everyone's journey. They were a skimmer. They just skimmed through it. You kind of look at it like a dictionary or an encyclopedia or like the Sourus or something. You just you go, well, I mean, surely it doesn't start at the beginning, and so I'll

just kind of skim through. I know people like have verses written on their t shirts and coffee mugs and picture frames, and so maybe that's just what you do, is you kind of flip through and you look for a subject that you might want to be dealing with here, and you need an answer from and you just find it that way, that maybe how it starts for you,

but that's not how it's going to end. The Bible is meant to be taken in context, meaning there is a storyline that starts at the beginning and goes all the way to the end. And this is a thread and the redemption story of a people and a God that redeemed his people even when they were not worthy of it. It's essentially a love story. It's the story of a God. They're created a people and the peace. People rebelled and God gave them a law and they

rejected it. And he gave them people, which we call prophets, to come and tell them the law to reinforce it. And they killed the prophets. And he sent his son, the most valuable resource on the planet, to redeem this people, to gather them. He lived a perfect life, and he was killed by the people, just like they killed the prophets. They rebelled from the beginning, and we still rebel today. But in his death he resurrected, being the first one

to achieve victory over death. The son of God, the son of Man, the son of David, Jesus resurrected on the third Day, and through that sacrifice redeemed the people gathered him as a hen gathers her chicks, and saved them even when they're not worthy of it. Not all of them, the ones that turn to him in repentance and belief through faith, he saves them by grace through faith.

That's the story from beginning to end. And it's just woven the most beautiful literary stories, woven together for thousands of years, forty different authors, fifteen hundred years, sixty six books written by eyewitnesses, and the presence of other eyewitnesses, redeeming and fulfilling prophecies for thousands of years. It's the most widely read and the most widely sold book of all time. It is the book of all books. There is nothing ever that has ever come close to it.

And we now have evidence through archaeological digs over twenty five five thousand fragments of the original Bibles, pieces of these scriptures of different books. It's that's the loose story. It's it's unbelievable. But that's not none of that is what you asked. You asked, what version would you recommend the first time readers. That's a great question. It's a

legitimate question. So I told you that there's these we have miles mile high, if you stacked them on top of each other, mile high manuscripts that we have dug up, we've found and we've put together, so we The Bible is primarily in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. So through those three languages, a lot of them were translated to Latin, and then from Latin to or like from the Hebrew to Latin, from the Greek to Latin, sometimes from the Hebrew to Greek, and and so we've usually taken that

Latin and then some people have made into English. We don't do that anymore. The modern translations now go straight back to the Greek or straight back to the Hebrew. So there is no middleman. There's no maybe this translation moved into this one to this one, to this one to this one, and then it was like in this game of telephone, where eventually it just is like a muddled version of what might have happened. No, now we go straight back to all the way to the Greek.

And they were doing this since the King James. But you go all the way back to the original manuscripts first century, second century, third century and they all line up, they all match, and if it didn't, then you could easily find a new manuscript and go, look that part that's different. So we need to reconcile. This part is different right here. I love this stuff. You don't need this for your faith, you don't need to believe it in this way. But I just like the history of

the Bible. I just genuinely enjoy this kind of stuff. And so my point is the ESV, the CSV, n IV, the NASB, the King James. There's there was many many different versions. I say many many. There there's seven eight nine great versions. And usually on every version you could you could do a you could do a Wikipedia search on this. Honestly, you could find a version like the n i V. Start there. They take the n IV. I read the ESV, my for my morning read. I

read the CSB. So find one like the n IV and wiki it right and you could see that it's written by a committee of scholars one hundred or so. And they come together and they study. They study the Greek, they study how it was originally translated from Greek to Latin.

They see if that was okay, then then they see how did the Latin, go into English, and then they test what they read from the Greek, and then what they read from the Hebrew, and they go to the Geneva Bible and they look at the Old KJV, and so they're cross referencing. I mean, this stuff is accurate. You can't go wrong, and you're gonna see different words. Some versions are word by word, some versions are thought

by thought. You could see all this probably in the Wikipedia version, and then you could read it, and no truths throughout these different translations are lost. It's the same thing, it's a different way of saying the same thing. And so what I usually recommend for this question is to several I use an app called Lagos Lgos, and my devotional reading in the morning, I'm reading a plan called the Mixshame Plan. So that gets me through four chapters

every morning. It gets me through the whole Bible, excuse me, the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice, and the Psalms twice in a year. So as I'm reading that, I switch translations, and if I'm ever studying a part, especially if I'm studying apart a section of Perickapee of the Bible of the Gospel. Then else I could quickly swipe on logos back and forth to different translations. So it's like, oh, the ESV said that, come to me,

all you who are weary and heavy laden. I think it's the ESV, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy ladened. And then you go to the NIV and it says, come to me all you who are weary and burdened. It's like, oh, cool, weary and heavy ladened versus weary and burdened. And then you can go, what does the KJV say? It's so interesting. So then you just swipe back and forth and you can go to these different versions and never will you find a spot ever when a main, major truth is lost in

that kind of different translation. Okay, so that's how you'll build your own trust. There's there's gonna be people that go, no way, man, the KJV. This only way, King James, is the only way. Well my argument to that is, I don't speak Old English, do you? I don't, So I appreciate the KJV. I read the ees V because it's the same as the KJV, the same without the these and thousand ye's and those whatever, and if ever in doubt. You just swipe back. Do you get my point?

There's not a there's not a right translation. Now, there's a lot of religions like Jeovah's Witnesses, Jesus Christ, Latter day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ. They always make me want to say the whole thing, Church of Jesus Christ, the latter to say, they're gonna say no, like the Jeovah's Witnesses are gonna say no, it's the New World

translation translated by one man and the nineteenth century. The Mormons are gonna say no, only kjav is the best translation, because they say, we believe the Bible as long as it's translated correctly. But it's not all correct, and so then they're gonna think that there's a lot there's still truths that are lost in there. It's twenty twenty three. That's totally debunked. We've completely debunked that is that argument is over. It's a nineteenth century argument. We know that

truths are not lost. We could trace ancient writings all the way back. We through archaeology, through through literature. We could trace that. Hey, you can't prove that the apostles are speaking truth. But you can prove that what the apostles said still is preserved today and we believe by faith that it is truth. Okay, but we could prove that, yes, what the apostle said has still been preserved. Besides, Jesus said that it would be This is a long this

is a long answer. But welcome to the journey, brother, Welcome to the journey. Let's go to this next one subject line says random breakup. Hey, Grandere'd like to remain anonymous. My boyfriend of almost five months randomly broke up with me over FaceTime while we're doing long distance for a couple months over the summer. He was getting ready to come back in two weeks when he broke up with me. I don't understand why, because everything was so fine between

us and then one day it wasn't. I feel like I was blindsided. I loved him so much and still do. He said he was going through some struggles and he should have told me about this stuff early on, and he needed time to become a better person, both mentally and spiritually. He was such a great example of what a true Christian guy should be like, and his family was the best. It's been two months since the breakup,

and I'm still not over him. I'm scared that I won't find anyone better because I can imagine anyone better than him. We had the same morals, beliefs, and standards. He set my standard so high and it was exactly what I wanted. I don't know if I should move on or just wait things out. Okay, Anonymous, your boyfriend, let's walk through it, just from my own brain. Your boyfriend of five months randomly broke up with you over FaceTime. You were a long distance couple, and you're doing that

over the summer. He's getting ready to come back. Okay, you're blindsided. You say you loved him so much. It's been two months. That was what I was looking for. It's been two months since the breakup, and you're still not over him. This is not hard, Anonymous. I'm sorry for your breakup, but this is not hard. Two months is not long enough, that's it. Five months is not long enough for you to be having these this crazy feeling yet. Okay, So so that's gonna make it easier.

You're gonna realize soon that it was only five months. If it was five years, it would be different. I'm not downplaying your your loss. I'm not downplaying your pain. I'm just saying it's gonna help you, because that's gonna be make things a little easier. The cut is not as deep as you might think because it was only five months. But the problem with your email, the problem with your question is it's only been two months since the breakup. Two months is not long enough for you

to be feeling better. It could be, but it's not. You loved him, You thought he was the one you were all in and he wasn't the guy. He dumped you. He blindsided you. He gave you some lame excuses that he needed to become a better person mentally and spiritually. It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. He was sincere about it. I'm not saying he's a bad guy. I'm not saying that he was the wrong answer. He's just coming up with stuff it doesn't even make sense.

He wants to be better mentally, in spiritually. And right after that, you say he was an example of a true Christian. I don't buy it. Hindsight's twenty twenty. He wasn't that he came up with a lame excuse to break up with you. I don't like that excuse. He probably found somebody, or he just realized he didn't love you. This podcast is just I'm never going to be the

kind of guy on this podcast. It's gonna say, oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry, you deserve better, or he probably loves you and you just need to be faithful and he'll come back. I'm not not me. I must say he didn't love you. He came up with the lame excuse. And it's only been two months. You'll get over him. It'll get better in the meantime. Block him on social media, block his number, block his email. I'm serious. It's not that you hate him, it's not that you're being rude.

You just you got to protect your heart. Now his true colors have been shown once again. Not that he's a bad guy, but he's shown that he doesn't love you. Clearly he does not love you. He's confused, he might have found somebody else. So block him to protect yourself in case there's a rebound, in case this new girl he's with doesn't work out and he decides to come back to you. You have protected yourself because now his true colors have been revealed. If then he wants to

truly find you. He will. He's going to find you in another way besides phone and Facebook. He will if it's right. But in the meantime, protect your heart. You need to let time go by. How long? I'm reading a book right now called how Long, Oh Lord? Reflections on suffering? But four months, five months, eight months, could be eight months. That means you got six more, could be next week. It's going to depend on how deep

the wound is. But you will get better. You will get over him if you don't start the cycle over again by reaching out to him and having coffee, and then it starts you back at zero. Okay, it just hasn't been long enough. Let it go by. Love you guys, See you next Monday. Gee, 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. Yig