Kind of kind of love. Where's the love in this email? Like, I haven't I didn't see it one time. I didn't see I don't think I didn't see ever in a lot pretty long email. I didn't see anything that says.
Our heart, our hearts are broken, Our hearts are broken.
Welcome back to the podcast, y'all. Special guests today. Well you're not special, you're normal. Normal, normal guest today. Bernie Calcote special personally special to the podcast. The most regular guest we've ever had in your back now. I don't know how many you've been to lots.
Thank you guys for like keeping uh, keep on requesting me to come back and Griz for you to keep asking me to come back. Man, it's privilege and honor.
Man. No, that's exactly how I feel about you, because you add to my life. The reason I bring you on this podcast is because you bring to my life so much wisdom and so much grounding to whatever I have going on and when I have questions, and so I want to bring you here to be able to give that out to the people that ask the questions here. Because you're just such an asset and you're just so wise. I appreciate that.
Well, thank you so much.
You are going this weekend. What you told me is, I was setting up this podcasting, You're going to do the most physically difficult thing you've ever done in your entire life.
Please tell me that and possibly the dumbest I mean.
Are tied pretty well. Yeah.
So I got into trail running a while back, and just I love getting lost in the woods. If you've listened to this for any amount of time, you know I love to get out in the woods with nothing but nature and you know, talk to God and get lost.
So start trail running. Kind of got into it.
And yes, I'm gonna do a fifty k up in cleveborand Texas.
So how how far is fifty k?
Thirty two miles? And there's roughly four to five thousand feet of elevation game throughout the race, so it's gonna be pretty physically demanding. There's a lot of guys out there, I'm sure listening who have done you know, fifty milers or a hundred miles and not a lot the ultra The ultra world is really big and I'm just kind of dipping my toe into it.
But for me, where I'm at in my journey.
This will definitely be the hardest thing physically possibly mentally, because when you get into these things, your mind will just You're out in the middle of nowhere. It's not like you on a marathon you have like people clapping for you on the side throughout the race. It's like you're out there by yourself and your mind can just start.
Okay, how long will this take you?
I'm not sure, maybe between six and eight hours, Like, okay, never run this course, don't really know. So Okay, if y'all want to be praying for something next Saturday or this Saturday.
Or it will by the time the podcast, it will have already happened.
Yeah, so it's crazy. So if I die in this race, I love you guys. This is coming from beyond the grave.
I'm with Jesus.
Uh. What tell me about your the the nutrition you have the morning of. Maybe let's start with the night before and then the morning of. This is so off topic of what we typically talk about on the podcast. I think it's great. So night before, what are you eating?
Okay, so pretty much this whole week is kind of a taper week. So you're car bloating, we're eating like pretty much like a raccoon, anything that I possibly can, because I've been burning so many calories doing you know, six or seven hours of running on a trail per
week for the last six eight weeks. So this week is kind of like you taper down and then you're just eating kind of everything you I've been coached that you want to eat more sugar than usual, Like I don't usually eat like little candies and stuff, but you want to like lace the muscles with sugar, which I guess is the thing you're gonna need whenever you get into endurance. And so the night before probably something carb heavy.
The morning of I've been advised to like probably start lower calorie, like you don't want to like load a bunch, but you're gonna be eating, you know, probably eight hundred calories per hour kind of like that you're out there.
Hydration is another really where do you put that stuff?
So they have like drop bags that you can have like at different locations, or if you have something like I have like a vest that I'll run with that'll have something in there with water bottles that have you know, electrolytes, sodium, potassium, magnesium in the water because if you lose sodium too much and you get up into the you know, twenties thirties of my ailes, and your body crashes like there's no coming back. You get dehydrated, you can't get hydrated
back enough. You know you're gonna crash. So we're just trying to finish. We're trying to stay healthy.
The goal to finish.
The goal is to finish. For me, the goal is to finish. I know that some guys just you know, are crazy and go for time, but I'm just gonna try to finish and then I'll come back and tell you guys how dumb of decision it was to sign.
Up for this.
So that's amazing.
But my wife honestly has been super supportive this. Like I said, this is not the wisest thing I've ever done, and she has just been amazing and like my biggest cheerleader through the training.
I don't know if it's I don't know, if it's unwise, I don't know. I think debatable testing yourself like that mentally physically, and it's honestly, it's safely. I mean, you got yeah. They probably have plenty of paramedics on standby and people with radios. So it's it's safe, You're not You're not reckless. Yeah, it's not careless.
It's definitely not reckless.
And I feel like as much as I can have trained for something like this, I've done all that I can for sure.
I mean, is there a risk of doing the the ankle fracturing the ankles or or the shin splints? What is that when you actually fracture your shins? Well, I mean you can like David Goggins, yeah you can't.
He's a yeah, he's a different guy, but you definitely can run into these overuse injuries, which shin splints will be one of those, you know, ptelotenonitis. And honestly, if anybody out there is thinking of doing any kind of training for anything, that kind of pushes their limits. Like Granger said, I think there really is something good about it, the amount of self discovery that you find just through the training, not even just getting to the start line,
not even the finish and the actual race day. But I feel like I've learned a lot about my ego, which I didn't think I had a lot of. But I do have a lot of ego that I've had to die to and just work through. I think just in that what you learn in that training of getting shin splints, Okay, how do I still got three more weeks of training? How do I like work through these kind of small you know, injuries or you know, annoyances
to like get out there and just keep going. There's something that's just very enlightening about that whole process that, hopefully in the end, what it does is it gets you to the end or to the start line with confidence and just understanding yourself.
A little more.
Whenever you text me something very profound about life or about the Bible, it's typically after one of your training runs. Yeah, yeah, Which is interesting because Jesus was tempted for forty days in the desert, but he was tempted after forty days of fasting, no water, no food, and and that the temptation came at the end of that. It's so interesting that that's and that was the begining of his ministry. That's how his ministry started, was through that temptation first,
through that extreme body deprivation. And so that it explains why you come up with these profound things that you just think about and you meditate on through the running through body deprivation. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Interesting. Yeah, well, so on this podcast we answer your question. So this is it's a very untypical that I would ask questions to someone else, So thank you, dude. I want to mention something coming out of this break. Okay, so after the first break, I want to mention something that I think is very interesting that involves Bernie. I'll talk about it then, So hang tight for about ten more minutes. Let's get into some questions, which is what
we typically do. We answer your questions. Email me Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. Putting my phone on airplane mode to stop getting text and I'm going to go to the first question I have here, subject line as missing toxic people. Email says, Hey, I was wondering how come when I drink I miss the most toxic people in my life. They used to be my friends, And when I drink, even just with a buzz, I end
up messaging them. I became friends with them again before because of it, and it always ends up the same very simple email. That's it. Why you look at me like that? Uh no, there's there's not a name. Okay, okay, what's great about this? Podcast is that I feel like, you know, we're sitting around a campfire and we get to look at things from the outside. We kind of hover over a problem that you're you, the writer of this email, is right in the middle of it, and
it like doesn't make can see. But then we look over it and we go, all right, bro, it's actually a girl. It's actually a girl. Okay, So we say, sister, what are you doing? Do you not see the connection between you drink and you miss toxic people? You text them and it ends up being the same. So what's the common denominator in your question? What can you control? Yeah? Drinking?
Yeah, it's so easy.
The one thing you can control is don't drink and the cycle stops.
Yeah, it sounds like those people, the connections that you made with those people were in the context of drinking. So even though the people are gone, it makes sense that when you start to do that thing that connected connected you, you would think about those people. And in this case maybe it's an you're calling them toxic, so it's an unhealthy thing.
So don't drink.
Yeah, I mean you could.
Say not drink, or you could say, hey, we probably need to find some new friends. That can help us form better healthy habits around drinking and then make those connections. So whenever you drink, it's in moderation, and it's in the context of like, oh, that those unhealthy, toxic things are no longer a part of this thing that can still be.
And for now, don't drink.
But for.
I love Margaret like good cop, bad cop.
Next question. This question, The subjectline says, I need some advice. Hey Grangeer, my name is Brennan. I'm sixteen from Colorado. I have liked this girl for a long time. We're best friends. We sleep in the same bed when she comes over, and act like a couple besides telling each other I love you. I told her I liked her and asked her out. She told me she liked me too,
but wasn't ready for a relationship. So I gave her a year or so and asked her if she would ever want to get back into a relationship with me or I would be waiting for the rest of my life. She told me she didn't know, and then got with a boy the next day. They are still together. Do I let her go stay friends? Do I let her know she hurt me? What do I do? Love the podcast. Brandon Brandon Brennan outside looking in. You're sixteen years old
in Colorado. Stop it. It wasn't a joke. Bernieh Owth Today.
Brennan, don't drink. Stop it, stop it, stop it.
What are you doing? Man? God Lee Brennan. I wish I was in your town with you. I wish I could take you to coffee? All right?
Can I can I play advocate for Brennan?
Real quick? Yogo go?
He's sixteen. His brain is not fully formed yet. Okay, you gotta remember that twenty five. If he's twenty six, maybe we hold him two highs and her but males frontal cortex I ain't formed yet.
Many he is.
Baby, He's got nobody in his life. He's got this girl, Brenda. You got this girl coming over and she's staying with you in the same bed. Where are you staying?
Yeah, it's a good question.
Yeah, like mom's letting that happen.
Yeah, And of course you're gonna like her.
Sixteen years old girl comes over, So you said your bed?
Yeah, I like her?
Yeah. Yeah. So's his question is do I let her go? Let's go through each of his questions. Do I let her go yes, yes, do we stay friends? No? Do I let her know she hurts me? Nah? Yeah, just block her, Just block her. And the best thing you could do, because you said, what do I do? The best thing you could do is learn from this, this feeling you have right now, this feeling of betrayal. She hurt you. You gave her heart, you gave away your heart.
You told her everything you said you wanted to be in a relationship, you said you liked her or whatever you said. You slept with her, all these things that you did. Don't do it again because you feel this feeling, you feel what this feels like. You have to think this stuff through. You can't dive in. You have to know these things. Just wait, you're sixteen. Just wait. There's no need to jump into this kind of stuff right now. Okay, let her go block her? Good? Yeah, good, okay, next
question rolling something line? Oh that was next question, says hey Grangeer, hoping to keep my name confidential. I was wondering if you could help me this last December. I had broken up with my girlfriend about a year and it didn't end well. We're both missing each other. I was the one who initiated the breakup, but it was only because I couldn't handle everything in the relationship. During the relationship, we decided we would wait for marriage for
anything of that nature. For about four months we broke up. She decided after one night she wanted to sleep with another guy off of a limb.
I don't know what that means, off of a limb, on a whim.
I think it was on a whim. I heard this from one of our friends that she stayed in contact with, and I felt betrayed. Should I not be feeling this way? Is there anything that I could do to help myself in this situation? Or am I just overreacting? Thanks for all you do. Okay, man, it's almost the same question. Yeah, it's like the same scenario went down again. Let me rescan here. He initiated a breakup because it was toxic, and you guys decided to wait for marriage. After the breakup,
she goes right into a new one. You feel betrayed, Yeah, you should leave her block her. If it was up to me, I would say next question, But Bernie's.
Got to say something.
No, I'm trying to find anything to add more than that, Like, I think it's okay to feel what you're feeling and feel betrayed for you, guys to have this relationship. You did decide to break it off, but like you didn't say, hey, let's break it off and then you go sleep with somebody else. So I mean, I could see how y'all probably talked about some things and then she kind of went a different direction. But I think it's easy to kind of look back and wish that or kind of
see things maybe differently as they were. There was a reason that you broke up. There's a reason that she is kind of moving in the direction that she is. I probably wouldn't give her any more attention. I would guard your heart and just kind of move on. And same thing that I would say to this. I don't know how old you are. You didn't say right no, but other sixteen year old, maybe you're in your teens
early twenties. Find a hobby, leave the girls alone for a while, guys like find something that you can just like put yourself into, and yea, there's time for that later on.
It good.
Once your brain's formed and your heart has a little more experience.
It's good. All right, We're gonna get into something deeper here. Sevic client says how to help my son. Hey, Grangdeer, Hope you're doing good. Been a listener listener of yours for years. Love everything you do. Thanks for being an inspiration. I'm writing you today about my step son. He's sixteen years old. He's into death metal music, loves horror movies at times, seems infasciated with the devil and all things dark.
I am a Christian, and the deeper my faith has gotten over the past few years, the harder this topic seems to be. My stepson and I have gone head to head in regards to his clothing choices. He thinks it's fine to wear upside down crosses, devil pictures, etc. On his clothing. To him, it's just a style and it doesn't mean anything to him. I find this unacceptable.
It had gotten so bad at the beginning of the school year that he had threatened to move back to his mom's house because we didn't allow him to be himself. We have tried to compromise to keep him here. It's better and safer environment here than at his mom's. We have allowed him or at the other home, excuse me, we have allowed him not to attend church every weekend with us. I think he missaid that. I think he missaid that just once a month. We've allowed him to know, Okay, okay,
he doesn't want to go to church. I got it. We've allowed him to not attend church every weekend, just once a month, gotcha. He told us when he attends church he feels like he he's being choked. We have slacked off some on the clothing. We said he could wear band shirts if it's a little darker, but that was it. We have drawn the line and the sand
in regards to this. Lately, he's becoming more and more into the dark side and ask a lot of questions about the anti Christ exorcisms, and even gone as far as to pretend he's possessed to try and scare us. We have told him to stop, but he thinks it's quite entertaining to get us worked up. Tonight, at our younger son's baseball game, he told my husband and some family that I am scared of him. He finds joy in this. My question is how do we handle this?
What's a good next step for us? I feel like I have tried to stand our ground and really nothing has helped. He is currently in counseling, and the counselor says she is working on this as well. Any advice would be great, God bless Anonymous recapping for me, this is a woman speaking about a step son. So she has married a man and this is this is her new husband's son who's sixteen. The mom, the biological mother, is not a It doesn't have a good living situation. Okay.
I think those are my facts here.
And not too much mentioned about dad.
No, not a lot of mention about dad.
That was the first thing I was wondering, where's Dad, what's he doing? Yeah, first, just want to empathize, like I can only imagine what you're going through with a child, even you know, if it's a step child, not a bio even so, this just has to be really heartbreaking for you. And I don't want to minimize the weight of the responsibility and the burden that you're probably carrying seeing this play out.
So I just want to say that first.
Yeah, I agree what I want to do because I think this is complex and I have some stuff to say. I want I want to really dig into this. So I want to take a break and come back and get back to this question because we're running a little bit long. Okay, We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the podcast, y'all. You know, if you ever want to get a hold of me, get a personal message from me, the easiest way to do that is cameo
dot com slash Granger Smith. You go there and you request anything you want me to say, and you fill it out, and it's super simple. It goes to my phone and then I record you a video message back. So it could be like happy birthday, mom, or congratulations on graduating to my son or my brother, or happy anniversary or a baby announcement, or encouragement words. It could
be really anything. And I've been doing cameo for several years and it goes on my phone and it gives me a few days to record it, and then, you know, if I'm on the road and some reason I don't get it in time, it just kicks it back up and allows me to have a few more minutes to do it for you. It's super easy. You could also download the cameo app and search for me Granger Smith. It's an easy way for us to stay in touch and for you to get a personalized video from me
straight from my phone. And although I am quitting touring, that is correct. I am quitting music touring. I'm still doing yeee apparel like that's not going away. So yeye dot com is still alive and well, my brother Parker is still running it, and my brother Tyler is still working with us, so is Chris. Everyone's still on the team. I'm just not music touring. Does that make sense? So yeah, ye yee you can still rocket back to the podcast,
all right, back to the podcast. I promised something at the very beginning of last break that I was gonna say something after the break, and here we go. I feel like me and you could do a live podcast one of these days. I've mentioned it before, and now that touring we've announced music touring is over, I feel like you would Wait, well, I feel like now that now that I have availability, not that I have a lot of time, but there's time for the podcast now
to travel. So I kind of want to know if you comment below here, if you're able to comment, if we should do like a test city or if we should just go out and do like three cities. If you want to do a din like should we do a dinner with tables? Or should we just do a theater where you're sitting in seats.
And would you come?
Yeah? Would you come? And so it's be like we we would have a stage and we would have like a couch or something, and we would have these microphones and we would just hold them and then we would have people out in the crowd and they would we'd have somebody walking around a microphone. Someone has their hand up basically just spit firing here, and you just go
out and hand them the microphone. They asked the question, and me, you and Chad and Parker or whoever, or just me and you are whatever, slowly walk through it like a campfire?
Could we have a campfire on the sun?
Maybe maybe we should make a fake can fake campfire?
Yeah? I love it.
I'm in Okay, back to the question at hand. Here, this is the question about the step son. Mother is writing about her step son who's sixteen and he's into all this satanic stuff, and she says she's a Christian and as her faith has gotten deeper, this is harder to accept this kind of stuff from her step son, all his choices and what he's doing, and she's forcing
him to go to church once a month. So the first thing I want to do here is I want to take this mirror and kind of flip it around a little bit to the writer of this email, a little bit where we're looking a lot at the step son, and I want to kind of make sure that we're looking at ourselves in the mirror here, making sure we're not becoming the Pharisee and saying I tithe, and I do this, and I do that, and I prayed a thousand times a day, and thank God, I'm not like
this poor tax collector. And then you get this idea of the tax collector who beats his chest and says, oh, God, have mercy on me a sinner. And I'm not saying that the sixteen year old is repenting in any way. I'm just saying we have to be careful when we're just going, oh, this person is despicable to me, and I'm drawing a line in the sand and I'm dragging him the church. Kind of where's the love in this email? Like,
I haven't I didn't see it one time. I didn't see I don't think I didn't see ever in a pretty long email. I didn't see anything that says our heart.
Our hearts are broken, Our hearts are broken.
We love him, We love him, he has he has so much going for him in life and and it just breaks my heart to see him on this path. Where's that? So we have to start there. And I think if you don't start there, and if you don't feel that, and if that's not part of of your your your intention, are you a Christian too? Why are you?
Yeah?
I think that's a great thing to ask yourself, because if you and Griz and I and anybody out there listening, like, actually stop and consider the grace that we have been given and we have received that free gift, there's there's nothing but that same grace that we would want to extend to others, even a step son who you know, may seem like he is just you know, completely gone. First of all, that grace will be the only thing that corrects his course or guides his course in a
way that you really want. It's not going to be by your condemnation, your rules, your laws, you know all that stuff. So I think, with echoing what Griz just said, I think you got to stop and consider God's grace in your own life. Do you really get it? Do you really understand it and accept it and then extend it.
And if not, it's okay. His mercy is new.
Every morning we get to wake up and say, you know what, I.
Haven't been.
That gracious, I haven't been that patient, And maybe think of ways that you get to extend that to him. And I guarantee you just knowing the truth of grace and love and and and what it will beget and what condemnation and law and rules will beget. I guarantee you if you start that process with him, it may take a little while, and it may push you past your comfort level, you know, speaking of like endurance and like pushing past your comfort level. It may push you there,
especially with the child. But if ultimately what you want is for him to be in the arms of God and in God's grace and living a healthy, obedient life in that way, I think grace is going to be your avenue to do that.
Yeah, it's so well said, And ma'am I we have to we have to also put ourselves in his position. Look look at the world from his position. He's gotta he's got a split family, his mom, whatever is going on at mom's house. You say, it's not a good good not a good place to be. So he's got that going on. You didn't mention anything about dad. The guy's got a lot going on. And and when someone is outside of Christ, as obviously this sixteen year old
kid is outside of Christ. Right, when someone is outside of Christ, then it doesn't it doesn't surprise me anything that they would do. It doesn't surprise me. If you said he's he's shaving his head and he's joining all kinds of racist organizations, or he's going he's going off and he's chasing aliens in Roswell, New Mexico. Or he's out there and like throwing flowers with hippies. He's out, he's out dressing up as as bunny rabbits and hopping
around Istanbul. It could say, you could say anything, and I'm not gonna I'm not going to be surprised. It just so happens. This particular story is death metal and horror movies and gothic type Satan worship. It doesn't surprise. There's not a level once you're outside of Christ. There's not a level of surprise that I that I get. I just go, Yeah, it doesn't have the Holy Spirit living in them? What do we expect? So with everything we've said, come the foundation of what we built that
come at this as grace. Look at yourself? Are you yourself saved? Are you coming at this with love? Mercy? With all that, now, let's look at where's your common ground? Someone's gonna have to find common ground with this kid, whether you or the dad. I'm hoping it's the dad, But if not, what's common ground? What's something you both share that you like. Is it a food? Is it a vacation spot? Is it we know it's not music? Is it any where? Is the common ground? Lean into that?
Learn Learn to play a video game. I'm telling you, learn to play a video game. If that means you're gonna be in there with him, If you're gonna be in there with this video game that he plays at ten o'clock at night, be in there with him and play it and challenge him in it. If that means quality time together to build something. If he loves grilled cheese sandwiches, learn to make them good. Learn to make them better than anyone. If he's an early riser, I
don't think he is. If he's an early riser, learn to make pancakes and have them ready when he gets up. Find the way to his heart so that you could you could empathize with them, so that you could find common ground, so then you could earn his trust through that. Stop condemning this kid. Stop dragging him to church once a month. Of course he feels choked. He's outside of Christ. It doesn't it's foolish to him. The Gospel is foolish to this kid because he's outside of Christ.
Yeah, preece, brother, that's good. Yeah.
I think that everything that Granger is saying is like, if we define great unmerited favor, like he doesn't deserve for you to find out how to make his favorite grilled cheese sandwich or to do all the things. And someone that is full of hate will not live in a house of grace. If you create a house full of grace, he will either align or he will leave. And those are two realities that you're probably gonna have to face if not now down the road, he's not
even yours. Yea, His future, his destiny is not really in your hands to control or to conform.
What we get.
To do is steward them in the way of grace. Create a house of grace, and maybe he will start to align, he'll start to be like oh, because he'll start to see the healthy habits. But if your house is dirty, you can't point at him and be like, why are you dirty? Take a second look around the house. I think if we, you know, start there.
Like you said, my neighbor told me this story. And they've got a sixteen year old son and he is in he's in high school, you know, a first year in high School's driving and he's he's really into football. He's gone all the time because he's either doing some kind of two days are training or are weight lifting something, or speed camp or football. And it's a new school for him. So he's got his friends and so he
drives and he's gone most of the day. Pops in, he does something, he goes back out, and he's most nights during the week he's missing dinner. And it was like making the mother upset. She's like, you know, I miss my son. He's not here. You know, I'm I'm tired of just taking food and putting a paper towel on it, putting the fridge and writing a note said I'm tired. She says, I'm tired like, I've got a busy day too. You know, I've got three other kids besides him, and so you know, I've got to make
sure the house is clean. And then by the time we finished dinner, he's not even home, so I have to put it in the fridge, and then I just and then I get upset and I have to get ready for bed, and I'm like, hey, you have to do you have to fend on your by yourself on this stuff. And then she said, then I realized what I was doing, she said, I had to realize that I needed to be connecting with him. So I decided one day to wait for him and make whatever he
wanted to eat. So he came home at like nine o'clock. Instead of that's the time I'm getting ready for bed, she says, Instead, I said, what do you want to eat? And I heat it up dinner and I made it and I put it on the table, and all of a sudden, for the first time in months, he started talking. Because you know, teenagers can go through this thing where they're like, well, no.
Yeah, don't care, I don't know.
So all of a sudden, he's opening up. He's talking about his day, he's sharing a meal with mom, and she's like, this is it. She had she had to sacrifice her time. You know, nine o'clock. We all as parents, we know that's like a good time for us. She had to sacrifice that, and the sun opened up and talked and it was a huge, huge breakthrough. And I was like, praise God, that is an amazing thing. So that's what I'm pleading with you, ma'am. Yeah, I could
find a breakthrough. It's somewhere every sixteen year old kid that there's a breakthrough somewhere, find it you will, and then priest the gospel. Yeah, all right, that took a little bit, but that was a complex question.
Yeah, and I think applicable to a lot of people out there that are parents maybe seeing their kids do things that you're like, I don't understand it.
Yeah, another one complex subject, client says military plus stay at home dad question for podcast. Hey Grangeer, and my husband is about to retire soon from having served twenty years almost in the military. He has been on seven deployments. He's been the absolute best worker and then best leader he could possibly be, and deserves every bit of this retirement.
He will be thirty nine at retirement. When asked what he would like to do next, his answer to everyone is stay at home, be a dad, raise his kids, homeschool them, teach them everything from household chores to gardening to the Bible. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. This is truly what makes him happiest. I am a veteran myself currently. I have a great part time job that I love, working about twenty four hours and making good money seventy dollars
an hour. I love working and would be happy to work while he's at home with our children. My only concern is is this unbiblical and dishonoring God's instruction? Is it okay for him to retire and be the stay at home dad that he's always dreamed of being while I work? Will he or I or both of us be disobeying God? Thank you so much.
I think it's a fair question, but I'm going to say no. Do you maybe you have a little bit more insight? It sounds awesome?
Actually, yeah, yeah, I want to kind of go back to this a little bit. We're kind of throwing around that term loosely stay at home dad, but he wants to raise the kids homeschool, then that's full time, full time job, teach them everything, household chores, which is another big job, gardening, all this kind of stuff, and the Bible. I'm gonna say something here in a way, this is
what he's wanting to do. Is what every dad did one hundred and fifty years ago, two hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, Like what they did for most of history. They didn't leave to go to a workplace like we have in our minds now. Like we look at biblically, the man should go work, and we think that means we get in a car and commute down
the highway to an office building. Work always forever meant you're working at home in the garden and doing chores and fixing fences and harvesting vegetables and putting out new crop, and teaching the kids school and teaching them the Bible. It's just what they did. So I don't see any problem with this.
Yeah, it's yeah, it's very biblical, if that's the lens you're looking through. But also it's just kind of awesome.
It's like.
We've lost kind of the apprenticeship. Hey, you know, watch me do it. I watch you do it, then you do it kind of process of like kids actually learning how to do things by.
Sitting next to us watching it.
Yeah, so maybe maybe when you go to church and things like that and you're discussing this, maybe change your language about it. Instead of saying, well, now he's retired and stay at home dad, don't say it that way. Say say he retired in the military, but now he's working around our house, gardening, teaching, learning, having apprenticeships. You know, you could word it in a different way where it doesn't sound kind of condescen almost sounds condescending the way you're saying. Yeah.
If you say he's he's now homeschooling our kids, it's like whoa.
Yeah, let me say something that you don't know, anonymous. Let me say something. This is not the end of his story or yours. He's thirty nine, he's had an incredible career with seven deployments. So thank you for your service and thank you for his but this is not the end of his story. He might he might think that next is home gardening, teaching, give it five years, something's going to come up. Yeah, he's going to want to invest in something, or try something, or work at
the church or something. Something's going to come up. I promise this is just a dream that a thirty nine year old has going home. Man, you know what's gonna be awesome putting tomatoes and oak in the garden.
Well, and he's probably missed if he's been on seven deployments, he's probably missed out great point being home. And so this is kind of the compensation, like the great point.
So if he's been on seven deployments and say does she say what what branch? If it's army, that means seven years. Yeah, he's been gone maybe more out of the kid's life. Now he's going to pour back in and invest back into the lives of the kids that he missed out on. Great Point. Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with this.
Yeah, I'd kind of like to meet the guy. Honestly.
Come to a podcast show or is it a podcast show? What are these tour things called? We're making it up as we go, the podcast podcast, live recording, live recording. Let's do one more and if we could try this is a common but difficult question. We'll try to make it quick. Here it says, Hey GRAINGERR. My name is Forest. I was wondering why some people suffer from mental illness,
why does God allow that to be a thing? The reason I ask it because I've been clinically diagnosed, and at times I wonder if I'll always take medicine for what I'm diagnosed with. I feel like you're about to preach a sermon on this, right, so.
Well, kind of, I mean, well, I'm in a class right now in seminary called the Problem of Evil, and and so I've just been reading all different kinds of books on evil and and usually what it comes down to, really the question, the core question that people are going to ask is either why does God allow evil? Or because of the existence of evil, that proves there is no God? Right and so that's something that Christians need
to think through. It's also very biblical. If you read the Book of Job it is it is all throughout the Bible. But I don't think that's what you're asking for us. I don't think you're asking for some kind of great theological interpretation of evil in the Bible or in the world, or the existence of it, or God's allowance of it, or or God raising his hand and evil the entrance of evil. I don't think you're asking any of that. In fact, you didn't even use that word.
You're calling it suffering or mental illness? Why does God allow that to be a thing? So that's a specific piece of evil mental illness, And what you're asking is, I hope, God, what are you showing me through this? What are you showing me? Now? This is a thing. I've been clinically diagnosed, I have been given medication. God, What is the purpose of this so that I can glorify you? Because my purpose is to give you glory?
How is mental illness a component in that? And I can't help you totally with that for Est, but I will say that's a place to start. That's a place for you to start thinking instead of thinking why did he allow its? Why is you know this can't be good? Instead, this is me, this is what I have. How am I going to glorify God? And I could tell you right now there's a lot of options.
Yeah, for sure, anyone.
Could ask this question. I could ask the same thing for Est. I could say, how could a dad who lost his son glorify God through that? Any of us could? Whatever affliction we have it currently, and we have them all, any of us could ask that same question with our afflictions.
Yeah, I think this is one of those things where the live recording and having you guys you've mentioned it before, being able to ask like the follow up, Because if you have rendered your life to Jesus and you are spending time in the world and seeking to glorify God with your life like Granger's talking about, this is a different maybe not a different answer, but a different conversation
that we are having. If that is true. What I want to remind you of and anybody out there who is in this suffering, who has that heart of surrender and want for obedience, is that we are but a missed guys, Like this life is going so fast and there's gonna be eternity, eternity that there will.
Be no mental illness.
You won't have to carry this burden and this suffering any longer. And if we can just wait a little while, if we can just hold on to that hope that is in Jesus that you, by your wounds, I am healed and one day this is waiting for me and that I will press on towards the goal. Like I am going to keep carrying this suffer because I know that in this you have also suffered to the extent with me. And it's just for a little while. It feels like forever in this life with this earthly body.
It feels too much.
But guys, it is.
Going so fast, and eternity will start and you will enter and all of that will be gone.
So good. What Ernie's saying is the answer to the problem of evil is always found at the foot of the cross, the gospel of Jesus Christ, your suffering Savior, who suffered innocently for the rebellion of the guilty, that we are for our sake. At that point everything is resolved. We should leave it with that. Yeah, love you guys, See you next Monday. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate all of you. Guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If
you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and the notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com.
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