I have you trapped. The only way I will not do that is if you obey me and do exactly what I say. Now, I need you to send another picture doing this. If you do not send it within twenty four hours, I will release this blackmailed video. So that's how it works. That's very common, and most people that are trapped in that don't say a word. What's up, everybody?
Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode one and ninety six, and I am grateful to be here with you, wherever you're coming from, and however you're watching, whatever platform you're coming from, whether that's Spotify or Apple podcast or YouTube or any other platform. iHeartRadio. Thank you for being here. I answer your questions. You email me Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com, and I walk through it in long podcast form, sometimes maybe too long and sometimes maybe too short.
I have nothing planned. I have no notes in front of me or no quotes or anything compiled. And I have also have not read these questions beforehand. So we're gonna walk through it. You're gonna hear it as a listener the same time that I'm hearing it, and then we'll give the best answer that we can. These questions could be about anything in life. Really, I've seen it all over the place. You just email Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. So let's go to the first one here.
Subject Cline says curious, and the question says, Hello, granger My name is Cindy. I live in Florida. I have a quick question for you. Do you respond to comments on your podcast that ask us to message you on a different platform. I've received that on everything I've commented on. Thank you and God blessed. Yeah, Cindy, thanks for emailing. I'm glad this is the first one that popped up. The answer is never. I'd never ask thank you ever on social media or any platform, to go and message
me on another platform. Right, that's not me. That's a scammer, probably from Nigeria. I've actually did a podcast on this several years ago, way back in the archives. But they're always scamming you. They're trying to scam you. Always look for the blue check. It's really important to look for that blue check and then just take a quick scan over at the page. It's not hard to see what a scammer page looks like. It doesn't have a lot
of followers and it doesn't. It could be cloned. They could have posted the same thing, but you could tell that there's a lot less activity and there's a lot less followers. So look for the blue check and also don't follow any kind of blue checked artist or celebrity of any kind. Don't ever follow them on a mess direct message, or a comment that says, hey, come to
this other platform and message me there. It's also important to never donate to anybody's charity that asks you straight from a say an Instagram comment, and says, hey, donate here to this certain charity. Also, don't even follow my advice. If I'm asking you to donate from a charity, it
might not be me. So be very careful. I'm never going to come to you, and I don't think anyone is ever going to come to you that you don't personally know in your family that's going to say, hey, I have some I got into some financial trouble, can you help me out here? Whatever? Tom Cruise is not going to tell you that. So anyway, be very careful, be very safe out there on You know, we have learned in life how to be street smart and not
walk down a dark alley. You wouldn't do that. So we need to learn how to be web smart now and learn where those new dark alleys are. Don't go down them. It's a good question. I'm glad we started with this. Next question, Subdeclin's has exploited. Hey, Grandere'd like to remain anonymous. I'm fifteen years old. I'm a boy. Made a huge mistake. I sent private videos to what I thought was a girl and ended up being a sexploitation scheme. I deleted everything and reported it all, and
nothing has come of it. I'm struggling with the shame and embarrassment that I fell into lust. I already prayed about it and asked for forgiveness, but I still am filled with shame. Just wondering how I could help improve excuse me, just how I'm wondering how I could help overcome my shame. Thanks love the podcast. Anonymous. Okay, man, what a good question to go back to. Back to that other question, right, talking about dark alleys on the internet,
and we have to be aware. Man, that couldn't have been timed better. Okay, where do I start with this? Anonymous? First of all, fifteen year old boy, thank you for being vulnerable. Thank you for being up front about this and just voicing this kind of concern that is dealt with a lot. And I'm sure a lot of kids are going through something like this and they don't know who to talk to, and they don't ever bring it up, and it never leaves their bedroom or behind four walls
of their house. So we'll start with that. You're vulnerable and you're very brave to come forward. Second of all, I think it goes without saying that this is it's dangerous to send anything to anybody, even if you know them, and much more dangerous if you don't know them. But that's not what this question is about. And that's not what you need to hear from me, because you already know that the hard way, right, You've already learned that lesson. There's no need for me to reinforce that with you.
I do want everybody else that's listening to know and to see this and to see that this is a real thing, whether you are listening yourself and you could be vulnerable to this, or if you have kids and you don't know exactly what they're looking at. I say kids, and I don't mean that to offend you. If you're fifteen. I don't mean that in that way. So if you have children that are on their phones, are on a screen,
and you don't know exactly what they're looking at. I want your parents, I want you to remember this that they're not entitled to privacy. As long as they're under eighteen and living under your roof, they are not entitled to privacy. That is something that is earned, and that trust is earned. And even when the trust of total privacy is earned, that doesn't mean you have to give
it to them. Okay, because you're the parent, and you are you are in desperate need these days to be policing this, okay, because you know better, and many times they don't. They haven't been exposed to everything that you and I know at this point. This is a great example of it. Okay, this what is happening to this boy? Really, I'll speak to everyone, including you anonymous. This could be very dangerous to your own mental health. There are suicides
that happened because of this. Okay, that needs to be said, needs to be addressed. How crazy this could be. And it sounds like you're okay, So first of all, let's just make sure you're okay and that everything in this world can be replaced, including your your self esteem, right, if that's what this is about. This could be repaired, all this, all of this could be repaired, and no one, no one should be able to judge you in a
way that they say, how could you be so? But no one could really say that, because everyone that's a human that walks on this earth could be vulnerable to something like this if they just don't know, and you were trapped, that you fell into the trap and the trap was set. Now I'm so glad you reported it, but I want to I want to make sure you take the next step as well, and I want to make sure that the authorities are contacted for this, because this is there is a big trafficking scheme that goes
along with this kind of sexploitation. There are many people right now, in fact, millions that are that are enslaved and trapped by sexploitation because of something just like this, because of a scheme that they sent a video to someone, a private video that they thought was a love interest about their age, ended up being some kind of scam that's part of some kind of crime ring that then brings that victim in and says now that I have this, Now that I have this information about you, or this
video of you or this picture of you, I will show it to everyone. I will ruin your life. I will show all of your classmates, your friends, your parents, your teachers, everyone in the town will see this vulnerable video or picture of you. I have you trapped. The only way I will not do that is if you obey me and do exactly what I say. Now. I need you to send another picture doing this. If you do not send it within twenty four hours, I will
release this blackmailed video. So that's how it works. That's very common, and most people that are trapped in that don't say a word for fear because they're scared. We need to be aware of this, We need to know that this is going on. And I would like you to know tofy the police about this. Anonymous. So all of that I didn't I didn't even really get into
what you're asking. But you said you've prayed about it, you've asked for forgiveness, but you're still filled with shame, just wondering how you could that you can overcome this kind of shame. That's what you're asking, And I would say, shine a light in the dark place, shine a light on it, right on it. And the way you shine a light on it is bring truth to it. Bring truth, bring it to light. Confess this, not in a way that you have to confess more and more and more.
That can become a pnception. And you don't want to be obsessed with confessing, right, That's that's different. That's not what this is about. This is about shining a light in that dark, in those dark corners where the cobwebs are in your life, and you go look over there. I want everyone to see this, mister police officer, my friends. I did this. I'm messed up, and I will not do this again. I've learned my lesson. But I also want to make a bring awareness to other people that
could be in a similar kind of situation. There's no shame in that and hiding it and crawling into a ball and just wondering if you're a really bad person that's going to cultivate more shame. Thanks for emailing, By the way, I want to say that again. There's another fifteen year old and I'm gonna wait on that one so I don't do back to back. And here's a sixteen year old. I'm gonna wait on that so we don't go back to back. And here's another sixteen year
old man. I just keep pulling up the teenagers. Okay, let's pull up this one. I don't know how old this person is, but it says red letters. That's the subject line. My name is Isaac Robbins from East Palestine, Ohio, and I have been a fan of yours for quite a while, but recently found your podcast and spent the better part part of the last four weeks binging listening to get caught up on all one hundred and ninety
four episodes. That's amazing. But my question is this, when reading the Bible, in the New Testament, you find red letter words which are directly quoted as Jesus's words, but following the Trinity and the fact that all the Bible is God breathe to man, is it all God slash Jesus's words? Just wondering what your thoughts are on red letters. Oh, that's such a great question. I love that question, and I also love that you have binged listened to one
hundred and ninety four episodes. That's really impressive and thank you so much for that. Yeah, I hear you, and I agree with you, and I personally, as I have grown personally in my faith, I have a problem with red letter Bibles. I say that very loosely, because of course I own some. I have some on my shelf in here, but I'm not a fan of them like I used to be as a baby believer. Because of what you're saying, there's a couple of reasons. One we
don't always know. This is reason number one. We don't always know exactly when Jesus starts talking and when he finishes talking, and when the apostle carries on the conversation. For instance, John three point sixteen is actually a great example of this. We're not sure if Jesus himself said the words in John three point sixteen, for God so loved the world he gave his only son. We don't know if Jesus said that, or if that is John, the apostle who's writing the Book of John. If this
is John commentating, you see what I mean. So we don't know when Jesus stops talking and when John starts commentating. This is important. Now, that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter in knowing truth, because John three point sixteen is still absolute, fundamental, objective truth. It doesn't matter if Jesus said it or if the apostle John said it, because it's like you said in your email, it's still God breathed. Right, But you could put an unnecessary emphasis on looking for red
letter words and ignoring the black letter words. There's the problem. So the problem is not whether it's truth or not. The problem is feeling like only the red parts are the true parts, and the black parts aren't as important as the red parts, when all of it is important. Like you said, it's all God breathed. So I'm more of a fan now, as have become more maturer over the years, I'm more of a fan of all black
letters because you said it great. I mean, Jesus himself said, the prophets were talking about me, Moses was talking about me. So you go back into Exodus and Genesis and Leviticus, and you don't see red letters there. Right when we're hearing from Moses, we're not seeing red letters. We're seeing black letters. And so don't put an unnecessary emphasis on
where the red letters are for those two reasons. One, you don't exactly know what Jesus is saying or when this is the apostle John talking now, you know, but it's also important just to take scripture as a whole, as God breathed, as objective truth. It's a great observation, and I kind of get that problem. I'm going to move on from this question, but I want to say lastly that I have a problem because country music lyrics
always say red letters because it's poetic. It's like, how many times, maybe not on the radio necessarily, but how many times if I heard a songwriter write a song or it's an album cut, or it's a song pitched, or it's just a songwriter with a demo, And it's poetic to say things when you're using colors like blue collar red letters, you know, and you could just endlessly make these kind of analogies, but it's really it's such a songwriting thing to be like, Man, I always trust
them red letters. Mom always told me to look at them red letters and not believe them red dirt. I grew up on the red dirt and the red letters. You know. It's like, Okay, I get it, but there's a problem there because what about the black letters? You know what I mean. Okay, let's move on. That's my point, all right. Ceject line here says life changes. Hey, Granger. I started a new job back in twenty thirteen or two twenty twenty three in February. It was supposed to
be the end all, be all job. A family member helps me get this job, and they also work there. Recently, this family member and I had a falling out and I've not spoken in a few days. Back to the job aspect, I am not happy here. Said family member has been the only reason I've stayed here, but it's taken a toll mentally on me as I'm not one hundred percent happy here. It's the best job I've ever had, but at the same time, I feel as though the work and I the work I do. Sorry, I'm having
trouble reading. The work I do goes unnoticed in the majority of the time. I'm adding some words here. With this falling out, it has made me realize that I'm not happy where I'm at and would love to pick things up and move six plus hours away to an area I've wanted to live in for years now? Am I crazy after such an inconvenience to be thinking like this? Thank you and God bless Jake Jake, thanks for the email. Brother.
Let me recap real quickly from my own brain. You started this job recently, just a few months ago, and it was supposed to be a great job, and it is. You ended up saying a family member helped you get the job, and then you guys got into an argument. You had a falling out. You haven't spoken a few days now. This is making the job super uncomfortable. You're not one hundred percent happy, and you're kind of wondering why you're not happy if this is like the perfect job.
You're feeling restless. Right there's this place that you know, six and out, six plus hours away, and you kind of just want to escape because maybe, as they say, the grass is greener. That's my recap, and I'll tell you this. I know this for sure, Jake. I know, I don't know. I don't know a lot of things for sure, but I do know this, that place that's six hours away, you will fall back into this same
rut there too. No matter where you go, you're gonna have this feeling like, you know what, I thought this was better. I thought this was gonna be better than this, and I'm still not really happy. I'm not like you said, I'm not one hundred percent happy. It's something else that's going on. There's a searching that's going on that's beyond a job because partly, and I'm getting off of what I know is true. I know that that's true. But now I'm gonna get off of that and go into
my opinions. Your job has become to you, and I di it's a form of identity. It defines you. It's who you are. You are the job. And when you go in and the job isn't perfect, it has flaws, of course it does. And then you got this family member that brought you in and now you guys are having arguments. Of course that happens. Then your identity starts
to become eroded. There's problems in it. There's there's flaws in your own identity now because there's flaws in the job and the flaws and the family member, and you start thinking, well, I'm not happy, and if I'm not happy, I'm gonna blame it on my situation. We blame our happiness on these different things were when we're looking for our identity through what we do, then we blame it on certain circumstances. For instance, we can blame it on the people that are around us family. We could say
I'm not happy because my wife drives me crazy. My kid he's wacko. My boss is a lunatic, he doesn't appreciate you. Even said that my work gets unnoticed majority of the time. I blame my boss, I blame my superiors. Right. So to solve that problem, that problem of identity, you drop them, divorce, ignore the kid, move out from the family, get a new job. But because that never was your identity to begin with, it was a false blame, a false,
false accusation, and you don't have a solution. Another way to look at this is it's the system. The system is messing things up for me. If it wasn't for the system or the government people say, the government, if it wasn't for the Democrats and the office right now, if it wasn't for the Trump followers, the Republicans, if it wasn't for what you name it, fill in the blank, whatever it is, the system, the government, the union, the
big corporation. It's you are in a system that is flawed and that is making you unhappy, that is affecting your identity. Okay, and then another option is this one. This is unfortunate, but it happens a lot as well. You might think the problem is me. I just screw up everything everywhere I go. It's not my wife, it's not my boss, it's not the system, it's not the government. It's me. I'm just a screw up. I mess everything up.
So that's another way. Those are all three false ways of finding your identity and false ways of accusing those around you or yourself with your own happiness. But I promise you, brother, if you don't find your own identity and the one that created you for his purpose, if you can't see that, you'll always keep searching for a truth that's not out there. You'll always be restless, You'll
always feel like there's something else. The grass is always greener, and it's not until you realize I was created for the purpose greater than anything I can imagine. We'll take a break view right back. Some people have been asking me since I'm stepping away from music touring, what will happen to ee? Well, nothing that stays the same. Of course, my brothers and I run that company, and specifically my
little brother Parker is the CEO of that company. So touring has really nothing to do with him at all, so that is doing fine. We're still in fact, we're doing an old school launch coming up on July twenty first, and I love that stuff. We went out and show some old school merch. We're gonna sell that on yee dot com as always again that launch, that special launch that will not be available after that stuff sells out, which I know it will at ee y dot com. If you need to get a hold of me for
some reason, Cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. I talk about that almost every week here on the podcast. You could make a request for me to make you a little video message to anybody you want, including yourself, for any kind of anniversary or birthday or pick me up or holiday, whatever it might be. I could make you a video message on my phone and say whatever you need me to say at cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. Also on the Cameo app search for Granger Smith me.
And then I can't get away with not saying anything about Like a River coming out just in a few weeks as I record this podcast, August the first, Like a River, my first book comes out. This is my story, my wife and I story as we navigated green loss after losing my son River he was three years old, And the book is going to start with that, and then it's going to walk through the aftermath, what we dealt with, what we went through, and ultimately how we
found purpose in our pain. The book's called Like a River. You could pre order right now at grangersmith dot com. After it comes out August first, you'll be able to get it wherever you love to find books. Let's get back to your questions on the podcast. Okay, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks so much for being here with me. If you have a question, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail
dot com. Very excited to say that we got just from when I sit here and record this just a couple more weeks till Like a River comes out, So I can't wait to see questions come in to Grangersmith Podcast about that book. That would be really neat. I would love that. Moving forward here the next question I have on Q subject CLIENTE said please read, and the question says, Hey, Granger, thank you for everything you do. You've helped me in plenty of areas in my life.
My name is Spencer. I'm fifteen years old almost sixteen. I have liked this girl for a really long time. She's an amazing girl and she's very godly. However, when talking to her and asking her what kind of family she wants in the future, she says, like one or two kids and a small house in the city, but I want four to six kids, two dogs, and a big property in the country. And when I told her that, she was like, wow, that's a huge family. I could
never do that. And when looking for a person, I don't care what hobbies they like or how their tastes line up with mine, but I think the kind of family they want to raise and how that lines up is very vital. I've told myself that she's not the one for me, but I can't get rid of this undying feeling for her no matter what I tell myself. So my question is this, should I ignore my logical side and just blindly like her or try to kill my feelings for her? Sorry for the email, yege uh
and this is yeah from Spencer. Thanks to Spencer. Appreciate your brother. Man, You're too young to be thinking about this. I'm just going to straight up this is this is tough love. Stop stop worrying. These are natural things. I should say it that way. It's it's natural for you to be thinking down the road about what you want, right man, I think it would be nice to have four to six kids, two dogs, and a big property in the country. Okay, it's it's good. It's good to dream.
It's good to have that kind of feeling, and you can kind of start crafting your life around that dream. That's good. It could change, know that, it definitely could change, but it's good to nonetheless have this kind of dream. Where it gets dangerous and bad, in my opinion, is when you start needing that from a girlfriend who's fifteen, and you're like, hey, I want you to I want you to just know, oh that my life is going to consist of four to six kids, two dogs, and
a big house in the country. That's when it gets weird because you don't expect a girl that's fifteen to have that kind of vision. Her clock hasn't started, her biological clock hasn't started even ticking yet. It's cool that you're planning, but she has other dreams and you can't make a fifteen year old girl think like you do because you're planning for the future. And because she doesn't and because she says, yeah, I guess I could have
one or two kids. Just because she says that doesn't mean that that's not going to change, and that she's not when her clock kicks in about twenty five years old and she's ready to make babies, it could be totally different. So you're basing whether or not you should even talk to this girl and worry and you're stressing about it, and you're emailing me on something that really does not matter at all. It doesn't matter. Let it go. Change the subject here. I got a new one for you.
What kind of milkshake do you like? Chocolate or vanilla? Where do you want to What movie do you want to see on Friday night? At best, that's the conversation you could have, and do it with friends around you, because it's also it's also pretty young to be going on private dates anyway. So bring a bunch of friends. You guys, go see the high school football game together. If you're not playing and she's not cheering, and you're
just in the stands, whatever, join the community. They have a bunch of friends around, and go get you a milkshake. But don't be worried about where you're going to live and how many kids you're gonna make with the girl. That's fifteen, Okay, that's way down the road. That's ten years. That's a decade down the road. Okay, I'm gonna end with that. All right. Here's this is a interesting subject line says Lord's name in vain. Hello, Granger, I'd like
to stay anonymous. I have two questions. I'm gonna try to keep them phone length and get right to the point. Number one, I know it's wrong to use the Lord's name in vain and a cringe whenever someone uses it, especially when it's somebody close to me. My question is how do you tell them or somebody it's wrong? Number two, how do I help my best friend stop sabotaging self sabotaging? And number three? Was there a third question? There is
a third question? How do you stay faithful to God when it feels like He isn't responding to any of your prayers and you can't fill his presence in your life? Thanks for your music in your podcast. They helped me get through that Monday work. Can't wait to see her Like a river tour in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. All right, Anonymous, I'll keep it there. Thank you so much for emailing. I appreciate you so much. And let's kind of walk through these questions. Number one, lord's name in vain. I'm
here's the deal. Let me let me take a different route with this. Number one. You said you know it's wrong to use the Lord's name in vain, and you cringe whenever somebody uses it, especially someone close to you. That's that's your words, right, it's number one, that's your question. Let me repeat that question. I know it's wrong to use the Lord's name in vain, and I cringe whenever someone else uses it. I'm gonna switch to question three.
How do you stay faithful to God when it feels like He isn't responding to any of your prayers and you can't feel his presence in your life? You see what you did there. You trust, You trust God, You believe in God. You trust God when someone uses his name in vain or around you, But you don't trust God really and every other circumstance because you don't feel like he's there responding, You don't feel like he's listening. You can't fill his presence in your life. It's interesting, right.
I'm not saying I'm not blaming you, I'm not criticizing you or judging you anyway. Just I'm kind of holding these two sides up here, and i just want you to look at what is in each of my hands. Your question one in three, it's interesting to hold them side by side, in case you haven't done that. It's interesting, right, it's very interesting. I've said this before, and I know it was recently, and I might as well. I might as well say it again because I think it matters.
But I'm going to pull up on my phone here, pull up Psalm thirteen. So for your question three, I would meditate on Psalm thirteen. I think it's great for this kind of stuff. I think it's lost in today's culture. The laments are lost in today's culture. And this is David the Psalmist writing these words. Okay, keep in mind David was a man after God's own heart. Psal I'm thirteen. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How
long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me. Consider and answer me, O, Lord my God, lift up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But that is a powerful butt, y'all. In verse five. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart
shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me. I will sing. So you sing. That's David's example here. What do you do? What do you do when you feel like he's not listening, you can't feel his presence? You sing? It's interesting, right, that's what David said. I would go back and back to that Psalm thirteen. I've gone back to it just two podcasts in a row. And I think it's important
for people to know what the psalmist feels. Right, he feels like he's abandoned, and then when he feels that way, he goes back to what he knows, and the way he deals with what he knows is by singing praises. It's interesting how that works. Right. God has set up his system for us. We don't know why, but it's it's highly entwined in faith. It's always there's always room
in our lives for faith. He's never gonna he's never gonna fill up his presence so much that there's no room left for faith, no room left for us to say, I don't see you, I don't hear you, and I don't feel you, but I know you God, and I believe you, and I trust you and I love you. That's faith. Now, there are times when he's so present and so real and in our lives and speaking to us so clearly, and it's great that we have those moments,
and then it goes. Then we go into other moments, other seasons of our life when we just don't feel it. Those are those are the times when it's faith that fills the gap. Right. This is why I was reading the Bible so important, because we go, oh, it's not just me, I see it right here, and so I'm thirteen. It wasn't just me. I thought it was just me, But it's David, a man after God's own heart. Wow. So back to question one. I need you to work this out, and I need you to work out question three.
And that's gonna help a lot with question one because question one when you when you hear someone speak the Lord's name in vain and they're they're not a believer, they don't trust the Lord, they don't love the Lord. Are you surprised? Is that surprising to you? And so at that point it's almost weird to say, oh, don't do that, because it begins to sound legalistic, it begins to sound like you're judging. Don't say that. Don't say that. You can kind of WinCE and they go, what you go?
Just what you said. It just kind of makes me wins. I would do it more like that and less like, don't say that, don't use the Lord's name in vain, because the truth is people do a lot of things when they don't know Jesus, and it shouldn't surprise us. Instead, we should model Jesus as a mirror that of his light back to them and live that out for them and preach that out to them in a way that shows forgiveness and love. Right. Yeah, Question two, how do
I help my best friend stop self sabotaging? Rewind and listen to what I just said about all of that? There you go, there you go. Let's hit another one here. Yeah, let's see some crazy subject lines here. It's so hard when I only have a few questions to randomly pick what I think is going to be the right one. But here we go. Subject line veteran. I'd like to remain anonymous. I love listening to your podcast, love your music, and respect your decision to leave the music industry for
a higher calling. Raised Catholic, and after my first deployment to Afghanistan, I stopped believing question how do I trust in people again? I've closed my circle and shut people out. I believed time would heal all things, but it doesn't seem to get better. I read my late Grandpa's Bible frequently on Saturday and Sunday mornings when my family is still asleep, but I can't seem to find the answers interesting. Anonymous, thanks for the question, Thanks for your service. Can't imagine
what you saw in Afghanistan. Can't imagine, so thank you for your service. Let me kind of dissect your question, how do I trust in people again? Talking about it after deployment, I've closed my circle and shut people out. I believed time would heal all things, but it doesn't. It doesn't. I read my Bible, your great grandpa's you're late. Excuse me. Grandpa's Bible frequently on Saturday and Sunday mornings when your family is still asleep. Okay, all right, A
couple of things here. I just want to encourage you. First, I love the search. I love searchers. I'm a searcher myself, and I love to hear from searchers. And I love searcher questions. Because what I mean is this. You could have said this. You could have said this, hey man. After my first deployment to Afghanistan, I stopped believing in God and I don't trust people anymore. And I thought time would heal all things, but it doesn't, and some
I'm stuck and I don't know what to do. You could have said it that way, right, But that's not what you said. You said you said, I'm looking, I'm reading frequently, I'm searching, and then you said, but I still can't seem to find I can't find. That's insinuating that you're searching but you can't find m I like that. That sets you up for success right away. For me. If I'm if I'm speaking to you, if I'm speaking to you about truth, I'm like, all right, Okay, good, good.
I love that this guy's searching because it's you haven't closed the door. You got the windows open and the door open, and you're like, I don't know what to do. I'm trying different things and I can't find it. Okay, but you're going down the right path. What I always recommend on this podcast is community because we were just never made to process things alone. Humans are not made to process anything alone. So I recommend community wise counsel. Friends.
Be careful who you choose for this. This is important. That's why I say going to a local church is a good place. It's a good place to start. It's a good community, it's a good small group. You can be the guy who walks into church, who shows up on a Sunday. You can be the guy that says, I'm coming here, and mister pastor, I just want to let you know I don't believe. I don't believe in your Bible stuff. My grandpa did, but I don't. But I'm coming here because I'm searching. I'm here trying to
figure out what this is all about. Here trying to figure out what my grandpa saw and this whole thing, this whole Christian thing, this whole. Christ came from heaven and entered humanity and died on a cross to cover my sins because I couldn't do it. In mankind, no one could do it, no one could live up to the standard of God. Even though so many people and so many other religions, including the Catholic Church, say that
you got to work to be good. You gotta like Santa Claus's checklists, you gotta work to be a certain level so that maybe at the end of the day, if you helped enough old ladies across the street, you're worthy of heaven. And the Christian God says no, Jesus says, I am enough. It is finished. I have paid the price. I came down in a substitution for your worthlessness. I then made you worthy because I was worthy. And I died as a sacrifice to take the place of all
the sacrifices that you couldn't have done. And all I ask in return is you trust in me, trust me, believe me. I got you covered. And you're going You are sitting there, anonymous, and You're like, I just want to know what this is all about, and I'm skeptical about it. It's a good place to be Did you know that it's a good place to be skeptical about it on Sunday mornings in church. It's a lot better than not going, and it's a lot better than not than having a closed mind about it. It's like, hey,
tell me more about this stuff. I'm interested. I'm looking for something. Let me warn you. Let me warn you you listening. I hope you're listening. The Bible says seek and you will find knock and the door will be opened. I'm warning you when you keep seeking like this, you keep searching for answers like this, and you're going down this path, the path of the Bible, you might just find what you're looking for. Let's grab one more. We'll go back to one of those teenagers teenage ones. Subject
line is my heart too attached? Hey Granger. My name is Eli, I'm sixteen. I'm from Cheyenne, Wyoming. I'm a huge fan of your music and podcast. My favorite song without a doubt is Remington. Thank you, buddy. There's a girl I really like and she likes me too. She cheated on me, and I chose to forgive her. My mama and friends keep telling me I made the wrong choice, and I need to break up with her. I'm torn between breaking up or staying together to work it out.
I've been praying, and I'm just lost. I also feel like I made too much. I've made girls too much of a priority in my life, so that is playing a big role in my confusion. Any advice, thanks in Yigi. Yes, I have advice, Eli. Thanks, thank for email and brother. Here's my advice. When you're sixteen and older than that. There's something to say about trusting mama. There's something to say about trusting your friends. And when both of them are saying the same thing, your mama and your friends,
you should listen to them. The girl's not right for you. I know she's not right for you, not because of anything you said about her cheating and you forgiving. I know she's not right for you because your mama and your friends told you so. You just don't want to listen to them, but you need to, because when mama and friends say something about a girl that you're dating, do it. They see the outside perspective, They're looking at
the whole picture. You can't. You're blinded. You got blinders on and you can't see what's going on like they can't from the outside. Listen to them. Take counsel in, Mama, take counsel in your friends, move on from this girl'll break up with her. Thanks for emailing, buddy. We'll see all you guys next Monday. Thanks for joining me on the Granger Smith 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 Graingersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yi