And so this is a conversation that can get down a slippery slope super quick. You have to be careful with this. What's up, everybody. Welcome to the podcast, episode two hundred and four, and I've got Parker with me as a guest. What's going on man in the new setup?
It looks great in here.
Thanks man. I've got the new yee Fall Lunch tan hat. This is Ayee Outdoors. I really like this hat. You brought it. You brought it today. You brought up several options for me. You know. It shows this one. And I've also got this this black with the green Yeegee lure on the pocket T shirt. Love that one.
Yeah, man, We're so pumped for this next phase in YEEZ life with you being off the road where pump fall lunch is always the most exciting time of the year. Yeah. So we have lots of fun stuff playing with EE.
Yeah, I'm like back to being a full time employee again at EE. It's really cool. But we answer your questions on this podcast. That's what we do. Email me Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. We'll walk through these like we're sitting around a table doing a podcast or like We're sitting in a truck heading down the road, and we're both in the cab and you say, hey, man, can I run something by? I got something that's been on my mind? And I say, sure, hit me. Parker,
is your brain ready to answer these people's questions? And we're about to find out you haven't been on an episode in a long time.
I think I'm gonna ask you more questions than answer the question.
All right, Well, I mean, I've got so many of these and Parker and I don't have notes in front of us. We haven't talked about these questions at all. I haven't quished you on anything you don't have, like a stack of Winston Churchill quotes or something that you're gonna pull out. We're just literally going like we're sitting around a campfire, and I'll just start at the very first one. This one came today at eight fourteen am. Subject line says, needing motivation on my walk with Christ.
Good day, Grangeer, Hope all is well with you and Amber and London and Lincoln and Maverick. I've been inspired by your testimony. I still haven't picked up my copy of Like a River, but I will soon. But I'm very inspired, inspired by how you proclaim the gospel so openly with your platform. My question is this what made you realize that you had to stop being a touring country singer to follow ministry. Was this considered after many sessions of prayer. I also desire to be a pastor.
I believe I've been called to it, but I let other things get in the way of that. Instead of reading theology books, all waste my time with worldly things like playing video games or entertainment instead of being in God's word more, I've been inspired by how you want to give up the music stage and be on the church stage preaching the gospel message. That had a big that had to be a big sacrifice for you and your family, but you did it. Any words of advice
on how to make these sacrifices in my life. I keep claiming how much I believe I'm called but and I say this to my pastor, but I'm not making these sacrifices. My wife, Diane thinks I just need to give it all up entirely, and I would love your take on this. At the same time, I wish my current church would help me more on my ministry, walk my current pastor knows about my desire to be a pastor, but he hasn't been mentoring me at all. Maybe he's just waiting for me to volunteer on a Sunday morning
ministry to see if I'm really called to it. But my old church back home, when I was living in New York State, well, they allowed me to preach and I loved it. I'm gonna skip a little bit and go down to you're preaching. He says, you're preaching really speaks to me, and keep that light shining. Yeah, okay, cool. I think that's the gist of the email, and it says in Christ, Robert Taate. So it's interesting. I get a lot of emails like this, people that say, oh,
I see what you're doing. I too have been called, And sometimes I feel like we can kind of toss that that idea out. I've been called, but calling has an action to it. In fact, it is action. It's less declaration and more action. And so I would say this, Robert. There's a lot of things I could say about your email, and I want to encourage you, and I want to thank you for emailing and thank you for being honest
and vulnerable. But I would I would say that if you are more concerned with video games and worldly things and entertainment, then that's a really good sign that you shouldn't be at the pulpit right now and you should really pump the brakes on that whole thought. I mean, my first thought was I'm reading this is I'm like, well, is seminary in this discussion? Because that's that's like the thing is, where is seminary? Where's to talk about seminary? Parker? What you got?
Yeah? I kind of hear him talk about having a lack of motivation for godly things versus worldly things. So that's kind of the first part that you could kind of touch on. And the second part is how he feels discontent in his church and how it feels like they're not resourcing him correctly. So just to kind of slice that neatly, what would you say to someone who's
just not feeling motivated for Christ? Do they just need to work harder, do they need to just be more disciplined, do they need to wake up earlier?
What do you think about that? Okay, Well, I mean you're kind of asking to things. I mean, are we talking about salvation? Are we talking about a call the ministry.
Initially, I'm just kind of talking about someone who's probably like a lot of people listening who are just like I love that you're into Jesus so much, and I wish that I was more motivated. How do I become more motivated to read my Bible more or to be
more interested in godly things? Because the world says that it's all about, you know, a work ethic and having discipline, when my mind, just the first thing that comes to my while you're thinking to me is just having prayer, going straight to prayer and asking the Lord to give you that desire to read his word more, to love others more, because it's not something that's going to come naturally to us.
Yeah, I always think about the Psalms. I always think about because the Psalms really changed my life. And listen to and Psalm forty two. Psalm forty two one says, as a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, Oh God, my soul thirst for God, for the living God. It's like I hear that if you could say that, if you could believe that, if you could fuel that in your own quiet time, then
that's the foundation to build upon. And if you can't, then you say, God, I read this and Psalm forty two, and I don't really feel that. I like video games more, give me a heart for that. Give me that kind of heart. I want to fuel that. Because ministry, you're calling all that stuff way kick that can way down
the road. You got to feel this first. You gotta think as a deer pants for flowing streams, so so so pants my soul for you, Oh God, if you could say that and mean that, that's the foundation you're building upon. It starts with you in your house, in your household. This isn't about how many reps you're getting preaching at your church. This isn't about if your pastor doesn't believe you or not because your pastor's thinking, show me,
show me. Don't tell me you've been called. Show me you've been called, and you show them you've been called by how's your prayer life, how's your quiet time, how's your discipling out of the pulfit? And in the four year of your church, how many men are you talking to? How many people are you desperately trying to talk to, to spread the gospel to Because you have this desperation for their souls. That's how you're going to show the pastor, Hey,
this guy's been called. It doesn't matter if you say it, or you dream about it, or you crave it, or you think about it and you go back and play video games.
There's a book called A Path to Being a Pastor by Bobby Jamison that's really good that talks about if any of you are listening and you're considering ministry or considering being a pastor, it's really good about walking you through that. One of the things that it says is to be careful with language like I'm called or anointed for this. Yeah, And it really encourages you to say things like I aspire to do this right now, whereas saying that you're called man, you you might as well be.
I'm not saying that you're not, but it can kind of come across as I have something special about me that no one else has that you need to recognize because I have a direct line with God. He told me this, whereas man, you could just say, man, I aspire to this right now. And then the other thing is, man, we're all called to love God with our whole heart. Soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. And so you could read a book like Discipling by Mark Dever.
That's like, man, it's not just the pastors that are supposed to do this, you know. Jesus is commanding us to love others, just like you were saying, man, yeah, you should go find some guys to take to lunch in your church and find some people to serve and love and care for. Because if we're talking about being called, we're all called to do that way.
Well, yeah, last thing I would say is be wared to look at me and go Granger's called. I don't think I've used that language. I don't think I've said I've said I'm shedding some things, I'm forsaking music touring so that I could focus on equipping myself. But I don't think I've ever said I'm called to be a preacher. I don't think I've used that language. Parker and I are both in we are enrolled in students as students at Southern Seminary. So I would say, go to Southern,
you know, like go to Southern. Equip equip equip equip equip. Do that sit under wise teaching. Then as the dust subtles, you'll show us, not tell us about your calling. Let's go to the next one. It says, how do I know? Please read I'd like to stay anonymous. Hey Grangdera, I'm eighteen from southeast Texas. I listen to your podcast and i've been I have been for quite a long time. I have a question for you that I'll try to keep short. How do you know if a girl you
like is the right one? I know a girl who checks off all the boxes, and I enjoy talking to her a lot and getting to know her. We met in church. She has a very nice family, and anytime we've talked, I've had no problem getting vulnerable with her and honest about life and family, and even talking about the Bible with her. But yes, there's a butt. She is three years younger than me. Is that not okay? Or is it all right? Most of my family has married or dated people within a two year or two
to three year age gap. It seems weird to me in my time. I've never dated anyone before, but I also haven't been seeking a relationship. But anytime my friends bring up the idea of being in a relationship, she always comes to my mind. What are your thoughts? Sorry, this was long ye yee to anonymous Southeast Texas and wondering about a girl who I'm assuming is fifteen. You knew this question was coming apart. You knew something like this was coming.
How do you know if someone's the one?
How do you know if someone's the one? But not only that, can you be eighteen? I see this kind of question all the time too. Can you be eighteen and date a girl that's fifteen? Sixteen?
I have no idea. I wasn't expecting that question.
Yeah, that's what he's saying. He's saying, but she checks all the boxes, but she's three years younger than me. First of all, that's illegal.
Right, That's what I'm saying. If you're eighteen, I don't think you can legally date a fifteen year old.
Yeah, that's illegal.
I'm not one hundred percent.
Maybe depending on the state, and I'm pretty sure in the state of Texas that's illegal. Let me put it in perspective of if I am the father of the girl. Right, London's about to turn twelve, so we're literally just three years away from this scenario happening in my house crazy, and I would say no. To London, I would say absolutely not. I'm not going to say no to you
hanging out with her as in a group. If you want to go buy yourself with her on a date, I'm going to say no, not only because you're three years older and you're eighteen, but because she's literally fifteen, and that's too young to be dating in my house. It's other houses. You could do as you please, but I think I think it would be inappropriate. But then to that, I say this, what's the rush man, or
what's the rush you? If you really like her? It doesn't sound like you're just I sprit to find somebody. You're not just desperate to jump into this. You're like, I've never really dated before and I but anytime my friends bring up a relationship, ah, she's the first one that comes to my mind. It doesn't really sound like this is a big deal or anything that needs to happen right now. But if you did start dating, it
could turn into that. So I would pump the brakes, hang out with friends in groups, and avoid giving your heart away too soon, because I do think in this situation, yeah, it's inappropriate. Agreed. Next question the subjecliente says my in law, who I get that all the time. Grande had been married for three years now. I ran into a problem regarding my mother in law. It's been around two to three months since she has seen the kids and talk to me alone. She and my husband spoke on the phone,
but it didn't end well. We have some disagreements and are starting to see that she will never change. We fear that if I led her back into our family, nothing will be any different, and that this process will just happen over and over again. We are unsure of what to do. Please, what is your advice on this? Sincerely, Jade. Also ee, all right, thanks for the email, Jade, your husband's mother, that's who we're talking about, I believe, and I see this this thing playing out all the time.
The priority here in this particular situation is the kids. I'm trying to see if there's like it sounds like there's just disagreements. She is cold to the family, and she wants to get back into the family, right she wants to get back involved. I'm assuming that's what we're saying here between the lines. And you're worried that the kids are gonna get too attached and then she's going to disappear again or blow up. She's going to be gone. So the priorities to kids and in this situation, we're
not talking about your mother. We're talking about your husband's mother. And so this is a conversation that can get down a slippery slope super quick. You have to be careful with this because you can't come in saying, hey, babe, your mom's got to go. You have to be in agreement on this. You have to listen to your husband. You have to talk. Take the emotions out of it. We're looking after the kids, but take your emotions out
of it. Put your pride aside, and have an honest conversation with your husband that's like, hey, we got to talk about your mom and when it's appropriate for her to be around our kids, and you have to listen to him. What do you think?
Yeah, I agree.
Be careful with this slippery slope. It could go sideways pretty quick. Your husband could start defending his mother against his own wife, and that's an area you don't want to get into. So be ready because he ultimately don't take this the wrong way, but he needs to make the call on this because it's his mother. He needs to be the one. He should be the one stepping up that says, Mom, you've crossed a couple of lines here. Now this is my immediate family. My priority is my
wife and my kids. He needs to say that to her. That's a boundary he has to put up and not you. It's not gonna work if you do it. But be very careful when you're presenting that to him, because if he says no, I'm not going to say anything, then you have to be prepared to go with your husband on his decision with that too. Yeah, be careful with this. Let's say it one more Subjeclone, says parent divorce Grangerard. My name is Evan. I'm nineteen from southeastern Ohio, and
I'm fairly confident after the argument. I just heard that my parents may be getting divorced. And this has been hard for me to handle since I've never had my biological father in my life and my stepdad has been the father figure in my life since I was around five years old. I'm just not sure how to process this and cope with it, and think some words from you would help me get through this, and I would greatly appreciate it, sincerely, Evan. All Right, brother, I'm sorry
you're going through this. Nineteen, never been around your biological dad. You've had this guy since you were five, so he is your dad in so many ways. But here's the positive. You're nineteen. Now, you should be stepping off into your own, starting your own life, starting either school or a career, paying your own rent, paying your own way, maybe dating a girl. You're branching out, and so this divorce is not gonna hit you like it would have if you're
five years old, six years old, eight years old. Right, you're not in the house anymore. So now it's gonna be up to you. You're saying, I'm just not sure how to process this and cope with it. Well, this is gonna be up to you now, how you process something that is not immediately in your life anymore, Parker. Of you known anybody like.
This, man, I know you do. I wasn't around a whole lot of divorce personally. I'm so sorry, man. I hope that it doesn't happen, first of all, and then second of all, that's a good point, Granger of Man. I would just encourage you that you know you're nineteen.
Young man. You know, Lord Willing, you have a lot of years ahead of you, and I would encourage you to be grateful at the time of the time that you had with your stepfather who was there for you, and to also moving forward, be the one that stops this in your family, that stops not having a father around for his sons, and then be that force for
good moving forward. Not that you're like resentful or that you have it's revenge or anything like that, but it's just like, man, I know, I know what it's like to not feel like someone's there for you, and so I would encourage you, as you, you know, decide the kind of man that you want to be, uh, to be the one that's going to be there.
You know.
Actually, Carson, one of our employees, I was just having a really good conversation with him as biological father was never there for him, and he had such a good mindset about it. He was like, man, I'm so interested in fatherhood and I like researching it because I'm so looking forward to being the father that I never had. It's good and I was so encouraging me.
I think Evan, it's also important to know I don't know what kind of argument this was. But I think it's important to know that you don't have to You don't have to count this guy out. I mean, you love this guy. You don't have to necessarily pick sides. You don't have to go with your mom. You could say, look, I love both of you. I wish you'd stay together. I want to be able to help as much as I can, but I also don't have to pick sides.
And this isn't goodbye. I'm not gonna You're not going to be gone from my life whatever whoever this guy is. And you could be there for each of them. You could be a counsel. You could be a voice or an ear that your mother could talk to and this guy could talk to. And you go, look, I know my mom better than anyone else in the world besides maybe you, what's going on? Talk to me? Maybe I can help, And then you could say the same thing
to your mom. Look, I know this guy, not only because he's my stepdad and I've known him for fourteen years, but I'm a guy too, and I could maybe relate a little bit. So what's going on? How could we deal with this? You could be that guy you don't have to be the guy that crawls in the corner and cries and says, I don't know how to cope with this. You can go, Okay, I'm stepping in. I'm gonna be somebody. I'm gonna help. Like Parker said, I'm gonna be a force for good in this family in
this immediate situation. And I'm also taking notes because I'm not going to be in this situation when I'm married. Let's take a Break your Back podcast is brought to you, guys by DCX Conference. Let me tell you about it. It's an intimate, in person, two day leadership conference held
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and community and experience transformation. And of course, as always, if you want to get a hold of me, the best way to do it is cameo dot com slash Granger Smith, or you can download the Cameo app and search for me Granger Smith. This allows you to get a video message from me saying whatever it is that you want me to say. So you go into the app you say, hey, I want Granger to say happy birthday to my son, or to my friend, or to my mother, or maybe a word of encouragement or happy anniversary,
whatever it might be. You could say, you make it up and then I'll sit there on my phone and read it, and then I'll shoot you a video message and then you take that message and deliver it as a gift. It's actually a really good last minute gift or to someone that you think already has everything and you can't think of anything else. Get a cameo from me from cameo dot com slash Granger Smith, or download
the cameo app and search for me. Granger Smith. Speaking of gift ideas, like a River would be a great gift. I'm a little bit biased with my book Like a River. I think could be the perfect gift to somebody that is perhaps needing a word of encouragement me up, or someone that's actually going through some kind of grief, suffering, loss, heartache right now. And that person could be yourself as we get closer to the holidays coming up now that it's fall already.
Grab a few of them.
It really helps me out, It helps the algorithm out. And whenever you get a book from whatever website that is, say it's Amazon, give us a good review. That really helps the book Like a River and its message get to more people. I appreciate you guys for that. Parker's over here. Were actually gonna shoot a EE Apparel Fall launch little promo over here at the house as we record the podcast, and always pumped about that. Parker, what
day that's comes out? The fifteenth September fifteenth September fifteenth ten ame dot com. Going back to these questions, if you have one for me, email Granger Smith podcast at gmail dot com. Interesting subject line here says he only likes me when he's drunk. Hey Granger, I'm twenty two years old. I'm a woman. In early twenty twenty two, I was talking to going on dates with a guy for two months. He was really cute, fun, country, sweet
and cool. He's a bull rider. Then I found out he had a girlfriend and I told her, but they stayed together for about ten more months. It absolutely devastated me. It may be super insecure, and I still compare myself to this now ex girlfriend that she is. I ran into him in public in January and he apologized to me, of course he did the rest of the night, he was very nice to me, but then ruined it by asking me asking me to go home with him, obviously
meaning to have sex. I'm waiting for marriage, so I said no. But in June he began reaching out to me again. He unblocked me on everything, and now we snapchat every day. Occasionally he'll call me in the wee hours when he's drunk and he tells me all these things He remembers about me when we talked, and compliments me and hents it wanting to hook up. I feel pathetic because even though I know I shouldn't be talking to him, deep down I still like him. If he asked me on a real date, I know I would
say yes. And I don't know why. How could I move past him? I've talked to other guys since him, but for some reason, he's the one I can't get over. Sincerely, Vicky, Oh, those bull Riders. There's this scenario on that TV show Friday Night Lights that Amber and I used to watch years and years ago, that had a scenario that played out just like this bull rider that's always got Hey
this guy. First of all, before we get into this question, the guy's got multiple girlfriends in multiple towns, no doubt, no doubt, he's texting you in the wee hours of the night. Let me ask Let me ask you a question, Vicky, Do you really think you're the only one he's texting? Do you think you're the only one he's trying to hook up with? No, of course not absolutely not. So Park, what you got? What do you say for Vicky here?
Well, I'm thinking of what Vicky would be asking you if she was here, and it would be I mean, she obviously can't. She knows that this is not the guy that she wants to be the father of her children, but she can't stop herself from being attracted to him. And so, yeah, I don't know. I think in today's age, I mean, how many songs are like your Love's a drug. I can't get enough. You always leave me, but I
always keep one like wanting to come back from more. So, Vicky, I would just encourage you to just sit back and be like, what is it about me that is so? Why am I I attracted to this type of man? And there's a guy that I like, JP who who says people come up to me and they're like, why am I always attracted to bad boys? Why am I always attracted to these these terrible guys that end up just like being a player? Why do I always keep wanting to go to them? And he's like, well, what
kind of TV shows are you watching? And they're like, no, no, no, you're not hearing me, Like I'm having problems with guys. And he's like, well, what kind of music are you listening to? And they're like like, what are you talking about I'm talking about dating advice, and it's just like He's like, man, could you be aware of, like subconsciously, these things that you're consuming, the types of people that you're around, where you're going to look for these guys.
Have you ever thought that you're you're training your heart to look for the wrong things based on what you're consuming. That's the first thing that comes to mind.
That's so good. So what you said is in the analogy of a song, your love is a drug. Right, So if this guy, this bull Rider guy, what if the if he was a drug then and you that you're addicted to it and you're trying to quit it, what do you do? I mean, you could also rephrase it that same way. And Parker's right, there's a great point to think about. Okay, he's obviously not my future. He's obviously not the father of my children. I'm I'm I'm obviously not walking down the aisle in a white
dress with this guy. You're you're saving yourself from marriage, VICKI. This is the not the guy you're gonna you're gonna walk down the aisle with, Right, that's obvious. So he's just a drug that you're addicted to. So what do you do? You make a decision when you're sober, not at three am. No I'm not I'm not talking about actually drunk. I'm talking about love drunk. You make a decision when you're sober and not love drunk at midnight
or lonely. You make a decision, just like you go to the grocery store when you're you're not hungry or you're gonna buy more. You go to the grocery store when you're starving. You're gonna buy more. You're gonna go down all the aisles and be like, oh, i'm starving, I'll actually want this and this. So avoid the grocery store when you're starving, and avoid making these kind of decisions when you're love drunk. So wait till you're sober. Whenever.
Maybe you're with your girlfriends. They're giving you confidence, they're giving your strength, And you do this. You go through your phone, block his number, You go to snapchat. First of all, while you on Snapchat, delete it or block him, block him out of your life. Protect yourself, Guard your heart like it's valuable, like it actually matters, and because it does, guard it because it's fragile, and you give it away, you lose yourself. You slip up one night,
you will regret it for a long long time. So you guard your heart. You build a wall, you build a vault around this heart. With this cowboy guy. If this was London, if this was my daughter and she was dating this roady oh dude, and this is how he treats women. This is the respect he has for women. No, this is what we're talking about. Guarding your heart like a treasure, like a fine pearl. You're guarding your heart, okay, And you're going to do this when you're love sober,
and you're gonna block him on everything. Then you're gonna get an accountability buddy, some girlfriend that you trust, maybe your parents, sister, brother, whoever it might be. And you say, look, I have to admit something. I know. I'm a twenty one year old woman and I can make my own decisions. But there's this guy and he's not a good guy, and I need to make sure that I stay away from him because I have a tendency to like him, and I need your accountability. I need you to say
get away from him, let's go. I need you to help me use this community. Yeah, and then go back and listen to what Parker said about where you're listening to, what you're watching, how you're training your heart. Next question, I'm just literally going down the line here on these emails, it says podcast question. Hey Granger, now that your music career is finished, I have a couple questions for you.
What is one song that you have recorded in your career that you look forward to not ever singing again? And what is one song that you have recorded that you're gonna miss singing? The most comes from Michael Man. Michael, I don't have a song that I'm going to look forward to not ever singing again. I don't, Honestly, I know that's probably a common question. I think I've heard
Jimmy Buffett say that about Margaritaville. Nah. I legitimately, if we play it consistently, if we used to play it, if it was a song that was popular, I've legitimately loved it. Not because I particularly love the craft of that particular song. It's just because it's associated with my band and and and the crowds, and it was fulfilling in that way. So I don't have that number one. I don't have a song like that. Number two, What song that you have recorded? Are you gonna miss singing
the most? I don't. I don't have that either. Yeah. I actually was just singing down there in a Maverick earlier song called Stutter Yeah, a little microphone. I was like, Hey, mav it's Friday night only I'll do this because at the time we're recording this, it's a Friday night, so I would be at a concert right now. I don't have that either. Man, I don't have either one of those questions, both of it. It's like, yeah, yeah, I'm good either way.
Is there one of your songs if you're gonna play it live.
That is.
That comes to mind that's more difficult to play or perform or sing live where you're like, oh, I really gotta be on it for this song.
Yeah, there's there's songs that are for easy to do.
What's an example of like a really hard one? I think they might find that interesting.
I can remember never too Old that song Never too old. We never played it that much because it just it takes them a little bit of vocal gymnastics to play that song, even though I loved it, And there's a lot of songs that I have to like really be warmed up for. And then there's songs like Maerica that I literally just can't play on the guitar. It's too complicated. I could sing it fine, but I have to have Todd with me. I can't play Do Do Do Do Do,
can't do all that crazy stuff. So and then there's songs that are just like peanut Butter and Jelly, like Silver Oda bench Seat that's just so easy. It's that's the best sound check song because it's easy to sing, the chord structures are super simple. And then there's other songs that are harder for me to remember all of the words, songs like four wheel Drive. There's a lot of like intricate words in four wheel Drive, and it's easier for me to fumble up words and mix them up.
So yeah, let's go to the next one. Says Hey Granger. I always enjoy listening to your podcast and the wisdom you give. I just finished reading Like a River, and I cried through every chapter. My question is this, I was listening to your podcast last week and you were talking about not over spiritualizing, and I am thirty four years old, and the way I was raised and always taught was that in order to get married, you have to get inspiration from the prophet on who you're supposed
to marry. About a year ago, I left that church to follow Christ and study the Bible. Sometimes I feel a law at a loss to know how to pursue finding a partner for marriage because of my past life in that church. Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
So say I left that church to follow Christ instead.
Of the Bible and study the Bible.
Oh, and study the Bible.
Okay, Yeah, so I could just condense this question down to how do you find a partner for marriage? Dude, Parker, You're great at this. This is like your This is your peanut, butter and jelly. This is your bread and butter. Yeah.
When I first became a Christian in early twenty twenty one, I had I had dated girls kind of on and off throughout my life. I was twenty seven at the time, and I heard an analogy that that really helped me, and that was man, when you when you start following Christ with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you see that He's all that you really need, then you don't idolize marriage like the rest of society does,
like Hollywood does, like music tells you to do. Just like we were talking about Vicki, the world is telling you that you need to find the one or it's all for nothing. But when you find Christ and you find his value and you see how short life is and how long eternity is, then you start chasing after him with everything that you have. You start loving others, you get involved with your church, you're reading scripture, and you are running that race towards Christ with everything that
you have, completely content. And then while you're running that, you look to your left and you look to your right, and you see someone to your right who's also chasing Christ with everything that they have, and they see that treasure too, and you turn in them and you say, man, we're running to the same place. Do you want to
just run this race with me? And that helped me so much and my clarity and knowing for sure that I was gonna marry Amy because we just kept seeing each other at volunteer events and at church, and I could see, you know, what was coming out of her mouth also reflected her heart, and so that analogy helped me.
Yeah, it's great and thirty four years old. Does that change anything.
At the end of the day.
No, no, no, I totally agree.
The world tells you that you are behind and you need to hurry.
That's good. You better hurry because.
Because the girls can only have kids for so long once you' I mean, I mean, I'm stick. You know the clock's ticking. If you're forty Are you seriously not going to be married when you're forty? Are you seriously not going to be married when you're forty five or fifty or fifty five? That's what the world's telling you.
But man, you just got to you got to block out what the world's telling you and think about how short this life is and how ultimately marriage is not going to fill that void for you, not to say that you shouldn't desire it and that you shouldn't be looking.
Yeah, how freeing is it now that you get to do this chase after Christ, fall in love with someone that is also chasing after Christ and you don't have to get inspiration from the prophet to do any of that.
How freeing that must be. And I'm very encouraged by you and the strength that it must have taken I can't can't imagine, and I just, if anything, I just want to encourage you in that and say I'm so I'm so happy with what's going on and how the Lord is moving in you right now, even so much so that you emailed this podcast asking a really good question, chase after the Lord, plug into your church, serve at your church, you'll find someone who's running, like Parker said,
right alongside you. Next question subjectline yee Ye Hey Grangeer. I'm a fan from North Dakote. Love your music and I'm proud of you for going after your dream of ministry. I was just wondering with you leaving country music, are you getting rid of EEE and Ye Nation and the Ranch and all that too? Are just the music touring part.
It's a good question. I am so excited to lean into EEE Apparel, which Parker is the CEO of and Tyler and Tyler is there every day, and I have not had the opportunity to go to the ee Farm. I think that's what you're talking about instead of Ranch since COVID. I spent a lot of time there during COVID. That was the only time in my life. In fact, if it wasn't for COVID, I wouldn't even know what it's like at all to consistently go to the farm
and hang out with you guys. And an interesting way, COVID that probably a bunch of people could say the same thing. But COVID talk me so much. And one of the things COVID taught me was you don't have the tour. You're okay, You've got an infrastructure here. God will provide. I had to learn that through COVID and it has given me confidence now that going into this new season. No, to answer your question, Ryan is too emailed from North Dakota. No, Ye, he's not going anywhere. No,
the farm is not going anywhere. I'm hoping that Ye Nation will still be alive and well, I'll still be traveling occasionally going out, maybe doing a Smith tour, maybe doing a live podcast tour. Comment below if you would like to see that with Bernie and Parker and maybe pastor Chad. Maybe Amber can come on that trip. You know, Chris Lee will be with us. We'll travel around and do that. We have so many ideas and so many things that we're going to be able to do with
Ye Nation. And as we go into the holiday season coming up, doing a lot with ee as far as pop up shop, maybe having a brick and mortar storefront coming up. We're working through all of these different kind of dreams and ideas and very very excited about the future of EEE.
Would you say the same, Yeah, we're really excited. We've always wanted ee to be something that could live past your music career and was just talking to Tyler this week and we're like, this is one of the most important weeks of our professional careers because this is officially like a little turtle that just hatched, that's on the beach with all these predators and it's like, all right, that is done with music. Now let's get to the water. And ye he's always been I think able to live
on its own. So really excited for this next chapter and for you to be more involved. And we're looking to get into stores too, in late this year and twenty twenty four. So if you want your local if you know of a local store that could carry EEE, go tell them, tell them to shoot us an email. We'd love to do it.
We have a lot of plans for EEE. A lot of things we talk about behind closed doors, Tyler and Parker and I the three brothers talking about the future of VEE, what we want from it. But we desire for it to continue and to be just a great company that's essentially our tent making company that allows us to do all kinds of things all over the world, and we're very blessed to have EEE. I'm by no means shutting it down, and really, I mean, let's be
honest here, I'm not shutting down music either. That would really technically be impossible. Music is not something I could stop doing. I guarantee there's going to be some kind of inspiration I'll have at some point, or I've been thinking about doing a hymn record. I would love to do, like a traditional hymns record. There's gonna be a lot
of things like that that I'll be exploring. It's the touring that's shutting down, because a traditional tour where we have buses and a truck and twelve people on salary and we're heading out on a Wednesday and we're coming back on a Sunday afternoon, and we're playing these contracted dates that we've had on the books for six months,
and the structure of that is too much. It's getting in the way of everything else that I need to be doing that I feel like I have to be doing, so a traditional structured tour is in the way of that. That doesn't mean that you're not going to hear one day me come out with a hymns record or write a new song. I think that those are all totally within bounds of what you could expect from me and Yee in the future. Also comment below if you think Parker could come back on the podcast. It's been a
little bit since he's been a guest on here. And we are also, hopefully Lord Willing going to get more consistent with the EEE podcast, which is completely different subject matter than we have on this one, but that's completely open too. There's a lot of things I can go down a list this long of things that we want to do in the future with all of the platform that we have. It's not going away just music touring. I love you guys, See you 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 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