How Do You Hold Fellow Believers Accountable?

me podcast at grangersmith dot com. Just walk through it casual, like we're sitting at dinner, like we're sitting around a campfire, like we're riding in a truck. You asked me a question, I don't have any notes in front of me, and we just kind of walk through it like two friends. First question here comes from Katie says, Hey, Granger, I've loved your book and gained so much wisdom and perspective from reading it. I'm reaching out because, similar to y'all,

we've had challenges conceiving. We're so grateful to have two beautiful, healthy daughters who were conceived easily. We always wanted a third child, but it has not been possible, even with initial interventions. I U I. We are now faced with the choice of moving into IVF or making peace without a third child. I'm really struggling with this decision and feel as if a third child is not God's will for us. Therefore, if we pursue IVF, are we going

against God's will. It's this all a lesson to be grateful for the incredible gifts we've already been given versus wanting more. I would love your perspective in how to think about and pray about this big decision. I've loved watching your story unfold in the past year, and it's so inspiring to see you embrace your god giving purpose. Thank you, Katie Hey, Katie Hey, thanks for your question. Thanks for emailing. It's a great one. I love the

way you're thinking through these things. And partly what I do on this podcast is is not to tell people I'm right. That's not my goal. My goal is to to help people think through a logical question with a biblical worldview. Really, like, if that was a subtitle, this podcast would be helping people like you think through common problems with a biblical worldview, right, And it's so it's not.

It's not helping you get the answer right. There's a difference between helping you get the answer and just helping you with the starting point of thinking through it. That's all that I hope to provide. I hope to be that kind of encouragement because otherwise I'm not always right. You know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here and tell you here's the right answer, but I gonna tell you I could tell you here's how we should be thinking about this. So first of all, I don't

I don't want to over spiritualize anything in life. If you've heard me before, I think think we should always have caution in over spiritualizing, meaning I don't want to look at this and go God is trying to tell me an answer about a third child. He's sending me a message in a bottle. But I'm not quite sure how to how to decipher this foreign language that God

has now sent me. It's like, no, he didn't send you a magic language that you need to decipher that came through the clouds or the bottle in the ocean, or there's like billboards and you're seeing certain letters and if you add up the letters, subtract them with the dream that you had last night, plus your husband just now had a revelation at work from his boss who says his favorite movie is this. And if you take that title and the middle word in that title is this,

and guess how long the movie is. It's one hour and twenty one minutes long. All this comes together and says God is trying to tell us. It's like, come on, y'all. I mean, let's not do this. It's not biblical. And then it's just not logical. It's not rational. Do you think God Creator would give you some kind of morse code that you need to set out and decipher like you're living in the movie National Treasure. No, it's just so,

that's what I mean. I overdid that whole thing. But I just don't want us to overspiritualize, because then that is just not Christianity. God is a God who speaks, and he's a God who speaks clearly and definitively, and he speaks through his son and his ever living, breathing Word of God. The Bible right in the beginning he spoke through the prophets, and in the last days he spoke through the Sun. That's what the Bible says, the

son Jesus. So we know what God's intentions are through reading the Bible, and we can't make that too complicated. So with all I said, what I just said, let's take that and then pour that on top of this question. Right, Your question is there's a couple of them. Are we going against God's will to pursue IVF. Let's start with that one. You said, we're now faced with the choice moving into IVF or making peace without a third child. In fact, let's start there, because that's not your final option.

That's not where the book closes. Because you've said you've said nothing about adoption, And I think adoption is a beautiful thing. In fact, I think it's something that all of us should consider. I think it's a calling that all of us should be praying through and praying for. Don't close the door to all the children in your family just because it's not biologically possible. We should always be praying and thinking and asking, saying, God, if there's

another baby in this world that needs our house. Lord, opened my heart to that, open my eyes to that. I am your servant on this or that's all I am. Lord. Let me be your servant. Let me be available to you God, to serve you to your needs. If there is another baby out there, we'll take it right. I want that to be part of this discussion. I want that to be part of your question, and I hope that it is, and that's why I said it that way. So then we move on to the second part of

the question. If we pursue IVF, are we going against God's will? That's a complicated question from a dad who's been through IVF. The decision that Amber and I made according to God's will. Once again, we can understand his will by reading the Bible, and it's not hard. There are many dangers and evils in IVF, and part of it is. One of the things is the fact that you have all these embryo leftover ethically, morally, biblically, what do we do with the extra embryos that are made

Lord willing? That's something you have to wrestle with. Now. IVF is science. God is science, so that like science, does not go against God. He's the creator. He made science, like science exists because God exists. We can't. We have to reconcile that we can't go well, these two things, this is science and this is God, so they don't go together. That's absolute garbage. God is science. God created science, just like he created art in music and mathematics. You know,

he is a creator. He is the great intelligent designer. Of course he is science. So so in a way God is behind IVF listen, long story. But in my book Like a River, the way that this, the way I had a better understanding about this idea is in terms of gardening, right, And Lincoln asked me, he said, Dad, does God make all the trees and man makes some

of the trees. And he's thinking, because we plant trees, like we go to the nursery, right, and we buy a seed, or we buy a tree and we plant it, and then there's the wild trees that live in the forest. And in his mind at the time when he said it was like seven years old, six years old. So it's like he's thinking, God makes those wild ones in the forest. But then there's also the ones that man makes out of seed. And I had to correct him in that and say, no, buddy, God makes all the trees.

Sometimes man plants the seed, right, So that's the difference. God makes all the trees. It's the same thing with babies. And through the new technology, the new science of IVF, God makes all the babies. God ordains all the babies. There is no baby born without the hand of God all over it. And there's no baby that's not born without the hand over that from God. God either allows it or he doesn't. He ordains it, or he doesn't. He wills it, or he doesn't, including IVF, including all

of science, because that's who he is. But in the case of IVF, God makes all the babies. But sometimes man plants the seed. That's the case with IVF, and that's the case with buying a tree at a nursery, or buying a seed of a vegetable of a tomato plant at the nursery instead of the wild one grilling. Okay, so you have to reconcile that. You have to pray through that. What are the evils that come with that? What are the evils? And one of the things is

too many embryos? Are you willing? This is this is the decision Amber and I had to make. Are we willing to implant all of the embryos so that none go to waste, none go to science or another family or research or the trash. Ambers said, I will take all of the embryos it just so happens we were only left in the end with one another, just clear distinct piece of evidence of God's providence. We were only left with one in the end, and it ended up

being our baby, Maverick. Are you willing to reconcile that? And then the last part of this says, is this all a lesson to be grateful for the incredible gifts were already given versus wanting more? Once again, this goes back to overspiritualizing a fundamental biblical concept. So you're wondering,

is this God? Is God showing me through this spiritual story that He's created around me that this is really all of this really is a setup so that I will just be grateful for what I've already been given instead of wanting more. Maybe that's what God's doing. It's like, hold up, pause, take a break. Here's where Katie. I'm not at all blaming you, but this is where like strange nominal Christianity starts creeping in the idea. Think about this, Let me rephrase it for you, let me say it

in another way. God sees all the things that happened in your life, and sometimes rarely he intervenes with something that is supposed to make you grateful for what you've been given and not wanting more. Or are we always supposed to understand that reality when we read through the Bible, when we read through the teachings of the Gospels, do we not always get that feeling from Jesus that he's trying to tell us be grateful now, don't worry about tomorrow.

When we hear the teachings of the apostle Paul, when he says I have learned to be content in all situations, he said all situations. Not I have learned to be content because of this one time. God gave me this scenario that played out, and that all he wanted me to see was how to be content. No, he says, all situations. So that's just a given, Katie, that you should be grateful for the gifts that you've already been given in versus wanting more all the time. That's the

essence of being a Christian. So take that as just a big unbreather, a thought that's difficult to grasp, but you have to lean into that, not because of some magical situation that's popped into your life. You could use these situations absolutely but fundamentally that just should always be

taken in the background. Be grateful for what I have now, whether it's fifty children or one child, or if you lose the last one you got, be grateful for what you have, not because of a certain scenario, but because that's what you're called to be as a believer. I think I think I have run this question pretty much into the ground, and I hope that that's helpful for you, Katie. I still remember whenever I started grangersmith dot com, whenever

that website was brand new. That was twenty six years ago. Can you even believe that it's been so long? And I had maybe an online store, I don't know. I don't know how I possibly sold it anything. I don't know why anyone would care. But I did have a few T shirts and some CDs in my apartment kitchen, and then either me or my mom would mail those out. Sometimes I would say, hey, Mom, there's there's a T shirt that sold last week. Now that really that is

the ancestor of EE dot com. Really, I mean that's where EE Apparel started. I know we say that it was founded in twenty eleven, but really, if you go back to when I was a country artist. It goes all the way back to like two thousand and two. I would say that the number one way that we started managing orders in an efficient way when we started

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businesses that grow grow with Shopify. Sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at shopify dot com slash Granger all lowercase. Go to shopify dot com slash granger right now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in Shopify dot Com slash Granger. Next question comes from anonymous. It says, Hey, Grainger, I have a situation I need advice on regarding my church and pastor's son. The pastor's son preaches a sermon every now and then.

I work with him and notice he makes perverted and cruel jokes as well as racist remarks. I have a feeling he's a product of raising. I have a feeling he's a product of his raising, and that his father, the pastor, may be the same way. The son's last sermon, he spoke on acting way at church and another way at work. He also spoke on how he confronted someone we work with about them acting one way at church and another way at work, and he told the guy

that he was going to hell. I found that hypocritical, and I don't know how to go about it. Do you believe I have the right to hold him accountable for this and bring it to his attention concerning considering I'm a part of the church. Also, do you recommend visiting new churches or staying at my current church? All right, Anonymous, thanks for the email. A lot of stuff regarding this is serious stuff, and I don't know the whole story, and I don't know you, which creates a problem for me.

Since I don't know you, and I wish I did, it makes it more difficult for me to step into this situation right off the bat boom. First thing we need to understand is, first of all, there's hypocrites in the church. You should know that. But there's hypocrites everywhere, in every business and every organization, and if you're a human, you qualify you're a hypocrite. The only difference should be in the church. The only difference is in the Church,

we know we're hypocrites because we know we're sinners. So that's the difference in hypocrites in the Church and hypocrites in the world. Hypocrites in the Church at least will admit I'm a hypocrite, and we welcome all hypocrites to join us on a Sunday morning. You need to understand too, that when we judge like this in the Bible, people constantly, out of context will throw out don't judge, don't judge,

don't judge. But what we need to understand is what the Bible's saying when it says don't judge, is don't judge, or you will be judged by the same measure that you're judging, which makes judging. It's actually good. It's a good thing to correct and rebuke from scripture patiently, right in love. But beware that what you're rebuking, what you're correcting, what you're judging, needs to be and demands to be judged and correct and rebuked back by the same measure

to what you're doing. So have you checked yourself? Here's my point, Anonymous. Have you checked yourself to see if the speck that you're trying to get out of your brother's eye is bigger than the log that you have in your own eye. So we have to think about look at yourself first, look in the mirror first, right, how you do it, Anonymous? Like, because that's why I hesitate,

because I don't know you. Are you just one of those people that goes to church And it's like, man, that Pastor Son, And I don't like that Pastor Son. He just does this and that and says this and that, and he crewed jokes all the time. And I think it's a product of his raisin. And you know what, I think he's probably racist. And you know what, I

just don't. I think I should go somewhere else. And And is that you, because there's a lot of that or if I knew you, this would help, or you just like sincerely crying for help, and like Granger, Hey, I've read first and second Timothy, I've read Titus, Hebrews, Acts, all the places in the Bible that give us the qualifications for an elder granger. I've gone through these. I know what it takes to be an elder or a pastor according to the Bible, not according to my own thoughts.

And this guy's not qualified. And so if that's you, and you're truly being faithful and sincere about this out of love, then I say, okay. If you have read first, second Timothy, Titus, Hebrews Action, and you know all the qualifications of an elder, and then you go and and then you sit down and you say, can I have lunch with your pastor? Or can I grab coffee with

you and tell you some concerns I have? And if your argument is biblically grounded, not your personal opinion, and you have evidence with it, then the pastor says, you're wrong. This is my son. He's awesome, he's amazing, he's gonna preach. And then you go, yes, sir, I just I would like to let you know I'm gonna i'd be looking for another church. And it's it's this is the concern I have. And I hope that this is an encouragement to you. From what I see. I don't mean to

be a burden on your pastor. But I hope that this can be an encouragement that what I see in scripture is not lining up with what I'm hearing on a Sunday morning. And if I'm wrong about that, which I might be because I don't know a lot, But if I'm wrong about that or about that, then I hope you can correct me. And I hope that I could. I could come back and this could be my church home. But right now I think I'm gonna be looking around

for another church. So, Anonymous, I think that that's the way that you need to go about it, as opposed to just disappearing no one ever heard from you. Again, if your church is so big that you don't even have the ability to sit with your pastor or have coffee with him, then that's another problem. Your church is too big. The sheep should have access to the shepherd, right, What else? What else is going on going on in this question? The the perverted, cruel jokes and racist remarks.

If that's true, you're then you're absolutely right. I don't want to sit here and just throw stones and dogpile on this thing that I don't know anything about. I don't know what you're talking about with perverted, cruel, joke, racist remarks. I don't know what that means. I don't know what you're I don't know where you're coming from, so I can't I can't pile on that. But if it's true and that's that really is what's happening, then

then you're absolutely right. The guy's not qualified. According to first Timothy tewond Timothy Titus, he brief's acts, et cetera, then he's not qualified. And the last thing, here's the last thing I want to say. You briefly mentioned in this second paragraph here about he spoke in church about acting one way at work and acting with one way

at church. I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't know what he's talking about, but I would highly encourage you in everyone listening, to be in a church that preaches expositionally, meaning the pastor. And I believe I've said this previously in other episodes, but I'll say it in every episode because it's that important to find a church where your pastor preaches from the Bible, working through it with some kind of system where he's working

through a book in the Bible. And this needs to be the majority of the teaching that happens at your church on a Sunday. Now there are exceptions to that, and there should be. There should be breaks in between the books, brief topical messages. I understand that. But the majority of the teaching that comes from the pulpit on a Sunday morning at any given church should be expositional. Meaning the pastor or the preacher is preaching through a book.

In the Bible, verse by verse, the context of the original author is the context that the sermon should be. So whatever the original author was writing about, whatever his point was, that's the point of the pastor on the Sunday morning, not the pastor's own point that he's trying

to use the Bible to support. There's a big difference in that there's a fine line that's actually a massive grand canyon if you don't see it right, Because a lot of pastors will say, or excuse me, not pastors, a lot of churchgoers will say, my church preaches from the Bible. And to that I say, well amen. If they didn't preach from the Bible, it wouldn't even be considered Christian, it would be a ted talk. So, of course, but that's not what I'm talking about. Your church preaches

from the Bible. I get it, of course, it's Christian. What I'm talking about is preaching expositionally, is taking, say the Book of Mark, and for the next thirty Sundays, twenty Sundays, even ten, even fifty whatever, we're going to be in the Book of Mark, starting with the beginning, and guess where we finish when the when the sermon

series is over at the end. We're working through systematically, or it could be a part, but regardless, you're working verse by verse and your your point from the pulpit is the point that Mark is making. Okay, then you can apply what Mark was teaching to his people in that writing. You could apply that to the modern hearer. But that happens after you've looked through the lens of the Bible itself, as opposed to looking through a cultural lens with what we want to hear in our modern context,

looking through that lens at the Bible. Instead, you're taking the Bible and looking through it at the culture. Does that make sense? That would be what I would say is good grounded biblical teaching and a healthy church. Next question comes from Rolando says, Hey, Grangeer, I wanted to ask what do you think about family businesses. I'm twenty four, I'm married, already have a son, my two brothers, and I work with dad on his farm, and sometimes it

doesn't seem to work very well. What are your opinions on families working together? Brother? I'm glad you asked it. I have a different opinion than my dad. And my brother had worked with his brother for many, many years, decades, and he always told us, He's like, don't work with family. It causes problems. You're gonna have problems working with family that you don't have working with other people. My brother, Tyler, he kind of thinks the same thing, but I don't.

I think it's a blessing to work with family. Yes, it comes with problems, it comes with the risk. This is what my dad is the risk of families breaking up, separating because work made a rift in between them and they caused it a big enough problem where now they don't even speak to each other or as. Another thing my dad is worried about is that when you do get together with all the families, like on Thanksgiving or Christmas, you don't want to be around the guy, because you've

been around him Monday through Friday. Now here you are spending the weekend. You know he worried about that stuff. I don't. Once again, I think it's a blessing to work with family. I think it's such a privilege an honor to be able to work with your siblings and or your dad at the farm, like you're saying, and

the alternative, And this is how I was. I made an argument to Tyler, my middle brother, about bringing Parker, our youngest brother on when the first conversation came up, that maybe Parker would work with us at Eeye Apparel, and Tyler was like, man, no, Parker needs to make his own name for himself and do his own thing. And I was the guy who's like, no, I want

him to work with us. And my argument was this, if he goes off and does his own thing, makes a name for himself, like you're saying, Tyler, then he'll get so involved in whatever hobbies and business and friends and church group that he has, and it probably moves him out of our town. He'll get so involved in that that we just won't see him besides holidays. Would you rather see him only on holidays? And we love

him and we have a great time. Or see him every day Monday through at the office, and you have some tough times every once in a while, but you're living life together. You're growing up together, kids are growing up together. You see their face, and you work through life together. I said, that's my argument, that's what I want with Parker. We ended up hiring Parker because Parker wanted to do it, and I don't regret it for one second, Orlando, I don't regret working with my two

brothers one second. You know, Ever since I was a kid, I've always written a song for a special occasion, whether that was for my dad or for my mom or for Amber. I've written songs for my brothers. I've wrote a song for my alma mater, Texas A and M. It seems like I just I don't have a lot of talents, but that was my way to express myself, writing songs and making that song a gift to someone else. And then I realized obviously that not everyone just picks up a guitar and does that. But now it is

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to your original song for free. That's a fifty dollars value. This offer is available only to my listeners at my special url songfinch dot com slash granger. That is songfinch dot com slash granger. Don't wait, get started now. Best question comes from Samantha says, Hey, Granger, recently found your podcast at the end of twenty twenty three. Loving it so far. I'm telling everyone about it. Thank you, Samantha, she says. Let me start by saying that my husband

and I've been together nine years now. We have two children under the age of four, and we're a Bible believing Christian family who attend a Lutheran Church in Zanesville, Ohio every Sunday. We're very involved in our church, me being the director of our Sunday school, and my husband is a deacon. My question is how do I set firm expectations in our marriage while remaining respectful. My husband is a wonderful man, great provider, but not the family

man that I have always dreamed of marrying. I love him very much, although I miss the mark each day. My goal is to be a respectful wife so my husband will in turn give me the love I desire. We often get caught in the crazy cycle, and I'd love nothing more than to improve our communication. Much love, Samantha oh Man. Samantha, this is one of the rare times when I a question and I just think, Ah,

You're gonna be just fine. It's like, if we build this scenario where we are in sitting around a campfire, like I say all the time, it's like, ask me a question, Like we're sitting around a campfire and the embers are burning down and someone says, hey, Grandeur, kind of run something by you, and I'm like, yeah, what you got? And then Samantha, it's you and you, this

is what you download on me. This is one of those times around the campfire, I would let it go silent for a second and I would be like, Samantha, you're gonna be just fine with what you're saying. You have two children under four, you've been together nine years. I'm gonna I'm gonna just I'm gonna totally guess that you're thirty four. Right, it's just a random guess. I'm gonna say you're thirty four years old. You got married at twenty five, you start having babies in your late twenties,

early thirties. Maybe I'm gonna say that. And this is about the time, you know, like mid thirties, you look back in your life and you go, I hope I did everything right, you know, and you look at your husband and you go, I kind of expected that my husband. When I'm about thirty five years old, I kind of expected my husband would be like doing more with the kids, like I've kind of expected he'd be taking the boys fishing. But he's just grinding it out at work right now.

And I think that that's probably a common thought at your age, and it's probably a common thing. The husband you married, who was the outdoorsman in Zanesville, Ohio is now caught up because he's now thirty six. I'm just totally guessing. So he's like thirty six and he's grinding it out because he's he's like at the cusp of doing something in his company where he turns the corner and provides much more for his family, much more stability,

That's what I mean. And if he doesn't, if he feels like if he lacks in that area and goes fishing with the kids, then he might be missing out on stability in the future. And I'm not saying any of this is right or wrong or even true. I'm just saying that's a possible scenario to why you might be thinking, maybe I thought I was going to marry

a bigger family man. And that's also why I'm saying, I think this is probably a normal thought for you to have a normal thing for your husband to be doing, and I think the normal scenario for this to play out with you having this kind of mentality saying, look, I have a lot to work on myself. I just I desire better communification and I want my goal each days to be a respect wife so my husband can give me the love that I desire. I think I'll just go, oh, somntha that is that is beautiful. You

wrote it beautiful. I think you're Your worries are normal for thirty four or thirty thirty five years old, and you're above and beyond what I would hope that you would be thinking in response to those worries. So you're gonna be fine. Next question comes from Jesse Hey Graindream from South Carolina. I'm a listener. Me and my girlfriend enjoy listening to your podcast. It picks us both up and opens our eyes to things we're blind to. Wow.

I'm concerned about a question that came up about a young adult Bible study that left me uncomfortable to answer. Here's the question, did God want Eve to sin? Wanted to know your take on how to answer this. Thanks in advance with much love, Jesse. Wow, that's a good one. Jesse, I love I love thinking about these things. And I said this at the beginning of the podcast, and it's

my true desire to not give you answers. Instead, my desire is to model poorly by the way, like I'm trying my best, but to model thinking through difficult questions with the Biblical worldview, and in order to first model that in an encouraging way, to model thinking through things difficult questions with the Biblical worldview starts with knowing the Bible.

It starts with reading the Bible. I love that you're in a Bible study, and I hope that in addition to that Bible study and everyone listening also has a daily devotional plan just for themselves of reading through the Bible. That is your day, Bailey, nourishment, and nothing could be more important outside of prayer. That is your communication with God. In fact, prayer is us talking, bringing things, expressing ourselves to the Creator, and our time and the word reading

the Bible is the time when He speaks back. It's amazing, right, It's amazing. So so then as you're doing that, and then you come across a question like that happened in the Bible study. Did God want Eve to sin? Well? In order to answer that correctly, we would first need to know what does God want? That's a question. Here's another question, what does he not want? What does he love? What does he hate? In order to know these kind

of questions, you need to know God. For example, I know my little girl London, I've spent a lot of time with her. She's twelve years old. I know a lot about her, not because I've read about her or because I've she has sent me letters. More so I have spent time around her. I have absorbed so much of her time, and I have absorbed her in a way that I know her so that I don't need her to tell me one specific thing. I know in a general way what she loves and what she doesn't.

I don't have to go to a convenience store candy section, and I don't have to see a new candy, for instance, and go, you know what. I don't know if London has specifically spoken about this specific thing before. Therefore I do not know if she would want it. Instead, because I know London so well, I can go to that convenience store and see a brand new candy that she's never spoken about and go, ah, she would want this

or she wouldn't want that. You get my point. So then you can come to a question and go, did God want Eve to sin? Well you can go God doesn't want anyone to sin. God would never desire for one of his creatures to sin. He hates sin, so he would not want you to engage in anything that he hates, including all the way back to the first one Eve. But this is a large this is a large issue that we have to address here. But God

is sovereign. God is all knowing or planning, working everything for good and in his providence that's a big word for in his control in the unfolding of his plan in that plan, as we as revealed as he is revealed of the Bible. In that plan, his plan was to redeem a people back to himself. And we don't know why, but in that plan of redemption required us to fall because he wasn't going to redeem a people

that were not fallen. So we don't know exactly why that falling was part of the plan so that he could redeem us, but we do know that it is the plan to redeem us from the fall. So because of that, listen, this is just it's just just rational knowledge here, right, it's just thinking through this, so we go.

So God's plan was to redeem us through his son, whom he sent to earth as the perfect human, one human, one hundred percent God, that he sent to earth to the cross to die for sin, so that whoever looked to him whoever believed in him would not perish, but have eternal life. He would redeem them by becoming sin, therefore defeating sin, defeating death for all who believed. That's how we would defeat it. In order to do that, rewind rewind. He needed Eve to sin, he needed Eve

to fall. So although he did not want Eve to sin, he allowed it. He ordained it. The same you could say for the Cross, you think he wanted his son to suffer. You think you wanted his son to die the most horrific death. No, it would be blasphemy to say God wanted his son to die. Instead, he allowed it, He planned it, he ordained it as part of the plan. He let it happen because it had to happen for his plan of redemption. For you, That's how we think through any kind of issue of what would God want

or not want? Next question comes from Danny. Hey Granger, my name is Danny, I'm twenty three years old from Laredo, and I wanted to start by saying I love your music in your podcast, which I've listened to every single episode and has helped me numerous times since I started listening. Bro, Thank you so much. Danny, I have two questions. My first question is I want to pick up the guitar again after not having not played it since high school.

I was wondering if you had any tips on how to pick it up again quickly and get back to the level I was at, and if there's any kind of guitar recommendations you have that won't break the bank. I would appreciate all those kind of ideas as well as I sold my previous guitar. My second question is do you think it's important I learned to read sheet music again or should I just focus on getting better at playing God bless you, Hey, Danny, nice lighthearted question

here after some heavy hitters. I appreciate it, buddy, thank you for listening. And that's cool you're wanting to get back in guitar, I've seen over the years. For me, it's just like riding a bike. It shouldn't take you very long. It's not something that just goes away and you go man. I used to play guitar, but now I've completely forgotten. It's going to come back quickly like riding a bike. And I would recommend against sheet music.

I don't think that that's good for guitar players. I think it could be used sparingly for piano players, but I think relying on sheet music too much it curbs your creativity and kind of hinders your ability to vamp or change things up a little bit or adapt to something that might be happening, especially if you're playing in a band. Atmosphere, there is a fine line probably between picking a guitar that is good enough to play but

won't break the bank. My suggestion is you can go with a cheaper guitar if you put nylon strings on it, and those are like classical guitar strings, and you can get those at a guitar store. You can ask the guy say, hey, want this guitar and I want nylon strings, And the guy's gonna be like, oh, that guitar doesn't is not supposed to have nylon strings, And you go, yeah,

but can I do it? And he's gonna go it's not set up for that, and you go, yeah, but can you just tie little tiny knots at the end of the nylon and that way it holds it in there and he'll look at you like your But what it does is it saves your fingers from getting torn up because those nylon strings are a lot softer than the steel strings, and it's a good way to play a lot to not have the pain of the steel strings on your fingers, and that'll hopefully get you down

the road quicker. And then you could decide at that point if you want to spend more money on a higher end guitar. And when I say higher end, I'm talking about the difference between a two hundred dollars guitar and like a thousand dollars guitar. I'm not talking about four or five six thousand dollars. Okay, that would be crazy. I'm talking about you can get a really nice guitar for about twelve hundred bucks. I'm not telling you to do that, but I would go that direction eventually, not now.

At first. I would spend about four or to five hundred and get you like a mid level Martin and that's if that's too harsh on you, get nylon strings. Last part, and I'll wrap this up. YouTube is a great resource. I wouldn't spend money on lessons, definitely, not in sheet music. I would do more YouTube. Get the basics, and then use your ear, develop your ear, cultivate the muscle for hearing what you hear on your favorite songs and playing along with your favorite songs. That's the most

valuable thing you could do. It's kind of like a language immersion learning a foreign language. It's better if you completely immerse in that culture instead of just like doing an app that teaches you how to speak another language. That would be what an app to teach you how to play guitar would be. Ultimately, you want to just hear a song and play along with it, and you'll get there eventually. That's all I got, y'all. Thank you so much for listening. We love y'all. See you next Monday. EBI,

thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcasts on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and note vcation spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. Yi