I have some confessions to make

felt like you needed a full introduction today. What an intro. Thank you. Sometimes when you come to do this podcast, you will drive here from the Yee Farm where you work, where you're the CEO, and you'll listen to like some kind of inspirational something to get in the mood for this podcast. And I asked you today and you said I was listening to how About Them Cowgirls by George Strait. So I think I am very ready prepared for this podcast.

That's amazing. That's amazing. This podcast. The format of it, this is episode one oh six, and it's basically, you have a question, you email it to Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com and we walk through them as if Parker and I are sitting with you, maybe around a campfire,

maybe driving in a truck, whatever. The most casual, relaxed environment you could imagine is you ask us the question and we walk through it without notes, without preparation, basically as if we're just buddies trying to give you the best advice we can on the situation. This started, this podcast format started when I just realized that I have

a lot of people in my life. I'm very blessed to have a lot of people in my life that have very sound advice, good advice, and you know, on whether it's on the bus or on the phone, there's a lot of guys that will just sit around and just kind of walk through life's questions, whether it's relationship or career or spiritual, whatever it might be, we walk through them together. And I just thought, man, this would be really cool if I opened it up to guests.

So if you guys have a question, email Greener Smith Podcast at gmail dot com and we'll get to it. And let's get to the first one. Here. Is this your first episode with these headphones? Yeah, switched to headphones today, and the benefit is so that each of us can hear ourselves, similar to how when you're on stage or is that completely different. Yeah, well yes, it's basically the idea.

There's two main reasons we're wearing headphones today. One, it allows the guest to hear I kind of I'm comfortable around the microphone. But it allows the guest to see, to feel their radio, to the their proximity to the microphone, so they can be aware of you know, if you come you come back and you're sitting in the chair like this and you realize when I sound way better like this. The second biggest reason is if there's a

because I don't I produce this myself. There is no technician or audio guy in the room, no camera guy. It's all me. So if there's a problem, I'm going to know it instantly because I have headphones on. So we'll see how it goes. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll understand. If you're just listening, it shouldn't even matter

to you at all. And then so when musicians are on stage, the benefit of the what you call the ears, which a lot of people don't know, is when those guys are on stage, they have what you call your ears and your headphones, and that is so that you can hear yourself as well, right, because that's so strange on stage. That's the main reason, because the speakers are usually in front of the stage and they're shooting outwards towards the crowd. So the musicians that are behind the

speakers are not going to hear it. They're going to hear a delayed sound, and they're not gonna be able to hear the detail of what they're playing or singing, and so then we have a completely different mix than what the crowd here. So that's why we have a monitor engineer, Will who mixes our ears, and then Blake, who's out what we call front of house, who mixes what the audience hears. That's kind of a new thing.

It started with we wear the earphones the ear plugs, but that's maybe like a fifteen or twenty year old deal. Before then everyone had wedges, which some people still use them. It's the speakers that are on the ground shooting back towards the musicians. But before that they didn't have anything. So like if you think about the Beatles when they used to play concerts at big arenas, they didn't have

any kind of monitor system at all. They were just playing with the ambient noise of what the arena sounded like, which is very difficult and hard to harmonize, hard to hear the details of what the guitar players are doing, stuff like that. So here we are just like the Beatles, me and you. Yep. First question is this subject is how do I stop being a hero? Hey, grangew my name is Joshua. I hail from San Saba, Texas. Shout out to Texas Ranch Country. I've met you a couple

times and each time you never let me down. You're so welcoming and friendly and make us feel like family. Thank you for that. Now for my question. I'm a young Christian man who's looking to find the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. The Only problem is I have a hero complex that I have to beat. Whenever I start talking to a young lady and we get to know each other and open

up or talk about ourselves, I get more invested. The more invested I get, the more I want to help them with all of their life's problems before even a commitment has been made. I hate to see people struggle, and especially when I have an interest in them, So I help out whatever they need before we even get to know each other. This usually gets me in the quote he says, friend zone, and I'm being labeled a nice guy? How do I stop being this hero ps?

I'm twenty one years old. I know my life is just starting and I have a lot to figure out. I just started welding school and I'm planning on that being my career. Here's a picture of us, so oh awesome. Yeah, Joshua, he's a super cool dude, and he included a picture of me and him in a meet and greet man Joshua, thank you brother, Thank you for emailing, and thank you for being the fan that you are. I know I've met you several times and you're just a stand up guy,

so I appreciate you emailing. It's a pretty common question, I think to this hero complex is what he's calling it. Where you come in and you meet somebody and you want to immediately try to fix a problem that they have. I know I've been in this kind of situation where you meet you're young, and you meet a girl and you talk to her a few times and she meet lee tells you about her stepdad. Is you know, neglecting

her or talking. You know, maybe you know any kind of scenario, you name it, there's some kind of problem, and then you want to come in and go you know what, you know, you should tell your stepdad and you try to start fixing things, and then you gain their trust and then you become this friend of theirs. You've been in this situation. Yeah, I think that there's a level of First of all, it's not wrong to want to help somebody. I think that that is a good thing in and of itself. But I think that

it's easy. I've fallen in this, in this situation with past relationships where there's a form of pride and ego, and that feels good to be the one helping people in a certain sense, and you almost turn into like

their personal helper for everything. And when they're relying on you for all of this, their their help to deal with all of their problems, you know, there's there can be an issue to that, and then the guy or the girl or whoever's the one helping, let's become the hero kind of fuels that because they like to be the one relied upon. And then the other person likes it because they can just throw all their problems on them,

and it just turns into this weird cycle. And when the relationship is not two individuals who have all of their anxieties and cast on the foundation of Christ, then it's easy to look for other things or people to cast your problems on, and then that's that's where the problems start. Yeah, for sure, I think Joshua, something something interesting to know is that maybe you just need to hear it. Maybe you already know this, you just need

to hear it from us. But you trying to help them and trying to figure out some of their problems is not what is making them not like you. You, that's something else. That's something different. You know, like if a girl, if a girl likes you, she just she's gonna like you, and she's gonna love that you help with her issues if she if you are if you are included into this friend zone because you're helping her, but that means she just wasn't gonna like you romantically

in the first place. Yeah, it's easy to justify and be like, well, she just doesn't like me because I'm too helpful, right, And it's like she doesn't dislike you if you're a guy out there and you're thinking that you're always friend zone. It's like, girls don't not like you just because you're very nice or helpful or you're doing things for them, it's because they weren't interested. And I think that it's up to the guy initially, if you're gonna ask a girl out, then let her know

you're interested, so that there's clarity at the beginning. And you say very specifically, I don't want to do homework with you. I don't want to you know, come over and let's hang. It's I want to take you on a date, and you have to say that d were a date, so that they know from the very beginning

of what your intentions are. Otherwise, the girl is confused and she doesn't know what this is and the guy might just be might just be messing around and not the girl doesn't know what the guy's intentions are, and then at the end of the day, the guy could be misled and then friend zoned even though he was never even seen romantically by the girl in the first place, because he didn't let his intentions be known. Yeah, that's really good. So I think you could basically fill in

the friend zone thing. You could fill that in with any other character trade about you. She doesn't like me because I make too much money. She doesn't like me because I don't make enough money. She doesn't like me because I'm a welder. She doesn't like me because I'm a doctor. You could find something to fill in the blank, but I think Parker Man really hit it on the head where you need, Joshua to when you start liking a girl and you're just being you, and the version

of you is you like to fix things. When you are that version and you start liking a girl, you needed to tell her straight up, you know what. I like you. I would love to take you on a date. Would you be interested in going on a date and seeing if there's more to us than just being friends? And if she goes? You know what, Joshua, You're such a sweet guy. I just don't think of you that way. Great, now we know, like your problem solved. There's your problem solved.

You're right, So I think I could quickly say your subject line, how do I stop being a hero? You don't? That's awesome. One day, one special girl, Joshua is gonna love that you're the hero. She's gonna love that she could turn to you and you're a problem solver, and that's going to take a certain personality, not very rare. I think a lot of girls would love that, but there are certain girls that would be like, I don't that's not my love language. Stay out of this. I

could do it myself and that's fine too. But that's that's that's the fun process of dating is you realize all those things in this dating process. So hit her up with that that D word, Parker said, date. It's going to date Parker. We have a lot of I set aside a lot of questions for you. You want me to read some subjects or you want me to just hit and hit the next one. Let's just hit one. Okay, okay, this this question literally came today. It says, hey, Grangel,

I'm being vulnerable here here. I just got over an abusive relationship and the person was very emotionally abusive. She always manipulated me into thinking certain ways that I wasn't allowed and told me I wasn't allowed to have any friends. I was always told that I was worthless in this world and that I was the problem and the reason I had no friends. Whenever I tried to confront her about how she was making me feel she put it back on me and assured me that she was a

good person. I let it go on for so long because I know her pass and I know she was abused, and I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. I also believed that she was telling me. I also believed she was telling me and that she was right about no one wanted to be my friend, and I didn't want to be alone, so I stayed with her. I finally decided to leave recently, but I still feel like I'm not good enough to try to

make friends and move on. Please help, Brian. It's kind of like a similar question to what we just read, Yeah, Brian is look, Brian, you came into this relationship trying to fix her because she came out of an abusive relationship, so you used that as you gave her a crutch and said, well, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because I know you were abused and I'm not going to be abusive, so I'm going to help fix you. But that ended up backfiring on you.

So his question is, I mean they're done. What it sounds like is the bottom line is I didn't want to be alone, so I stayed, which, Yep, how relatable is that. How many people right now just are in relationships with people who are awful, people who tell them that they have no friends and that they're miserable and that they're not good humans, and they're like, well and they believe them. Yeah, and it's like, well, I guess

this is better than being by myself. And so at the end of the day, it comes down to can I be content by myself or do I need to have someone with me even if they're awful and making my life life worse in every way. I want everyone to listen that is thinking about a question they might have for this podcast that has to do with them being single right now and looking for someone out there to be in a relationship with. So then you read

this one and you go, well, here's the opposite. Here's someone that was in a relationship that was miserable, meaning it's not the goal to be in a relationship, to seek a relationship just to be in one because you're lonely. That doesn't accomplish anything, and oftentimes that gets you in the wrong relationship. In this case was someone that was previously abused, and so you tried to fix it and then you got abused in return. So Brian's question is

really he's asking am I worthy? Am I good enough to make friends and move on? Please help? Right? That's his question basically, Yeah, So what do you tell the Brian when he says I'm not I feel like I'm not good enough to make friends and move on? Please help? Well, so he has all of these feelings from surrounding himself with this girl and not with with good people who

are lifting him up. And so I think that we're gonna believe whatever we're being told from the people around us, and they have a big impact on our thoughts and our subconscious And so, first of all, yes, I wouldn't ask in this situation. I wouldn't be asking yourself, how should I feel? Based on these things that she told me. He should be asking himself what should I do with

those feelings? And there's so many different times in our lives where we feel like we can't move on, or we can't go on, or we've lost somebody, or we've gotten our heart broken and we can't get to that next. We feel like we can't make it another day, when in reality. It's not about how you feel. You will

be okay, you will be able to move on. But testing you know, the says to take captive every thought, to obey Christ and test it and test it with truth because that is the only source of truth that is out there. And when you're surrounding yourself with people that are speaking negatively, then it's going to affect you negatively. So yes, you will move on, Yes you will make friends.

You need to take steps today, small steps. Don't relive the past, don't don't feel like you needue closure from this. It's over. Move on. Take steps toward healthy activity, toward getting sleep, toward uh, surrounding yourself with good people and joining a club, joining a sport, like we always say, and it'll get better. So good. Remember that book we read a long time ago, what was it called Dale Carnegie? How to Win friends and Influence people. That's what what's called.

That's a great book, Brian. I mean, just just you could you could make friends by doing one thing I'll lot and that's listening. You can go into a relationship with somebody new and listen seventy percent of the time and talk thirty percent of the time and You're gonna make good friends that way right off the bat. You're going to earn people's trust. You're gonna you're gonna find a lot of people to go. Man, I really like Brian. Why do you like Brian? I don't know, Man, He's

just he always understands me. And the truth is you're just listening. Just be a good listener. So you started this whole email to me by saying, I'm going to be vulnerable. Here, be vulnerable. Right back to people in a new friend group, how do you find friends? Well, what do you like to do? So you could start with work. You can start with neighbors, people, people that live next door in the apartment next door. Hey, I'm gonna cook some burgers tonight. You guys want to come over,

And when they come over, ask them about themselves. People love to talk about themselves. What do you do? Where are you from? Where do you have any siblings? Where'd you go to school? And people will talk and talk and and you'll be able to discern good friends. But I mean, this is this is your next move. You brother, you're single now, congratulations. This is a this is a great step for you. This is a this is a new page, a fresh blank slate for you. So, yeah,

this is great. Congratulations, I should say, you're out of it. You're out of an abusive relationship. You're free, clean slate, ready to make some friends, find some people that you could talk to and listen to them. You'll be just fine. Yeah, be glad you're not in a marriage with her. Be glad you're not in a marriage with her, because we will find those. We'll find those kind of questions in here too. Let me let me go to this one. This is a short question, and I'm gonna I'm not

gonna read their name. They don't they don't have their names. I'm not going to read it. The side note, if you're emailing Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com, I love it when you keep it short. You don't have to tell me your whole life story for me to get a gist of where this is going. So it's easier for me and the guest. And so far the ones I've read the day have been great. Just don't write a novel. It's harder for me. I think you could

sum it up. Here's a very short one. It says, subject line, I don't like talking to people about this, but dot dot dot me and my wife have been trying to have a kid for close to four years. I want to get a fertility test done, but I'm scared to know the answer. What do you think I should do? I will let you answer that. Okay, he didn't tell me not to say it, so I'm gonna say in the email. His name is Dylan, Dylan brother. Let me ask you, let me let me shoot it

back to you. You're having You and your wife have been having trouble having a child for four years. Fast forward thirty years in your life, and I would ask you straight back and say say, nothing happens. You don't get anything tested. I would ask you, or would you ask yourself in thirty years are you happy that you didn't check? Are you good with that? Because I think the obvious answer is you want to know. That's why

you emailed this podcast. You want to know. So go in there and go to that get that appointment, you and your wife at the fertility clinic, and get the test done and take the answer. Come what may. And I don't know anything about your story, but I would say there's an equal chance you can get any answer. The doctor could say I'm so sorry. Guys, there's no possibility. Or a doctor could say there's a slight issue and here's how we here's how we could get you pregnant,

or the doctor says that looks like nothing's wrong. Keep trying. But either way you're gonna walk out of that clinic and you're gonna go, Okay, I understand now, Dylan, You're gonna have an answer. Don't you want an answer? And that this is this is valuable to you to have an answer, so you can't go in being scared about anything. So the issue is he doesn't want the wrong answer. Yep,

that's what it comes down to. People would rather live in a twilight of it not being certain but kind of constantly what happens when you don't have any anything concrete or any truth and you're just constantly living in this like void of you don't know what's right or what's wrong, and and then you you don't know how

to take steps from there. If he's in a situation where he is infertile, then there are options that you can take for adoption or like there's different steps that you can take to have children after that, But how sad would it be to just live in this gray twilight you're quoting. You're quoting Teddy Roosevelt. So, Dylan, what would Teddy Roosevelt say if you asked him this? If you haven't studied Teddy Roosevelt at all, man, what an

amazing guy in American history? And he would tell you straight up like it is, don't live in that gray twilight. Step forward, make a decision, go into this clinic, and then and then you'll have a second group of decisions to make after you find out what's going on. Maybe maybe the doctor says, we could, we could get you a baby, but it's gonna cost a lot of money. Maybe you don't have the money. Now you know, at least now you know, at least now you have options.

Right now, your option is go to bed scared and lonely and worrying, and your wife is wondering if she's really a woman, and you don't want any of that. You could you could walk out like Parker said, and go, you know what, We're going to adopt. We really want a child. We're going to adopt. The foster system is

crazy right now. Or you could say, hey, babe, looks like our destiny is to not have a child, So we're going to do other things that we can now commit to because we know we're not going to have a child. So anyway, Dylan, there's a you're not going to know any of this until you go in and go to the clinic and then email this podcast back and let us all know what happened. What a difficult situation that must be for a man who is possibly

infertile or the woman is possibly infertile. It's like she's been placed on this earth to have children and to raise disciples. And what a scary feeling that must be to be like, did I make a mistake? Am I with the right person? Am I with the wrong person? Because we can't have children? Did I do this? Or did I do that? And it's so if they find that answer and it is yes, you cannot have children, then it would make you rethink everything that you've done

in a scary way. But he could take solace in asking himself, you know, I have a goud who cares for me, and that what is he trying to teach me in this situation? How many times in the Bible have there been situations of infertility? And then twenty years later, god fulfills his promises. Yeah, it brings up another point. If you find out that your wife is the one that's infertile, honor her, love her, give her, shower her with love, make her feel like she's the woman of

your dreams forever, regardless of what this doctor says. And if you come in with that mentality, then you could that's what you would also expect her to come back to you with if you're the one that's infertile. So either way, you guys, have this discussion before you go in, and we wish you the best doing We're gonna take a break and bear it back. Guys, thanks for listening to the podcast so far. I want to get back to these questions, but first I want to thank our

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struggling with a caffeine addiction and trying to quit. How can I help myself to quit? Thank you? John? Wow? Right, that one's actually relatable. I would consider myself fairly addicted to caffeine, but he's fourteen. Oh never mind, he's fourteen, Like, that's pretty young. It's an interesting question, like this is what's worrying him? He's so. I guess we shouldn't think so much about the caffeine as we could just speak to addiction in any sort for a fourteen year old. Okay,

since it's caffeine, we could say, are you getting enough sleep? Right? Yeah, that's a good start. And maybe maybe the caffeine is part of why you're not getting enough sleep, and then that's leading you to be tired, which makes you want more caffeine. And so it's a never ending circle here that you could get caught in and as a fourteen year old and good. So self discipline is the first

thing to come to mind for John. When you're fourteen, the word for you is discipline, and self discipline is one of the hardest forms of that word, because you, Hey, no one's gonna help you, but you so ye, are you really worried about it? Like? Is this? How is this affecting your life? Is this I'm assuming this is affecting your sleep, which is which is an issue? I'm assuming this isn't like I'm going broke at Starbucks or

something like surely it's not that. But first thing, just for just speaking speaking to myself about caffeine, is you're gonna have to put a time on your day when you have your last cup of coffee or coke or whatever whatever you have. So for me, it's like three o'clock is the is my number. If I have something after three o'clock, if I have tea or coffee after three coke zero, then I'm gonna feel it. Maybe it's an energy drink. I'm gonna feel it when I get

into bed. I could feel that that anxious feeling when you get into bed and you still have caffeine in your system. So put a time on it. And one thing I did is I went to I'm a coffee drinker in the morning. I went to one cup and I used to just drink, and there was a time and I just drank unlimited amount of coffee in the morning, and then I would get jittery right before lunch. I'd be shaken. No one wants that. So this particular addiction as you start as you don't have to go cold

turkey on it. You can, but that takes more discipline. But just ramping down your caffeine intake so say you're on six cups of say, let's be realistic, three cups of coffee and two energy drinks. Let's say that's what you're doing. Then ramp it down to one energy drink and two cups of coffee and do that for thirty days. Let's speak Jordan Peterson language here, Aim small, right, excuse me, aim lower. You need to make you're trying to make

hit a bullseye. Hear, and you need to widen the bullseye a little bit and aim smaller, and don't worry so much about cold turkey. How do I kick this thing and make little progressions and then mark it on your calendar so you could give yourself, say, for the next ten days, I'm gonna keep this exact same habit, but I'm gonna be thinking about it. I'm gonna be

thinking about my routine. And then after ten days, I'm gonna knock down one energy drink and two cups of coffee and then or replace that with coke zero, whatever you're drinking, and then do that for twenty days, and then mark it on your calendar. And then twenty days later, I'm gonna cut all energy drinks. I'm gonna go to one cup of coffee or one coke zero. And what that's gonna do is it's gonna ramp down your body's need for that caffeine and you're not gonna think about

it as much. Yeah, And I think that it's also a matter of asking yourself, you know, what is the root of this problem? What am I? What void am I filling with this caffeine? Or you know, some people out there, everybody has advice, you know, what is it with this alcohol or this drug that is filling some hole that I have? Is it because is it because it's just a sleep problem and it's just a snowball

and I just like constantly need to feel energized. Or is it are you socially anxious and so you feel like you need to have energy to be sociable or is it you have it when you're stressed out and just having an honest conversation with yourself and then trying to get to the root of it rather than just thinking I just need to quit caffeine just because I'm pretty sure that's bad. It's like, what's the root here? Yeah,

that's so good, that's so good. So, especially since you're fourteen, another thing you could do is it's it's always I say, the cookie jar theory. But the cookie jar theory is, if you're you're on a diet, take the cookie jar out of the kitchen, get it out of the house, because you're not good enough. I'm not good enough as a human to be trying to be on a diet. And every day, every morning, you have to walk past the cookie jar, and it's so easy to reach in.

It's much easier on yourself to just get the cookie jar out of the house when you're in a good right mind and you're not craving. It's like they say, don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry. You're gonna buy the whole grocery store. So when you're not feeling you're not really feeling caffeine, it's not really a big deal.

At some part of your day, go through your fridge and get rid of all the coke, get rid of all the energy drinks, take it all out, and then you're going to be craving it and you're gonna open the fridge and go, ah, took it out. I took

it out. Well, I guess I can't have one unless I literally you don't have a car, You're fourteen, so yeah, and just having a healthy, healthy amount, Like, how much more are you going to enjoy that one cup of coffee knowing that that's the only one that you get, Like that's ultimately what's going to be better for you?

Like C. S. Lewis says something along along the lines of how much better is it to swim with a clear conscience when you go in through the gate versus hopping the fence in the middle of the night and potentially having all of these like harmful effects happen to you. It's like, how much more would you just enjoy that one cup of coffee with a clear conscience? Yeah? If this is I'm assuming you're fourteen, 're living with your parents, or this is a discussion you need to have with

your mom too. Ok, Mom, I'm I feel like I have an addiction to caffeine? Can you help me with this? Yeah? Thank you, John, thanks for emailing buddy. Here's a here's one Parker that came in this week and it says the subject says, straightforward question, wanting straightforward answer. Morning. I have a very straightforward question, and I know it's likely been answered to. I apologize. I myself am just shy thirty, married to an incredible man. We have two beautiful, healthy kids.

We are a small business owning family. I would say we are rich with love and life and that's all that matters to us. Having said that, neither myself or my husband have ever been a member of any church or any religion. We're both what I call spiritual and constantly helping and serving people. Just because we don't choose to go to a church house, read books and so on, are y'all saying we will not go to heaven. I was raised with a very simple upbringing of being a

good person and good will come. Another is, if there is a God, which we do believe, there is no good God will keep you from your loved ones. I truly believe that, having lost my dad just shy of six months ago, very sudden, no doubt in my mind that he's not there, meaning he is in heaven. You can't live a life such as his and be the man that he is and not end up with the best of the best. Anyway, thank you for your time, much love, Chanda. Okay, that was not a straightforward question.

It was not Chonda. That was not straightforward. I understand it. I understand exactly what you're saying, but it was not maybe as straightforward as you think. I guess she's saying, we have a lot of beautiful things that we've produced, and we are what they would consider good people, and they're saying that, they're saying, will we not go to heaven because just because we're not Christian even though we're good people. No, that's not what she's asking. She didn't

say Christian. What did she say religion? And I think that's important in her question. And I could speak to this and would I would ask you, you know, if we're sitting in the around a campfire together, Chinda, I would ask you why you believe there's a God but you don't want to serve him in any way? I would ask that because otherwise you should just be an atheist, because an atheist would say, yeah, I like doing good things.

It pleases me to do good things. But she is which I believe is the image of God in her. She's acknowledging that there is a place, a heaven type place after you die, and surely all good people go there. That's kind of what she's thinking, and the reason I bring I corrected you on the Christianity thing. Is it's important because you guys have heard me talk about this on my podcast of plenty, and I'm sure that's why you're asking me this, because you've heard me in previous

podcast talking about Christianity. So you just want to straight up say, hey, you talk about this this Jesus. Are you telling me that I won't go to heaven if I don't believe in him? She didn't say that, she said religion. So a couple of things. This is loaded question. But here's a couple of things. One spirituality, Being spiritual and acknowledging a God and talking about religion is not

what I ever talk about in this podcast. We talk about a relationship with Jesus Christ, and that is Christianity. It's different. It's not being spiritual or yeah, I'm good. It's not that that's a another religion. There's other religions that can do that. But the second thing I want to say is that what I speak to about christ and Christianity, what I speak to is I am simply being a mailman delivering the male. But I'm I'm not

writing the mail, right, I'm just delivering it. So what I'm saying is not what I not what I came up with or something that I figured out. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. And the Bible is the book that Christians believe is the word of God. So I'm just telling you what the Bible says. And so if you want to straightforward answer to what the Bible says, and I say that because it's not me in any way, in my opinion, the Bible says, the answer is to you, no, you will not go to heaven.

And with that, we're going to take a break. We'll be no, I'm just kidding. I'm just we get going. We'll dig get more of that, We'll dig in more. I'll do what. I acknowledge, Sehonda, that your question is very common, see it all the time. And I believe

that that. I believe that that desire when you something happened with you at some point when you were looking at my Instagram or you were listening to the podcast or whatever you were doing, and you stopped and you made time in your busy day to craft an email and send it correctly to Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com because this was on your mind and I believe there's something that within you that led you to that. Otherwise it wouldn't have mattered that much, because you just

would have been convinced. Yeah, good people go to heaven. Doesn't matter who you worship, what you believe, what you read, doesn't matter anything. If you're good, you're gonna go. That's what I believe. I don't care what Granger thinks. I don't care about emailing him. But that's not what happened. You pulled out your computer or your phone, and you typed this up and you sent it because you're looking for an answer. Yeah. The Bible tells us that no

one is good, not even one. And so one of the things that I found in my when I found Christ was the nature of my own depravity, and that not one ounce in me is anything but a depraved wretch, a terrible person. I was sprinting to hell from the moment that I was born, saved by grace. And how common is it for humans naturally to want to define morality and what is good and what is evil on their own since the beginning of Adam and Eve. That's our oldest story is you can define what is good

and evil. You can know the truth. Eat this apple and it will all be made clear to you. And how common is it for us to want to have control and want to define that for ourselves rather than to seek God's word. I would ask you a couple of questions. If we're sitting together, Chanda, I would ask you a couple of questions like this, because Parker's right on. Usually the root of a question like this is humans

typically don't understand the depth of their own depravity. And when you don't understand that you're not good, and you don't understand the depth of your depravity, then you don't understand the sacrifice it took Jesus on the cross to wipe you clean to be your savior. Basically, if you don't think you need it saved, then you don't need a savior, and then Jesus doesn't exist, doesn't matter. So once again, I'm just delivering the mail. I didn't write it,

but I would ask you these questions. Have you ever told a lie in your whole life? White lie, little lie, anything? And I would bet you would say yes. And I would say what do they call someone that tells a lie? A liar? And then I would say, have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever stolen anything in your entire life a song on the internet? The answer probably is yes. And then I would say, well, what do they call

someone that steals a thief? Then I would say, have you ever have you ever taken the name of God in vain in any way? Have you ever said OMG on a text? Then the answer is yes. And what do they call someone that takes the name of God in vain? A blasphemer? And then I would say, have you ever looked at a man at all with lust sexually? Have you ever looked at a man with lust sexually? And you, of course you would say yes some point

that's not your husband, you'd say yes. And I would say, Jesus says that if you look upon another person with lust, you have committed adultery. So I would say, so far, Chonda, here's how we would describe you. A lying, thieving, blaspheming, adulterous. That's what you are so far. And we haven't even gotten into the hate or any of the other things that are part of your life. Pay I'm not singling you out because look, my hand is raised. I am

with you. I'm a lying, thieving blaspheming, adulter. That's who I am, and that's who we all are. We are, we are broken, and until we truly realize that, we realize at what point of good would allow you and your worldview to get into heaven? And at what point what line in the sand do you finally cross and God goes, Oh, congratulations, Shonda. You are a good person.

And if you have subtracted just three more water old ladies across the street, you might not have made it, but you just made the perfect quota, and so you're on the good side. Welcome to Heaven. I don't want to speak I don't want to speak about your dad because I lost my dad too, and I don't want to say anything bad about him. And I could say this about your dad. We don't know what happens to

someone on their deathbed. We don't know what kind of supernatural conversion or what could have happened, so we cannot speak to that at all. But I'm speaking to you and your heart, and I want you to know the depths of your depravity, and that the Bible says no one is good and we are not saved by works of any kind. We're not we're saved by grace, through faith and Jesus alone. And two thousand years ago God became flesh. He came to earth as a man, one

hundred percent God, one hundred percent man. And he lived a perfect life to show us how to live, to show us how to worship. And he was hated for that. He was killed for that, hung on a cross, and he died in front of all his disciples, in front of hundreds of people. He died, And during that time he atoned for our sin, and he took on the weight, and he felt the pain, and he felt the death and the blood and the nails in his hands, in

his feet. Then he took on all of that, all of the pain, all of the suffering, all the abandonment, all the lies and evil of the world. He took it on for us so that we could be saved through him. Three days later he was resurrected. He rose from the dead in front of hundreds. He came out of that tomb and appeared to hundreds of people eyewitnesses who wrote it down and spread that message like wildfire.

This message spread out all through the Near East and Greece and Western Europe, and people took this and they saw it, and they wrote it, and they passed it, and they wrote letters to other people that lived during that time, and they all died for it because the message was that valuable. And when these people saw him resurrected, they saw it with their own eyes, and they changed and they died for that message. So that is the story of the gospel. And with your acknowledgment of your depravity,

which we call repentance, it's God. I'm sorry. I've messed up. I'm not good. I'm messed up. I've messed up. I thought I was good. I thought I walked enough old ladies across the street. I thought I was spiritual. I thought I thought I know said the right things, taught my kids the right way. But I was wrong. I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy of the almighty creator of the universe. That's not I can't be worthy. Thank you

for saving me through this. You gave me an opportunity, and all we're asked to do is believe that, and you're saved. Well said. I love the scene of John McCall arthur on Larry King Live that I know you've seen several times. And Larry King had a show where he would have individuals call in, and he would have on this particular show, he had different representatives from every

major world religion. He had Judaism, Islam, he had an atheist, Buddhism, and listening to each one of these individuals speak, it is very clear that every other major world religion has you working your way to heaven and your salvation is based on your works here on earth, and Christianity is the only religion that says there's nothing that you could do.

You are not deserving of eternal life, even though you think you are, and we're naturally thinking that we're entitled to it, and thank God, and it just makes sense. It's thank God only through the sacrifice of Christ. Aren't you glad that it's there's not a Santa Claus God up there with a good and naughty list, a good and a naughty list that gives you check marks every time you do something good, and if you get enough

check marks, you're finally going to get to heaven. You do enough good things and hopefully, man, hopefully by the time I die, I've done enough good and I'll just be with God, hopefully. Isn't that? Isn't that scary. And I'll say this one more thing to you, Chonda. You believe there's a God. Wouldn't you believe that a God that created this universe, that created you and his image would have given you a way to know him. And we believe that's the Bible. It's not a mystery. It's

not a I wonder who God is. I wonder what He thinks of me. When we actually have a book that tells us exactly was written over the course of fifteen hundred years, over forty different authors, over every subject you can imagine, inspired by God in every way historically accurate, that we could trace this back and the story of the Gospel that I said, you know, Paul says in Romans that that story I told you is the power of the Gospel is the power of God for salvation.

So what it does is when you hear the story, it either triggers you and you feel it that within you. You feel that trigger and you go, I'm in. Or it plants a seed where maybe five years down the road you remember that and it triggers you, or it doesn't. It doesn't. So there's people listening right now that go that is the biggest fairy tale hogwash I've ever heard

in my life. I understand that that's biblical too. That some people will just think, no way, that's foolish, foolishness, and God says you reject him, you become a fool in that way, and it's going to sound like foolishness. But there's other people, and this is who I'm talking to. There's other people listening right now that go I want to know more about this because I thought I thought this whole spiritual religious thing was all the same. But

Grangeer's telling me it's not. And that's who I'm speaking to, and that's what's that's what's important to me. So Shanda email back. Would you would you email back if this mattered to you, if this made sense to you, and give me a straightforward answer back like I gave it to you. Give me a straightforward answer back this mattered to me? Or Granger you are a looney, but either way, email back. We got we got a little ticker on time that says we're just about out of time? Part well,

would you come back next week? Am I being invited back? Could I invite you back on the podcast right now? Will you come back next week and we'll knock out the rest of these questions. I will be here perfect in the same shirt. Probably we'll see you guys. Love you. 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 Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yig