Whiskey is his new girlfriend

worst extent, they break up, and then that person or you starts turning to some kind of supplement like alcohol to make them forget about it. And then they convince themselves that there's never going to be a relationship after that, and that was the only one that was worth anything. For the rest of their life, they're gonna be just trying to get recreate that perfect relationship back when on the reality from the outside looking in, you just think

this is a terrible situation. This was never gonna be good. There's so many people left in the world, there's so many other opportunities for another relationship, and you're stuck on this one. Like I said, I keep I'm speaking in third person because it could be you. It could be me. It could be it was me at one time, and I've known many friends that have done this and you just get completely blinded. That was one of the questions on the podcast today. And so we're gonna dig through that.

We're gonna dig through people seeing God and the clouds, which I don't know how I feel about that. I'm gonna talk about that. I'm gonna kind of dig into all different kinds of questions. If you have anything for me, anything at all, music related, relationship related, God in the Clouds related, email Granger Smith Podcast at gmail dot com. I have my good friend Chad Warren. It's going to help me answer some of these questions today. Really smart dude.

I've met him recently because of a crazy I storm in Texas and we became friends in a strange way, which I'll talk about it. Chad is a cancer survivor that has gone through unbelievable experience with that. He is a CrossFit addict. I won't hold that against him. And he's also the connections pastor at First Baptist Church in Georgetown, Texas. He's a really good candidate to He's also from Montana

and Colorado and currently lives in Texas. So he's a well rounded speaker for this podcast, and he's going to have a good opinion on a lot of these questions and you guys are going to like him a lot. So I'm excited. Welcome to the podcast. Ye yee did Muir's longline five? Fool of Husband down? Going Back's Rangy Coage. Yeah, you'reation chat. I was talking just before we started this podcast. You asked me if I'm a cross fitter. Yeah, I said, no, I do strength training. I mean, you look like you

can handle yourself so well, so do you. It's like and sometimes you think of maybe it's the strength training guys, think of the crossfitting guys as like have a series like those those guys they do all kinds of crazy stuff. It is definitely a subculture. It is. Yeah, there's words and acronyms and like right now we're in the open season, so the CrossFit Open so everyone's kind of tuned in. So you've got this. It's they claim it's the largest

fitness competition globally. So you can do it in your garage. You can go to a CrossFit affiliate and you compete against everybody in the world and then they'll take, so you do. They'll post one workout a week, so this morning or last night was the first workout, and they'll do three over the next three weeks. And you just get after it and you see how you rank against everybody in your age, demographic, all that kind of stuff. So comment below if you're a crossfitter and you and

you're participating in CrossFit open season right now? What you said open season? It's open, but it's the season of the open. It's not like I mean, some people might think it's like hunting. Yeah, if you see a crossfitter taking yeah, tikes. So the closest connection I have to CrossFit is my my drummer, Dusty, and I don't think I think he actually is a little bit into it. But he was all into it at one point. This is about two years ago. Yeah, and he got rabdo myialysis.

I've heard of that. It was crazy, so bad. It was a day of a show and he was going to try to make the show and his his muscles were swelling. I mean he looked like he was he got bitten by the most deadliest scorpion in South Africa. I mean it was crazy. His face was puffy. His arm was all puffed up and he had to go into I mean pretty much an emergency situation at the hospital where they had to fix him up and do whatever. It's like overhydration or what. I don't even, I can't even. Yeah,

it's something blood, blood and muscle tissue and breakdown. It's actually pretty rare, but it's it's gruesome enough that when when it happens, lots of people take notice and they're like, Okay, that's it. I'm out. Yeah, So, yeah, it's rare. I've been coaching for over two years. I coach CrossFit, and I've never seen it, So, okay, well that's something. And then my personal connection with it is and you probably know David Goggins as you're you used to actually really

want to be a Navy seal. Yeah, and we could talk about that. But but David Goggins cray absolute crazy ex Navy seal now author and speaker. But I was reading his book and he was talking about this pull up challenge and how many pull ups can you do? And he was like, yeah, he was walking it through like mathematically, like I could do so many pull ups in a minute, and then if I could just keep going and have thirty seconds of rest and then do twenty more and then rest for ten seconds. Then I

could pretty much do pull ups all day long. So I was reading the book and I was like, man, I could do a lot of pull ups. I can pretty good at pull ups. I wonder if I could follow this pattern and do you know, do ten and then rest for twenty seconds and then do ten, do rest for twenty seconds, And how long could I go? And how many pullups could I do? So I started it on day one. I got tennis elbow from it,

and it was dude, it was so painful. It was so painful to have that ten to nineus that I couldn't even close the car door and just in the one arm, Yeah, just in one arm. And I learned later that what happens is and David Goggins he just tore up his hands during pull ups. But what happens is when you start getting tired, you lose, you start losing your grip yep, and your your hands starts kind of rolling on the bar exactly, and it's rolling back

and forth. That's where you tear things. Yeah, So now anytime I do a pull up, now I make sure that bar is all the way into the bed of my thumb, you know, as tired as it can go inside there, and my my wrists are straight down. Yeah, that's good. We should do some pull ups sometimes, all right, all right, I mean I yeah, See, that's my problem is my brain will always keep going. It's like I just keep going, just keep going, keep going, and then I hurting myself. Well we can't. Yeah, we're at an

age now where things don't recover quite as fast. Absolutely, but we think we're still like in our twenties and we're good to go, I know anyway, And I remember our dads, you know, or at least my dad's saying that, and I just thought, here's such an old man, yeah, saying the same thing. So Chad, you're Montana native. Yeah, born and raised northwestern Montana. Yeah, it's your mountain guy.

You've also spent time in Colorado. Yeah, we did a little stint in the east, but yeah, the Pacific Northwest, basically the Rocky Mountains. Somehow you ended up in Texas. Yeah, well, I my wife is from here. So some argue that I got wise, and I I realized I need to go find a good woman so go to Texas. Yeah, and she's an Aggie too. Yeah, so there you go. I'm married into all that. I love it. But you're an aggie too, now, okay, try to say that is you know, people say, oh, I wasn't you know, I

don't have the opportunity to become an aggie. And I was like, well, and aggie technically is the parent of someone that goes there. They're technically the spouse of someone that went there. And then there's a lot of people that could just they could claim it through some other one degree of separation from the school itself. And there's a lot of noises you got to learn, and yeah, there's things that happen when when you join that noises. I like it whooping and it's good. Yeah, although I

get I get pretty into it. My wife says I'm more eggy than she is sometimes because I get pretty fired up. Good. Yeah, So how long have you been married? Fifteen? Well we're in our fifteenth year marriage, so you know, you know you know about that, yeah, fifteen years. Yeah, So Chad, we met just a little bit more backstory before we get into some questions here, but we met a very unique way. It was the what people are

calling the snow apocalypse now in Texas. And we have a mutual friend and it was they there was a day in Texas, midweek, mid storm when the ice finally subsided enough for people to actually get on the roads.

And the day that that happened, kind of everyone in central Texas knew that there's going to be people in need of food and water, and so me and my brothers here we decided to go and the first step was, let's go get a bunch of pizzas and then through and I put it on Instagram that were going to get a bunch of pizzas and give them out to people that are hungry that day, need a hot meal.

And then that mutual friend connected you who was actually you were doing the same thing and you didn't need so much the pizzas as the able bodies to turn the pizzas out. Yep, and people willing to drive yes

in conditions that were unfavorable. Yeah. So yeah, in my role at the church, I got a call from somebody at the county and they said, hey, now that the roads are becoming driveable, is there a way that you would be willing to open your doors at the church and start to receive donations and then find a way to distribute those. So that's what we did. We just opened up. And then just as things were developing, that mutual friend of ours said, Hey, I have a buddy

who's wanting to hand out pizzas. Can he sync up with you guys? And what you're doing? I'm like sure. So there were we had been learning about several neighborhoods where there were quite a few people that were in need, and so yeah, you and I linked up at the corner and grabbed our pizzas and we just started handing him out and groceries and Sonic Burgers and all kinds

of stuff. So we spent a couple hours that day together doing that, and then later we texted and I don't know who said it first, but it's like, man, let's grab some lunch, you know, let's grab some tacos tacos. So we did that and then I was like, Hey, you're a cool guy, and I hope that you maybe thought that. Well, I just thought you were a dude. I just thought you were a really cool guy, and you are a really cool guy. But then I thought you were the yeee guy. Uh huh, I didn't know that.

That's actually what your text said. The first text was are you the YEEE guy? Like yes, because I've seen hats and shirts, I'm like, oh, those are cool. And then I didn't know like you're a thing, and I didn't know that. Well. Then we had lunch again, had tacos again, had some deep conversations, and I was like, man, I have this podcast. I answered these questions people, all kinds of questions, they'll send them in, and you want

to help me out on it. Well, you said, so it's gonna be it would be like us sitting around a campfire and Colorado. And I thought we were gonna be sitting around a campfire in Colorado. So when you were like, hey, it's just about fifteen minutes outside of town, I thought, that's that's interesting. Maybe we're gonna, you know, road trip or something here we are, Yeah, we're not. We're not at all in Colorado with the EU Farm. And I do have some cause you're the ee guy.

I'm the EEG guy at the EU Farm answered some eue questions. That's right, And if anyone listening has a question of any kind, email Granger Smith podcast at gmail dot com. Could be about in It could be about music, It could be about life, could be about relationship, could be about job, could be advice, could be anything that you would talk about sitting around a campfire. And so neither one of us have notes. Chad has no idea

what I'm about to say. And I looked at these just a little bit just to make sure we were kind of in the ballpark at what I wanted to do. And I'm gonna start out. I'm gonna start up with you kind of light chat here, but then I have to remember which ones. Oh, here we go. Have you ever driven a combined? And I have not driven a combined. I have not driven a combine. And I have droned

many combines for YouTube. And I have some family and plain View, so I used to grow up and go to their farm out in plain View, Texas and see them run the combine. But I've and I've played plenty of shows where they're you know, they're prayer, they're the backdrop of the stage, but I've never actually been in the seat and driven one. You I've driven a combine. So I have family in North Dakota, and so we went and visited them one time, and as a kid, I don't know that you could call it driving it

or piloting it or whatever. But then in high school I worked for a farmer in Colorado and I ran the swather, which is similar to a combine. Combine is taking you know, corn and stuff, but a swather is cutting hay. And it wasn't. I mean, it was a pretty sweet gig air conditioned cab and had a CD player and I would put in every morning when I go out there, I put in the soundtrack to top Gun, Yeah, and act like I was firing up the jet. Love it. Just get things rolling and just dial it in. Yeah.

Me and Chattah say mate. So top Gun is like, you know, right down a ra alley, which there's another one coming out. I know. It was actually supposed to be twenty twenty, and then the pandemic pushed it back. Which on YouTube, now I could say coronavirus. Now, there was a time and they just released that. But there was a time when YouTube was demonetizing anything and hiding the analytics or the algorithm of anything that said coronavirus. So what would you call it? The rona? I was

just say the virus or virus. You know what we're talking about. Virus. So yeah, shout out to Braiden. Doesn't say where you're from, Braiden, but I have not, Chad has. I'm assuming you have, and I hope that you listen to the podcast in your combine. I know it's not season right now, but I hope you listen to it in your tractor. That'd be really cool. Hey Granger, I'm from Garnet, Kansas. This is this guy's name is Trevor, and I was wondering what is your favorite kind of

rifle to use when you deer hunt? And what is your choice? God bless Thanks Trevor. Shout out to Kansas everyone in Kansas another combine state. I I'm not a big I'm not a big fancy rifle guy, and that's because my dad never was. It was never all about

the best rifle in town. I've shot a lot of seven milimeter eight and two seventy, and then lately I've gotten into the six fight creed More and I have a Recently I got a Savage Arms six y five creed More, which is an ultra light rifle which is awesome, which would work great in Montana if you're in the mountains and I don't even have a hunt planned where I would actually need an ultra ultra light rifle, but I love it. And it's on the bottom end, like

the Savage Arms. This one is on the bottom end money wise of the ultra light world. And I think it's awesome. It feels great. And how about you, Chevvy. That's a big deal ultra light rifles and collar out of Montana because you are trekking, you are stalking animals. You are putting in miles and miles a day just

to see traces of something. When I came to Texas and a buddy asked me to go deer hunting, I wasn't sure what that would entail, like if we'd be walking across wide open planes and or army crawling or something. But then he puts me in what he calls the executive blind. I'm like, okay, what's that mean. It literally had like a swivel leather reclining chair and we were just going to wait, And I was like, well, what are we waiting for? Is there a certain time of

day where they come out? And he goes, yeah, when the feeder goes off, I was like, so basically, we're shopping today, and so yeah, when I shopping, I like it. When I shop in Texas for deer, I use a my grandpa's I inherited a lever Action thirty thirty kind of an old cowboy gun. And then I use a three hundred wind mag it's a Model seventy Winchester for elk hunting is which I primarily do, or a mule

deer yeh. In Colorado or Montana, Dude, people are losing their mind agreeing with you when you're talking about shopping for deer and and it. You know, I love I love deer hunting and I always have. And in Texas it's typically sitting in a blind and you're you're hunting

a food plot, could be hunting a feeder. And when I started touring and getting outside of Texas and noticed that that's like really bad to talk about that for people outside of Texas, they're like, what, that's not hunting, that's not hunting as as Chad from Montana would say, that's shopping actually, And I thought, man, I agree, I do like to. You know, I love to go and shoot a dough and put a bunch of meat in

the freezing. Yeah, if you're for me, it's great because it's a it's a given you're gonna walk away that day. And I was in a situation where he I think he calls him cold. He needed me to kind of take out some of the bad genetics or something like that. He's like, yeah, come here, you know, shoot. So then he said, before you shoot, send me a picture of what you're about to shoot, and then I'll let you

know if it's okay. So, I mean, such a different world where you would sit there, I'd have cell coverage, I would be able to snap a photo. He's in a blind somewhere else and he goes, yeah, take the one on the right. It's like, okay, we're hunting in Texas. This is awesome. Yeah, yeah, cool buck. It's yeah, that's that's and and the idea behind it is good management. Hunting is good because you are you know, the the number one way to get big antlers out of a

buck is refining the genetics. So and people look past that a lot and they think, oh, it's all about feed, and which is feed is the second, But but genetics is number one and the only way to really get thoseics is to cull out the inferior genetics, take out the other suitors. Yeah for sure. Yeah, so well, cool, you got another. I'm gonna spread this out. I'm gonna spread out the easy ones because I have another one. We'll see time eighteen. Cool. So let's get into some

meat here, Chad. Let's start with this one that the subject is wavering faith question. Dear Grangeer, I just want to say I'm a huge fan of the show and I've listened to every episode. Dude, Thank you, Michael. It says it gets me through my long shifts at patrolling. I'm a police officer here here in Arkansas, shout out to Arkansas, and I've seen the worst that life has to offer through my job and also in my personal life.

In twenty sixteen, I lost my father to cancer. He was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. In July of this year, I lost my mother. She was shot in her home. My mother was a recovered drug addict who had gone to prison and got out and it changed her completely changed her life. She tried to help anyone in need that she could and do to this, I've found my faith wavering. I'm a believer in Christ. But due to the things I've seen at work and the tragedies I've faced in my life, I've

found my relationship to God is getting more distant. I don't go to church as much anymore or talk to God as much as I used to. My wife has noticed this and it kind of put a strain on our marriage. My wife loves going to church and it's a chore for her to get me to go. Did you go through anything like that with what happened with River? And what advice could you give someone to try and get the relationship back with God? And that's from Michael.

First of all, thank you for your service. Michael, you're out there protecting the community in Arkansas. Thank you for your service, and thank you for being able to endure what you see for the sake of protecting so many lives and keeping so many people safe. And I'm not going to pretend like I even know what you have seen or what you've gone through. And I know that there's a lot of law enforcement that listen to this podcast, So thank you for everyone, and I'm sure a lot

of people can relate. Other than that. That being said, it is still a common question that you're asking that you don't have to see what you see, or be in your line of duty to have your faith wavering, or to do to loss in the family, strain in the marriage. Your wife wants to go to church, you don't. I would think this is pretty common. It was a pretty common American man wavering. That could be just as equally women. Well, the danger here, first of all, is

being angry and blaming God for any of this. And what has happened is when these events, these events have changed you in some way, and your first reaction was to move away from God and to talk less to God. And these are your words. God's getting more distant. I don't go to church, I don't talk to God as much as I used to. And in fact, you're almost answering your own question when you say, how do I get closer to God? I'm not talking to him as much. Right.

The first kind of thing that I think of this, Yeah, I mean we can certainly distance ourselves from Him as we pull away. And I think you're right, it is. It is one the most common things that people will wrestle with within the faith and outside of the faith is if there is a good and all powerful God that created everything, and why is there Why did bad things happen? Why is there evil? Why is there so

much brokenness in a world that he created? And if he's all powerful and all good and all loving and has the power to make that all go away, why doesn't he do that? I mean that that's the probably

the most common question I could think of. And those that do have a faith in Christ, that's going to be one of those things when they encounter situations where they are up, you know, right in the midst of pain and personal tragedy, evil, They're gonna that's what's gonna start to shake things because they're going to go why would he let this happen? Why is this going to happen? And you know, there's a couple of things that I

think about that. First of all, one of the main parts of the question is, well, who's responsible for the bad thing that happened? Who's responsible for the evil that we experience in this world? And we know the Bible isn't it's not a mystery in the Bible, it's we first apart of God designed this whole thing, and he said it's good, it's perfect, it's going to run absolutely beautifully, and he's the author of truth, of goodness, of beauty. It's humanity that said, you know what, I think, I'd

like to give it a shot on my own. I'd like to try things my way. So as soon as we depart from God's design of the family, of the way that we interact with other people in our community, the way that we interact with money, the way that we use technology. Anytime we say I'm going to try it my way as opposed to God's way, it's always going to lead to brokenness. And then we experience that brokenness and we go, man, things aren't right, things don't work.

Why don't they work? And then we these man made attempts to try to fix the brokenness only lead to more brokenness. So God's solution is he shows up on the scene and he demonstrates through the ministry the life of Jesus Christ, that this is the way out. We're going to return to God's design and so rather than human efforts that lead to more brokenness. So good, such a good word. And it's what's awesome, Michael, is that you say in here, I'm a believer in Christ. Christ

was a suffering Christ. He demonstrated coming to this earth, being in the flesh and suffering, suffering just like your suffering. And then he says, follow me, do what I do through that suffering. So if I could up what I'm gonna say to you, I'm gonna say, dude, you're not alone. Your question is valid. Here's how I can answer it for you, because you did bring me involved in this question. Let's say God is distant, you don't talk to him, Moore, fix that. Talk to him, Get on your knees, crawl

to him. Then secondly, open your Bible. Open your Bible. You're gonna find your story on every page. It's really hard to not find your story in the pages right there. In every page, You're gonna find stories of suffering and glory and grace and redemption and restoration and love and wrath. You're gonna find it all on almost every single page. And you're gonna The Bible is one of these books where you open most books and you think, what can I what can I find out? What could I what

could I know? And what can I learn from this book? The Bible. You open it up and you go, actually, I think this book already knows me it's really weird, right, it's really weird. This book knows me, Like, dude, Michael, you're going to open this up and go, that's me, that's me. That's that's what I That's the question of the podcast, And there's my answer. Now, is it going to talk about what you've seen on duty? Is it

going to talk about your dad in twenty sixteen? No, it's going to have very similar stories for you and an example on how to live and where to go from here and the reality that in God's economy, as we follow Christ, it's not going to be absent from suffering, from trial, from struggle. It's promised. It's promised that when this happens, consider it pure joy because it's testing the

genuineness of your faith. Do you really believe? And I think of your story and even in the recent announcement and the new adventure that you guy have, that there's absolute pain and at the same time there's joy. And I was thinking about that when you guys made that announcement, and I was like, there is a word that we can't capture in the English but exists in the Greek. And so there's no mutual Look, there's no like equal or equivalent word, so it takes two English words to

translate this. But there is this term in the Greek called karma lupe and it means simultaneous deep sorrow and at the same time happiness dude mutually like at the same time. And in God's economy. What he says is the things that you face in this life that are absolutely, unquestionably painful, and you go, I would never want to do that again, but I'm glad it happened. It's because of God's economy. That's how he prunes, That's how he gives us strength, That's how our roots go deeper and deeper.

Just I mean an agricultural analogy. We have these plum trees in our backyard. We inherited them when we bought the house, these trees, and they were not producing plums and they were just growing everywhere. So my wife starts reading and she's like, you know, I think we're supposed to put uh, you know, mulch down and some other

stuff like that. We need to trim these things, prune them, and apparently that's gonna And I'm thinking, so, you mean, we're gonna cut the trees and we're gonna throw chewed up dead trees, as in mulch around the base of them, and somehow that's gonna work. And absolutely so she got to half of them. So the next season came around and the ones that she pruned and she put down the mulch, they were vibrant, they were producing plums. The

other ones were overgrown, still not producing. So there's even within the creation the way that he's wired this whole thing, that we're going to face adversity and that's going to test the genuiness of our faith and it's going to produce more life to come. Dude, so good. I love tree analogies, right be right back. This podcast is free for anyone that wants to watch it or listen to it on whatever app or whatever platform you want. Unfortunately,

it's not free for me to make. I'm very blessed to have sponsors for this today's episode, and the first one is features. You guys have probably heard me talk if you've listened to the show before, you've heard me talk about features. Have you ever had socks that just kind of slip down into your shoe during the course of the day. Yes, everybody has has a blister. Ever stopped you from performing your best at a workout or a run, or playing some kind of sport. Yes, everybody's

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that they give you or a scoop. Comes to two different ways that I have it. You can put it straight in water, mix it up, boom, good to go. It doesn't taste bad. It actually tastes kind of sweet. So you could do it that way, or you could do it like my way. And this is just me personally. I like to put it in my shake and it

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Just visit Athleticgreens dot com slash granger and get your free one year supply of Vitamin D and five free travel packs today. I promise you guys are going to like this all right. This question comes from Connor. It says, take Granger, I want some advice about something. I want to be a vet and air but that costs a lot and it takes a lot of time, and at the same time, it's my dream job. Can you help me decide if I should become a veterinarian or not?

Connor shout out, buddy. You don't say where you're from, but I do know that your email comes from a school district website, so you're still in school. And I'm assuming that you want to be a vet. Let me just assume you don't say, but I'm assuming you want to be a vet because you love animals, you love helping animals, and it's your dreamed of because you genuinely want to go into that field and make a difference. And I want to tell you that you don't have

to be a vet to do that. So it's not just so you know, it's not just about helping animals. There's a lot more to be in a vet. I've actually talked to friends that went into vet school and then realized later how difficult it is when they went in with the mentality if they just want to help animals, they find out that you go, say you're a small animal vet. Someone brings their dog in and it has really bad hip displays and you say, Okay, well we're

gonna have to perform surgery. It's gonna be about fifteen hundred bucks. And the person goes, I just put them down. It happens, and the vet goes, well, No, I could do the surgery. I could make this flawless. I could make this dog great. I just can't afford fifteen hundred bucks. Just go ahead, And what's the next step. Put them down? And guess what you have to do? Put them down? And that's hard. If you love animals, yeah, and you

know you can help them. You have the tools. Yes, So Connor, are you aware of that that's a little wrinkle in this dream. Maybe that's maybe you're totally fine. Maybe you know exactly what you're getting into. This is what you want to do. So first step, coming from a student email, dude, I would work on your grades. I would concentrate on your biology and your math. And if that's truly your dream, then study harder and longer than your friends, and you could offset that cost of

a VET school with forms of scholarships. But none of that's going to happen unless you make that effort right now in your grades. And it's a sacrifice. So much of life as a sacrifice, and it sounds like working on math biology grades. And your why, right, we're assuming it's because you love animals. What's your why? And that's going to help you figure out is it worth it? The cost benefit of Okay, my why is pretty strong. I'm dialed in, and then maybe you need help figuring

out your why. So maybe a part time job is you go to the local vet and say, hey, I'll empty the trash cans. I'll do it whatever it takes, just to be a round it and you can learn within that field maybe being a vet isn't the thing. Maybe there's something else within veterinary medicine that is a better fit for your personality is similar to medicine. So I've learned of people that they thought they wanted to be doctors, but then they realized, no, nursing is where

because I want to be doing direct patient care. Seek wise counsel. That's that's great, So go to go. I mean there's plenty of vents. Go to the go to the local vet, and go till till someone tells you, yes, you want to empty the trash until someone goes, yeah, we need a guy to empty the trash and soak up one or two hours every weekday, watching learning, talking to the actual vet that's there, and and part of that discussion will be how do you how do you

afford for school? How do you what? What do I need to be working on right now where I am in my life in high school? And you're going to get a lot of those answers. So good question, Connor, and good luck to you. That's a good one. Yeah. Okay, this question comes from Justin. He says, Hey, my name is Justin Taylor, and I saw your last podcast. I have so many questions. I've been wanting to ask you for a long time and just never got the courage to ask anybody. But let me give you a little

short story my life. I live in Cliff, New Mexico. I'm nineteen years old. I live on a cattle ranch. I'm hurting over a broken up relationship. It lasted for eight years. I can't stop thinking about her. It's a constant pain. She's moved on, but I guess I haven't. And since this has been since June of twenty nineteen, I'm still in feeling like I'm about to have a

heart attack. Basically every day. The only time I don't feel anything is when I'm in a twelve pack of beer or whiskey or whatever other alcohol I can get my hands on. And because of that, I've lost my best friend and some other really good friends. I've lost family and using important people in my life. And it's all over the alcohol. And the thing is it's making me worse and I don't know how to handle that anymore. And his signature on his email says Fire and Rescue,

Silver City, New Mexico. So shout out to Justin and New Mexico and Silver City Fire and Rescue. Thank you for your service once again. And I'm gonna say this again, Like I said earlier, this is a common question. It's not to diminish at all what you're going through. It's it's very very heavy what you're going through. But I would say the good news is it's common. This is this is something that a lot of people are dealing with or have dealt with, or have a friend or

have a family member or a neighbor. You mentioned one today you're barbered that is dealing with this or has dealt with it, or it's very human of you, And thank you for trusting us with the question. Nineteen is young. It's young. My first question is, dude, eight years a relationship eight years old and you're nineteen, but started when you're eleven. I mean that's the formative years, man, that's

your entire teenage life was with this girl. Yeah and so yeah, understandable how you're you're really broken up about it, and I wish, man, it's so hard. It's so hard to listen to someone else tell you that this too shall pass. It's so hard to hear that. And I'm just speaking about the relationship part of it, not the alcohol part, just the relationship part. Man as a as a as a brother is sitting around a campfire, I would I would say, dude, you're going to find another girl.

There's going to be another another love of your life, and one that's a lot better. There's three billion women on this planet. Yeah, three billion. With a bee, there's another one out there. And I know in your mind you hear that your first thought is not like her, Not like her, Dude, she's one and three billion. Brother. Well, I can tell you, and everyone can tell you if you listen to any country music song this you're going

to find another one. But but you have to you have to have the self discipline first of all, to to continue your life and move take the next step forward, and that has really hung you up, and you're you fell into the the best sinister snare, and that's that alcohol could numb you from your current reality. So you're

escaping reality. You're escaping the fact that all you really need to do is take the next step forward in your life, in your job, in your front with your friends, and you're escaping that responsibility and retreating into something that's numbing you and only prolonging the pain. That's a good point. It doesn't it doesn't. It mutes pain, but it doesn't dissolve or resolve the pain. And so when that mute stops, then you're still left right there where you were, and

sometimes in an even worse position. And I think sometimes I can remember heartbreak in high school. And one of the challenges in moving forward was coming to grips with the fact that I had identified as a as a person in a relationship. I was the boyfriend of so

and so. We had history, we had memories, we had experiences, and all of a sudden coming to grips with the fact that although that was the case, that that identity no longer exists, and so the path forward is realizing your identity apart from anybody, who are you, and starting to create some experiences and recognize what you like, what you want to do, who you are apart from anybody, so that when the next relationship comes, because there is a win, there is another, there is a next one,

and when you get there, you're going to have a better understanding of what makes you tick and you're probably going to have a better opportunity to identify who do you pay you know, who's the right? Yeah. What's awesome, man, is that what this girl has done for you is narrow down your scope of who is right for you. And as soon as you realize that that, it wasn't a wasted eight years, which is really long, by the way, it's a long time, but it wasn't a wasted eight years.

It was a learning experience to get you that much closer to the right one. If any of your friends, your best friends sat down and told you your story back to you, that that was their story, what advice would you give them, Because it's like I said, it's so much easier to give that advice. But what would you tell them? You'd say you're ruining your friendships, you're

ruining your family that you do have. You're walking on a dangerous tightrope right now with alcohol that could lead to alcoholism, and then you could never touch the stuff ever again. And that's a whole different story to ruin your your opportunity to ever have a cold beer with one of your friends with it without it being a problem. And that could start now. If you continue this numbing, you could always keep digging down. If you think it's bad,

it could always get worse. Yeah, And yet, like you said, you're you're messing with the now and the future as you dwell in the past, in the past eight years, and you're hanging on to stuff that man, you want to learn from that, and maybe you need to identify some things you could have done differently, or the way you interacted or treated or things you said. And there's there's a role that that should play. But it's not where you live. You don't camp out there, you don't

hang out there. You learn from the lesson and then you move and you keep going because there is a next day and the sun will come up tomorrow and you got to be you got to be ready to face that day when the sun does come up. Dude, I would I would encourage you man to There's nothing in your email that mentions God. I would encourage you explore that. What do I mean? I mean, Hey, God, it's justin. I've never really talked to you before. I'm really hurting. I've hurt some people on this podcast that

talk about you. I don't really know what to think. I don't really know if I believe it. But right now I need you because I can't fix this myself. I'm going down a dark tunnel. God, can you fix this? Can you show me what to do, where to put the one foot after the other? Can you show me that? If you say that with sincerity, I would be really curious for you to email back to this podcast if you give that kind of true sincerity. I'm talking about in your bathroom, on your knees. What else do you

have right now? Justin what do you have to lose? Then? Dropping straight down to your knees, and that is not a bad place to be. It's not a bad place to be. Nothing else to lose. All I got is this, God, what do I have here? That's that's a common story, and I'm I'll just be curious to see what would happen. And I'm not talking about some weird writing in the

sky or something. I would be interested to see if you feel peace from that, and what that would lead to, what the next step would be with you and losing your friends, losing your family. Like you said in this email, that's all you got. Your support network is gone. And yeah, the pain and loneliness you feel now is probably minimal compared to what it will feel like in a couple of months if you keep going this way. Yep, yep, dude, you are. I know you're a good guy. I know

that you're you're you work for fire and rescue. Do you understand self discipline? You understand priorities? And I would, I would. I would wake up tomorrow morning and go today. I'm starting fresh. I'm starting fresh. I'm gonna brush my teeth, comb my hair, put on my shoes, I'm gonna go to work and I'm not gonna feel sorry for myself. I'm gonna move forward. I'm gonna I'm gonna take that relationship and I'm gonna say this is this is what I learned, and I'm going I'm going on I'm moving

forward with what I've learned. I'm a wiser, smarter man. And I would get underneath in the in the bathroom and say that prayer too. That's me, that's my camp fire thought. And it's interesting that in fire and rescue you you exist to help other people. Yep. And a lot of times when we're and pain, we focus on ourself and we just hang out there. It's amazing when you turn your focus away from self in the midst of your pain and just look for that, who's the

next person I can help? Who can I serve? Who can I engage with? And all of a sudden we start to forget about our pain or our situation and we start to invest in other people. So man cut with the grain on this one. He's clearly wired to help and serve people. Do that. Just do the next right thing. Right as you wake up, email back, email back, go through a twenty four hour day like this and email back and I want to see what you say. Amen, Yeah, thanks,

thanks for the email, and do another one. Chet sure, let me see was that one of the softball questions? No, they get heavier than that. But I'm going to go this is not this is not too heavy. But I did find the question interesting, and I do. I think if I address it the way I want to address it, I'm gonna make a lot of people mad. Oh right, okay, all right, here we go. Sorry, yeah, there we go. They actually don't know how you feel about it either, but I kind of know. I feel like I know you,

all right. So the subject godly advice says, Hey, Grangeream, writing you from North Carolina. My husband and I are at a crossroads and need some Godly perspective. We are both born and raised in North Carolina, and all of our family is here. However, we don't have the closest relationships with our families. We visited Texas twice this year. Long story short. It's been my dream to move out west, and since actually visiting in June, the desire has become stronger.

I always pray for God's will to lead us in the right direction in all things, and specifically ask for his confirmation on this move. And shortly after our visit in June, I began to see cowboy hats in the clouds. A few days after that, my husband saw what looked like a hand holding the state of Texas. We have our jobs sorted. We have two kids, eight and four, and we would like to make a concrete decision before our four year old begins kindergarten, which will be in

the fall. My question is what do we do? How do I explain that if this is God's call, which I strongly believe it is, then how do we obey. I appreciate the time, love you guys. And they make bumper stickers that say I wasn't born here, but I got here as soon as I could, right. I mean, maybe that's the situation here. You you came to Texas, as we said, from another state. Yeah, And I will say, if you end up making this transition, you probably won't

regret it in regard to the people receiving you. Yeah, and the friendships that will welcome you, and the way that Texans man, they're just warm, welcoming people and yeah,

good people. The challenge, I think, and it sounds like you don't necessarily talk about the tension, but it sounds like the tension is you've got a huge family, or you've got family in North Carolina that that you feel this obligation or this kind of this tie like I need to we need to stay here and do this, but at the same time, you feel this poll to Texas, and so you know, the thought is, make sure you're not you're not running from something, but you're you're going

to something. I think is an important component when you're making a transition. And also make decisions that are the best for your immediate family, Think about your kiddos, think about you and your husband and your marriage, Like, ultimately, is this what is best for that immediate family and anything. It would be a blessing for your family in North Carolina to have someplace cool like Texas to visit. So yeah, so yeah, to answer your question, and let me say,

I haven't said your name yet because it's Cecily. Is that how you say that? Cecily, Cali, Cecily, Cecily. That sounds better Cecily. So I'm so sorry for saying that. So, yeah, the reasons to move to Texas are strong. You got good reasons. Your your job is flexible, the schools in Texas are great. North Carolina is awesome too, So you're actually going there tomorrow today this afternoon, leaving there today. But the reasons for moving seems strong. We've talked about

moving many times on this podcast. You are asking for godly advice, and that's the title of your email, and that you're wanting godly perspective from us. You ask for it, you're going to get it, and and so all the all the other things, you know, if we're just going to talk about the material reasons, uh components. To me, I think it's great, you're you're good. This is where I have a problem, and this is where people are

going to get mad at me. But when you start seeing cowboy hats in the clouds, it becomes pagan wishes, that becomes fortune telling in a way. Well, I think what it is is you're you're seeing what you want. Yeah, right, you're the longings of your heart. You're looking for something external that that will fulfill that desire. And then rat like, okay, we've got reason to do it. Oh we're getting that. We're getting the good typically do this, but you you

I don't typically do this. But you can't always take my word for it. You have to take the word for it. And so what I think of when I think of because you're asking here, where did you say it? If this is God's call? How do I explain? If this is God's call. In other words, God's will. And I think you did say will another point in this

this email. So let's go to Romans twelfth two hor It says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So the danger here is following your heart. Follow your heart. A world always wants to say follow your heart, but the Bible says the heart is evil, and you need to conform

your mind the renewal of your mind. Don't conform to this world, excuse me, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And so I wouldn't follow like symbols in the clouds and you and your husband seeing the state of Texas in their hands. I could go out here right now, Chad, and look at the clouds and find enough shapes to make me feel like whatever I'm thinking is reality. People have done that since the beginning

of the time. They have found constellations in the sky to pretty much match any symbol or shape that they want it to be. And that is paganism. It's a different question. That's fortune telling that's looking to the stars, that's astrology, instead of when you're looking for God's will. He says, transform the renewal of your mind. So that's very different than should I just lay here on the screen grass and look at the sky long enough for God to just tell me that Texas is the right place?

I say it when I think I don't want people to get mad at me, because because can God do that? Yeah? Of course he could shape a cloud. He could absolutely do that. Right. Yeah. When I interact with people in a pastoral role, they this is a very frequent question, right, I want to know God's desire for me? Is God calling me to this or that? Is this a sign?

Or is that a sign? And there oftentimes we're waiting for something that is external to the word of God and what He's clearly prescribed for us to do, and we want to find some external thing that's going to kind of give that affirmation. But you know, you talk about the heart is one of those things that man, we have to renew our mind. In Psal I'm thirty seven, it says, delight yourself in the Lord, and He will

give you the desires of your heart. And we oftentimes read that and go Okay, So if I just kind of do it God wants me to do, then I can get that brand new Ford f one whatever where I can get the thing that I really want. What that Saull means is if I delight myself in the Lord, well,

the seed of delight is in the heart. So if I'm actually delighting in the Lord, then he is the desire of my heart, and I've aligned myself with him because he is what is good, true and beautiful, and so as I seek him, as I press into him, and he is my delight, then man, it doesn't matter where I go or what I do, because he's my delight. And so my encouragement is always, are you delighting in the Lord? Are you truly seeking the Lord in this decision?

And the doors will open, the doors will close, opportunities will present themselves, and as long as it's not just overtly sinful or contrary to God, you can probably go do it. Yeah, absolutely, And to that I would say your point of action would be exactly what Chad said. If there's nothing constricting you in any kind of way, then say, all right, God, it feels like the doors are opening to Texas. So we're gonna go ahead. We're gonna put the house on the market. We're gonna start

looking at real estate. Like, just take one step. You don't have to think should we or should we not? Just start with a house, start with a city, take a town, and go okay, all right, God, I'm gonna start looking at real estate in Houston, Texas. And if you're not supposed to, if that's not part of God's will, He's not going to open anything up to you. Yeah,

He's gonna make that very difficult for you. So instead of looking at the clouds, use your brain, use your brain, use your mind, and go all right, here we go. I'm sober minded. I'm looking at the world. I'm looking at real estate apps, and I'm gonna go all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna move forward, and God continue to open the doors that I need to walk through and close the ones that I don't. And before you know it, you're gonna get your answer. And I have done this thing.

I have done this. I have said all right, God, I feel like this, this house, this happened a year ago. Guys got this house. It feels like this is right. So I'm gonna go ahead and start getting the loan together and start moving on this house and get the contract on the house. Okay, we're contingent on selling our house. All right, we're you know, God, I'm not looking at the clouds. I'm not looking at tarot cards. I'm saying, all right, we're gonna go ahead and move forward. And

then coronavirus hit. Our house wasn't gonna sell. We fell out of contingency, I fell out of the contract. And it's like, okay, there it is. There's the closed door. Yeah, you know, it's not as hard as tarot cards. That's easy. There it is. And sometimes the door remains open. We walk through it and we fall on our face and it doesn't work out, and we go, oh, man, I blew it? Am I outside of God's will because we

decided to do this? But realize, no, we as we walk with the Lord, even if it doesn't work out in human standards, God uses everything for his glory, for his good and to shape us into the image of his son. So it's gonna work. If you move to Texas and man, it's not what you thought it was. It's exactly what God knew was gonna happen, and he's going to use that in your life. And guess what, North Carolina's not going anywhere, right, it's not going anywhere.

You go right back to North Carolina and don't worry about kindergarten. Right. I don't think like it's a legitimate concern on your part, emailing and saying you're you want to do this before you're four. Man, kids are so resilient. You could start your kid, your kids could go to could go to school. And my kids have done this. We've we've changed schools twice and you could move to

another one. They might your four your eight year old might kick and stream a little bit, but they're gonna make new friends and they're gonna be resilient and they're gonna fall into a new place. Sometimes as parents, you just have to be flexible. And although we want to be concrete before the four year old starts kinder that's a good that's a good map, But you don't have

to hold that as gospel. You don't have to hold that as what's best is the long jevity of your family and where you're going to be for a long time. And there's kindergartens and there's great teachers everywhere. Great question. Yeah, thank you for emailing and dude, Chad, it's been it's been fun. This is a blast. Yeah, we're gonna go get tacos again one of these days and then we're gonna go on this podcast again. If you want to

see more Chad, say more Chad. And if anybody has any any more questions or if you have a Chad specific question that could happen. Maybe you're from Montana, I have a Chad specific Montana question. Maybe you're mad at him for calling hunting shopping in Texas. Email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com and tell me what Chad and we'll definitely have you back. Cool. This has been fun. Yeah, it's a blast. See your brother. Yeah, 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 any time 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. Ye