Zero desire to know God

I am by myself today, no guest. I'm winging it. I like that I had a last minute cancelation. It was actually Parker canceled on me last minute, and I thought, you know, should I wait, should I rebook it, or should I just do it like I used to do. I used to sit here and do these by myself, and so I think it might be kind of refreshing for me to reset do one by myself, and then we'll go next week. Next Monday. We do these every Monday,

we'll be back with the guest. The format of this podcast, if you are new here is I answer your questions, usually ME and a guest. Today's just me. You will email these questions to Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Could be about any subject as you see today. As you will see, I've picked some questions that are just all over the map, so it doesn't really matter what the subject is. I want to hear from you, Grangersmith

Podcast at gmail dot com. Shoot it over and we'll get on this podcast and we're going to answer it. We have episode one hundred coming up. I think we're gonna do an all star cast. At least that's what I've seen you guys talk about in the comments, and I've talked to some of my guests about it. Maybe bringing some of my most most excited, most well received guest back here on episode one. I think it'd be awesome. I want to give a shout out to all platforms

that listen, you know. I want to thank the Apple podcast listeners, to Spot, the Spotify listeners of course, to YouTube listeners. Those are the ones that point at. I could point at the YouTube listeners because they actually are watching. Now. Everybody else, thank you so much, whatever platform you're on, Thank you for making this one of the top music

podcast all genres in the world. Love that. I'm it just blows me away that this podcast which a lot of times we start talking about God could be at the top of a of a pop group of podcasts. That's really exciting for me, and that's a testament to you guys for making that what it is. Let me get started. This first question comes from Logan. It says, Hey, hey, Granger, my name is Logan. I'm from Missouri. I wanted to

know what is your personal best bass? And I also wanted to know how you find the courage and energy to get up and accomplish everything you need to accomplish. Those are two very different questions. And I'm assuming Logan that you don't mean bass like bass guitar. What's your personal best bass? I'm pretty sure you're talking about bass bass and my best bass eight pounds. That's That's an honest truth. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sugarcoat this.

I'm not gonna pretend like I've caught a ten pound bass or eleven pound bass. My best bass is eight pounds. I measured it with the scale on the dock and I was probably nineteen years old, and this was an East Texas on a smaller lake next to Lake Fork. Great bass out there, and it was funny because I

remember this trip so specifically. We went out there with some friends and we camped out there, and we took these little boats, and we're going out all day, fishing this lake hard all day, and we were having some luck. We're catching some small fish. But I remember we came back and we started fishing in with perch, just just hooking the perch through their lip and fishing right at the dock at the lake where the other people put their boats, and we were just pulling these huge lunkers.

So it's just funny. It's a testament to you could work all day and think you're going out and the reeds and the nice little coves and the creeks, and you think you're finding the perfect spot, and all the big bass we're right there where we are camping. So second part of your question, logan, how do you find the courage and energy to get up and accomplish everything you need to accomplish? That is a loaded question, and it really depends on the context of how you're asking it,

like are you are you dealing with something? Are you are you not loving work? Are you struggling in some area that would that would change the way I would I would answer this if I'm just gonna give you a general answer, how do I find the courage and energy to get up? Which is an interesting way of wording it, right, how do you find the courage? That means that would imply to me that you're having trouble building up courage to start a day will to tell

me there's other things going on. I start my day every morning by reading the Bible, and that definitely gives me courage. It definitely gives me energy, and I start. You know, after a while. You put this in routine and I just crave it and I need it, and every once in when I have to skip it because I have like an early flight, and so I have to put it off. It's not the first thing I do.

It's like the tenth thing I do if I have an early flight, and it throws me off a little bit, and then I just can't wait to get back to that routine. So man, that's what I do, and everything else kind of trickles down from that. If you want to talk about specific ways to get things accomplished, I'd

love to make lists. I'm not always great about completing the list, but just making it helps you really get those big chunks of things that you need done, like say you need to do one, two, three, four things and then then you would like to do about ten things after that. Well, making that list, that to do list, my brother calls it power list. You make that power list, and that you can go in and go no matter what happens today, no matter what I do, I'm going

to get these three things done. That's my power that's the top of my power list. And you put them in order, and I'm going to make sure that I go one, two, three today boom. I could do a lot of other things, but I'm going to make sure no matter what, my power list gets done. And make your powerless short. Don't make thirteen things on your power list. Make two to five max. And you need to trust yourself.

If you're gonna write it down, you need to be able to trust yourself that you're gonna accomplish those things. And what I mean by that is if you if you stop trusting yourself, then you're gonna you're not gonna make the list anymore. You're gonna go I'm writing this down, but I know I mean, I'm not gonna do it. I don't trust myself. So how do you trust yourself? You trust yourself by making your list shorter and easier to begin with. So if you are terrible at crossing

off a power list, then make your list tomorrow. Brush your teeth. I'm talking that's easy. You're gonna do it, and then you're gonna brush your teeth in the morning. You're gonna go check did it right? And then and then you slowly build up your confidence that every time I write something on this page, I'm gonna check it

off every single time. Right, So then you build up a trust with yourself and a lot of people, don't you think of trust as being with other people, But trust you have to trust yourself first, otherwise you're never gonna get anything done. Logan. If you don't trust yourself that you will hold yourself accountable to whatever you hold yourself accountable to. Right, does that make sense? It's easy to tell someone else do this, but can you tell yourself to do it and actually do it? So powerless?

That's your thing, Logan. Let's move on here. I'm gonna pull up I have a little little pocket of questions that I have ready for today, but I'm gonna skip around not really knowing what I'm clicking on. This one says the subject line is how to find God? Hey, Grangeer, just wondering how you know God loves you. I believed in God my entire life, but these last two years, I'm having trouble thinking he really cares about us. All three deaths and one year is a lot to swallow.

But I'm wondering why he feels the need to hurt us. That's such a common question, Sharon, But that does not make the question any easier to answer or easier to digest. The fact that it's common doesn't make it lesser of a question. In fact, it just makes it more justified that you're going to ask it. And it's a loaded question because you say, I'm having trouble thinking he really cares about us all, and then you have to ask yourself, but how much do I care about him? You say

you've believed in God your entire life. That's good, that's a start. But have you trusted in God your entire life? That's obviously a no. That's that's what I'm gonna say. That's a no for me. Have I trusted in God my entire life? No? But when did you start or have you started? It? Was it yesterday or was it ten years ago? So what are you What are you giving back to God? What kind of faith and trust

are you putting back to God? When you're expecting everything from him, You're expecting prosperity and peace and happiness and joy. You're you're expecting that after you've had trouble, you then question it and you say, you know what, I don't I don't think he cares about us. So I said this in the in a sermon that I did recently, But why do we expect the fruits of the spirit when we're not giving the faith that it requires. And you might say, well, I have faith, I believe. Well,

this is what I said in the sermon. But are you using faith as a noun or a verb, because you might be just saying one time, one and done, I have faith, I believe. But it's supposed to be a verb. Faith is supposed to be a verb. It's supposed to be active. It's supposed to be something we do. Jesus asks us to keep his word daily, to take up our cross daily, to keep his word daily, so it's active. Our faith has to be cultivated daily, and so it's a daily it's a daily exercise of saying, God,

you know what, there's trouble. You told me there's going to be trouble. Jesus says, in this world we will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world. That's John sixteen thirty three. So if that's promised, then why are we so surprised when we get it. You've had death in the family. That's terrible, but it's common and we're all gonna see that, and it's promised. So at what point do we go, God, I'm gonna stop.

I'm gonna stop wondering why you're doing things, and I'm gonna start wondering what You're trying to teach me in them through it? God, what do you have in store for me? Things are changing. I heard a pastor say one time on YouTube. He said, when when things start happening around you, God's talking. God's trying to talk to you. And so at what point do we go, I'm tired of your talking? And then when do we change and go what are you trying to tell me? What is

it You're trying to tell me in this situation? God, I've had death in the family. I need to know where do I go from here. I'm gonna trust. I'm gonna trust that you have a plan for me, that you want me to prosper, that you I want things to be good for me. So I'm gonna trust in you. How do I trust? Go to his word or read his word? That might not be the answer you want, Sharon, but the fact that you've had death in the family is not a shock and it has nothing to do

with God's lack of love for you. What's he trying to tell you? God's talking, Sharon, It's time to listen. It goes both ways. Your faith is a verb. Use it. It's a verb. Let's gip around here. And here's one that says subject line Grandpa in World War Two. It says, deer Granger, can you talk about your grandpa in the war? I would love to know more about him. I've seen your YouTube video at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.

That's my favorite place, only three hours from me. I've phoned in a B seventeen and a B twenty five, and if possible, can you even send me a picture of him? Says parentheses. I'm only twenty eight years old. But I love war history and aviation. You need to come to Dayton to the D Day re enactment. It's the best in the country. This is coming from Zach in Ohio. Zach, what's up? Brother? Thank you for the email. Shout out to our friends in Ohio. I love this question.

I love war history, specifically World War Two. I love Vietnam history and Civil War history and World War One history. I really love World War Two. It's my favorite. My granddad flew Auld be twenty four in nineteen forty four, he was stationed out of Italy. He flew out of Italy and he did most of his bombing raids into Romania and Germany. And I am obsessed with that history in our time, and I wish, I wish I could

talk about it more often. I want to because it's such a hugely impactful part of our history, and yet, like so many other things in our life, overlooked and maybe a little bit forgotten, especially today, when what was happening in World War Two in the nineteen forties was unprecedented.

It was a time when there was a world power quickly gaining that power, and that was Germany and if it wasn't for a complete Allied alignment coming together, so many countries, so many leaders, so many heroes on the front lines and at home, coming together for one unified cause, then the Allies would have lost. And none of us want to imagine if the Nazis had won that war

what things would be like. Even today, we're talking about a time when people at home, like the Ford Dealership, I mean, they'll just give me the Ford manufacturers and the GM manufacturers in Michigan were making airplane parts. And this was happening all across the country, not just Michigan, people making tank parts and airplane parts and cockpits and wings and ammunition and guns. It's a complete unified effort, maybe like this country has never seen, probably like this

country has never seen. Can you imagine today, our country, our people, whatever country you're in, it's not just mine, coming together for one unified purpose, and everyone agrees that this is what we need to be doing. Men, women, children, elderly people coming together for one purpose. Unbelievable. My granddad was a you know, obviously a tiny, tiny fraction of that effort, but he was one of them, and he was flying to be twenty four and he had to

fly fifty missions. And so I started reading his flight diary after he died. My dad compiled it made an easily digestible book for all of the family to read, and it was just it was unbelievable reading his day

by day events, you know, and what was happening. And he was waking up at at three am, and he would get briefing for the mission, and then they would they would get together and they would go through like the maps and the pre flight design, and then they would go out and they would go on their bombing raid. And sometimes you'd completely miss the target. Sometimes you'd hit it. Sometimes he wasn't able to drop it all. Sometimes they

had enemy fighters and flack. In fact, most of the time he had enemy fighters in flack that threatened his life. Two different times they would have accasionally they would have a day off or like a few days off, and two different times the day that he had a day off, another team took his ship out, his B twenty four, and it was shot down and destroyed. Everyone killed. That happened twice, so the first time his ship was called the Ginny Abel destroyed on his first day off. They

gave him another ship. They called it the Genny Abel two. He flew it for a while and then he took a day off and then it was destroyed. So then they gave him a third ship, and he said, we're not naming this one, so it was just a serial number. They did not name it the Genny Abel. Unbelievable stuff. I mean, there are so many stories where he had to crash land and he was scared out of his mind. And he was twenty four years old, and he was

the oldest because he was the captain. He was the oldest in the crew, which is just how it was. When you're twenty four and you're the oldest. Just blows my mind and I could talk about it forever. But but yeah, Zach, great question. I have a passion for this, and so I've been a Dayton, Ohio and I've seen the Air Force Museum. I've also gotten to fly in a B twenty four, which is a bucket list thing for me. There's only one still flying B twenty four in existence. So I love it and it's a huge

passion of mine. Next question says, Hey Granger, did you play sports? That's the subject? It says, Hey Granger, I wanted to know if you ever played any sports growing up and what your favorite sport is and what you love to watch. I love to watch baseball. That comes from John John says he loves to watch baseball. Yeah, John. I grew up in Texas and the thing that we did was play football. So I have a passion for football, just like just like B twenty fours. I love football.

I love the sport. I love what it the camaraderie, I love what it does to those young men on the field. I started when I was in sixth grade and then started playing team on my school team in seventh grade, and we played all the way through high school. And there's so many things that happened to me in my life today that I still attribute the lesson that

I learned from football. And there's a unification that happens in football with those eleven guys where every man has to do his job and if they don't, there's a leak. You know, there's a problem, there's a flaw. And that's such a great little piece of life to learn that everyone has to hold their own weight. You do different things. Football players on the field are all different sizes too. I love that you got a four hundred pound guy standing next to one hundred and sixty pound guy, and

they both have to do their job. They both have to do exactly what they've learned and at the technique that they exactly have, they're supposed to do it. And it's very unique in that way. And you're going to war and it's strategic and it's physical, and it's above all that, it's mental. And my dad was a huge part and me playing and he used to always be like, here,

it's a mental game. It's a mental game. The first thing you ever told me when I started seventh grade football and I was a little guy, you can imagine I played. I played the skill positions. And so my dad said, when you go in as a seventh grader, I want whenever the coach says, get me someone, I want you to volunteer, even if that means offensive line or linebacker or defensive end like positions that obviously are not suited for me. It's for the big guys, the

strong guys. And so that's that's exactly what happens with the first practice. Coach goes, give me an offensive lineman, and I'm like, boom, I'm ready to coach and he's like, Smith, no, no, no no, no, no no no. Give me like a big guy like offensive linemen. Man, I could do a coach. And so then he'd flip and he'd be like, Okay, give me somebody volunteer for a defensive end. I jump in there. I'm ready, Coach. No, Smith, you're like a

safety or a running back, not a defensive end. But when it did something, it did something to coach, and that came from my dad. It was great advice. And basically it just says, coach, I'm ready for whatever you have. I'm here. I don't care, use me, use me, use me for the tool that you need. And I don't care what it takes. I want to do it. And that was that was such a such an awesome thing about being a young teenager playing football. We do, we do one more question? Take a break. This one says,

Hey Granger. My name is Doakes. I'm from Orum, Utah. I'm fifteen years old, sting in school. I have a major self esteem issue. I have no motivation in school anymore. I just need some advice. I've talked to my parents about it and they have helped me very little. But I just want to hear what advice you want to give. Thank you for being an example and for producing great music.

Thank you Doaks well Man. First of all, I don't think it's a coincidence that I just read that question right before this one and then yours, and so it's something I would say to you, buddy, Have you thought about football? Have you thought about football or any sport? And keep in mind what I love about football as opposed to baseball and basketball track. Football can require much less skill than the other sports because it's a mental game.

It's physical and mental, but above all mental. Down the list is skill in fundamentals. So somebody like you Doaks, I don't know anything about you. You say you ever made your self esteem issue, But when you put on that helmet and those shoulder pads in your school in Utah, and I know they have football in Utah, I just saw it. You become a warrior. You're a warrior for the for this army, this army of soldiers, and you're

one of the warriors in the army. And this might not be the advice you want, but it's a coincidence that I'm coming right off of that other question. But you want to talk about building up your self esteem is getting in there and putting on a helmet and hitting somebody and forgetting about your troubles and going after somebody and volunteering for everything that coach has. I'm here, I'm here. Doaks, get out of here. No, I'm here, coach. I want to do this. That's a big that's a

big deal. And so the other thing is just getting involved with a friend group. It could be it could be anything, but you can't do this alone. Humans are not made to go out on their own. They're made for their meant for connection. We're built this way. We're built for connection with each other. And the longer you go out on your own and blazing your own trail is as awesome as that might sound on paper, the

less self esteem you're going to have. So surround yourself, engulf yourself with a group of friends that you have a common goal, you're doing something in some kind of group effort, and you're working towards a common goal together. It's just like what I was saying about the country in World War Two. We became such a great country together because we were working towards one common goal despite our flaws. And despite our differences, we had one goal.

A lot of differ different people with a lot of different personalities and a lot of different flaws and scars and problems, and we came together for one goal. So you dolks, coming together with a group for one goal. It could be anything. It could be the chess team, it could be the theater, it could be building rebuilding diesel engines. But getting that group together and find your niche within that group where you're contributing for the common goal,

self esteem goes up. I'm taking a break, Be right back. Podcast has brought to you guys today in part by Raycon. I love when I get to read about raycon is such a cool company. Is the world is kind of starting to get normal again. Have you, guys, noticed a change in your feeling anxiousness or needing to calm down more? Because maybe maybe your life is going faster and faster

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every single day. Again, visit Athleticgreens dot com slash granger and get your free one year supply of Vitamin D and five free travel packs. Pulling up some more questions here, I have a question from Troy. It says, Hey Granger, I'm Troy from Wisconsin, big fan of yours. I've seen you at Country Jam. What books would help me with understanding the Bible. I'm thirty five and I was raised in a not so religious house. I would really like to get to know God and become a light in

this dark world. If you have any titles or references I could use help, or if you want to send an address where I could find a better place to understand this, that would be great. Love to meet you again if you ever come back to Wisconsin. Just so you know, I did the prayer with your pastor on the podcast on a few episodes ago, just like you asked, and I felt like a lot of weight was lifted off my chest. Thank you for being the lead reason for me to do this. This comes from Troy, and

I want to I want to Troy. I want to say something at the end of this email. I'm not the lead reason now. That was God. God. God is always the lead reason. I am. I'm a tiny pawn in this game, right, So let me let me start with this. Let me start with this way. You being thirty five rays in a not so religious house, no big deal, That's that's very normal. I would encourage you to not try to get a book to understand another book.

The Bible is a book, and I would encourage you not to get another book to understand the main book. Does that makes sense? I would go right after the main book. I would go right to the source. That's like, you know, the Bible is like an instruction manual to our lives, and you would never get an instruction manual try to understand the main instructure manual. You'd never get a supplemental instruction manual to understand the main instructure. You would not do that. And I know that that's not

what the world wants to tell you. The world wants to tell you that you're going to go to a bookstore and there's a book for you, and the book will help you understand the book so that you could better understand the book, right, because they make a lot of money selling more books and devotionals. I used to be a devotional junkie. I would read any kind of book to help me understand the book. But the reality is true, you don't need that, You just need the

one book. I love that your heart is asking this question question. Love that your heart is saying you want to get to know God and become a light in this dark world. Not everybody says that. In fact, there's a lot of people listening to this podcast right now that probably think I have zero desire to want to know God, zero desire to be a light in a dark world. In fact, I don't even think this world is that dark. I bet you there's people thinking that.

I know there is. So I love that your heart is telling you that, and you're writing in to this podcast with that very question. So this is when I want to I want to kind of walk this through with you, Troy. I'm going to give you some actual, tangible things that you could do to get this ball rolling. I personally like to do this in the morning, so that that's when my brain works, but you don't have to.

You could do it at night. Maybe you're a night guy, maybe step late, maybe in the middle of that, maybe lunch break kind of guy. I don't know. So when I say morning, that's just me. But I like to get up early before the family's up, still dark outside, preferably quiet, just me and an occasional train from the distance and a dog barking and a bird that's just waking up, quiet, no distractions. Then I like a cup

of coffee. I could fill with one cup of coffee, I could feel my brain just like start revving up, and it's pretty empty. Now this is important part of this morning routine for me. This is how this is exactly how it starts. It doesn't go to social media first. I don't go to email, our Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or anything first because or text or text or text messages. I don't look at text messages first because you could get something that's going to throw you off

a little bit. Unless you're expecting something some really important news. Stay away from text emails, Facebook, Instagram, tiktoks, whatever you do, news, TV, radio, stay away from all of it. So just you, the birds, occasional dog barking dark outside, a cup of coffee. You with me so far, and I'll get a comfortable chair, and I'll get the Bible, the book, not the instruction manual to the instruction manual, but the book. And I would pick a Bible that's easier to understand for you.

Everyone has their own opinions the Bible. The authors of the Bible, the men that wrote it, wrote in the language of their time, for the language of their people, Like the New Testament. Most of it's Greek because that was the common language at the time. So they wrote it in Greek, and they wrote it in an in a way that everyone that read it knew that language, So you need to do the same. We are very blessed in this time to have a lot of translations.

That doesn't mean that it's been a game of telephone. That doesn't mean that it's been translated so many times that it doesn't even make sense anymore. The translations we have are usually a team of hundreds of scholars, very smart people that will take the old Greek text. They'll go all the way back. They're not looking at something that happened one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago.

They're going all the way back to the source, the oldest copies that we have, and they're translating it together in a big panel, and they're weighing it against all kinds of references to figure out exactly what these authors meant, so that you could know exactly what those words meant. I say that because and there's people that might hate this, but I'm saying it because if you get an old king James, and that's not the way we speak anymore, and you're you're liable to start reading that and go

man I don't. I don't understand this, these shouts and shells and and midst and it's and I don't understand it. Okay, so I read personally me, I read the E. S V. I also like the N I V. There are many options. I my go to is the E. S V. I have also read many times. I've read the N I V. I like both. My mother reads the N I V. Okay, we're back to the We're back to the morning. Okay, dark outside, just the birds, just a distant train and a dog. Coffee is working in your brain. You're in

a you get a in a comfortable chair. You got your E. S V. Right, you're with me. You open this thing up up to I want you to go to one of the major gospels four Gospels. I want you to go to either Matthew or John. I've heard many people go to Luke to Mark. Great these are

They're all great, you can't go wrong. But I'm gonna, for the sake of this podcast, I'm gonna take you right to Matthew because that's chronologically the first one Matthew one, verse one, and that's the beginning of the New Testament in the Bible. So see how easy this is so far, this is so easy. You don't even need another book to tell you how to do the book. You open it up, but don't read. Don't read a word, just get it lined up. Go to Matthew one one. Don't

read a word. Don't read a word. Okay. Coffee is working in your brain. There's a distant dog barking a little train. No one in the house is up, it's still dark. You're in your comfortable chair, e sv pulled up, but you haven't read a word. And right then, this is when it happens, Troy. You close your eyes and you say, God, I want to understand this book. I know that this book, these words were inspired by you. It was written by man, But these words were inspired

by you through the work of man. And these men wrote this stuff during a time when they were eyewitnesses to these supernatural events. And they lived in a time when there was hundreds of other eyewitnesses around them, keeping each other accountable. And they wrote these words. God, they wrote your words through their hands. And here I am sitting in this chair with a distant train and the coffee in my brain, and God, I want to understand this. I want to know. I want these words to matter

to me. I want to see your truth in here. I want to see your promises, want to see your purpose for me so that I could feel like I have a purpose, so that I could live for you. But I need you to open my eyes. I if you don't open my eyes, God, it's gonna look like gibberish. It's gonna look like stuff I don't understand. It's gonna look like an ancient, weird book. God, don't make it be that for me. Make it be the truth. Make it be what you say. It is the living word,

your living word. Make it be that. I want to believe it. God. And just like I wrote to that podcast where I said, I want to get to know you, and I want to become a light in this dark world. I can't be the light. You're the light, but I want to reflect it. I want to reflect your light into this dark world. Please, God, open my eyes. And then Troy, you open your eyes and you follow down to Matthew one and you go game on, game on.

It's time to read, and don't read too much. I would say, if you're just starting, you'll limit it to like one chapter, maybe two. I do four In the mornings, I do four, and I'll do and I have a reading plan that that keeps me skipping around. But for you, just do one or two because you don't want to go too far because it's it might get it might start jumbling up. Okay, And the next morning after you do this, the next morning, repeat, repeat, keep a pin with you. You might want to do a little a

little highlight on you. You You might want to circle some things. You might want to go that's interesting. That verse was really interesting. It kind of feels like it's talking about me. And you get that pin and you kind of put a little put a little circle around it and and do a little line in the margin that says, this kind of sounds like me. That'll help. That'll help with your brain. Now. I I usually have a notepad next to me too, so I could kind of take take

a general jot some things down. Some days I have my notepad and I read the Bible and I don't write a single thing in the notepad nothing, And some days I'll fill up pages. So it's just it's kind of whatever's on your heart. But it might help with your digesting of it. If you're taking a few notes or doing a little circles. Another thing is you might not need to use a physical book. I use an app called Logos, and I really like the app. I'd sell my iPad. It's called logos l O g os.

And you could you gotta do any any translation of the Bible, and you could pull it all up. You could do reading plans, you could. I like it because you if you see a word you don't understand, you just hit it on the iPad. You just touch it the word and it boom pops up a definition of the word or a reference of where else it might be in the Bible. And I like that. But hey,

but everybody could do whatever they want. But that's I wanted to give you a roadmap, Troy, so that you don't go out and feel like you have to spend money on an instruction manual to tell you how to use the instruction manual to your life. Does that make sense? Okay, let me let me give around here. This made me smile. Crazy step mother, Crazy step mother. It says, that's the subject. It says, Hey, Granger, please keep me anonymous. Fair enough.

My fiance and I are both twenty two. We love your music and your family and we can't wait to see you in Redland, PA. Or excuse me, we got to see you in Redland, PA. The reason I'm writing is my fiance step mother has been trying to manipulate her relationship with her father. My fiances step mother, I'm calculating, has been trying to manipulate her relationship with her father. This has been going on for years, and I've been with her for three years now and we live in

our own apartment, and it's slowly been getting worse. There has been physical and mental abuse situations in the past between them which drove her to end up living with her grandmother, and she acts like it like they never happened, and her father never did anything about those situations and basically chose her stepmom over his daughter. Her stepmom has mentioned that all the abuse in the past hasn't changed anything,

and she hasn't done anything to show it. My fiance wants to stand up for herself all the time, but is afraid that it will ruin the relationship with her dad. Thank you, Anonymous. I'm apologized for skipping through this email a little bit. So I want to say. I want to say a couple of things. This is common if you guys listen to this podcast on Monday, as you know that this is not the first time we've we've had a crazy step mother or a stepfather or anything

like this. I think, in fact, I think it was it last week we had monster monster in law. So one thing I want to say, mister anonymous, is this is not totally your problem until you get married. And that's important because you can't you can't take on the full burden of this family until you are married. It is it is honorable of you for wanting to hang

in there for your fiance. You've been there for three years, and I would like to see you go ahead and tie the knot, lock this down, make her your wife, because then a lot of things change from that, because then when she's your wife, you guys are you're You're then loyal to each other before anything else. You're loyal to each other before the rest of the family. So it sounds like what this is, what it's boiling down to, is your question really is how does she my fiance,

maintain a good relationship with her dad. It sounds like that's what she's after and what you're after, because you could just Forget the stepmother, you know, right, forget this. It sounds like there's no need to repair anything there. You just want to keep Dad in here. So so many of these questions just come down to a really good communication. And I think it comes down to besides

you getting married, go ahead and getting married. I think it sits down you sit down with her dad and you just say, hey, mister Dad, I want to be totally honest. This has been going on. There's been physical abuse, which is crazy, and there's been mental abuse, and we can't do that anymore with her. But we love you and we want a relationship with you. We want to maintain this relationship with you, dad, And how could we

do that? How could you help us? Meaning we're not going to come over there for Thanksgiving and go mess with and you're not going to be messing around with her? Okay, what else could we do? How could we meet in the middle? How could we how could we do some things we don't necessarily have to get involved with her? And another option is, and because I don't I don't know the direct context, but you could sit down with her.

And it sounds like you might have already done this, but you could you could sit down and just say, hey, this is this is bad, and because we love dad, we don't want to we want to we don't want to mess it up with him, and you're right here with us, and so how could we make this better for you? But mister anonymous, you don't have a voice until you get married. Right now, you're just the fiance or the boyfriend. You're just a boyfriend. You don't have

a true voice until you lock this down. And you're now you're talking about your wife, and then you, guys, have have a bond that is now more important than her and her dad's bond. Her she's always gonna have an incredible bond with her dad, but your husband is going to be a tighter bond, just the same as she is going to be a tighter bond than you are with your mother. You're student, and that's if you have a tight bond with your mother, that means she

you better really lock it down with her. Right Does that make sense? Because that's that's how it's supposed to be. That's just how it is. Guys. These problems with in laws are not going to go away. You can't fix them, but you could change the way you react to them. You can't tell them how to act or tell them

to stop doing something or change them. You can't, but you could change you, and you could change the way you look and your react and the way you deal with it and the way you deal with it internally. You can change that. So that's where I would lead you. Thanks for the question, brother, Let's do another one here. Here's another one subject line God question. It says, Hey, Grangeur, this is John from Nashville. I hope us all is well with you and your family. I have a question

for you. How do you pursue a relationship with God and try to pursue country music as a career. I am a follower of Jesus as you are, and I don't believe that you have to be in Christian music to follow God as an artist. So what would your advice be in doing both and doing them both well? In christ? John, Nashville, Tennessee. John, I'm assuming that you're a country artist awesome, and I'm assuming you're asking a

valiant question on how to do both. I see your point because you kind of kind of hear the voices out there where it's like, oh, you're a Christian and you're a singer, you should do Christian music right, But you know a lot of people don't feel that way. A lot of people feel like and by the way, there's a lot of corruption in Christian music too, but a lot of people feel like to be a reflection of that light, you got to go into a dark place. I heard this a long time ago when I was

a teenager. A pretty popular country singer told me this. He was like, I want to be I want to go into a dark place and try to be a light as opposed to just hanging around people that are all think like I do. There's no growth in that. There's no spiritual growth in that. So your question is how do you do both? I mean, you just do it. You do it, but you never compromise one or the other. And the one is you never compromise God. So you're going to come into situations as a country singer when

you might have to compromise something. Something has to give, and God will never give. You'll never give in that area. Country music will be the one that has to give way. You'll have to turn down an offer, or you'll have to you'll have to fire a manager or a band member, or you won't sing a certain song, or you won't shoot a certain music video a certain way. I've dealt with all these things, and I'm still peeling back layers

in my own career. I'm still finding things that I did in the past, and as a reborn Christian now going I got to reconcile that I can't I can't have that anymore on stage with me, or I can't say that anymore. I can't sing that lyric anymore. And some of you that have seen my shows recently might have noticed there's certain lyrics that don't happen on my stage anymore because I look at them differently. Now. I have a greater fear of God now, and that's really

what it boils down to. I have a fear, and I believe, I believe it's a righteous, healthy fear, But I have a fear of God and a fear of His disappointment in me that I don't want to do some things anymore that I've done in the past, and so I haven't. I don't have it all figured out, but it's it's a daily renewal. It's a daily task for me to go in there and what layers. Can I peel back and a daily dissection of my life, my public life, my singing life, my songwriting life, my

music videos. But everything that I do, you're constantly looking at it and going what else. It's like cleaning the garage. You're going through like this is a messy garage. But where do I start? Okay, I'm going to start in this corner right here, and when I finish that corner, I'm going to look around and go what else could I start cleaning up? That's my life right now, and that that should be your life, John and any believer, we just want to we want to feel motivated to

please God, to not disappoint him. Now, if you're a non believer and you're listening to this, this is not This is not the key to Christianity. This isn't how you get in the Kingdom. You don't start cleaning your garage and hope, hey God, you see me down here and cleaning up. That's not how it works. So I don't want to confuse anybody. Christianity is the opposite. The opposite every other religion is get your life cleaned up to be worthy of God. And Christianity it's go to

God and watch him clean your life up. And so that's where I am, That's where I have this, just this deep feeling that God is sanctifying me, constantly cleaning me. And how do I reconcile that? In country music? It day by day, John, Day by day. I'm not perfect. I never will be. But I try to get a little better, a little bit better every day. And sometimes I slip back, and sometimes I make a mistake, and

I still will. I'll say something wrong, I'll do something on stage and I shouldn't have done but I was so overwhelmed by the crowd and I thought it'd be really cool if I did this, and then I go, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have done that, And I do less and less of those things. But that's me. And if I was in just pure Christian music, there wouldn't be that challenge. I wouldn't. I wouldn't have that as much.

So I'd tell you one thing, John, I got this podcast, and I've had this opportunities to preach a little bit. I feel like I've preached on this podcast a little bit today. So there's that. But it's definitely possible, John, And with christ anything as possible. So if you want to do country music and be a Christian, go for it, buddy. I love that. I'll be looking out for you. I'll be keeping in touch with you. So I appreciate you guys. Thanks for putting up with me without a guest today

on the podcast episode ninety six. Love y'all and we'll see you next Monday. Ye yee. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate all of you. Guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube pbscribe 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. Ye