Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
At Carl and crew. What we try to do is go right to the heart of the matter. So let me give this to you. Cogitating on this a lot. And I've thought about this for years. Even when I ran track and field back in high school. There's a common thread through all of life. There's things that we either feel called to do innately, or things that we aspire to personally. And with all those things, we can
get a grand vision of what could be. But if you don't have a strategy to get there, you you're you get your proverbial cookie in a Squisher took us in a squishes. You weren't going to get there. Fair enough, guys. Fair. Absolutely. So and this is what I love about life. Because if you look at life and then you open up the Word of God, you go, oh my goodness. There's vision and strategy. That's the cool thing. So I want
to make this so practical. Now the number of years ago I guess that's a fair way to put it over 40 something like that. I ran a dog sled race across Alaska. If you're new listening here, I ran a dog sled race called the Iditarod. It's 1100 miles from Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, Alaska. I still can't believe I made it. 21 days, eight hours, 12 minutes, 32 seconds. I mean.
That's a feat, man.
It was, it was, and I. Its history feels like someone else. You know what? Have you ever done something that feels like somebody else did that?
Yes. Yes, absolutely.
So I give all credit to my dogs. They were the athletes. In fact, I told people after the race was over, my team could have gotten there quicker if they'd had a better musher. I was a good musher for 18, but 18 is young. I had a lot to learn, and I knew that intuitively. But I learned something from my dogs that was just fascinating. So let me tell you about what it's like to have 50 dogs in your kennel. 50 huskies. And what happens over
a couple of years time. You go out on these training runs, and I would get some that would get on some, maybe get some laceration on their pad, a little bit of blood coming out of their pad, and I'd load them up in the sled and take care of them and put some ointment on them and bandage them up. And it was almost like they'd look at
me like, thanks. Thanks so much, friend. I so appreciate that we're dogs, that we get tired at times and I'd load them in the sled because we're training, you know, and some of them just didn't have the stamina, and some of them felt the pressure and the shame of not being able to make it. I kid you not, they had shame in their eyes. And I would tell them, no, you're doing all right, buddy. You're you're all right. It's okay.
We're going to get you back in the team tomorrow, and we're going to get some more wind in you. We're going to get a little more strength in you. Everything's going to be all right. And we'd go through overflow, open water, and I'd get out of the water and I'd dry myself off, and then I'd quickly dry off the team. Well, after a while, you start to build some real rapport with your dogs, and it's a sweet thing. Those dogs are born to run. They're born and bred
to run. If you don't run an Alaskan Husky that's born this way, you're selling them short. And the way that I knew this best is when I'd walk into the dog lot and I'd start the cooker cooking for the feed, they'd get excited. But when I walked into the dog lot and I opened the door to the harness shed where the harnesses were that they put on there, I put on their body and then hook them into the gang lines. They went bananas, I mean bananas. Neighbors way down the lake could hear my dogs.
That's so great.
No way down the lake.
That's why you got.
There was a friend of mine had a had a kennel. He called it the, um, the Howling Dog Farm because that's a great descriptor of what happens when these dogs see a harness come out of a shed.
And it's 50, 50 dogs all at one time, just losing their minds. Very vocal animals. Yes.
It's one of the coolest things. It's one of the coolest sounds you can hear when you're standing in the middle of 50 dogs, and they're going bananas with the dog harness on, and you've got someone standing right next to you, you have to get in their ear and go grab that one right there, the one with the white coat and the piercing blue eyes. Grab him. Put this harness. You're yelling at them like that because that
that is how loud the dogs are. You know, you've got a. You've got a God sized vision in front of you to be the man that God wants you to be. And you might think, boy, I know I do. You know it innately. You know it. When you were born again, God stamped on your heart. You're a new man and you just need someone with a strategy to get you there so that when they pull out the harnesses,
you go, oh, I know how to get there. And coming up here in a moment, I want you to know that this innate sense that there is more for men is real. But what if you had someone on the back of the sled that had a strategy for how to get there? So there might be some serious howling going on here in a moment. And that's for good reason, because we got a good friend coming in here.
Doctor Robert Lewis with Better Man Ministries, with not just a vision, but a strategy for helping you as a man and the men in your life to really become what God's called you to be.
You can take him out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of him. Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
You know, I had a man tell me one time to know the will of God. You can read the book to know the way of God, to get to the will of God. You got to read a little deeper. The same thing is true with vision. You can get a vision of manhood and you can hear it talked about. You can have a grand idea of what could be out there, but without a strategy, we're never going to get there. What if the better man that God has designed you to be was within reach? It is. Doctor
Robert Lewis is with us right now. It's fascinating, isn't it, Robert? We. I think we can get a vision for biblical, authentic manhood and get a rousing sense in our heart. But then we got to do something with that. We need a strategy, don't we, my friend?
Absolutely. Because I think today, because of the breakdown of the home, most young men moving into young adulthood walk into a big fog and guess their way through manhood.
Robert Lewis with us right now he is a pastor, speaker, author, founding partner of Better Man Ministries. You know, you you have a quote on your website. You cannot become what you cannot define. For so many men, the messages are very mixed as to what even it looks like to be a strong man. You don't want toxic masculinity, but you don't want to be passive. You want to pursue a woman, but you don't want to be intimidating, or make her think that she's diminished in some in some way.
It's a it's a tough landscape to navigate.
Well, it's gotten tougher in our day because when we remove more traditional roles and that kind of thing, and it's kind of every man for himself. Uh, a lot of men do not look to other men for help in their manhood. They think they should know it. So they try to guess their life and their manhood into the future. And oftentimes those hit tragic, hurtful, and sometimes even deadly dead ends.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting, Robert. I was with 500 men in Arizona, and I saw a common thread again that I see over and over. Sometimes those tragic dead ends are God's dinner bell to redeem something that has been wasted. Tell us about that.
One of the things that I'm so excited about, what I'm doing and working with younger men, is the fact that there's a huge hunger out there. But you have to have someone that a younger man respects that starts speaking into his life. And if he takes the time to do that and he's genuine in his outreach. One of the great things about the day in which we live is younger men want to learn, but they need
older men just to initiate towards them. And that's what we've seen with better man using older men to reach younger men. But there's a tremendous hunger of young men to help me think through this, because inside they know that they don't know, but they just don't want other men to know that they don't know.
Yeah.
You know, there's an insecurity, I think, in this generation of men. I saw this I saw this funny video, Robert, and it was it was talking about toxic masculinity. And they said the difference from, like, my dad's toxic masculinity was that my dad and this is they were just being honest. They said my dad could punch a wall, but he could fix it. They said this generation's toxic masculinity punches a wall in anger, but then has to call somebody else to fix it because they never learned how.
So there's this sense of like, I want to break this cycle. I don't want this anger, I don't want this rage. But at the same time, I don't feel equipped to do some of the things that my dad's generation could do. So I feel less of a man because I can't do some of those things. You get where I'm going with this.
Just think how imprisoning that is. If you don't know what to do, and you don't even know how to fight your way out of it, just kind of sit there. And that's why we see mental health issues, depression, addiction, all kinds of those things just skyrocketing among young men. I mean, we used the George Barna Barna organization to do a national survey with young men just to see where they are. Men under 40. And I remember they came back and said, this is the loneliest, most disconnected
generation of young men in history. And it's very it's not just toxic to society. It's very toxic to them. And a lot of health issues are escalating with young men because they don't know what to do. They're just in I call it the manhood fog.
Yeah.
You might be in this fog right now or wanting to help someone get out. You're in a good place. Coming up with doctor Robert Lewis. Credible author, great mentor, a mentor of mine for a number of years and still to this day. And we're going to tackle this. How do we know we're in the fog. And how do we get out? Straight ahead with Robert Lewis.
She's a choreographer extraordinaire and everything is Greek to her. Super die is in the crew. It's Karl and crew on Moody Radio.
It's called The Fog. So says Robert Lewis. We get into this fog of real manhood, wondering what is it? How do we walk forward? A lot of what we learned in manhood, Robert was learned in the locker room. That didn't work. And a lot of what we're learning today is even less than that. There's so much as you just cited loneliness and despair. And I want to give you a scenario here and just speak to this scenario.
I've been mentoring a man at one of our campuses here in Chicago, and it's been fascinating because he is on the proverbial treadmill. Sin, shame. Repent, repeat. And there's a voice going on in his head that says, I can't do it. What do you say to that man?
Well, one of the kind of Openings for young men that I do a lot is to get a group of young men together and just sit down for an evening, and we ask them to tell their story. And by telling their story, what I mean by that is to draw out a picture of the family you grew up in, not necessarily the one you were born into, because a
lot of families change in those early days. But the one you grew up in and then tell us what role you played in that family, and then tell us about the relationship with your dad and what was something you really learned that helps you today? But what's interesting, most men have never opened up and told other men their story. And they start realizing how lost they are, and many of them with no dad or no instruction
from dad. But the big winner is they're being honest with one another, and they're in a community of young men where they can talk about it, and all of a sudden they realized, this feels good. This feels good. And it's the start of that community. That is the opening to a healthy manhood. Because healthy manhood requires first a safe community and then biblical clarity.
Okay, let's spike that for a second here. So you're saying a lot of the solution for this isolation and these cycles of despair and wanting to get out, can't get out, is just the lack of others to walk this road with.
That's right. To open up and just talk about what's going on inside of me. It's just a huge pressure relief valve when you're with other safe men. It could be two. It could be three. It could be like in the case of the other night with my group of young men, it was ten of us. We're teaching. We're just talking and sharing where we came from to try to connect the dots of where we are and
then talk about what do you need? So it's unveiling the past, cracking the lid, being honest and in that community, being open to say, okay, here's where I am. I've never had a relationship with my dad or just went through a divorce, or I'm in this addiction or I'm struggling with this issue. But I've discovered tonight there are other guys around the table who have similar stories who can identify with me. And so it sets the table
to what do we do? And I always say, hey, the best thing to do is look for some enduring wisdom in the Bible is the greatest source of enduring wisdom. So let's talk about what the Bible has to say. So into that community of chaos, we bring biblical clarity that suddenly brings these aha's that I've seen change men's lives. As you know, Carl, for now, 35 years.
Doctor Robert Lewis, our guest right now. Now, you have a passion to make this more accessible than ever. What you're talking about to actually become a reality. You've had now 500,000 men, 10,000 churches taking part in these better man teachings. Explain what you're offering up for free.
Well, what we did is about four years ago, some men that I was close to down in Dallas, Texas, asked me if I would do some series where we could reach young men and they were willing to fund everything, and I said I would do it if you could offer it all for free. So we got together, formed better man. Uh, we did video series. We did what I call the ten Fundamentals of Manhood, and it's all online. We've got multiple teachers teaching those ten weeks. So we
have different ethnicities, different age groups. But you can go online and see each one of those teachers teach those ten weeks and then off your phone or computer, you can download for free those ten weeks and the workbook, and then just get with a small group of guys. That's what we recommend. Usually having at least one older man in the group and go through the series together, and it has really connected with young men, and it's
great to bring older men into it. And a listener today could download anything he wanted off our website for free.
Today's the day, guys. I'm telling you right now, I got a boiling passion inside of me. This is real. Uh, it's desperately needed. You know it. And most I would say Ali. I mean, it's anecdotal, but we get how much feedback here about how do I get my way out of this thing now, we've got something here, don't we?
Absolutely. And this is going to be content that you can do with the small group that you can bring to your church to help them get on board with it. We've got it for you. Just text man to 855 five 7898. If you want to explore more of this free content. This video teaching. This is very much a plug and play option where it has been prepared for you so that you can engage with some brothers in Christ. Go ahead and text man to 800 555 7898. Man to (800) 555-7898.
Robert, before we let you go, give us a story. Give us a story that's fresh on your heart about somebody, a young man. He may not have arrived, but he's got some breakthrough right now.
Well, it's funny you said that because the other day I got a text from a young man in Saudi Arabia, and somehow he had gotten hold of the better man material, downloaded it with another guy and walked through it. Because you're not going to fix your manhood by just a coffee. You've got to have some time where you sit and soak in the truths of the scriptures made relevant through
this kind of video technology. And he had done that by himself with another guy, and they had just talked through it and he wanted to contact me, didn't know how he had worked through our better man resources. But basically what he said, He said, I grew up a Buddhist. I didn't know anything about manhood. I went through the series, I was introduced to Jesus with my friend, and we
talked about it through the series. And he said, I wanted you to know at the end of that time, I gave my life to Jesus.
Oh my goodness.
Now that's a guy who is as far out from my ability to influence him as you can possibly get another country, a different religion. He's using technology, but the truths of the Scripture made relevant to his manhood in community with one other guy. They came to Christ just by listening to the Bible made relevant to their manhood, and they went from a foggy manhood to Jesus's life giving manhood. And that ended up with them walking with
Jesus himself. That's why I'm in the game, Carl. Because I've seen that happen thousands of times.
Wow. You know, I've always known you to be a passionate man. From the time when we sat down, I was in your small group when you were writing this core curriculum, when it all began. And yet, Robert, that fire's not gone out. I feel like it's building here, my friend. God's doing something.
He is doing something. And we've got a lot of great speakers on board who do our video series. But these guys really connect with younger men, and we use older men just to sit at the table as table guides, just sharing honestly their life, going through these experiences. I mean, we have multiple curriculums, but the basic curriculum on the fundamentals of of manhood, called core, is the one we're
offering today for free. And just telling you some time in that soaking in that curriculum with a community of men, just talking and being real, it brings you out of the cultural fog, the woke culture that we're in. That's. Offering dead ends. And it will provide for you an escape hatch to life giving manhood.
Love it. Robert Louis is his name. He's a good man, and he's got some phenomenal content again. Ali. What's that link, sister?
Just text man to 800 555 78, 98. Man. Man (800) 555-7898.
A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
It's Wednesday. It's the bottom of the hour.
It's time making herself laugh. No matter who joins her, it's time for Ali thinks it's funny.
Today's been a good day of jokes.
We do?
Yes. It has.
Let's hope I don't mess it up.
Finish strong, finish strong. Come on, come on.
I shouldn't have set myself up.
Oh, yeah.
You did.
All right. What do you call a fly without wings? This is not philosophical. What do you call a fly without wings? Anyone? Anyone?
What do you believe? He can't.
I believe he can't fly. I don't know.
Oh, wow. Carl's coming with the alternative punch lines today. A fly without wings is called a walk. It's called a walk. Ladies and gentlemen.
Pretty straightforward.
Pretty good.
Yes, yes. And then we like to give soar around here. So I would like to give a bit of a PSA. I think that my account was hacked.
Oh, no.
Unfortunate when that.
Happens.
So if you receive a message from me about investing in canned meat, investing in canned meat, don't open.
It. Ignore it. I already opened it.
Don't open.
It. Oh, no.
You want to know why?
Why? Why?
Because it's spam. It's definitely.
Spam. As soon as you.
Said canned meat, I thought.
That's awesome.
That's great. That's great.
If you want today's jokes, text jokes to 800 555 7898. Jokes to 800 555 7898. Super die always sees the punchline coming.
Yeah she does.
She always gets it.
Is that why she grumbles when it lands?
Because she gets like in her mind. She has all of them answered before I get the get it out.
She does. Can I tell you a quick spam story?
Sure. Yes. All right.
All right, so here's the deal. I was 18.5 years old, and so I'm still relatively young on a crazy new adventure. I had bought a 32 foot gillnetter wood plank gillnetter that had all kinds of problems, not least of which was the fact that it leaked like a sieve.
Okay, what is it, an eight? Yeah. Back it up.
Gillnetter a wood plank. Gillnetter. It's a 32 foot commercial fishing vessel. It was kind of old school. It had a gasoline engine, which is, like very dangerous. They don't do that at all anymore. It's just for commercial fishing. It's just not wise. Catch a wood boat on fire in a heartbeat. So we're. We're fishing in Togiak Bay on the west coast of Alaska. The ice has just come off the water, and we're fishing for herring. So we're putting gillnets down into the water in these herring
schools that come fill it in. Boom. We load it on board. But the funny thing about spam is that we we didn't plan food that we needed on this trip, and we ate up all of our good stuff ahead of time, and all we had left near the end of the season was a huge bag of potatoes and many cans of spam and Grey Poupon mustard. That's it. That's what we.
Had.
There's a combination.
Yeah, and that's what we had morning, noon and night for about a week. We had potatoes, spam and Grey Poupon mustard.
Oh my goodness.
And I found ways to cook spam. Like you can't believe, man. I mean, I would I was trying to air dry it to make it jerky.
Frying it in.
Air. Dried spam.
Yeah.
It was. It was outstanding. And and I cooked. There's gelatin in the spam, you know. So you pull that out and I'd get that all sizzling, and then I'd do thin sliced spam, and then I'd, I'd, I'd, I wrapped it around and put, uh, put little toothpicks in it to make little potato spam. Little.
That's creative.
Like little sliders.
Little sliders.
You gotta do what you gotta do.
But the the the secret sauce to spam if you don't like it. I happen to like it. But if you don't like spam is Grey Poupon mustard man. It covers over.
A.
Massive amount of iniquities of sin. It's just really good stuff.
So you got some spam?
Do people still buy spam?
Oh yeah, I had spam, I don't know, a couple months ago. You did? Yeah, for the first time. So I didn't think it was all that bad. No, it's pretty good. Not that bad.
Who knows what's in that thing?
That's all. That's also very true.
I don't know what's in that sucker, man. It's like, oh, boy, you see those mass processed videos of the goop that comes.
Out, and then.
You realize, oh.
Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to. Yeah.
How hot dogs are made. You don't want the answer to that one.
Nope.
Yeah, there's lots of. You're getting horse innards or cow innards or whatever it is.
Thank you Carl.
All kinds of stuff.
Thank you.
Carl. I just want to bless your socks off. But the good news is, Ali, a little Grey Poupon.
Here's the secret.
See my jokes. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah.
You would not have.
Gotten.
That.
Story had I.
No I wouldn't. Thank you very much.
Come on. Love covers a multitude of sin. And mustard covers a multitude of spam.
Oh, boy, it's Grey Poupon.
Oh, I got some good news for you, Ali. Your favorite. One of your favorite stores, Costco, sells mega packs of spam.
Oh, yeah.
Says one of our listeners.
That's gone on over there?
I love Costco, but I don't love spam. Sorry.
Oh goodness sakes. Okay. Coming up. We got a lot going on. Oh, before we go a step further, it's almost mom's day.
It is. And we want to make sure you know about a great giveaway that ends this week with Mother's Day coming up this Sunday. So make sure you get your entry form in to win a $550 gift for your mom. This is going to be a spa gift certificate. A restaurant gift certificate. You can win it for a mom in your life. You can win it for yourself. If you're a mom, just get the entry form. Tell us what makes your mom so special and unique. Fill out a couple of lines so we have your information
and we will contact you. If you are the winner. Just text mom to 800 555 7898. Text mom to 800 555 7898.
He was sharing the gospel on the radio and then he got saved. Young thunders in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Nothing inspires. Spires. Like seeing someone overcome. Really? But when it's your mom, it's something special, isn't it, Ali?
It is. And so we asked you, what did you see your mom overcome that inspired you? 805 55. 7898. Let's go to Jane calling in this morning from Illinois. Jane. Tell us.
Hi, there. Well. My mom. Oh, my. Oh, boy. She was pregnant with my 11th child. Her 11th child. When my dad died, I was almost three. And she had. So anyway, she carried the birth, and, um, she raised all 11 of us. All 11 of us by herself. No food stamps and all the wonderful programs that they have nowadays. Just lots of good neighbors in a small little town. Plus, she took in a gal when she was in high school at the gal was in high school that just was having a hard time at home.
She said, Will you come and live with us?
Jane took in a gal. Are you kidding me? Your mom. What an inspiration, huh, Jane?
Oh my, oh my, oh, my. We all live by her inspirations today.
What's her. What's her name?
Neva. My mom's name. Neva.
Oh, I gotta tell you, Jane, that is. That is so beautiful. What a story. My goodness. Hold on the line, sister. I know you got to hustle. Thanks for calling in, but I want to get a Carl and crew prize back into your hand. Can you imagine that?
Listen, guys.
Can you get this? She's with child, her 11th. Wow. And her husband passes away, and she rears those kids and takes in. Sorry, but I think we got. Game set. Match on something like that story.
I mean, that's amazing. I can't imagine.
Oh my goodness. Phillip in Illinois. What's your story, my man?
You know, my mother, Hattie Lou Jean Warren Van Lear. Handicapped woman. She had her right leg was eight inches shorter than her left, so she wore a built up shoe. Single parent. My dad, rolling Stone, was never around. She raised two boys in the 50s and 60s. Black woman, handicapped black woman. Worked two and a half jobs, paid off the house, raised us knuckleheads that we were. And I never, not once ever saw her without a smile. Without a gospel song on her lips, without joy. She
would call other people to encourage them. She helped single moms through their pregnancies. I have never complained. Not at all. I mean, she's been an inspiration. She was an inspiration to so many people. She's she's in glory now. She she passed in 2006, but, uh, I, I, uh, I wasn't going to call, but man, I had to, I said, because mama would be saying, boy, what's wrong with you? Didn't you tell anybody?
Yeah, I got to tell you something, Phillip. That's moving man. That is absolutely moving. Thanks for calling in this morning. Those two stories rattle my cage.
Wow. You all day long.
Oh my goodness. Oh, I don't even have words for that.
No.
I don't know what you're up against today, but the reason we've got the Hall of Fame of faith in Hebrews 11. It's for one specific reason to keep going, to keep going. It's why it's there, guys. It's why it's there. Yeah. I mean, in Hebrews 12 one. I forget talking about it. Let me open it and read it. I mean, this is this is what we're called to do and to be. And sometimes, sometimes we get a glimpse of this and we go, oh my goodness, a
hall of fame of faith. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The reason we have Hebrews 11 is because we've got
a call on our life of Hebrews 12. And that's to run the race well. Hebrews 11 is there to inspire us and keep us going when it feels like we just can't do it anymore. And we had two stories here, back to back that if that doesn't put fuel in your belly. Well, of course it does. Of course it does. God had an appointment here this morning, didn't he? Guys, God had an appointment.
Always.
This. This just proves that every once in a while, we keep in step with the Holy Spirit around here on the topics that we want to tackle. Because the fruit was born out of that big time 11 11th child on the way. Husband dies. Raises them all alone. Are you kidding me? Another mom with a disability? That would be discouraging to most gospel. Always on her lips. Raising two boys alone. My goodness, is our God able? He's able.
Did you ever know that you're my hero? And everything I would like to be. I can fly higher than any of. You are the wind beneath my wings.
What'd you see your mom overcome that inspired you? Moms can be so inspiring. What do you think, Allie?
You know, there's a specific story that stands out in my memory. My mom. There was a season of time where she was a home daycare provider. And so we would welcome anywhere from, like, I don't know, 5 or 6 kids. And they would come and they would spend the whole day with us while their parents were working. And that was her way of providing helping provide for
our family. And so there was one particular family that had made an agreement with my mom that she was going to watch their son for a period of time, and at the last minute they kind of bailed and left my mom in a lurch. And so she tried to come to an agreement for the payment that she was owed. And the the dad was, was very dismissive. And he said, I'm not going to pay you. She was like, well, what do you mean you're not going to pay me? You you made this commitment. We had
an agreement. And so it kind of escalated. And he was very he said, I'm not paying you. And she goes, well, I'm going to I'm going to have to take you to court to get the payment. And he said, you're a home daycare provider. The judge is going to laugh you out of court. So my mom was like, oh, okay. So I remember on the day of the court hearing, I had to go stay at my grandma's house. I didn't get to go to court, but I remember being
in the backyard. I can picture the swing set, the little boneyard ditch that ran along the backyard, this little creek and my grandma's yard. And I remember seeing my mom walk forward in her suit by the hedges, and we could see on her face as she emerged. She had one. We knew it. Yes, she had been victorious.
In small claims court.
Against this man who said, the judge is going to laugh you out of court and I don't. That for me was such a core memory. My mom was a fighter. She stood up for what was right, and she never let someone diminish her because of her position or what they thought she lacked. And that stuck with me. My mom was an overcomer. I was so proud of her.
So many people would.
Have caved at that moment. Yeah, I'd say nine out of ten would have caved and said, yeah, we'll let this one go. That's so good. And it was frankly healthy for the dude who lost.
It was he.
Needed he in that moment. He needed the humbling of going, no, I can't just treat people any kind of way.
And he put it up in her face.
You're a home daycare provider.
The judge will laugh you out of court.
I'm sorry, but sometimes overcoming stories make you go, yes.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
Yes. Yes, mom! Get him! Mom! Of course. You did so great.
Oh my goodness! What do you got? Super nice. Something on your heart?
Yeah, I remember my mom especially talking when she was younger. She really overcame what would probably be decades and ages of just family culture for her. She was the oldest of four daughters, yet she was the third one to get married. And she actually pushed to go to college, which was I know, sounds like what. But for her, that was a very huge deal to stand up to this very Greek family, you know, firstborn daughter should have been married. This is who you're supposed to be married to.
She said, no, I'm not going to marry. I'm not going to marry that person, at least right now. And I want to go to school. And it was it was a huge fight. It caused a lot of of walls to go up for a very, very long time. But she went to school. She got a couple years. I had talked about her being, you know, a phenomenal secretary and things like that, and she earned those skills and even worked in Chicago for a while. But for her to take that step back then was huge. And
I just thought very brave to do. Very brave to do. Awesome. It was a very big deal at that time.
Yeah. My my mama kind of broke a tradition. It's funny. Uh, one of the, you know, there's unspoken traditions. Sometimes it's like these. This is kind of the code. Well, there was a Johnson code back in the day. In fact, I was out at an event here last night talking with some women that were about my, you know, nearing my mom's age. She passed on and went with the Lord here a year and a half ago. Two years ago. Um, but my mom was raised in Chicago, was down here
on the Moody campus. My grandma sang on air a lot down here. Live. Isn't that wild, guys? My grandma did.
That. Crazy. That full circle, man.
But what's really interesting is so my mom goes to Southern Cal because my grandpa couldn't handle the cold of Chicago, and he went and actually started a whole chain of gas stations for Atlantic Richfield Company. And so they moved to Southern Cal. And my dad and mom met at a rose parade. Lo and behold. And my dad saw my mom and had the same experience I had with my bride, Jubes. I'm like, that is God's will for my life right there. And my dad looked at mom
and he called her Eva. And he said, Eva, I want to marry you. And they were married, but they they broke the code. And the code was you stay near family. But my dad and mom had a real missionary mindset. And they moved to Alaska before it was a state. So they were breaking codes. Kind of like your mama, super dad. They were breaking a code. And and for years as a young boy and then into my teen years growing up, my mom would get cards
that my family. I'll go ahead and say it. My grandma used as an opportunity to take a shot at the code that was broken. You get what.
I'm saying, I got it.
Exactly. Yes.
And my mom would just cry, and my dad would put his arm around her. And, I mean, it was hard for her because she didn't want to break her mom's heart. Didn't want to break code. But, boy, they were called to Alaska before it was a state to be missionaries. Tentmakers my dad had his teaching degree, ultimately became a principal. The state became a state and it was a mission field. My dad did great work across the state of Alaska. My mom paid a price for it and full circle on that one. Guys is my
my dad. As you can imagine, he was the chief villain because he broke the he ultimately.
Broke the.
Code, right?
Exactly. He stole her. Yeah.
You're the problem.
Took her away. And? they had to be fair with my grandma and grandpa. They had a mixed feeling because they they loved God and they understood missions. But it's like. But not my kid, you know?
Yeah, sure.
Here am I send someone else from another family structure.
Especially the daughter. Like you're taking.
Her? Yeah.
You know, and and she was the firstborn. And so it's, like, really breaking the code. Yeah. Uh, but what an amazing thing to see in my own dad. Mom. The inspiration that they were to me. My grandma was ultimately bad. Health at a time in her life. Lay in latter years. My grandpa had passed away. And none, none of the other siblings could take my grandma. So guess where grandma had to move.
Alaska to Alaska.
She had to move to Alaska.
Wow.
Wow.
The very place that she probably loathed for all those years. And one day I walk into the home I'm working in the oil fields of Alaska. Came down for a break, walked into the home and said, hey, where's, uh, where's dad? Mom said, oh, he's around the corner taking care of grandma. I walk around the corner, my dad's changing my grandma's diaper and I mean cleaning up a mess. And by this time, she didn't have her faculties at all. And I thought, wow, what an inspirational thing. That's my dad
and mom overcoming. But it's inspiring when people overcome. It's a beautiful thing, man, and that's forever etched in my mind. The tears of my mom, the servanthood of my dad and mom, and the love that they showed, even when maybe reasonable people would have said, you don't have to do that. They said, yeah, because of Christ in us, we we do and we will. And it's just a
beautiful thing. I don't know what that does for you, but the book of Hebrews illustrates that it's inspiration in the Hall of Fame of faith are overcomers, and we can as well today.