Are You Living The Low Life?

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This episode I did with Dustin Largusa is an amazing episode.

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He has such a deep heart and love for God.

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His story is phenomenal.

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He went to jail trying to pick himself back up after finding Christ and having suicidal tendencies.

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He's just.

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He's been through so much.

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He has a podcast called the Low Life and it's not because he's a criminal in his past.

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It is because he is trying to teach us to have a heart full of repentance and less pride.

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His podcast does a great storytelling narrative of how to do that.

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He had me in awe.

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Everything he's gone through.

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God gets the glory in everything that has happened in Dustin's life and he is well aware of it.

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And that's what made him a phenomenal guest to have on during this tribute to masculinity, because it's not every day that a man is willing to lay down their pride.

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But Dustin does a fantastic job of that.

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You're going to be blessed by this conversation.

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I'm Anna Murby.

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This is Honest Christian Conversations.

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Before the episode starts make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode.

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Dustin, I am so excited to talk to you.

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You have no idea.

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I have been listening to your podcast every single episode that's come out.

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I love it.

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The whole style, the music in between and your message of laying down your pride and staying low.

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The whole low life show is very awesome.

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The name is catchy it makes you wonder what are they talking about, but the whole message is very deep and it's personal.

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I love how you share your own personal stories and I am so itching to get started talking about your whole testimony and everything.

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So go ahead and just give us an overview of how you came to faith.

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Awesome.

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Well, first, thank you, ana.

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It's a privilege to be able to share these things, and I'm glad that there are people that can receive something from it.

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That makes me feel better about doing it.

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I lived most of my life on borrowed faith.

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My grandfather was a minister, so for over 50 years, very devout, very committed, and so I kind of just lived off of that right.

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Whatever he did was the right thing to do, and then I did my.

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I think I was 18.

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I began to live a worldly life.

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I lived that for probably 20 years, ended up ultimately landing me in prison.

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In prison, and it's kind of cliche.

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We used to make fun of this when I you know, before all of this happened in my life where it'd be like, oh, this person found God.

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He must have gone to jail it was a funny thing.

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But as I look at it today I'm like, wow, that person found God in jail.

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And that's where it started for me was.

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I was in prison.

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I had just lost my mother.

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She got ran over by a car crossing the street.

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My sister and my grandfather the minister both fell rapidly ill.

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My sister, she had beaten cancer and it came back.

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By the time the doctors caught it it had spread through her whole body.

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Those were three pillars in my life, and so I went downhill and just went crazy.

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I went on a crime spree.

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There was parts of that where I was committing crimes with the hope that I would get shot, where they say suicide by cop, and then I landed in prison.

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When I was in prison, my dad wasn't answering the phone and, mind you, this was like my hero.

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This guy was the guy that would bail me out of every circumstance.

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I had been in and out of jail already at that point and all it took for me was a phone call.

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Right, I would call him and he would tell me hey, man, just be strong.

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And that was enough for me to be strong.

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And so I didn't have him doing that.

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I didn't have anybody answering the phone.

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So here I am in a cell at night by myself, going through all these anxious things, wondering what everyone's doing, wondering if people even cared, and I would go through this.

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It's kind of crazy.

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This is like just to give a lens on the anxiety that I would feel.

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I would imagine every person that I loved walking into a building and that building blowing up.

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And this was you know.

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Obviously I know now this was the enemy trying to keep me from doing what ended up happening.

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And what ended up happening was was I looked up and I cried out to God.

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It was just this gentle, you know, reminder that was like hey, you know they're not here, they're not answering the phone, but I've always been here and I'm still here right now.

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Why don't you cry out to me?

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So that was the beginning of this current walk.

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I like to say I used to know of him.

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Now I know him as a person.

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Now he's my friend, he's my father, he's my savior, he's all the things that he's supposed to be to a person.

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He's all of that, and then some to me today.

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But that's where it started.

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I was in that cell and he began to show me, I guess, my errors, some of the sinful ways that my sinful nature and he led me through this thing where I started thinking about the three people that I mentioned earlier, that my mother, my sister, my grandfather how they always loved me unconditionally but they were not afraid to correct me.

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And it made me wonder, and I know this had to have been the Holy Spirit leading.

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It made me wonder what could I do that would, if they were here today, they would be pleased with.

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How can I modify who I am?

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Maybe it's my speech, maybe it's my behavior, maybe it's all these things, right.

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And the scripture came to mind honor thy mother and father, right?

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And so I began to look at how to change the things that they didn't like.

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I just started looking at everything that they didn't like, the things that they would correct me on and love me.

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In spite of and through this I started getting the lens on the love that God has for me, where it's like, dustin, you're a sinner, you're a thief, you're an adulterer, you're a criminal, all these things.

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And in spite of every single one of those, here I am with you in this cell because I love you.

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So I get out of prison and it was stressful.

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Let me give lens really quickly.

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So, even though he was just this is a hindsight story right In the midst of all this, I still was not walking with him.

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There were just moments where he would guide me.

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In hindsight, I know that it's him.

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In the moment, though, I was like, oh wow, I just have this desire to change.

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Oh wow, I'm so clever.

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Wow.

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I love people, right?

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Yeah, so I get out of prison and I'm almost back to the same stuff, because there's not a job that wants to hire me, there's not a place that my resume qualifies me for, that my rap sheet doesn't disqualify me from.

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So I'm stressed out and yeah, and I'm like, okay, I've got people that I know I could reach out to and we can do something and I can get some money.

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Oh, and it's not a big deal, but something told me that I just did not want to do that.

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You know, enter this phone call.

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I get from a brother of mine out in St Louis and he's like, hey, man, come out here.

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So I did that.

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I go from a brother of mine out in St Louis and he's like, hey, man, come out here.

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So I did that.

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I go out there and I'm out there for about a year.

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It was refreshing.

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You know, I wasn't in a fast-paced place.

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I was in Vegas prior to this, right, so it's fast-paced, it's 24 hours, so I'm in slow motion.

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St Louis, missouri, it was beautiful, and and then I feel this sadness and I can't quite place it.

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So I'm like, okay, I need to take a trip.

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I get a message from my sister-in-law wants to surprise my little brother for his birthday.

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My little brother's a pastor, so I take the trip out to California, where I'm at now, for his birthday and we have a good time.

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And then I'm on the train heading back and I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel this really really strong weight Again at the time.

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I think it's just sadness, because now I miss my little brother, now I miss the family and the love that I just experienced.

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Right In hindsight it was God.

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So I get back to St Louis and we'll get to that part where it was God.

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I'll tie all these pieces together, don't worry, I know I'm kind of all over the place.

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So we get back to St Louis and I'm like I asked my brother and them out there.

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I'm like, would you guys be upset if I left?

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They're like no, just do what's right for you.

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You know, make sure you've got these things lined up.

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That lined up, make sure you've got job.

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You know all of the practical things.

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And so I quit my job when I was out there and I happened upon this great remote marketing gig.

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Go through the interview process and there's two more interviews that I have to do and I'm like perfect, I'm booking my train ticket.

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This is a lock right.

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And in that moment, even at the time, I'm like thank you God, okay, you love me, right.

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So I'm on the train and I'm heading across the country and I'm happy, Nothing can bring me down.

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And so I get to the train station in Oakland and that day I'm supposed to have my final interview and nobody shows up Hindsight.

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Again.

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I look at it now and I'm like they must have gotten my background check back and didn't know how to explain to me that they had to take the job back.

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It's the only thing that made sense.

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So I was distraught, to say the least.

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I mean, I was downright suicidal, if I'm going to be completely honest.

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So I found myself in my cousin's apartment in Oakland.

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Mind you, I had come out from St Louis with a duffel bag, and that was it A duffel bag, with some clothes, the clothes on my back and a pistol.

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And so as I'm sitting in that apartment yelling at God, I'm cussing at him, I'm like you're supposed to be real, why would you let this happen?

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It makes absolutely no sense that a God that I see everybody in wonder and awe of everybody talking about God is so wonderful, he's so loving, he's so gracious.

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And here I am.

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I took it on faith to come to California, the most expensive state in the country.

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Yeah, I used to live there.

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Yeah, I get it.

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It's crazy expensive, yeah.

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So I'm like why would you do this, god?

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I'm like you're supposed to be real, you're supposed to be all these amazing things, and this is what you do to me.

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And as I'm having this conversation with him, I've got a gun to my head at this point and I don't know where the conversation came from, because I was pretty resolved to do it.

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I think it was maybe like a, I don't know.

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When I look at it now, I'm like it's almost like one of those hostage negotiations.

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That may be what I was subconsciously thinking, like, god, you're supposed to be so good, I'm just going to do this.

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I'm going to take the life that you gave me away from you.

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Do this, I'm going to take the life that you gave me away from you.

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And in that moment I get a text message from my brother and once I hear that on my phone, all of the suicidal tendency, the anger, the frustration, it drops.

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I don't know who texted me at the moment, it just drops.

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I just feel this overwhelming sense of calm and I look at my phone and he says hey, we started church in San Francisco on Sunday.

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It hasn't stopped.

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It's been 24-hour nonstop prayer and worship, today's day seven, tomorrow's day eight.

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Do you want to go?

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And at this point I don't have a relationship with God.

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Again, I know of him.

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I've got so many people in my family.

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Little brother had my grandfather.

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I've got plenty of ministers in the family.

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I've got uncles, cousins, aunties.

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They love the Lord.

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At this point I'm just like, okay, it sounds great.

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And when I look at it and I've said this before, I'm talking to people I'm like, when I think about it in the moment, it wasn't one of those.

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Okay, I've tried everything else, let me try God.

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It wasn't like a last resort thing, it was just like.

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It just seemed like the best thing to do in that moment was to say yes and to go.

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So I find myself there.

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We go the next day.

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I'm in the city and I walk in and the church has a prayer room in the bottom half right.

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So we walk into the prayer room and there's people singing and praying.

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It was overwhelming to walk into the room.

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You could just feel.

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Now I know what the feeling was right, it was the presence of the Holy Spirit and it was just he was saturating the walls in that place and I walk in there and this is strange.

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I still think about it now.

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I was on autopilot, I had no intentional motion, no conscious thought, but I go and grab a prayer mat and I drop it in front of me.

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After I was 39 at the time, this was just a little bit over a year ago, after living a life of, I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees, like never getting on my knees for anyone or anything.

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In that moment I just dropped to my knees and I just started crying, weeping just overcome, with the presence right.

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And I just started crying, weeping, just overcome with the presence right.

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But in that crying I could just feel all of the years of disappointment, all the years of stress, all those moments of frustration, all of the anger.

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I could just feel it start to peel off of me and it was just replaced with this overwhelming peace, like they say, the peace that makes no sense right, the peace that transcends all understanding.

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Yeah, yeah, I have that right now with the situation going on with my daughter.

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So that's where it began.

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It was that I realized that it was a pride thing that wouldn't let me get on my knees.

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It was a pride thing that wouldn't let me surrender, that wouldn't let me accept God, that wouldn't let me accept that I, dustin the person, couldn't do something on my own strength, that I needed an otherworldly, supernatural force to do this for me.

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And that's where it all started.

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I mean, like now, now I just my whole goal is to see, if you know, to do what I can to help people to get or find a path to that peace.

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I can't give it to them, you know, but I know what, what led me to it, right.

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And so over the course of the year, after that that moment in the prayer room, god just started revealing himself to me immensely different ways, different things through the scripture.

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He started pointing out different ways in my life that he had been there when I didn't realize it started pointing out all the different things, right.

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And I found myself, say, about six months ago, sitting there thinking about you know, doing the podcast thing, and that's where I'm at now.

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He led me through that, created the entire map work.

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It's amazing Like the God we serve, is he's just.

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I'm in awe of him every time.

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I think about this.

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I can see why, I mean, you've been through so much.

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You've had moments of complete desolation, feeling like there's nothing left to live for.

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What am I here for?

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And then, in that last second, god's like hold on, take a second, there is something.

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Here you go, he's come through for you and, like you said, hindsight, it's the same with me and my story.

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I know that God was with me through everything.

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Did I know it in the middle?

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Probably not.

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I probably thought he was mad at me because I called myself a Christian.

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Yet during my prodigal years I went through a whole bunch of things, doing things I knew were wrong, and still did them anyways, with a smile on my face.

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But now that I look back on it, I can see, yeah, he loved me enough to continue pursuing me, even though he knew what I was doing.

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And hindsight I can see everywhere he was working in my life and helping me, keeping me from getting in worse trouble than I could have gotten from some of the stuff that I had done.

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Yeah, I mean, how can you not be in love with them at that point?

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Exactly.

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I mean it's crazy because when we think about from the lens of pain and turmoil and all the hurt, right, what I've learned is a human condition would tell us to focus on the problem we're going through right.

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But this is so crazy.

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So we take that exact phrase, what I'm going through right, and if we look at it from God's lens, he's looking at the going through part, meaning we're going to get through it this is the God that we serve.

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We're so focused on the I'm going through a problem, the I'm and the problem, but right in the middle there is going through right, like wow, and to your point.

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How can you not love serving a God like that?

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How can you not want to spend time with Him and even just sitting in His presence?

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I don't know, there's not a thing that I could ask Him for, because he already knows everything right.

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But in that going through stuff, I look at it and I'm like but he saved me from so many things that I don't even know about Even going to prison.

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What would have happened to me if I was on the street still running amok?

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What further trouble could I have gotten into?

00:15:57.427 --> 00:16:01.568
What harm could I have committed on myself or done to somebody else?

00:16:01.568 --> 00:16:05.426
Yeah, he's just what's that song say?

00:16:05.426 --> 00:16:06.681
Our God is an awesome God.

00:16:07.562 --> 00:16:09.744
Yes, yes, very good song.

00:16:09.744 --> 00:16:15.049
Hey friends song.

00:16:15.049 --> 00:16:17.091
Hey friends.

00:16:17.091 --> 00:16:21.456
Have you joined the Honest Christian Conversations online group yet?

00:16:21.456 --> 00:16:30.004
If you haven't, you're missing out on a perfect opportunity to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ.

00:16:30.004 --> 00:16:33.212
This is a community for those who want to go deeper in their relationship.

00:16:33.212 --> 00:16:37.245
A community for those who want to go deeper in their relationship.

00:16:37.245 --> 00:16:45.133
You can do Bible studies together, ask the questions you have biblically and get the answers that you might need or maybe you're somebody who has answers to somebody else's questions.

00:16:45.133 --> 00:16:47.139
You can leave your prayer requests.

00:16:47.139 --> 00:16:49.163
You can leave your praise reports.

00:16:49.163 --> 00:16:51.808
This is a community.

00:16:51.808 --> 00:16:54.354
This is what church is supposed to be.

00:16:54.354 --> 00:16:55.755
This is a community.

00:16:55.755 --> 00:17:01.672
This is what church is supposed to be, and I am so glad that I finally took that step to make this group so that people's lives can flourish in Jesus name.

00:17:01.672 --> 00:17:08.573
Also, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out on an opportunity there as well.

00:17:08.573 --> 00:17:16.761
I send out a weekly email chocked full of so much awesome content that I don't have time right now to share it all with you.

00:17:16.761 --> 00:17:26.188
But when you do sign up for that mailing list, you get my seven-day free devotional that I created just for those who sign up for the mailing list.

00:17:26.188 --> 00:17:37.786
If you haven't joined either of these, you can go to my website honestchristianconversationscom and sign up there, or you can use the links for it in the show notes.

00:17:38.580 --> 00:17:48.047
Your podcast is definitely something that anybody who has ever strayed off the path or felt alone, lost anything.

00:17:48.047 --> 00:17:58.451
Honestly, anyone could listen to this and I guarantee they're going to get something from it because your story is easy to resonate with, because we've all had some part of that.

00:17:58.451 --> 00:18:10.586
Where we go yeah, that was me, or I'm there now and yeah, I just I love the way that you do it too with, like I said, it's almost like a narration, I guess if that makes sense.

00:18:10.586 --> 00:18:13.030
I don't know if that's what you were going for, but that's what you nailed.

00:18:13.030 --> 00:18:32.647
But yeah, it's easy to listen to, to stay engaged and focused in, because you can hear your passion for your mission for one and, like I said, the music is great and you're honest and vulnerable with your situations that you've been in.

00:18:32.748 --> 00:18:41.730
You have mentioned that you have been in prison and that doesn't discount anything you have to say People should listen to that more because you have been there.

00:18:41.730 --> 00:18:44.586
I think it's funny, like you were saying people make fun.

00:18:44.586 --> 00:18:46.311
Oh, you went to jail and you found God.

00:18:46.311 --> 00:18:50.371
But if you think about it, that is such a ruthless place.

00:18:50.371 --> 00:18:51.986
I've never actually been in jail.

00:18:51.986 --> 00:18:54.413
I have visited them before for a criminal justice class I took in college, but I've never actually been in jail.

00:18:54.413 --> 00:18:59.188
I have visited them before for a criminal justice class I took in college, but I've never actually been in jail.

00:18:59.188 --> 00:19:05.652
But by the grace of God I've been saved from having to go to jail because I did some things that I should have been there for.

00:19:05.652 --> 00:19:08.248
So praise God he never sent me there.

00:19:08.248 --> 00:19:10.114
I would not have survived.

00:19:10.334 --> 00:19:21.753
But I understand the conditions from just what I've seen in shows and reality shows and the small spaces, the different things that can happen to people while they're in there.

00:19:21.753 --> 00:19:27.800
Finding hope in the middle of that seems impossible, especially to the people going through it.

00:19:27.800 --> 00:19:39.084
But there are a lot of people who do find hope in jail and I love the ministries that go into jails and are there to share the gospel with people.

00:19:39.084 --> 00:19:48.371
I would one day love to be involved in one of those because I think that is a perfect place for ministries to go because they need Jesus.

00:19:48.371 --> 00:19:56.961
They probably feel that that's their only life, is that they can just be a criminal and nobody's sharing anything with them.

00:19:56.961 --> 00:20:01.269
No, there's more to life, and God has constantly been showing you.

00:20:01.269 --> 00:20:13.900
There is more to life, dustin, trust me, and you had to get over your pride, just like all the rest of us have to do, and say you know what, god, we're going to do it your way, yeah.

00:20:14.181 --> 00:20:18.031
Yeah, I mean, his ways are better than ours, right, it even says it, his ways are higher.

00:20:18.071 --> 00:20:18.842
His thoughts are higher.

00:20:18.842 --> 00:20:20.026
His thoughts are not our thoughts.

00:20:20.026 --> 00:20:21.088
His ways are not our ways.

00:20:21.088 --> 00:20:28.125
Yeah, that place behind bars, it's a place of hopelessness in a lot of ways, right.

00:20:28.125 --> 00:20:32.471
I don't know A lot of the things that we see on the TV, in the movies, they're real.

00:20:32.471 --> 00:20:36.494
It's not like those are every single day, a second of every single day, but they're real, right.

00:20:36.494 --> 00:20:37.957
People get murdered there.

00:20:37.957 --> 00:20:45.006
People get beat up for being in the wrong spot, for saying the wrong word, for being the wrong color, right, there's a lot of different things that happen.

00:20:45.006 --> 00:20:54.873
One thing that I do want to give lens to, though, is some of the kindest people I've met in my life are actually behind those walls.

00:20:54.873 --> 00:20:56.462
It's an interesting thing.

00:20:56.462 --> 00:20:59.369
God's going to go where God's going to go, right, and he's everywhere.

00:20:59.369 --> 00:21:07.902
But to your point, yeah, the prison ministries are definitely needed more of, and I've seen that there's a lot more going on now.

00:21:07.902 --> 00:21:18.736
I've seen videos on YouTube or Instagram and TikTok of people in prisons worshiping getting baptized.

00:21:20.343 --> 00:21:24.192
But yeah, if you can find a lawless place, it's definitely going to be there.

00:21:24.192 --> 00:21:34.090
I mean, there's not enough funding in the world to have enough staffing to keep things from happening in those places.

00:21:34.090 --> 00:21:36.664
There's always going to be one corner that's not watched.

00:21:36.664 --> 00:21:39.661
There's always going to be one hallway that's not lit up enough.

00:21:39.661 --> 00:21:43.721
There's always going to be one cell that's just around the corner that something can happen.

00:21:43.721 --> 00:21:46.385
But he's definitely needed behind the bars.

00:21:46.385 --> 00:21:49.894
I've actually begun to give back there.

00:21:49.894 --> 00:21:54.285
This is God doing what he wants to do.

00:21:54.285 --> 00:21:55.930
I'm going to share a funny story.

00:21:55.930 --> 00:21:58.344
So I'm looking for a job.

00:21:58.344 --> 00:22:07.839
Right, I'm online looking for a job and you ever go on the computer and you just kind of you're doing something and then you just lose track of time and you forget what you were doing.

00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:10.642
Yeah, a lot.

00:22:10.642 --> 00:22:17.946
I'll have like so many tabs open on my computer and I'm just like wait, what was I working on?

00:22:17.946 --> 00:22:22.210
My kids will start talking to me and then I get distracted and you and me both Right.

00:22:22.210 --> 00:22:23.450
So, yeah, I completely get that.

00:22:23.450 --> 00:22:39.309
I'll walk into a room and I won't remember what I'm going in there for.

00:22:39.549 --> 00:22:50.242
Oh yeah, that reminds me of going to put milk away, but I opened up the cabinet for some reason, so it's one of those moments, right, and I was looking for a job to start what I find myself at, I don't know.

00:22:50.282 --> 00:23:00.651
Probably 45 minutes past, and all of a sudden I'm staring at a page that's telling me about distributors that provide content for the incarcerated, and I'm like what is this?

00:23:00.651 --> 00:23:01.791
How did I end up here?

00:23:01.791 --> 00:23:04.814
By this point, God had already led me through so many things.

00:23:04.814 --> 00:23:06.776
I'm like, okay, let's give it a shot.

00:23:06.776 --> 00:23:09.116
This must be you, God right, so it was four distributors.

00:23:09.116 --> 00:23:18.859
Anyways, long story short, I ended up with one distributor that was willing to work with the Low Life Show to distribute content in the facilities now.

00:23:18.859 --> 00:23:29.270
So right now we're actually being listened to in over 600 facilities across the country, with access to 1,200 facilities.

00:23:29.270 --> 00:23:31.607
So half of the platform is listening now.

00:23:31.900 --> 00:23:33.299
And there's up to what did they say?

00:23:33.299 --> 00:23:36.576
I believe they said a million people a day access the platform.

00:23:36.576 --> 00:23:57.534
That's crazy.

00:23:57.534 --> 00:23:58.575
He made me kind of clever.

00:23:58.575 --> 00:24:06.450
I can put two and two together every once in a while by myself, so I toot my own horn sometimes, and so I'm getting ready to have the meeting with the distributor.

00:24:06.450 --> 00:24:10.911
Obviously, you know the ending of it, but as we're getting into it, I say God, if this is you?

00:24:10.911 --> 00:24:29.988
And I blanketed the entire thing, even the podcasting, because at this point I was still kind of I had recorded a bunch of stuff, had already put some stuff out, but I started to wonder if I was boasting about myself and not boasting about him, and so I said, god, if this is you, I need this to be seamless, because I don't have an income and I know they're going to charge me to use the platform.

00:24:30.328 --> 00:24:33.644
I need this to be seamless, no issues.

00:24:33.644 --> 00:24:37.151
This will tell me if I'm podcasting for you or if I'm doing it for me.

00:24:37.151 --> 00:24:42.471
This will tell me if these things that I'm being led to is me being clever or it's you being sovereign.

00:24:42.471 --> 00:24:49.412
And I get into the meeting and one of the first things that the woman says to me is we're not going to charge you for any of the publishing.

00:24:49.412 --> 00:24:50.394
Praise God.

00:24:50.394 --> 00:24:51.423
And I said okay.

00:24:51.442 --> 00:24:52.508
God, I know this is you.

00:24:53.121 --> 00:24:54.165
I know this is you now.

00:24:54.801 --> 00:24:56.608
I love when he does things like that.

00:24:56.608 --> 00:25:02.272
There's just there's no explanation for it other than, yeah, this is God doing it.

00:25:02.560 --> 00:25:13.530
You can try to bend over backwards, roll yourself into pretzels trying to figure out ways to say it's not him, but there's no way that anyone could say it's not him doing it.

00:25:13.530 --> 00:25:18.031
I've had several times in my life where I can just say you know what, it was not me.

00:25:18.031 --> 00:25:22.476
My freedom from my pornography addiction, that was all God.

00:25:22.476 --> 00:25:24.261
I don't take credit for it at all.

00:25:24.261 --> 00:25:26.465
I can't, I can't take credit.

00:25:26.465 --> 00:25:33.467
I was freed from my pornography addiction at a porn convention where I was doing a ministry for.

00:25:33.547 --> 00:25:39.724
So there's no way that I can take credit for the fact that I no longer have pornography addiction.

00:25:39.724 --> 00:25:44.094
It was clearly God did amazing work there and it was supposed to be.

00:25:44.094 --> 00:25:44.721
Yeah.

00:25:44.721 --> 00:25:49.211
It's like there's times where you just have to say it's all you, god.

00:25:49.211 --> 00:25:54.192
I may not believe in you, but I don't know how to explain this other than it's you.

00:25:54.192 --> 00:26:01.000
Yeah, that that's an amazing opportunity, such a needed and amazing opportunity.

00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:03.950
Your podcast is perfect for that.

00:26:03.950 --> 00:26:07.907
I mean wow, that is ooh, that is good.

00:26:07.907 --> 00:26:09.892
I am so pumped for that.

00:26:09.892 --> 00:26:10.653
You have no idea.

00:26:12.082 --> 00:26:13.367
Yeah, well, that's the lost people.

00:26:13.367 --> 00:26:16.960
Lost people reach, lost people, right Broken people reach broken people.

00:26:17.840 --> 00:26:18.922
Yeah, exactly.

00:26:18.922 --> 00:26:31.710
I mean, I've gotten many chances to go on other podcasts and to share my story of my freedom from pornography addiction, to share awareness of the fact that women struggle with this too, because that's not something that's talked about.

00:26:31.710 --> 00:26:44.864
So, yeah, host of the Bible Speaks to you podcast and his name's James Early.

00:26:45.105 --> 00:27:05.425
He actually goes into the prison system in Danbury, connecticut and he shares the gospel with people there and I mean if he was closer to me I would totally go, but I live a little further away from him in Connecticut so I mean, probably at some point I could make a day trip of it, but I think Danbury's far.

00:27:05.425 --> 00:27:14.980
I'm geography challenged, I don't even know if that's the correct way to say it, so I don't know exactly where he is in proximity to where I am, gotcha.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:15.141
Gotcha.

00:27:15.141 --> 00:27:16.103
Wow, I mean, and that's powerful.

00:27:16.103 --> 00:27:17.125
You were at a convention and were delivered.

00:27:17.125 --> 00:27:18.166
Yep, god, that's powerful.

00:27:18.166 --> 00:27:24.319
You were at a convention and were delivered Yep, that's powerful.

00:27:24.460 --> 00:27:25.482
Only God Only.

00:27:25.502 --> 00:27:31.723
God and the way he got me to admit that I even had the addiction he used my four-year-old son.

00:27:31.723 --> 00:27:37.963
I mean, I've always been the go big or go home kind of person when it came to his discipline for me.

00:27:37.963 --> 00:27:54.026
I always had a hard time listening, I was very stubborn, very prideful and he had to knock me down off my high horse a lot and I've learned from that so that I don't have to always learn the painful way, because it does suck.

00:27:54.026 --> 00:27:59.602
But yeah, I mean I love the way he's showed up in my life many different times.

00:27:59.602 --> 00:28:02.449
Even when I was not faithful, he was faithful man.

00:28:02.489 --> 00:28:03.151
Man.

00:28:03.771 --> 00:28:03.992
Yeah.

00:28:05.421 --> 00:28:06.304
Won't he do it?

00:28:06.304 --> 00:28:07.709
That is so powerful.

00:28:08.059 --> 00:28:28.530
Yeah, I'm loving what he's doing for your podcast and it's definitely going to change hearts and minds, especially those who are incarcerated, because they need to have hope, they need to know that when their time in there is done, they have something they can look forward to, because, I mean, it can't be easy.

00:28:28.530 --> 00:28:32.405
Like you said, you've had a hard time finding a job because of your record.

00:28:32.405 --> 00:28:44.414
That's a reality for most people who are going through this and that alone is enough to make someone not have hope in life, because you need a job to survive, especially in California.

00:28:45.160 --> 00:28:48.710
You need like six jobs to survive in California now.

00:28:48.789 --> 00:28:51.606
Yeah, shoot, yeah, that's just to survive, right.

00:28:51.988 --> 00:28:52.269
Yeah.

00:28:53.682 --> 00:29:08.313
And that's really the biggest part, when I think about the motivation for me, other than just wanting to share the peace, other than like if I look at the practical lens of it, right, other than just wanting to share the piece, other than like if I look at the practical lens of it right, just for for my care for people, it was like what did I not have preparation for when I was behind bars?

00:29:08.313 --> 00:29:11.548
Right, and it was like you get to, you're taught to program.

00:29:11.548 --> 00:29:12.671
You're taught to have structure.

00:29:12.671 --> 00:29:17.083
You're taught to, you know, learn a skill, right, all of these different things, but you're not.

00:29:17.083 --> 00:29:24.734
What you're not taught is that 99.9% of the time, you could have all the skills in the world and these companies are still going to shut their doors on you.

00:29:24.734 --> 00:29:28.167
You know 99.9% of this.

00:29:28.167 --> 00:29:28.628
You know what I mean.

00:29:29.040 --> 00:29:32.990
I've had opportunities, well, at least to get into the interview.

00:29:33.050 --> 00:29:36.029
Right when I'm in the interview, they're telling me about the company.

00:29:36.029 --> 00:29:49.773
I'm comparing my resume to the size of the company, to the nature of operations, and I say I could pretty much run these companies, right, not all of them, but there's a couple of them where I'm like I could be the director of operations for this place and it could be successful, right.

00:29:49.773 --> 00:29:53.625
But yet my record makes me not even qualified to scrub their toilets.

00:29:53.625 --> 00:30:05.566
And then again, it's a humbling thing, right, because as I look at it right now, it's like looking at those two pieces of paper stacked next to each other, the resume and the record.

00:30:05.566 --> 00:30:12.646
Those two things working against each other became a tool for God to humble me.

00:30:12.646 --> 00:30:31.760
But yeah, so that was my human motivation, for it was like shoot, I at least want to give these guys an opportunity to know, like, maybe I can help with the recidivism part, right, they don't have to reoffend, if you know, maybe they develop a life of prayer where they get to talk to God about their issues instead of lashing out at the world.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:43.001
Yeah, I'm glad you chose to step out and take that faith, step and try to do the podcast, try to get it distributed.

00:30:43.001 --> 00:30:44.428
Yeah, it's definitely going to be helpful.

00:30:44.428 --> 00:30:49.092
I mean, like I said, it helped me and I resonate with it.

00:30:49.092 --> 00:30:52.887
There's something about it that makes it engaging to.

00:30:52.887 --> 00:30:54.833
You want to listen, you want to know more.

00:30:55.181 --> 00:31:23.346
I think it's because you're honest and vulnerable and you tell it like it is and you're laying out in a pretty clear way this is what you need to do, this is what you need to stop doing, and there's not that many people out there telling anybody that, let alone somebody who may be in the same shoes that you're in, who was incarcerated but like, okay, this is what you need to stop doing, so you don't end up there again, so that you can have a successful life at some point.

00:31:23.346 --> 00:31:26.414
This is what you need to stop doing, so you don't end up there again, so that you can have a successful life at some point.

00:31:26.414 --> 00:31:27.076
This is what you should be doing.

00:31:27.076 --> 00:31:34.500
Give us an overview of what you've been talking on the podcast so far, so people have an idea of the kind of depth that you go into with it.

00:31:34.701 --> 00:31:41.175
Yeah, so what I do there is I mean, it's basically, like you said, narration it's a testimony.

00:31:41.175 --> 00:31:50.742
It's a testimony to God's goodness, to his glory, to all the things that he's done for me in the midst of all the things that I've done wrong.

00:31:50.742 --> 00:31:56.803
Right, and what ended up happening is it basically becomes what do I call it like a roadmap.

00:31:56.803 --> 00:32:02.125
Based off of my failure, it becomes a roadmap on how to at least begin to walk with him.

00:32:02.125 --> 00:32:09.701
I can't say that it would produce earthly success or treasure or riches or anything like that, but the true riches are in there, right.

00:32:09.701 --> 00:32:16.767
The true riches are in the relationship with him, building up riches in heaven, right, rather than riches that the moths can eat away.

00:32:16.767 --> 00:32:17.971
And so that's what it is.

00:32:17.971 --> 00:32:21.887
It's a framework and it's a process that I use.

00:32:21.887 --> 00:32:27.047
Still, john says it in the word right, he says I must decrease so he can increase.

00:32:28.088 --> 00:32:32.987
And as we look at Jesus's life this was just how it became born, was I began to look at.

00:32:32.987 --> 00:32:38.667
Jesus only describes himself a couple of times in the word, and one of them he describes himself as lowly and meek.

00:32:38.667 --> 00:32:44.160
Right, so that comes about, right.

00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:46.685
And we look at his life and it says that he took up the low position of a servant right.

00:32:46.685 --> 00:32:47.647
And so what it is is.

00:32:47.647 --> 00:32:55.251
It's a framework of all of the areas in life how to get lower, where to get lower, and in doing that we get to lower our pride.

00:32:55.251 --> 00:33:03.685
And then, as James 4.10 says, when we humble ourselves before the Lord, when we get low before the Lord, when we humble ourselves before the Lord, when we get low before the Lord, he'll lift us up.

00:33:03.685 --> 00:33:04.826
He does it, and so that's what it is.

00:33:05.446 --> 00:33:24.523
It's a story of what he's done in my life, what he does for me, how I interact through that in getting lower in my posture, acknowledging his greatness, getting lower in my position, where it's like, okay, I might be a leader, but I'm still a servant, I can't become arrogant about this or pompous about these things.

00:33:24.523 --> 00:33:30.248
And then I get low in prayer and that's a lens from that first day where I got on my knees and I had never done that before.

00:33:30.248 --> 00:33:31.771
So it's just a call to get low.

00:33:31.771 --> 00:33:45.227
At the end of the day it's a call to get low, and in the Bible it only says it's only a couple of things that the Lord hates right Lying lips, haughty eyes.

00:33:45.247 --> 00:33:46.972
Right and in the haughty eyes, if we look at it time and time again.

00:33:46.972 --> 00:33:48.657
It says for the Lord opposes the proud.

00:33:48.657 --> 00:33:50.563
The Lord detests pride, he hates it right.

00:33:50.563 --> 00:33:54.170
So it's that it's just little steps to.

00:33:54.170 --> 00:34:02.667
If we get lower in posture, we get lower in prayer, we lower our position, which, by lowering our position, we acknowledge his position above us, right, his sovereignty.

00:34:02.667 --> 00:34:06.948
That lowers our pride and in doing that we open up more room for him.

00:34:07.169 --> 00:34:08.846
Yeah, I love the concept.

00:34:08.846 --> 00:34:11.889
I totally dig it.

00:34:11.889 --> 00:34:14.188
I'm not from that generation, but I'll use that word.

00:34:14.188 --> 00:34:24.161
But yeah, it's an amazing podcast and everyone needs to flock over there and listen to it, share it with somebody you know and everyone needs to flock over there and listen to it, share it with somebody you know.

00:34:24.181 --> 00:34:37.617
Yeah, if anyone wants to contact you, if they want to listen to the show, maybe they want to know where your podcast is being distributed in the jail systems, because perhaps they know somebody in one of them and they want to share that with them.

00:34:37.617 --> 00:34:39.726
Where can they get in contact with you?

00:34:40.039 --> 00:34:44.447
They could reach out to me on Instagram at DL, underscore the lowlife.

00:34:44.447 --> 00:34:54.172
They could hit up the actual page for the lowlife show it's livingthelowlifeig on Instagram or even shoot me an email livingthelowlifeshow at gmailcom.

00:34:54.172 --> 00:34:57.266
I'd be happy to connect with anybody.

00:34:57.266 --> 00:35:02.407
If people have questions, if they need a brother to walk with, there's no limit.

00:35:02.407 --> 00:35:14.969
We serve a God that there's nothing too small for him to be concerned with and nothing too big for him to overcome, and so the very least we can do or at least from my lens, the very least I could do is be a brother to someone who needs one in the smallest ways.

00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:17.126
Very, very well said.

00:35:17.126 --> 00:35:22.552
I wish you all the best with this distributing of your podcast.

00:35:22.552 --> 00:35:24.465
It's going to change hearts and minds.

00:35:24.465 --> 00:35:25.789
Keep it up, Dustin.

00:35:25.789 --> 00:35:26.864
You're doing a great job.

00:35:26.864 --> 00:35:28.844
Thanks for coming on the podcast.

00:35:29.065 --> 00:35:30.027
Thank you very much.

00:35:30.027 --> 00:35:30.990
Thank you for having me on.

00:35:30.990 --> 00:35:32.284
It has been a pleasure.

00:35:32.505 --> 00:35:33.389
Thanks for listening.

00:35:33.389 --> 00:35:40.503
If you enjoyed the episode, leave a review for the podcast wherever you are listening, or click the link in the show notes.

00:35:40.503 --> 00:35:46.771
If you have feedback for me, use the leave a message or voicemail links also in the show notes.

00:35:46.771 --> 00:35:57.224
You can check out my website honestchristianconversationscom to leave a review or feedback as well.

00:35:57.224 --> 00:35:58.648
Join the community and become part of something bigger than yourself.

00:35:58.648 --> 00:36:03.288
Lastly, sign up for the mailing list and get the free seven-day devotional as a thank you gift.

00:36:03.288 --> 00:36:05.487
Once again, thanks for listening.

00:36:05.487 --> 00:36:07.893
I look forward to our next conversation.