Do You Really Love God?

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Do you love me?

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This is a question that my guest, george Cisneros, was asked by God almost 13 years ago.

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His answer to this was not what you would expect at first, but he has been faithful to the call that God has put on his life and you are going to be encouraged by his story.

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Let's get to it.

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I'm Anna Murby.

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This is Honest Christian Conversations.

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George, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

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I have been wanting to talk to you for a long time and, after reading your book, I'm so glad we were finally able to connect.

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Your book, do you Love Me?

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The title is it's convicting.

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I'll be honest, it's convicting and I loved reading all the stories that you have in there.

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They were heartbreaking, encouraging and challenging and a great reminder for all of us that we have it good here in the United States and that there's others around who don't have that blessing.

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And we need to really see it as a blessing, because we could have been born anywhere, but we were born here and we can't take that for granted, that that is a gift from God.

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So go ahead and tell us how you got started on this journey of becoming a missionary in Guatemala.

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Good morning.

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It is really great to be here.

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That means a lot to me that you read through the whole book and that you enjoyed it and that it was convicting because it was convicting to me and really this story our story of getting to Guatemala and becoming full-time missionaries really is layered into the title of that book.

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Actually, it was about it was in 2011 that I had gone on a short-term mission trip.

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It wasn't anything that I felt the Lord was calling me to do.

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To be honest with you, I really felt like it was just something I wanted to do.

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I wanted to go see what the rest of the world was like.

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I wanted to help the poor, and so it was really more of a personal decision.

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But, of course, God is in there.

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I'm reading currently the book of Esther, and God isn't mentioned at all in the book of Esther.

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Yet God was moving boldly throughout that book, and so I think at that time in my life, even though I didn't feel like God was moving in my life, he was absolutely moving.

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One step before that, a year before that trip to Guatemala, I was in my basement and had just finished watching my favorite football team, the Denver Broncos.

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I remember for whatever reason.

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I remember they lost.

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And I remember just sitting there turning the TV off, I'm alone in my basement and I felt the Lord asking me a question, and it was a weird question.

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He said do you love me?

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And I immediately said, of course I love you.

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Matter of fact, I had just gone to church, because that's what I thought loving God was.

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And then he asked me do you love me more than you love your wife?

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And it was an interesting question, because I'm having this conversation with God and you have to be honest, why wouldn't I be honest?

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And I said you know, I have coffee with my wife every day.

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When something amazing happens, she's the first person I want to tell.

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We share life together.

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I see her physically every day.

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And I just I realized that I loved my wife more than God.

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And then he asked me do you love, do you love me more than you love your kids?

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And that one was a little bit easier.

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You have kids.

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And so it was just easier because I would die for my kids.

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If my kids needed my heart, I would.

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I would happily do it, I would die for my kids.

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And I said, god, I love my kids more than I love you.

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But he was interestingly leading me down this road, because the next question he asked was do you love me more than you love the Denver Broncos?

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Which is really hilarious when you think about it, because I immediately started saying yes, of course, but before I could even get it out, I recognized that I just spent three hours with the Denver Broncos and I did every single Sunday, and sometimes I spend three hours with teams that I don't even know, just because I was bored, watching football and watching sports.

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I was an absolute sports fanatic.

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I loved the Denver Broncos, the Colorado Avalanche, the Denver Nuggets, all of the home teams, the CSU Rams.

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I was a huge sports fan and let me just tell you side note sports is absolutely and can be an idol in your life.

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Whatever we put before the Lord, ahead of the Lord, is an idol, and so that was my idol for sure.

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With that revelation, I talked to my wife about it that night.

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We were laying in bed and I told her what happened and I just made a personal decision.

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I need to explore this.

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I committed to stop praying for myself, for my family, for our businesses, for our lives, and to start just praying to know the Lord.

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The way I decided to do that was just I prayed a short prayer.

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It was the only prayer I prayed.

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I committed to do it for a year.

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So anytime I wanted to pray for anything other than the Lord and getting to know the Lord, anytime I wanted to pray for something, I prayed this small prayer.

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It was just I love you, god.

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I prayed that for a year Fast forward to a year almost exactly a year later, I went on this mission trip to Guatemala.

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I am sitting at the back of this feeding center at the end of our trip and the worship team comes to the front of the room and they start playing music.

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And 200 kids packed in this cafeteria, just, they all stand up and they are raising their hands and they're shouting and they are just singing with all their hearts.

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And for the first time in my life, I saw what love looks like.

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I saw what loving God looked like, and it wasn't what I had been living my whole life, but it was on that day that I recognized you know what I do love God.

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That was the day that I committed my life to him.

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I felt him calling us to Guatemala.

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I didn't understand why we were living the American dream.

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We had a beautiful home in an amazing neighborhood with the right school district.

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We had, you know, two cars.

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We had, you know, four kids, a dog.

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We were living the American dream.

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My wife was not on that trip with me.

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I get back to Colorado, explained to her what I felt the Lord was calling us to do and she literally just said one word and she said okay.

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Seven months later, that was January of 2012.

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In July 12th so very recently we celebrated 13 years in Guatemala, but July 12, 2012, we were landing.

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We'd sold everything our home, our cars, our businesses, all not something that everyday Americans choose to do.

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Just give up all their comforts and go and do something that they don't know what's going to happen with it, they don't know how it's going to turn out.

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Just get up and do it.

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Nobody does that and it's sad to say that that nobody does that, especially as Christians, because we should have a broken heart for the lost, no matter where they are, and we should want to not feel so comfortable and cushy in our own life where we don't want anything or anyone to distract us from it.

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But for God to ask you those questions and for you to be honest, that is major humility.

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You have to lay down your pride big time to be able to say, yeah, I don't love you as much as I love these things, and to take it a step further and realize that that's a bad thing.

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It's not something to be like oh yeah, I love them more and then just go on with life.

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No, that should convict you, should convict all of us when we actually take the time to think do we love God more than fill in the blank, whatever it is?

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It really, really made me think was do I even love God?

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Because here's the thing as Americans, I think a lot of Americans just believe that, hey, we're a Christian nation and I love God.

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And it's one thing to say you love God.

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Everybody can say it.

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They're just words.

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I love God, I'm a Christian.

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Everybody does say it.

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Yeah, everybody says it, but it really is.

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And we're not saved by works, of course.

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But where is the fruit in our life?

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And let me just tell you, when the Lord is talking to you and you are so absolutely sure that it is the voice of the Holy Spirit, what are you going to do?

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A you're going to be honest and B you are going to deny yourself, take up your cross and you are going to follow him.

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And I just want to like just take a second here to really encourage people to ask the Lord for direction, but be obedient, because he will tell you.

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He tells us in His Word.

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I tell people this all the time and I have a lot of people I would love to hear from the Lord in that way.

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I would love to hear the Lord telling me what I should do with my life.

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Let me just tell you that is so rare to have that type of conversation with the Lord for me, it's only happened a few times in my entire life.

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But if you spend time in the word of God, he will speak to you through his word almost every day, like regularly.

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Here's the thing Only 11% of Christians Christians actually read the Bible daily.

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11% of Christians read the Bible daily.

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I don't even know how you can be a Christian without reading the Bible.

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I'm just.

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This is just my humble opinion.

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No, I agree.

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I try to start my day off reading the Bible.

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I just told my kids today.

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They're like why are you reading?

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I said, if mommy doesn't start her day with Jesus, mommy's not a good mommy.

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That's the bottom line here is I need this for me and you will appreciate it later, trust me.

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Absolutely, if you want to hear from the Lord.

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I mean, this is really my mountain that I stand on right now is just is.

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We have a middle school that we established here in Guatemala and every single day I teach Bible and every single day we are reading the word.

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And my hope and my prayer, when they leave, is that they will have a habit of reading the word of God, because it will transform you, it leads you to faith and with that faith then we're filled with the Holy Spirit and when we have the Holy Spirit, he begins a work of sanctification in our life, and then it's game on, and then all of a sudden your entire life changes and it all starts and I think, obviously conversations with the Lord, but it all starts with reading the Word of God daily and meditating on it throughout the day.

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Yeah Well, as I was reading your book, you started talking about how you shared with everybody this passion.

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You had to go to Guatemala, sell everything.

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You shared it with your friends, with your family, with your church people, and I was really shocked at their reaction.

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I don't know why I was shocked I shouldn't be, especially from American Christians nowadays and how comfortable and cushy we are, but it really did shock me that it seemed like everybody you told had about the same reaction.

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And what would that reaction be?

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Go ahead and tell the audience.

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So there were a couple of reactions that really stood out.

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Reaction be Go ahead and tell the audience.

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So there were a couple of reactions that really stood out.

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My wife's best friend was just angry with her and, as a matter of fact, her husband asked me out to coffee and we sat there and this is not in the book, but we were sitting there and he says you know, I don't know how you can do this to your family, and which is just, they're Christians.

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They went to our church.

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It was just so weird.

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But and then another friend, a good friend of mine, wrote a huge letter on yellow notebook paper and gave it to me and he was just, he was angry, but at the end of the day they were both just heartbroken.

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I believe that they and you know we've not reconciled with either one Number one, one friend I lost contact with, and then my wife's, her friend, they just grew apart.

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The most impactful one was when I called my mom.

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And again, these are all completely understandable, but when I talked to my mom, we get back, I get back from Guatemala, we make this decision.

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That night she said, okay, the next day we decided not to put our house on the market.

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It was the first week of January.

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For whatever reason, we didn't put the house on the market until a certain period of time.

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But that next day we called my mother and I explained to her what the Lord was calling us to do.

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And there was a pause and she's like I don't believe you, like ha, that's funny, it's not a funny joke or whatever.

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But then she said I will never forgive you.

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I will not forget those words, I'll never forgive you.

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And so for seven months she did everything she could to manipulate our kids, to say she even told us if you want to leave the kids with us and go do your thing, that's fine.

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We had four kids, which obviously was never even a thought.

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Literally, the week before we left she did call me up and she said I forgive you, I'm proud of you and I love you.

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And it still kind of chokes me up right now as I talk about it.

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But and she has been our biggest cheerleader for the last 13 years she's been amazing.

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They come out to visit us, we go to visit them and we have an amazing relationship.

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But it is hard and that is probably one of the harder things as a missionary when you leave the States is that you really it's hard to be in contact and really have that same relationship with your family and your very close friends.

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Everything changes and you're very close friends.

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Everything changes.

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Did it upset you that there were so many people who said they were Christians who were not happy for you?

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Was that a thing that just upset you?

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I don't think it did.

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To be honest, I really feel like I just had a huge amount of compassion for my mom.

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I think later in time we understood and had way more compassion for my mom.

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I think later in time we understood and had way more compassion for our friends.

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My mom again said that she was a Christian.

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I believed, at least you know, at the time that she was Christian, but I'm now realizing that really she's only been saved over the last couple of years and she would agree to that, she would admit that.

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And so again it's, you know, one of those things where you can profess yourself as a Christian, but it's really where's the fruit in your life?

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And so then I would say that when we got onto the field this is a very normal thing that every single missionary that we talked to I mean 90% of them would agree.

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They had very similar experiences, with not as positive results as we did.

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As with my mom, where they're usually it's it's the parents are just not in agreement with the decision, and I understand.

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They are losing their grandchildren, they want to be around their grandchildren, they're, they're missing you and they don't know.

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That seems like a dangerous country to, regardless of where you go, it all you go.

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So it's really, honestly, more than hurt or anger or anything like that.

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I really felt just a massive amount of compassion, only given to me by the Holy Spirit, because I couldn't have had that compassion for them.

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Yeah, I can imagine that if we only went off of human emotions, we could be easily irritated and say you hypocrite, why are you not happy?

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This is what God calls us to do.

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So, yeah, he definitely gave you supernatural compassion, and you can always look back on it later and be like, yeah, I can understand why someone would be upset, but in the moment when you're trying to share this wonderful joy and this excitement, you have to have people bursting your bubble.

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It's so irritating.

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You're like why?

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Why are you not happy for me?

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Don't you see how happy this is?

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Our family seems happy and yeah, so I can imagine that that would be irritating.

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Yeah, it's not something that we were expecting, for sure.

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So let's transition a little bit to once you got to Guatemala and you started your ministry.

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I found it very amazing that only $75 American dollars could get so much in Guatemala.

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Give us an idea of what it can give.

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You don't have to list everything, but just like things that we would take for granted here but mean so much to people in Guatemala.

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It's really almost a never ending list, Like I don't even know what I mentioned in the book.

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But of course you can get more fruits and vegetables.

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You can get just pounds of fruits and vegetables for, you know, $10.

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You can get the basics of what they eat.

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So you're not getting a lot of like meat and protein in that way, but you are getting beans and you are getting vegetables and you're getting, so you can get those things at a lower cost here.

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I do find that that you know still there's a lot of people that that don't eat as healthy as they probably could, and if they, if they did, there would be more abundance of of things to eat.

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But, for example, I just don't even think about it.

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But like, we have running water in our home, but not everybody here has running water.

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The reason we have running water is because when we built the academy, we built our home.

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Here we have a big, big, I guess cistern Is that what it's like where you hold the water, and so we always have that water running.

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No, we don't know anyone that has hot water.

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That's just not a thing.

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Most people do not have showers.

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They fill buckets of water.

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They put it out onto a concrete sidewalk and it warms up throughout the day.

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Then at the end of the day they come home and they sponge bath.

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That's how they bathe every day.

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Very few people, no, very few people, have showers, no running water or very little running water, and then no hot water, and the electricity is extremely rationed, and what I mean by that is they ration it so they generally only use electricity at night when they're doing work.

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So they're either working in the home or cooking or whatever, or the you know kids are doing homework.

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So everything is just.

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The life is completely different here, and when we started this ministry we wanted to love people.

00:18:48.798 --> 00:18:56.153
We were kind of our foundational scripture that we kept in mind was love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and soul.

00:18:56.153 --> 00:19:07.457
So that meant us chasing after the Lord and knowing him more through the word, but then love your neighbors yourself, and so we were sharing our faith by loving our neighbor.

00:19:07.457 --> 00:19:11.089
The ministry has transformed to really.

00:19:11.089 --> 00:19:19.575
Now we share the gospel more than we do humanitarian work, and I think a lot of Christians can get caught up.

00:19:19.575 --> 00:19:26.790
A lot of missionaries go to other countries and get caught up in humanitarian work, whether it's food or medical.

00:19:26.790 --> 00:19:30.073
Those are all necessary and we still do those things.

00:19:30.073 --> 00:19:31.534
We have a medical ministry.

00:19:31.534 --> 00:19:38.960
We have widows that we have adopted, that we take care of, but our main thing right now is sharing the gospel.

00:19:39.381 --> 00:19:46.694
And let me just tell you, in Guatemala, for example, all across Central America, people go to church three nights a week.

00:19:46.694 --> 00:19:52.916
Here, the majority of the country are either Catholic or evangelical, and they profess themselves as Christians.

00:19:52.916 --> 00:20:06.818
The dilemma, and where we come in, is that almost every single Christian in the villages of Guatemala, which is most of the country, are living under bondage of the law.

00:20:06.818 --> 00:20:09.425
There are rules and regulations that they need to follow.

00:20:09.425 --> 00:20:20.653
So, for example, we had a Bible study on Galatians, which really talks about we're saved by grace and faith and not by works.

00:20:20.653 --> 00:20:24.499
That's the entire book or the entire letter of Galatians.

00:20:24.499 --> 00:20:25.240
That's what it's about.

00:20:25.240 --> 00:20:28.375
So we had a Bible study on it and we started the Bible study.

00:20:28.526 --> 00:20:34.131
I started the Bible study out by just asking you know, there's probably 45 people there what do you have to do to be saved?

00:20:34.131 --> 00:20:38.009
And so this is just a kind of a sampling of the villages of Guatemala.

00:20:38.009 --> 00:20:38.869
What do you have to do to be saved?

00:20:38.869 --> 00:20:53.704
Well, you have to do to be saved, Well, you have to go to church, you have to read the Bible, you can't sin all this list of things, that you have to be baptized, you have to pray.

00:20:53.704 --> 00:20:55.547
Then I broke it down and said, okay, well, how often do you have to pray In order to be saved?

00:20:55.547 --> 00:20:59.230
If you have to pray, and they're like they, you know, after some discussion there's like well, three times a day.

00:20:59.230 --> 00:21:01.372
Well, okay, so you have to read the Bible.

00:21:01.372 --> 00:21:05.154
How much of the Bible do you have to read, Like how much every day?

00:21:05.154 --> 00:21:06.635
They're like, yes, every day.

00:21:06.635 --> 00:21:08.837
Well, how many times do you have to go to church?

00:21:08.837 --> 00:21:11.619
Three times a week at least, if you want to be safe?

00:21:11.619 --> 00:21:18.048
So they were going through this whole thing, and this is what it's like in the villages of Guatemala.

00:21:18.067 --> 00:21:24.720
And then, when we go through Galatians, I'm like, okay, well, let's take all of that and let's compare it to what God says in his word.

00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:27.109
And all of a sudden it's like wait a minute.

00:21:27.109 --> 00:21:30.017
The Bible does not say you have to be baptized to be saved.

00:21:30.017 --> 00:21:31.612
The Bible does not say you have to go to church.

00:21:31.612 --> 00:21:33.209
The Bible, you know, are those things good?

00:21:33.209 --> 00:21:34.152
Absolutely.

00:21:34.152 --> 00:21:34.933
Are they important?

00:21:34.933 --> 00:21:35.957
Is it important to read the Bible?

00:21:35.957 --> 00:21:42.566
Of course it is, but that is not how that's been.

00:21:42.566 --> 00:21:55.821
Our focus for at least the last five years is nailing and going deep into sharing the gospel in a healthy way so that they can be relieved of all this legalism.

00:21:55.821 --> 00:22:05.378
They are buried under legalism and the United States has their own issues, but that's, I think, the weight of Guatemala.

00:22:26.704 --> 00:22:27.607
But that's, I think, the weight of Guatemala.

00:22:27.607 --> 00:22:29.816
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00:23:23.258 --> 00:23:28.377
I have a heart for that because I grew up feeling very legalistic.

00:23:28.377 --> 00:23:41.833
That was the type of Christianity that I had as well, so I can relate and I sympathize with your heart, wanting to help them get out from under that, because it is a dangerous trap.

00:23:41.833 --> 00:23:49.333
You can think that you're going to heaven because you do all these things and then you have to remember the verse that says depart from me.

00:23:49.333 --> 00:23:53.085
I knew you not and nobody wants to be that person.

00:23:53.085 --> 00:24:03.154
Having to go through that, to have that heart and to change the ministry to help people, is freedom, true freedom, and they're going to appreciate it so much.

00:24:03.365 --> 00:24:04.288
Yeah, absolutely.

00:24:04.288 --> 00:24:12.655
We have recently started going into Cuba, which that is I don't know how you want to say it it's a higher need.

00:24:12.655 --> 00:24:14.546
I don't know what you know about Cuba.

00:24:14.546 --> 00:24:18.374
Cuba is crazy as far as needs and so their needs.

00:24:18.374 --> 00:24:34.458
They're riddled in Santeria, which is a whole other religion, but they still profess themselves as Christians because Santeria is a mix of, a melding of Catholicism with these ancient African religions, including voodoo.

00:24:34.458 --> 00:24:39.516
They've been put together and so it is different work there in Cuba.

00:24:40.037 --> 00:24:52.938
It sounds like you guys have a great ministry and it's moving forward and God is blessing it and you're having encouraging interactions with people as well as sad ones.

00:24:52.938 --> 00:25:02.673
I know in your book you mentioned in one of the chapters it was called I will never get used to the little caskets and that really broke me.

00:25:02.673 --> 00:25:13.958
Can you give people a little idea of what it's like not just the positive, but that you have to, as a missionary, represent God through the difficult times too?

00:25:14.326 --> 00:25:25.518
Separating out short-term ministry trips, like maybe a week or two weeks or even a month, is just completely different than devoting years to serving God's people.

00:25:25.518 --> 00:25:35.518
Different than devoting years to serving God's people, and when you have built relationships and you have become someone that people can trust, there's a lot of depth.

00:25:35.518 --> 00:25:46.933
I've been to more funerals just general funerals in the last 13 years than in not even close to the number that I had been to in the previous 45 years.

00:25:46.933 --> 00:25:54.969
It's not even close and so, but the most heartbreaking ones are just there's so many babies dying, and, and really unnecessarily.

00:25:54.969 --> 00:25:57.698
One of the big reasons is just malnutrition.

00:25:57.698 --> 00:26:20.900
So they're born, they're severely malnourished and, and really the government I humbly say this, but the government has, like they're not doing anything significant to make those changes in order to save those babies, because it's not just saving that baby, but it's saving future babies by teaching those moms how to prepare and take care of their kids and to nurse them well.

00:26:21.325 --> 00:26:35.251
So you know kids I don't know what the percentage is it is a very high percentage of kids that are born into malnourishment, and so we actually had some friends from the United States, from Colorado, that we didn't know them before, but they came out.

00:26:35.251 --> 00:26:39.333
They lived with us for a year and a half and she was an emergency room nurse.

00:26:39.333 --> 00:26:51.073
She became so heartbroken over these malnourished kids that in our village they actually founded, they started a center for malnourished kids that in our village they actually founded.

00:26:51.073 --> 00:26:52.017
They started a center for malnourished kids.

00:26:52.017 --> 00:26:58.535
Now they serve I don't even know how many between 20 and 50, depending on the time but they actually go in and they save these babies.

00:26:58.535 --> 00:26:59.457
I'm not kidding you.

00:26:59.457 --> 00:27:09.369
I literally I don't know how many babies they have saved, but dying babies the kind that you would imagine that you see in the old commercials of the skin and bones.

00:27:10.270 --> 00:27:11.933
And they save these babies.

00:27:11.933 --> 00:27:24.010
But, more importantly, they teach the moms for their future kids, because, I don't know, there's probably an average of five kids per family, but it can be as high as 10.

00:27:24.010 --> 00:27:35.128
And so they teach them for the next babies that they have, the next generations, how to probably care and nourish their babies and, what's important, how they should eat and all that stuff.

00:27:35.128 --> 00:27:39.436
And then they also weekly give them a foundation of Bible.

00:27:39.436 --> 00:27:43.309
And so there's so many medical needs.

00:27:43.309 --> 00:27:46.557
These deaths come from lack of medical care.

00:27:46.698 --> 00:27:51.994
In Guatemala we have a national hospital and they're spread throughout the country.

00:27:51.994 --> 00:27:57.551
But the problem is, even though it's free, the care is just horrible.

00:27:57.551 --> 00:28:05.550
Generally, when you go in, there's not enough medicine, so you have to bring your own medicine that you might need.

00:28:05.550 --> 00:28:15.652
If you are going to need a blood transfusion, you have to have your donors tested and lined up Most people, even family members the weirdest thing.

00:28:15.652 --> 00:28:26.289
But if somebody is going to have a surgery, they get like three family members to go in and they pay their family members or they pay their neighbors to go in and give blood before the surgery.

00:28:26.289 --> 00:28:31.096
It's just a different world.

00:28:31.135 --> 00:28:34.740
Yeah, free is not always better sometimes.

00:28:34.740 --> 00:28:38.709
Free is not always better.

00:28:38.709 --> 00:28:43.898
I'm glad to hear that there is help being done for those little babies.

00:28:43.898 --> 00:28:54.068
I can't imagine watching your child suffering like that and knowing that you want to help them but you don't have the tools, the knowledge to do so or the abilities.

00:28:54.068 --> 00:29:05.278
So I can imagine that that is encouraging to your heart to see that it's turning a tide and hopefully it'll get a lot better for everybody involved in those situations.

00:29:05.644 --> 00:29:12.106
That ministry is amazing and I'm just going to do like a shameless plug for them right now, but I think it's.

00:29:12.126 --> 00:29:12.488
Casa.

00:29:12.728 --> 00:29:13.269
Tabito.

00:29:13.269 --> 00:29:20.409
So C-A-S-A Tabito, t-a-b-i-t-o dot com, I think, but it's Casa Tabito.

00:29:20.409 --> 00:29:23.095
In Guatemala they are saving babies.

00:29:23.095 --> 00:29:26.373
If somebody wants to be a part of that, they're a really great ministry to support.

00:29:26.765 --> 00:29:27.726
Yeah, absolutely.

00:29:27.726 --> 00:29:32.670
Now let's go into what you're doing with your academy.

00:29:32.670 --> 00:29:34.351
Tell us about the me.

00:29:34.351 --> 00:29:36.874
We're like okay, we're going to Guatemala.

00:29:47.325 --> 00:29:49.872
We had an idea, but we really didn't know what we were going to do.

00:29:49.872 --> 00:29:52.468
We thought we were going to be helping this other ministry.

00:29:52.468 --> 00:30:13.826
We get here, they help us settle in, but then, as it turns out, that wasn't going to happen, and so just over time it evolved and we began this kind of after-school service in one small village, which is where we still are, the village of El Rosario, and it's basically they get out of school, schools, don't feed the kids here, so they would get out at about noon.

00:30:13.826 --> 00:30:17.857
They would come to this house that we rented, this tiny little house.

00:30:17.857 --> 00:30:21.532
It's amazing thinking about it, but this just is probably 10 by 10.

00:30:21.532 --> 00:30:24.106
We'd have 20 kids at a time packed in there.

00:30:24.106 --> 00:30:33.633
We would serve them lunch, we would help them with their homework, we would teach them a little bit of English, because they were just super interested in that, and then we would teach them a little bit of Bible.

00:30:33.933 --> 00:30:39.236
And so we did that from third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade, so elementary school, and it was just boys.

00:30:39.236 --> 00:30:39.977
At the time.

00:30:39.977 --> 00:30:48.720
We didn't know why, but we felt like God was calling us to raise up boys to be men of God, and really that's not changed.

00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:53.823
And so at the end when we had one kid go from third grade through sixth man.

00:30:53.823 --> 00:31:02.029
I remember sitting with my wife in an airplane going back to the United States to raise support and she asked me do you think they're ready?

00:31:02.029 --> 00:31:04.096
Did they get enough from third through sixth grade?

00:31:04.096 --> 00:31:04.557
Are they men of God?

00:31:04.557 --> 00:31:05.622
Are they ready to go out through sixth grade?

00:31:05.622 --> 00:31:06.545
Are they men of God?

00:31:06.545 --> 00:31:07.386
Are they ready?

00:31:07.446 --> 00:31:12.828
to go out into the world and I, just, I just remember thinking, no, they're not remotely ready.

00:31:14.353 --> 00:31:16.017
They're so adult who aren't either.

00:31:16.704 --> 00:31:18.876
No, no, no, I know I don't know what I was thinking.

00:31:18.876 --> 00:31:20.365
Honestly, we were just again.

00:31:20.365 --> 00:31:26.010
It was just, and again, as I look back, the Lord was preparing me as I was preparing them.

00:31:26.010 --> 00:31:33.378
It wasn't a, I mean, maybe it was about them God's not one dimensional but it was mostly about me preparing me for the future.

00:31:33.378 --> 00:31:35.582
And so at the end of that I said what are we even doing?

00:31:35.582 --> 00:31:42.296
Like we just spent four or five years teaching these boys and now I'm here saying, yeah, they're not ready, they're not remotely ready.

00:31:42.296 --> 00:31:43.428
What have we even done?

00:31:43.428 --> 00:31:46.576
That is really humbling and devastating to be honest.

00:31:46.904 --> 00:31:50.355
So we decided, okay, well, what are some options?

00:31:50.355 --> 00:31:55.453
And we thought should we just have a Bible academy for older kids, maybe middle school or high school?

00:31:55.453 --> 00:31:56.890
What should we do?

00:31:56.890 --> 00:32:00.895
But I wasn't prepared to lead any kind of a Bible academy.

00:32:00.895 --> 00:32:07.506
To be honest with you, as we got onto the field, my knowledge of scripture was really anemic in the beginning.

00:32:07.506 --> 00:32:08.930
It was just growing.

00:32:08.930 --> 00:32:16.067
And let me tell you that if you feel unprepared, you are more prepared than I was.

00:32:16.067 --> 00:32:17.832
So it's really about obedience.

00:32:17.832 --> 00:32:19.454
Can you just be obedient?

00:32:19.454 --> 00:32:20.718
Just take the next step.

00:32:20.718 --> 00:32:21.926
He will guide you.

00:32:21.967 --> 00:32:25.675
And so we ended up founding a middle school.

00:32:25.675 --> 00:32:32.047
We started in middle school, obviously just one year, so the first year was just seventh grade and then eighth grade and then ninth grade.

00:32:32.047 --> 00:32:39.015
So now we have a middle school with seventh, eighth and ninth grade, and this is what we have now and it's clearly evolved.

00:32:39.015 --> 00:32:43.026
But I teach Bible from eight to nine every morning.

00:32:43.026 --> 00:32:44.990
It's our first fruit of the day.

00:32:44.990 --> 00:32:47.517
We give it to God and we teach.

00:32:47.517 --> 00:32:56.173
So this year so far we have gone through the book of Luke, acts, romans, 1 Corinthians, and we're now on chapter two of 2 Corinthians.

00:32:56.173 --> 00:32:59.523
I am teaching them the Bible.

00:32:59.523 --> 00:33:00.666
We're not just reading the Bible.

00:33:00.666 --> 00:33:12.444
I'm going through verse by verse and expounding on what the author was saying to the people of the time and what the Lord is saying to us now, explaining context.

00:33:12.444 --> 00:33:13.326
Where is this?

00:33:13.326 --> 00:33:14.348
Why is that?

00:33:14.348 --> 00:33:15.170
Who is that?

00:33:15.170 --> 00:33:17.400
And they are loving the Bible.

00:33:17.400 --> 00:33:25.924
My hope and prayer again is that they leave and they have a habit and a desire of reading the word of God, that the word would guide them.

00:33:26.025 --> 00:33:30.923
So our first kids graduate from ninth grade, from our middle school.

00:33:30.923 --> 00:33:35.382
My wife, we sit down, we analyze the year and she said do you think they're ready?

00:33:35.382 --> 00:33:37.527
And I said I've done all I can.

00:33:37.527 --> 00:33:40.681
It's the Holy Spirit's job from here on out.

00:33:40.681 --> 00:33:45.833
He never promised for us to see fruit of pastors or anything like that.

00:33:45.833 --> 00:34:04.421
My goal is not really that they would have a foundation in the Word of God in a way that they could lead their families, that one day they could lead their wife and their own kids into knowing the Lord, loving the Lord and serving the Lord and not just calling Him Lord but actually making him Lord of their lives.

00:34:04.421 --> 00:34:14.123
And so we feel very confident and we have for the last five years in that we're exactly where God wants us in the academy.

00:34:14.123 --> 00:34:18.942
So after that hour they have math and science and all the other classes.

00:34:18.942 --> 00:34:20.284
It's a small academy.

00:34:20.284 --> 00:34:25.213
We only have maybe 35 kids, but God had 12.

00:34:25.213 --> 00:34:30.893
So we don't have to have this big, huge school to make a difference and to make an impact.

00:34:31.074 --> 00:34:42.489
Yeah, I love that and I enjoyed listening to all the different stories that you had in this book talking about the different boys and how your interactions with them Very encouraging.

00:34:42.489 --> 00:34:44.813
Everyone's going to need to read your book.

00:34:44.813 --> 00:34:46.746
I read it in two days.

00:34:46.746 --> 00:34:55.411
It was just an easy and exciting read that it was not taxing on the brain like some books are.

00:34:55.411 --> 00:34:58.028
It was taxing on the heart, that's for sure.

00:34:58.028 --> 00:34:59.786
Yeah, no problem.

00:35:01.240 --> 00:35:03.722
I think about that question all the time.

00:35:03.722 --> 00:35:05.543
Do you love me more than?

00:35:05.543 --> 00:35:24.835
And yeah, it's changed my perspective on being more grateful and just remembering the stories that you told and how important it is to care and to remember that there's others out there who are struggling maybe the same way you are, maybe not quite the same.

00:35:24.835 --> 00:35:34.476
And it even gave me pause about what kind of Christian I am as an American Christian, the things that I take for granted, reading the Bible.

00:35:34.536 --> 00:35:38.925
There's some countries where you can't even do that every day, and here I am.

00:35:38.925 --> 00:35:52.507
I don't feel like doing it today or I'm only going to do like a couple minutes and, like you said, there's like 11% of Christians are even reading their Bible.

00:35:52.507 --> 00:35:54.394
So even reading it for a couple minutes, that's a lot better than a lot of people.

00:35:54.394 --> 00:36:01.592
It's just made me think about things a lot different after reading your book and realizing that you can just give it all up for God.

00:36:01.592 --> 00:36:16.001
Maybe you don't think you can, but you can, and maybe you don't have to do it in the way that you did, where you actually go somewhere, but perhaps what you love more than God, you can give that up and it's not going to kill you.

00:36:16.242 --> 00:36:17.043
No, absolutely.

00:36:17.043 --> 00:36:18.706
I definitely don't think.

00:36:18.706 --> 00:36:27.987
Being 13 years in, I don't believe that God, that we're all supposed to sell everything and move to another country Absolutely don't.

00:36:27.987 --> 00:36:30.121
That's what God called us to do, and we were obedient.

00:36:30.121 --> 00:36:34.170
So what is God calling you to do and then just be obedient?

00:36:34.210 --> 00:36:39.309
That's a dangerous prayer, like if you're really going to pray that God direct my steps.

00:36:39.309 --> 00:36:46.226
Well, when he directs your steps and then you don't obey because you know well, was that God or was that or was that?

00:36:46.226 --> 00:36:47.489
You know just my thinking.

00:36:47.489 --> 00:36:51.606
That's why I say it's so important to just be in your word.

00:36:51.967 --> 00:37:05.875
Here's the crazy thing about something that you said that has been convicting to me recently, and that is that we all say that we can't wait for Jesus to return and to be with him and spend eternity with him.

00:37:05.875 --> 00:37:12.012
Right, we all say that, yet we don't want to spend 15 minutes with him a day in the Bible.

00:37:12.012 --> 00:37:13.945
Like that's mind-blowing.

00:37:13.945 --> 00:37:18.731
Right, it's like you can say you want to spend eternity with him.

00:37:18.731 --> 00:37:24.181
But if that were actually true, how is it that we can't spend 10, 15 minutes with him?

00:37:24.181 --> 00:37:27.452
And he said, holy smokes, like I'm writing a newsletter right now.

00:37:27.452 --> 00:37:33.990
I write a Bible study that I send out once a week and I will spend hours, 15 hours a week.

00:37:33.990 --> 00:37:38.204
I'm not saying that to brag, I'm just saying like I can't get enough of him.

00:37:38.204 --> 00:37:47.268
When he comes back, we're going like that's with him, forever in his presence, and so that's been convicting to me.

00:37:47.268 --> 00:37:52.568
As I find myself wanting to spend time away from him.

00:37:52.568 --> 00:37:55.994
I have to wonder like what am I preparing myself for?

00:37:56.134 --> 00:37:59.869
Yeah, yeah, oh, that is very convicting.

00:37:59.869 --> 00:38:03.402
Yeah, that's, it's very true.

00:38:03.402 --> 00:38:11.246
Everyone's like oh, I can't wait to get to heaven, but you're going to be with God, who you've been neglecting here on earth.

00:38:11.907 --> 00:38:14.688
And the most important thing is to make sure that you love him.

00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:41.733
I know that just sounds like so basic and your knee jerk reaction is to say, of course, I love you and I do this and I do that and I do that and I give all this to you 10% of my income, 10% of my time, like we're tithing in all these different ways.

00:38:41.733 --> 00:38:45.862
But do you love him and man?

00:38:45.862 --> 00:38:55.880
That's a strong question and you have to be really open to the answer and I think if we can get that question right, we can start moving in the right direction.

00:38:56.181 --> 00:39:03.795
Yeah, yeah, I agree, and that is a perfect place to land this plane, because that's a question we all need to mull over.

00:39:03.795 --> 00:39:11.572
Do we love God more than anything and are we willing to actually put in the work to make that relationship matter?

00:39:11.572 --> 00:39:15.639
Because if we can't do it now, what makes us think we can do it in eternity?

00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:22.451
That is very profound and I'm definitely going to be retooling my life.

00:39:22.451 --> 00:39:26.766
George, where can people get your book if they want to support your ministry?

00:39:26.766 --> 00:39:27.929
How can they do that?

00:39:28.340 --> 00:39:28.961
It's on Amazon.

00:39:28.961 --> 00:39:34.463
The name of the book is Do you Love Me, and it is my name, george Cicero, so it's easy to find there.

00:39:34.463 --> 00:39:37.811
I think that two places that you can find me.

00:39:37.811 --> 00:39:41.789
Number one is I spend most of my social media time on threads.

00:39:41.789 --> 00:39:50.548
I can't do it all and so I've chosen threads, because it's a writing platform and I am listed under 1G, cisneros and that's threads.

00:39:50.980 --> 00:40:01.911
But I think the best way to keep in touch with me or if you want to learn more about you know, if you want to spend more time in the Bible, the best place is coveredinhisdustorg.

00:40:01.911 --> 00:40:08.288
The Bible the best place is coveredinhisdustorg, and that's where I send out a weekly Bible newsletter, a Bible study.

00:40:08.288 --> 00:40:13.846
It's kind of a commentary for the rest of us, so it's not like a commentary that is, I don't know, for me.

00:40:13.846 --> 00:40:24.449
I feel like commentaries are just heavy and long and I don't want to say boring, but they're just hard to read, and so what I've done is I've tried to take it to really just the common person.

00:40:24.449 --> 00:40:32.847
This is a commentary for the common person, and so that's covenantisjustorg, and those are probably the best places to get ahold of me.

00:40:33.128 --> 00:40:33.449
Awesome.

00:40:33.449 --> 00:40:38.449
Thank you again, george, for coming on and convicting us all today.

00:40:38.449 --> 00:40:45.063
Hopefully, we will leave this conversation changed and ready to have a deeper relationship with God.

00:40:45.244 --> 00:40:47.548
Thank you so much for having me on.

00:40:47.548 --> 00:40:48.231
I appreciate it.

00:40:48.231 --> 00:40:49.052
Have a great day.

00:40:49.340 --> 00:40:51.387
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00:40:51.387 --> 00:40:52.972
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00:40:52.972 --> 00:40:59.931
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00:40:59.931 --> 00:41:07.248
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00:41:24.371 --> 00:41:27.108
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00:41:27.108 --> 00:41:29.335
I look forward to our next conversation.