Life In The Wild with Michael Bethany
Inspiring exceptional people to live exceptional lifestyles.
Life In The Wild with Michael Bethany
Ep203 | Embracing the Wild | Friends with Like Minds
Welcome to another episode of #LifeintheWildPodcast! Join me, Michael Bethany, as I sit down with two incredible friends, Darius and Laneshia. In this heartfelt conversation, we share the untold story of our friendship, reminisce about unforgettable moments with Fred Hammond, and discuss the profound impact of "Life in the Wild" on our lives.
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This is what John had to do Luke 180. He had to leave this amazing place of Plenty and go to a place that seemed like a place of lack and struggle to find what Plenty really looks like. You took that journey. I believe that was the entry point into what I'm saying is the will of God. Hey everybody, I am Michael Bethany and this is Life in the Wild, the podcast. I'm so excited again to be here with you guys to have a discussion. This has been amazing to even just be a part of this. I'm your host and I've been hosting this now from last year and just getting ready to launch this season too. I'm excited about this season because we've got some special things, some new guests, even just talking about Life in the Wild. Every time we fire up the cameras and start talking, it inspires me because this is a personal journey.
Speaker 1:The Life in the Wild discussion is an ongoing conversation for anybody who wants to join in, but it's also a curated conversation for creatives, artists, worship leaders and influencers people that are carrying something that is different. And when you carry something that's different, you need a different message. You need someone to speak to, that, someone to release you, to speak life into where you are, and someone who speaks your language. That's what we're doing. We're speaking your language Life in the Wild. I want to say this before we even go another further. Would you like share and subscribe so that we can get other folks connected? We are a team in this and, as we're creating the content, curating this conversation excuse me, I just think it's a partnership. So, as you guys find new value in what we're talking about and how God is using it to be a blessing to you, share this with somebody else.
Speaker 1:Today I have some special guests, some friends who could get me in trouble. No, no, this is real. These are some folks I've been knowing almost since the very like within three months of me moving to Texas in 2005, december, I met these folks and we've been rolling ever since. As a matter of fact, we decided we liked each other so much we would live close to each other. They live like five minutes from my house and I have running jogging through the neighborhood just running their house. What's going on? We're talking and we've had a lot of fellowship, so they've got a lot of insight. And what's unique about this couple is they saw me in my development. They saw me when I was green, as you could be, and they saw me grow, and you don't find many people that have, who are in your same creative space, that stick around long enough to see the product of what God has been building and then be a part of it with you. So that's what I'm excited about. Would you guys give it up for my friends Darius and Lanisha? Woo-hoo.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:I feel like a real podcast with the introductions.
Speaker 2:This is one. Yeah, you're an expert at this.
Speaker 1:Because I get to have people like you on here and we've stepped it up. We got three people on one time. I'm going for four because I've got some stuff I want to talk about. But today the reason I invited you guys to be on with me is because, like I said, you all know me. We've been rockin' for a long time and y'all know the different stages, at least from the time we met to where we are today.
Speaker 1:But you guys are also creatives, like you're both musicians, you're both producers, you're both songwriters. You both span the gospel to the R&B, to the soul, all the different styles of music. Both are ministry people, vocationally and even in the professional side. So there's a lot you guys can share. But y'all been telling me that has been amazing to me Text messages and just little comments that you've been really watching this life in the wild thing and it struck a chord with y'all, absolutely. Let me just pitch the ball over there to you guys and let y'all share, first of all, whatever you want to share about our relationship hanging out being here today. But also we're going to dig into what you guys have been hearing and what you guys have been feeling behind what we've been sharing with this podcast. I'm going to start with the homie, darius yes please.
Speaker 3:We call him D Nice.
Speaker 2:D Nice, yes.
Speaker 1:We call him D Nice because I met Darius first. Yep, quiet Darius, yeah Diligent.
Speaker 2:Darius Yep, you like that Meek Like yes. Meek and mile Meek and mile Humble, sevens of the most high guys.
Speaker 1:So, darius, what's on your heart, brother, how you doing man.
Speaker 3:I'm good man, and you know. You said it. We did meet first. You met me before I even met my wife.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember I wasn't there when you met her, but I was around, you was around. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, definitely around.
Speaker 2:I got to hear.
Speaker 1:You know, oh, I need to know what was I got.
Speaker 3:I heard was brewing. Okay, I need to hear from your perspective. So, but but caveat, like we moved to Texas the very same year, yeah, I came officially like moved the day after Thanksgiving in 2000.
Speaker 1:We were there within the same month.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm moving to first of December. Yeah, I'm not sure what we did, but we didn't meet until 2006, when we were getting ready for the free, free worship taping at the potter's house and man, I remember when you came on we were like man, who is this guy? Man Cuz you were kind of like the last one that had absolutely the last guy, yeah, and that was a big group like far as vocal.
Speaker 1:I mean, the guy was before I got there, it was like a G Frank Charles.
Speaker 3:Davey.
Speaker 1:Davey and and Dobson was there, but I think he was right right, right.
Speaker 3:And then you came on, because I think we obviously we had met your brother first. Yeah, at daystar.
Speaker 1:And I was there at night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, that's right. But I remember like you started to come around you singing. You told the story on this pod you know about. You know when you Basically audition for Fred and you know what you down there, where you up. I was bro, I was, I was there. I can't remember where I was, but I was definitely there and you were right before. I remember you said something about Fred. Has this Like this boss?
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, like the like the mafia, the mafia. The lights was out, sounds like no lights or it's nighttime.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious, it's funny, man, yeah, but so you weren't, you weren't the only person for every gonna have you on here, because I didn't tell your own story, explain Exactly, but it was dope, what's up folks? So overflow live, my goodness that that album was a blessing to me and I believe it's been a blessing to a lot of folks. I hope, hope, you've been blessed by the album and I want to show y'all something we got here. This right here Is the the. This is my first piece of Of a peril merch and it's the overflow live album T-shirt and on the back you can see it has all the songs kind of assorted On the shirt. So, listen, we've got. We got merch y'all. We have merch officially and a whole, a whole lot more coming and I can't wait to release it. I want you guys to not only sing about it, but I want you to be about it. Get you some of this merch. I'll let you boy. There's a link below. You guys can get whatever you want. No, you can't, you can just get this.
Speaker 1:It's okay, ha, ha, ha ha piece.
Speaker 3:Ironically, though, my wife and I met under similar circumstances At fritz house studio for an audition, where she was reluctant. We didn't want to come, but she did, she. She came with a friend of hers, and that's how we met at the studio, and you know I was I was smitten there she were.
Speaker 2:Yes you sound like you know some stuff that I haven't heard now that you mentioned it. I was there, you've had to give me in my own.
Speaker 1:I was absolutely in the building. You were there. You were in the building, mike, but but at that moment that wasn't the moment you met. But it wasn't till later, because I didn't know y'all had connected right till much later, not much later it was not that long actually. But I do recall we spent a lot of hours in the studio.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I do recall you like man. Yeah, yeah, dude, this girl man.
Speaker 2:This is interesting. Oh, really yeah.
Speaker 1:Go ahead nice, yeah, d nice. Like I said D nice. We like I didn't know you had it in you.
Speaker 3:It's like you okay, okay, that's funny she brought it out of me because, oh yes, you know it's, we go get into it, but you talk about how somebody not when you not really developed and ready for stuff. Yeah, I felt, I felt I was like I made a decision that I wanted to be a husband, you know, and it really, when I saw her I was like, okay, I'm done, that's that's it, that's it.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, man, you know, I I love that we've uh, we have so much shared history. Like you said, we've known you for a long time and, man, we're excited about what guys doing for you.
Speaker 1:But I want, I want, let my wife so look at you, the bishop, I'm one of my lovely wife. We are not gonna do that. We're not gonna do on this. It's so let her stand up, babe, we just.
Speaker 3:That drives me nuts.
Speaker 2:No disrespect to anybody, but it really does. You know, I'm gonna keep it real. You shouldn't never ask me to come sit on this open.
Speaker 1:Well, no, no this was all intentional. I want all of that, so so, lanisha. Yeah what's going?
Speaker 2:on man I, the. That's your question to answer, you're here.
Speaker 1:Man, you, you, you know what I, why I asked you to be here. We've already had our pre conversations. Yes, when I got here, yes, um, so let me see how do. How do we want to start this? Let's just start this, lanisha. Let's talk about you meeting the da-darius back in the day.
Speaker 2:Let's just keep with the story.
Speaker 1:You meeting the da-darius and us all colliding in the studio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well. First of all, thanks, thanks for having us here. You know, I give Mike a hard time because I can, Because he knows he can give me a hard time, it's no you enjoyed it. We have a mutual, like you know, like I'm, like Mike. What are you setting us up for? But you know that you can do that because that's our relationship.
Speaker 1:Listen she's, she's giving me all this kind of greed, but she, she's enjoying it Well, because I'm gonna give it back. That's why.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely that's gonna make this a great Putting it in the bank we're going to. I want to have Listen, listen 90 minutes. Well, it's funny because as y'all were talking, you know life is feels really fast, and especially 17 years ago, right.
Speaker 1:So you started counting.
Speaker 2:I wasn't doing the math, no, I just know it's like Approximately 17 years ago Don't ask me for any other numbers, because that is just as smart as that's gonna happen right now but I do remember the day because I was called. I was contacted by somebody that was in the group that had asked me to come to do the audition, and I said no because I just that just wasn't my thing. And then she called me the next day. I said no Because it's wasn't my thing, and so no disrespect against anybody, I mean it was, I was honored to be asked, you know, and so I ended up Saying yes and I went and you were on the piano Because you were running the auditions.
Speaker 3:See, I don't even remember that.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you why I will never forget.
Speaker 1:I'm in the wrong seat.
Speaker 2:See you was looking at the wrong stuff. No what?
Speaker 1:do you mean you were in the wrong seat? I don't know what you're about to say. This is another life. You're the one that said Right, Was I?
Speaker 2:kind. If you wasn't, I would have told you Okay. Okay, see, all right.
Speaker 3:I had goggles.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was growing.
Speaker 2:But real, no, really, you've always been very nice, Like for real, this just a genuinely nice person. And so I lost my voice that day, I mean to the point that I sounded like, oh, I got it, you know, and I'm trying to sing, and I want to say, I want to say the song that I'm, that I was singing, was, uh, what God has for me.
Speaker 2:God has for me, you know, and it was like what God? And I was like, yeah, so I'm sitting with and I had never met you, you had no context, you didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2:So I'm like what God, you know, I'm trying to sing and trying to get some type of vocal tone to come out, right and and you were probably looking like that because I wasn't seeing your face, because you were at the piano, I'm kind of behind you. Fred is over here. Fred Hammond, y'all, fred Hammond, fred Hammond, okay, right, the the like the OG, fred Dredd, dredd, fred Hammond.
Speaker 1:Dredd Fred Fox.
Speaker 2:Detroit, fred D town. Okay. So I was like, yeah, so all right, and that was great, and I had a friend with me, ilya golden, and um it. It turned out to be a good time, like a fellowship, and it was funny. Another thing I won't forget about that moment was hearing this as the day for the first time, because the record hadn't really come out yet. Yeah, and when Darius says, you know, running engineering, the sessions and all that stuff, and when he hit, go on, this is the day I was like now you know how you're growing up. Your mama tell you you know, don't get over here and act like you ain't got nothing. That day I didn't know what to do with myself.
Speaker 3:Because after I heard that I was like what is that?
Speaker 2:I felt like hearing that song redeemed me being there, I don't know, but anyways, you were really nice. And then we got invited to come back the next day. Um, y'all were doing a service for uh, my gosh uh uh, Denny Davis, Denny Davis.
Speaker 1:It was like the church anniversary and we went, we took the tour bus to the Nokia Theater and remember that when it came out in that pimp outfit it was. Is there a way that I can blink myself about it? No, no, no, no, listen, wait, wait a minute. It was pimpalicious, it was an illustrated sermon.
Speaker 2:No, don't try to don't try to cut it.
Speaker 1:He had like a long he was doing it. He was very. He is very creative.
Speaker 2:Mike, you know that, I know you right.
Speaker 1:No, this is true, like so everyone knows, pasadena Davis had a large following in Dallas, and one of the reasons is because of his preaching and in Nokia he was filling it up.
Speaker 2:He was.
Speaker 1:And it was crazy because you know we sang and he came out with this long mink with a hat it was purple, purple, see, I don't remember that, and it was all a part of this message series he was doing. So, yeah, unforgettable man, unforgettable moment. Shout out to Denny Davis Candice, I love you, sis, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Candice, candice, dave. Yeah, that's so funny because I don't remember that, because I am a production person, so I'm watching Front House, I'm paying attention to what's going on with stage, and then Plus, she was smitten. That's why she don't remember. See what we're not going to do.
Speaker 1:You don't take a lot. You don't take a lot when you got that kind of beautiful.
Speaker 2:I'm here, guys, I'm actually here.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just saying I'm disagreeing.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I just want to make sure we're this is a balance conversation All right because you might have. Do you really mean that Because?
Speaker 1:no, we don't mean it.
Speaker 3:Hold on.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 3:I'm being facetious.
Speaker 2:I know, but.
Speaker 3:I was.
Speaker 1:I know I was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, put that on you. Don't don't try to share that, Okay so?
Speaker 1:let me ask you this question, Darius, From the moment she auditioned that day. Did you know at that point?
Speaker 3:I knew. The moment I saw her At least, I made the decision that I'm going to do everything in my power to pursue her and I'm forsaking all others.
Speaker 1:And you sure did, fasook you for suckers. All we were forsaken.
Speaker 2:That's funny to me. I'm not gonna tell your testimony.
Speaker 1:but at some point Forsaken is literal, you know what listen.
Speaker 3:I cannot seriously know it was. It was even some instances where you, you know, sometimes we travel, like you know, you have some fans in certain places.
Speaker 2:I love how you call it fans. That is so good, so I understand. I grew up in the industry.
Speaker 3:No, there was. There was somebody that I was kind of not really talking to. Entertainment conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she blew all that up, so I had to figure out, like, how to tell this other person like I'm sorry, I'm Met somebody and I don't know, did you, did you hear them saying something to that?
Speaker 2:Oh, are we telling all the things?
Speaker 1:Yes, let me get back to life in the wild.
Speaker 2:No, this is wild right now.
Speaker 3:The point of it all is Me to ask you a question. I knew like, so I took a risk, like to put it all out there like I want to pursue you. Yes.
Speaker 1:So so by the time we get to dinner day was his church. He was in in full on pursuit and I had no idea.
Speaker 2:To be honest with you, I was not. I was at a place in my life where I had made up in my mind and in my heart that I was gonna be single for the rest of my life. In fact, I changed clothes three times Prior to coming to Fred's house because I didn't want to look cute. So I put on holy holy jeans and flip flops. My hair was really long at the time and I just threw it in a can I get the camera? Oh god.
Speaker 1:When purpose meets. Oh no, see, you can't hide love. I'm sorry, that's the wrong song.
Speaker 2:Sorry, yeah, but I did. I was like I'm, I'm focused, you know, I don't need any more distractions in my life, and I just wasn't paying attention to people, like I wasn't looking at guys, I wouldn't, you know, I was just, I had blinders on. Yeah, it was really like my defense, yeah, defense mechanism, and so I was hashtag clueless.
Speaker 3:Oh, but I was Jordan on that defense.
Speaker 2:You know what? See what we're not gonna. I love the energy that there's interesting.
Speaker 1:Darius is the guy that's always Behind the scenes in production. He's on percussion. He's a dope percussionist, so we don't always get a chance to hear what he's really thinking. Get your popcorns behind the mic today.
Speaker 3:I am kind of nervous you know what's interesting about what she just said? Because I'm behind the scenes, because I'm in the background. I mean, let's be real, a Percussionist is not the nucleus of any band. It's really like extra. So in order to be called to do any gig is like to get called in to do percussion.
Speaker 3:You have to really bring that right so, so I get a chance to really sit back and observe, yeah, and not speak, and and just gain a lot of wisdom that way. So I've, I've, I've learned a lot from just Know and I'm not the most important part but still being able to glean and build it to input Wisdom where it's needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and you and you've, you added a lot to what we were doing, because you weren't just doing perks, you were the, you were the main engineer Recording all the sessions, right, you were a production, a one guy involved with the live, with the studio, everything every session I ever did until you forsake, for so close.
Speaker 2:Saking all others. Sometimes I had never.
Speaker 1:You were in all those sessions, so and and so I can go into all of those things. I can just keep going on with this, but I do want to get. I Want to get to it. Let's go, let's go. You guys are Creative people, your worshipers, your artist, you're in the music industry, and so I did something vulnerable. I did something that I wrestled with Hmm, wrestled you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:That's how you know where I come from. I'm from St Louis. I Need, I need to, I need to go back to Dallas. I wrestled With this, but I felt like I want to show one of the chapters. I've been working on just a section or two so that we can have a discussion about this book. I'm working on life in the wild and the more I talk about it, the more tangible it becomes, because I can't talk about it and not release it. I can't, I can't let anything stop me at this point. I Just I've just finished chapter 7. I'm going to the next chapter. Tomorrow morning I'm gonna start the next chapter, so it's coming. So I let y'all read this, because you guys have been tracking with me.
Speaker 1:Before we get into that, I want you guys to tell me what you heard, because I think you guys represent which is crazy not only my tribe creatively, but you know me. So when you hear me, when you first heard me start talking about a dare it's, we talked mm-hmm. You reached out to me. You got that. You call me like yo. I need to talk to you about this life in the wild thing you talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I watched the podcast was was, which was a huge compliment, mm-hmm, because if you got a friend who's known you as long as we've known each other and they watched what you do, that means you haven't totally wrecked your life because they, you know. I'm saying because if I was wilding out and I put something I like I'm not trying to hear, with that guy saying so you listen to it, that was already a big compliment. But what, what did you hear? Because I talked to you both separately and together, y'all both said the same thing. I want to hear from both y'all. What did y'all hear? I'm a flippant. Ladies first, oh, ladies first, number one, my guy.
Speaker 2:Oh man. Well, first of all, congratulations, because this is not easy. It's not easy to step out and to share what's on your heart and to go maybe go in a direction that you feel like God is leading you to go in. That doesn't look like anything you've done before. So you know you are a friend and not just friend your brother, and so I'm gonna support and we Work like oh gosh, we got a support. I didn't really care what you were talking about.
Speaker 2:So I'm gonna support you as my brother and then I listened and I was like, oh boy, I need this, I need this, and you know, being in the spaces that we've been for so long and in the tribes that we've been part of, and All the information that we have and all the access and resources we have, it was different, because sometimes, when you get in certain spaces and you are doing life with certain tribes of people, the expectations don't look like where God is calling you to go. Yeah, life in the wild. And I thought, wow, my life is pretty wild. This is definitely something that I need, and everything I feel like everything that I've heard you share conversations, that you've had people that are in and out of the conversation, I could find something that would encourage my heart, even if it was just one thing, a line that I needed, which caused me to continue to. You know. Well, let me see what else is going on, because, outside of being a friend and a brother or a sister, there's information I need, and maybe there's a word that God has for me in the season where I am right now, which is we're not going to get into that today because it would take up several hours, but you'll hear me say man, my life is wild.
Speaker 2:I say that to some of my friends that I talk to regularly because I am in a place that has seemed unfamiliar. Right, got to trust, got to listen, got to obey, got to walk right, so, faith, walk. You don't always know what the next place looks like, what it sounds like, who's going to meet you there, who's going to be with you, and so I've just been encouraged by watching and listening to your journey, because it's needed and I feel like my that's my opinion, but I feel like I represent a market of people that feel the same thing and they don't know how to articulate where they are, they don't know how to ask for what they need and they don't know how to do it, knowing that they can be encouraged, that this season looks different from the last one, and it is okay. You're still called, you're still chosen, you still have your light. God is with you. He said he would never leave. He's with you and he's alongside you in this journey. So that's what I see coming from you and I'm like, ooh, I need that.
Speaker 1:Is there a mark difference between how you have known me and how I've shown up, and then this particular season?
Speaker 2:The two words come to me when you ask the question bold and courageous. Bold and courageous we were joking and laughing, because we do that a lot, like we love to laugh, I mean just independent of each other, right, but you've always been a very, very kind person, like a genuinely authentically kind person at your core. I've never seen you mean, I've never seen you make people feel uncomfortable In fact you're. Typically people are gathered around you laughing about something because we're having a good time. So I'm not surprised by this. I'm amazed by it, but not surprised, and I am enjoying watching you be bold and courageous, because we don't know what tomorrow looks like. That's just my 2.5 cents.
Speaker 1:This is don't. We're not going to do crying two episodes in a row. We're not even 30 minutes in. We got to take our time there is.
Speaker 1:We had a conversation and you said something to me that when we unpack what life in the wild is and what the wilderness is, the wilderness is the location of organic growth. It is matching the calling that God has revealed to you to an environment that cultivates it. It's also described as a place that is untouched, untampered and unencumbered by human assistance, so it's not a place where you need to help God out. It's a place where God puts you, where everything that grows there grows based on what he intends, even if it makes you uncomfortable, even if it feels like this is not what I signed up for. It's exactly what he signed you up for, and it's the place where things are fruitful.
Speaker 1:I took a trip to Israel not long ago and I recall going to the Judean desert in wilderness and seeing Ingeti. Ingeti is this place, this oasis In the middle of the desert. It's lush, it's green, it's water and streams and water flowing literally from the top of Israel all the way down and it's hitting these streams and it's flowing down the Jordan, it's flowing down to the Dead Sea and that water hits Ingeti and it's cold and it's fresh. As a matter of fact, I'm there and I'm actually doing a message about David running from Saul into Ingeti in the wilderness.
Speaker 1:All these kids disrupt my sermon and jump in the spring Just in the middle. That is what it's like, but it's in the wilderness. So things do grow there. They don't grow where you want them to, but they grow the way God intended them to, and even you will grow there, and so I think that's what I was communicating and you heard. You know, I think I probably communicated a little more clearly now, even then, but you said something to me. You said, michael, you put language to something that I already had context for.
Speaker 3:What did you mean by that? Yeah, man, it was the very first episode and you're watching. I'm trying to go back specifically what you said but, like you said, I felt like something resonated in me that I didn't know how to express and I think it's the just the overall. I felt like the I was grabbing hold of the responsibility to be the integrist person that God wants me to be. Not that I wasn't walking in integrity, but actually like being about what God is trying to instill in me, like character for me is huge, and a lot of times you know we get in these platforms and we are celebrated because we're on platforms and then you find yourself doing things or living a certain way that is contrary to what you're actually yes, present.
Speaker 3:Present yeah, yeah, and I know what that's like. You know, I know how it is to be on a platform and thinking about something else that has nothing to do with what I'm presenting. And you know, walking through like the wilderness and allowing God to put you in a place of growth. It doesn't feel good, but it's what you need, you know. You talk about forsaking others. That was my wilderness time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I walked away from it all. Essentially, it didn't make sense to people that maybe that was the entry point. That was definitely the entry point. It was definitely the entry point. And God has something in mind that I didn't see. You know, I thought I was walking into an immediate season of abundance.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It wasn't like that, and God had you walk away from a place that was abundant. Let me just point this out because I'm gonna give all this away. Yeah, so this story is all based on John the Baptist. He was a voice crying in the wilderness, according to Isaiah 40. That's what he was. He was a voice crying in the wilderness Right, and his job was to prepare the way for Jesus. Well, here's the thing that's amazing His parents, zachariah and Elizabeth. They were of the lineage of the Levitical priests. His father, zachariah, was a priest, and so I hid the pit of powder of feet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the little ones, my little son, my little son, and the little ones, the pit of powder of feet, the little ones.
Speaker 1:So his parents they're serving his father's serving in the temple. The day that he gets the word from God or from the angel that his son is going to be John and they haven't had a prophet for over 400 years he gets a word while he's burning the incense in the morning for morning prayer. He gets that word from God that you're gonna have a son. Your wife of an old age is gonna finally bear a son. What better place would John have to become the great man that God would have?
Speaker 2:him be than in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:My dad is the pastor, right, right, right, my dad. He was in. He goaded up a room, like my father. He knows God, he spoke to God, he's the guy. And not only is my father the guy, I'm of the tribe of Levi, I have ministry in my blood. Yeah, oh yeah. And you would think this is a place where you will like, grow and launch, and God says, no, this ain't the place. And the place that seems right ain't right for you. Right, it's a good place to start, but not the best place to continue. Right, and what you said made me think about that. Because you had to then leave that place. And this is what John had to do, luke 180. He had to leave this amazing place of Pliny and go to a place that seemed like a place of lack and struggle, to find what Pliny really looks like. Right, you took that journey. I believe that was the entry point into what I'm saying is the willingness, absolutely, that is spot on.
Speaker 3:And you know we want to try to put time limits on, like wilderness and I like how you describe wilderness doesn't always mean struggle, it's just organic living, yeah, and so your perspective has to change and I believe that with me, once I my perspective change, then things start looking differently and it felt different. I didn't look at it as lack, but it was growth. You know, god used over the course of several years to work out things in me, man, that I told my wife. Like I have a proclivity to be self-centered. That's just my sinful nature.
Speaker 3:Just if I'm not like purposely connecting into Jesus, into divine, where I'm allowing the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit that he wants to produce through me, man, if I don't do that, I'm all thinking about myself, right, but God had to take me through a lot to show me that this is who you default to. I think the wilderness helps to pinpoint stuff like that. So now I know I have a better sense of me and now I can walk into and be the person that God wants me to be, the husband that he wants me to be, the father, the grandfather. You know all of that and it just, but it took that time was necessary and I actually kind of like living in that space into the wilderness.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Cause it's needed for me, like I know how it is to be on that mountain top, and it was so easy for me to forget who I was and allow things to come into my life that are just harmful, just not fruitful, and it's just a lot of things that slip through the cracks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, but I'm appreciative of the journey that God has brought me through in order to bring me where we are today.
Speaker 1:Do you realize that when you embrace living a sacrificial life, when you stop trying to save your life, which you lose, it right when you make a decision like what John made? John not only moved to the wilderness to prepare for ministry, he succeeded in the wilderness in his ministry. Yeah, and what you would have thought he would have had to have chased down in a prominent place, god actually rewarded him in the place he was planted, yeah. So here it is. We were both in a place that was a great place, but it wasn't a place that we were to continue. And when I had to and listen, I'm afraid it was like the person who was the reason that a lot of the opportunities on the professional, national and international platform, they'd even got introduced to me. So in my mind I'm thinking surely this is the best place. And God was like nope, time to go. So now I can't stay.
Speaker 1:But what I find is I was afraid, guys. I was afraid that, well, I can't be with Fred, which is my favorite artist, the guy who, just like, who introduced a lot of what in the black church we know as praise and worship, our experience and expression of that. You know then, where do I go from here Like who? How do I find significance? It was everything I was like.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be attached to the favor on his life as opposed to allowing God to establish favor that belonged to me. I wanted the overflow of his gift rather than believing that what God had given me would create an overflow for other people, and so for me, I'm encouraged to see how listen you can, leave that place and watch what God does, and to see what God has navigated me through, and I can still celebrate what other people are doing. But I now can see that God has rewarded me in the place of wilderness for me, in my sacrificial living, in my lifestyle of intentionality, in this organic lifestyle that I'm not walking away from, I'm fully engaged and married to, but God has brought to the wilderness. Eventually, we see Jesus walks right into the wilderness. What John has has, the cultivated, development, launched ministry, fully engaged in ministry, and then Jesus walks in, referred to it in Christ.