Don't hide in the baggage

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Everybody, it's Rick and Rob. Welcome back to the Nomad Pastor podcast. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Man, it's good to be back. [00:00:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. How you doing? [00:00:15] Speaker B: I'm pretty good. Pretty good. You know, we had a. I told you about the tornado damage briefly, but. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Praise God it wasn't worse. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Exactly. So tornado came over the house a week ago. By the time this gets released, it'll be a couple of weeks, but anyway. And we head out in the bathtub with the two dogs. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah. That day is the day I got back from India. [00:00:46] Speaker B: That was the day. [00:00:47] Speaker A: That was the day I got back from India. I landed in Nashville, 130 in the afternoon. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:00:56] Speaker A: And I had been traveling for, like, 29 hours. I got home and I just said, I'm going to bed. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:02] Speaker A: And about 05:00 she woke me up and said, we got to get in the bathtub. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Really? [00:01:07] Speaker A: So I grabbed my pillow and I went in the bathroom, and my mother in law was here, and she was in the bathtub, and the dog was in there. And I slept on the bathroom floor. About an hour or so later, she's like, okay, you can get back to bed. Okay. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. Rebecca had been sick that day, and she was asleep on the couch, and I was watching. I knew the storm was coming, so I was watching the news, and the tornado alert went out. When they showed it. They showed the tornado that went across I 65 at Vietnam vets. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:47] Speaker B: And I was like, I got 30 minutes. Yeah, I got 30 minutes before. That's here. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:53] Speaker B: And sure enough, it was right about. It was like 31, 32 minutes from the time that I saw that until it went over my house. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Now, was it on the ground? [00:02:05] Speaker B: No, it was in the air when it went over. Yeah. When it went over. [00:02:07] Speaker A: So it had already done most of its damage. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Right. Here's the cool thing about it. It messed up the roof on my barn. Like, I got to have a complete new roof. It knocked down. I think I counted eight trees at my house that it knocked down. None of the trees fell toward the house. [00:02:29] Speaker A: Crazy. [00:02:30] Speaker B: They all fell in different directions away from my house. [00:02:35] Speaker A: Wow. [00:02:36] Speaker B: And all of them fell in a different. Except for three. Except for three trees. They all fell in a different way than the path of the tornado came. And everybody's saying it's because of the swirl of the tornado. [00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Or God just protecting it. [00:02:58] Speaker B: I like to think the latter. Yeah, I do. But we were piled up in the hallway bathroom. I put a couple of towels down inside the bathtub, and I put Rebecca in the bathtub and put blankets over her and I put dogs in front of her and behind her and I got behind her and I had stuff over me as well. [00:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's scary. [00:03:22] Speaker B: It's bad scary. And the freight train sound is very real. It's very real. And like our house, we live in a log cabin. Our logs are quarterson logs. They're not like the round logs and they're 14 inches high and most of them are 14 to twelve. Some of them are 1618 inches high, but they're at least eight inches thick. And my house is sitting on a 14 inch thick stone foundation. And it shook my house. [00:03:56] Speaker A: That's scary. [00:03:57] Speaker B: It's bad scary. [00:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:59] Speaker B: But it shook the house. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Now, there's no damage to the house. [00:04:03] Speaker B: Right. The only damage to the house is actually on the carport. We got a stick built carport, three port carport, and it's twisted off of the house and it's like 2ft of the connection left from the house to the carport is all that's holding my carport up right now. But it's leaning really hard, due really hard. And the crazy thing about it was my truck, Rebecca's car and my motorcycle are all parked underneath that carport when it hit. Yeah. It's nuts. It's nuts. I pulled leaves out of the front end of my motorcycle from where the tornado comes. And it took me probably 45 minutes just to get the leaves out of the front end of the bike. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Wow. [00:04:48] Speaker B: That's just the front end of the bike. There were two floors. So the way that our house is shaped, the laundry room is where the carport is attached, in the corner of the laundry room, where it comes back to the house. Right there at the guest bedroom, there were two fluorescent bulbs that I had leaned up there that I was going to take out to discard later because we changed out some fluorescent bulbs in the laundry room. Neither one of those bulbs were broken, but my carport is about to fall down. Those bulbs are not broken, but there were two trees 20ft away that were split in half. It's crazy. One of them is still leaned up against the. [00:05:31] Speaker A: Are these your fruit trees? [00:05:37] Speaker B: One of my peach trees actually had the door of my barn wrapped around it. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Wow. [00:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it was crazy, man. It was crazy. But anyway, so that's just a little bit of some of the stuff that we've had going on, folks, and praise God we're safe. And people in my area, in the path of the tornado, I think nobody in Gallatin that I know of, where I live, was injured, hurt or killed. In it. [00:06:07] Speaker A: Not that I heard, but Clarksville got it pretty bad. [00:06:09] Speaker B: Clarksville got it pretty bad, too. And I think over the course of that Saturday, there were. [00:06:14] Speaker A: Madison, I think. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, Madison. There were three. I think Clarksville had three people that were killed. [00:06:19] Speaker A: It was either six or eight people. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. So we want to talk a little bit today about. I think I want to kind of look at some of the things that we had talked about in a previous podcast in a little bit different light. [00:06:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:40] Speaker B: So we talked earlier in a podcast about choosing the way that we act after we become a Christian. [00:06:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Right. So I want to talk today about kind of that same concept in a little bit different light, a whole bunch of different light in being called into something and either pulling a Jonah or hiding out where you're trying to get away from the call or realizing the call and not acting on the call. How about that? [00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good conversation to have. It's a good way to put it. Right? Yeah, not acting on the call. It's a big one. [00:07:28] Speaker B: So what got me thinking about this, and let me give you a little scriptural reference here, folks. It comes from first Samuel, chapter nine, Saul being the first king of Israel. To give you a little bit of background, Saul's dad lost all of his donkeys. So every one of his donkeys were gone. And Saul was sent out with a couple of servants to go find the donkeys at the same time that Saul was sent out to go get the donkeys. Samuel, who was a priest under Eli, just a rich history with Samuel. Samuel was a prophet of God who was told that Israel told him, hey, we want a king. And God said, this is who I have planned. This is who I've chosen. This is who you're going to bring in as Israel's first king. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Right? [00:08:34] Speaker B: So he gives him all these parameters. He gives him these things, and he tells him, this is what's going to happen. This is what you're going to say. And Saul and one of his servants actually seek Samuel out. Samuel does exactly what God tells him to do and then anoints him as king. Now, Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin, which was one of the least of the tribes, the twelve tribes of Judah. In that after Samuel had anointed Saul and went to present him to the people of Israel to say, this is your king, Saul hid, and scripture says he hid among the baggage. But here's the trick. Saul was head and shoulders above everybody else. He was a good looking man. He was noticeable. He had the look, he had the flair. He had the things that were desirable as a leader. [00:09:41] Speaker A: But that's why he was chosen. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Right, right. He had those things that were desirable. [00:09:46] Speaker A: Not chosen for a reason. [00:09:47] Speaker B: So it was evident that the choice of leading in his life was from God. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:56] Speaker B: But he chose on the day of his being a coronation. Yeah, I guess you could call it that. He chose to hide in the baggage. Why the baggage? Why hide? Period. So my question today, and our conversation starter today, is going to be kind of wrapped around Saul in hiding from what he was anointed to do. [00:10:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:26] Speaker B: And then I want to kind of segue into some other things with that, but I want to start with that. The question for the table and the question for the conversation today is, why do we hide when the appointment from God is clear and concise? [00:10:46] Speaker A: Well, I think I can only speak for me. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:50] Speaker A: Right. Long before we did this podcast, I had heard God saying, you need to. [00:10:58] Speaker B: Do a podcast, right. [00:11:01] Speaker A: For years. [00:11:02] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:02] Speaker A: And every once in a while I'd say something to my wife, I think I'm supposed to do this. And she'd ask, why don't you? And I'm like, well, I just don't want to get it wrong. I don't want to misrepresent God. I had fear, okay? Right. That I'm not worthy to do this. Like, who am I? I didn't go to theological seminary, or what do I know? Who am I? [00:11:31] Speaker B: Right? [00:11:35] Speaker A: So for years, I think I'm supposed to do this. And Linda was like, well, I think you should. And I've said this on this before, but one time she was like, well, what do you need to do it? Well, I need this and that and a mic and a camera and go buy it. I'm like, what? What do you mean, go buy it? And she's like, that ain't going to be your excuse to run away from God anymore. Now, thank you, my lovely wife. But I meant that sincerely. [00:12:14] Speaker B: Sincerely. That's what I was about to say, sincerely. [00:12:19] Speaker A: But there was fears. I don't know. Was Saul afraid? Was there some fear in. Am I worthy of this calling to be the king? [00:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. Let me answer this. [00:12:35] Speaker A: That would be my first thought process, right? [00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:39] Speaker A: People run away out of fear. People hide out of fear. [00:12:44] Speaker B: But can fear also be a motivator? [00:12:47] Speaker A: Well, I think it could. I think it absolutely can. But I don't know that in society today that it is a motivator. I think that it is frowned upon as a weakness. [00:13:00] Speaker B: All right, so let's look at something here, and I'm going to use a podcast as an example. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:08] Speaker B: Okay. So on this podcast, one of the things that I think both of us have in common and have in mind as we're doing our podcast is to make sure that we get it right. So in that fear being our motivator, to make sure that we get it right, we strive to do the best that we can with what we have. Right. When you look at Saul, for instance, and you look at what his appointment was and the reason that he had that appointment and anointment, and he still hid in the baggage. He hid out back here in the back where nobody should have found him, right. And even though he had. He was a good looking guy. He's a big guy. He had these qualities. Even though you had that, he still tried to hide those qualities. He still tried to put those things away so that he wouldn't be recognized. Fear is not the same motivation for us as it was for him at the time. [00:14:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:40] Speaker B: Fear is also not the same, but. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Fear is different in each scenario. True. [00:14:47] Speaker B: I agree with that. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:49] Speaker B: I agree with that. [00:14:50] Speaker A: Today, we want to do the right thing, and fear drives us to try to be as accurate as we possibly can. [00:14:57] Speaker B: But let's look at it this way, though. [00:14:59] Speaker A: But then also, I look at it and I say, should I have fear? Because God's going to. He's there to help me. [00:15:06] Speaker B: Right. That's the point I'm getting at. Ain't neither one of us good looking. [00:15:11] Speaker A: No. [00:15:11] Speaker B: Ain't neither one of us smart. Well, I mean, let's be honest. Well, neither one of us relative to. Yeah. Neither one of us have the same kind of leadership qualities that would take for an anointment like what Saul had right? Now, I'm not saying either one of us are bad leaders because we're both respectable leaders. [00:15:36] Speaker A: No, I understand that. I understand what you're saying. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Right. I'm not going to be the president of the United States because of what I can, because I'm a great orator. [00:15:44] Speaker A: That's right. [00:15:45] Speaker B: I'm not going to be the mayor. [00:15:47] Speaker A: It's probably quite the opposite for me. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Well, me, too. I'll never even be the gallatin mayor. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:56] Speaker B: You know what I mean? So I don't have the qualities that would propel me into those scenarios and situations. [00:16:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:08] Speaker B: But what I have, what I do and the way that I go about what we do is all God given talent because of the gifts that he's given both of us that we have exercised to become talent. Right? [00:16:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. So why do you think? Do you think it's all hit out of fear? [00:16:34] Speaker B: I think so. [00:16:35] Speaker A: Okay. What do you think most people in their lives, right, when we come to Christ, we are called to step out. Right. There's no middle ground. Like we've talked about this before, there's no plan b. There's plan a. Right. [00:16:56] Speaker B: It's always been plan a. [00:16:57] Speaker A: Go make disciples. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Right. Teach them all that I have commanded. Baptize them. Right. It's the great commission. Right. Why do you think people don't step out and do that? Is it fear? Is there other reasons scenario based? Maybe. [00:17:19] Speaker B: I think it all boils down to fear, but I think it's a different kind of fear. Like we talked about before and like what you pointed out, that it's scenario based. [00:17:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:29] Speaker B: So I think a fear of rejection, I think a fear of messing it up. I think a fear of being seen. I think a fear of being in a confined space even. You know what I mean? So there's all these different kinds of phobias that we can live. But here's the cool thing. Here's the cool thing. The perfect love, the only perfect love casts out all fear. [00:17:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:00] Speaker B: And so all of those things that we can make a list of, all those things that we can lay out and say, this is the reason that I can't do this. God, he's already taken care of. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Yes. And I think people forget that. Right. It's kind of a cliche, but you hear people say, or at least I've said it. I've heard people say it. Right. God doesn't call the prepared. [00:18:26] Speaker B: No, he prepares the call. [00:18:28] Speaker A: Prepares the called. [00:18:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:29] Speaker A: So if you're called to go make disciples. Right. And you are, he's going to prepare you when you get there. [00:18:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:36] Speaker A: I remember the first time we went to the rescue mission. First time I went to the mission, right. And I was still a baby Christian. It's, I don't know, seven, eight years. [00:18:47] Speaker B: Now, but eight, almost nine years. [00:18:49] Speaker A: I mean, it's been a long time, but I was still relatively young in my. Yeah. I mean, I'd read the Bible and I'd been baptized. I was still a young, young Christian. [00:18:59] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:00] Speaker A: Baby Christian. [00:19:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:01] Speaker A: And I really struggled with praying with people. Right. [00:19:06] Speaker B: Well. [00:19:10] Speaker A: Here we are. Let's go to the rescue mission. And I was a prospect, and they're like, all right, come on, prospect. I'm like, come on, prospect. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Where are we going? [00:19:19] Speaker A: What do you mean, we're going to go up here and pray for people. I'm like, no, we're not. Yeah, and two places like, come on. [00:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:27] Speaker A: And I went, I'm like, okay. [00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:30] Speaker A: And it was uncomfortable. I didn't know what I was going to say. What am I going to pray for? [00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:36] Speaker A: But God prepared me right when that moment came, I didn't have to think about what I was going to say. It just was set. [00:19:47] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:19:48] Speaker A: I think there's a lot of fear. The fear in me going up there was horrific. Right. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:59] Speaker A: But I think the reason I bring it up is that I wouldn't have never done it if I wasn't with my brothers. [00:20:07] Speaker B: I like that. [00:20:08] Speaker A: So just like you, we don't go places alone. [00:20:12] Speaker B: No. [00:20:13] Speaker A: Right. We need our brothers, our christian brothers, our ministry brothers, whoever they are, to help make us strong together. Because you can't be afraid. You can, but they're going to be like, come on, let's go. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:35] Speaker A: You're going to walk it out. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Me, I think you guys had been doing the mission, I think of the fourth or fifth time when Joe and I talked and he said, just come lead worship. Yeah, I think it was like the fourth time, maybe the fifth, something like that. Yeah. So you guys have been doing it because I had been there before. I'd been there like two or three months before we started leading worship. Before Damascus Road started leading worship. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Right. Okay. [00:21:06] Speaker B: So anyway, for me, I was the exact same way. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Okay. [00:21:13] Speaker B: I was completely out of my comfort zone because the people that I had prayed with, the people that I had met, that I had tried to encourage were all church people. [00:21:26] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:27] Speaker B: They were all people who were together. [00:21:31] Speaker A: It was easy for me to be in the church with people who knew. [00:21:36] Speaker B: Yes. [00:21:36] Speaker A: Right. With people who knew because they didn't look at me like some. What's the word I'm looking for? I don't want to say expert, but some expert, right. At the mission, they look at us like, you know? [00:21:53] Speaker B: Right, exactly. [00:21:54] Speaker A: You know, and I was like, I don't know. [00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:58] Speaker A: Right under my breath, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Yeah. The thing about it is, though, being in that type of environment and being forced, I don't want to say forced, okay. But being, hey, come on up here and pray. Yeah, prospect. Come on, Batman. Come on, you guys. Get up here. Yeah. Those are things that moved us out of what, not just our comfort zone, but our spiritual maturity to grow. Because I still don't have all the answers. I don't know. [00:22:37] Speaker A: No idea. [00:22:38] Speaker B: But I know what the source is. [00:22:41] Speaker A: That's right. [00:22:42] Speaker B: And so in getting past that fear and getting past what the situation demands of us, for us to be able to grow, it was important for us to not hide in the baggage. [00:22:58] Speaker A: That's right. It was. And because I didn't hide in the baggage. Right. Because I didn't just sit in the back and just not walk up there. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Now look at where we're. Well, I've been preaching at the mission. [00:23:16] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:23:18] Speaker A: I'm not just going up and praying. [00:23:21] Speaker B: Right. But we're walking out among, and we're reaching out to guys, and there are guys that have been there for a long period of time that we know. There was a guy the other day, the last time we were at the mission, a couple of weeks ago, that I was watching him, and he was sitting right here, up at the stage, right in front of the monitor to my right. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Okay. Right. [00:23:42] Speaker B: Which would have been stage left. [00:23:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Right in the wheelchair. [00:23:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. He's there all the time. [00:23:47] Speaker B: He's there all the time. Right. Every time. I've tried to get to have an opportunity to talk to him, but it's like we know each other because he's always right there. [00:23:59] Speaker A: That's right. [00:24:00] Speaker B: He's always right there. Now, when it comes time for us to pray, he backs up out of the way. [00:24:04] Speaker A: That's right. [00:24:04] Speaker B: But he's always right there for worship and for the sermon. [00:24:07] Speaker A: That's right. [00:24:10] Speaker B: And the reason that he's backing up, I think, is to let other guys be able to come up to the front for that prayer time. [00:24:18] Speaker A: I think he is, too. [00:24:19] Speaker B: But here's the thing. I always find comfort in the look on his face as I'm leading worship. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:32] Speaker B: I always find that comfort on, and I couldn't tell you, the man I. [00:24:36] Speaker A: Know who you're talking about. I don't know his name. [00:24:38] Speaker B: I don't know his name. [00:24:39] Speaker A: I think it's interesting because we're talking about not hiding. Right. Right. And so I've thought about this recently because, like, the last two times, last two months, I preached. And it's interesting that there's a couple of guys that I see them every time, and I feel like when I start talking, they're asleep, right? Yeah, they're just asleep. They're out. But about midway through, they start to lean in. Right. And then about half, then about towards the end, they're like, yeah. And if I hid in the background, they wouldn't hear the message they needed to hear. Now, they would have heard it from somebody else, but I believe they needed to hear the messages that I was giving the last two months. [00:25:28] Speaker B: The messages from your words, from what God. What God gave you. [00:25:35] Speaker A: Last Sunday was supposed to be Joe, right? But Joe was sick, and he texted me at 08:00 in the know. I'm getting ready to go to church. He's like, I'm sick. I'm going home. I'm not even preaching at need you or Steve to deal with. [00:25:53] Speaker B: Here's let me tell. [00:25:55] Speaker A: So I'm like, babe, I'm going to go upstairs and write a sermon. [00:26:01] Speaker B: So Sunday, that Sunday morning, we had company. We had a family. One of my club sons from another state had spent the night with us. He and his wife and the three kids. They got up and went to church with us that morning and left after lunch. But that was our Sunday morning to go down to downtown Nashville with all for him, for him to serve up there. And because there was already food volunteers, we were just people volunteers that day. Normally we bring food, but anyway, so long story short, three of my brothers from three of my brothers that were working downtown that morning, loaded up to go to Joe's church. They all got on their bikes and rode out to Joe's church, got up there, found out Joe was sick and ended up going to pastor Ron's church. Kind of. It was kind of weird because they were texting me later on that afternoon. They're like, is Joe okay? And I'm like, I don't like, well, he went in and preached this morning. I was like, well, no, I don't know. I'll find out. [00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah, he was sick, sick. [00:27:15] Speaker B: And then when you told me, when we got to the mission that Sunday afternoon, you told me he was sick, sick. Yeah. [00:27:21] Speaker A: That's crazy. I'm glad that I like to go up to pasta. Ron's a couple. We try to go like once a know. At least Linda and I do, right? It'd be good to get more of the BFC guys up there, but it's good to see all the BFC guys with the mission. We're coming out in numbers now. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm trying to get more guys from forge to come. The trick is they don't want to have to sit down to fill out the background check again. [00:27:52] Speaker A: But if they've already done it, they don't have to do it again. [00:27:54] Speaker B: Well, that's true. And there's a couple of them that have already done it. There's one that still. [00:27:59] Speaker A: It takes five minutes. [00:28:01] Speaker B: I know you do it online, but we'll talk about it off air. We'll talk about it off. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Well, soon. I don't think it's going to be a big deal. [00:28:11] Speaker B: You think they're going to open it back up? [00:28:12] Speaker A: Well, the only reason they do it is because the women are there. But the women's facility is done. They're moving in January 1. Wait, January 10? Maybe. [00:28:22] Speaker B: I think it's January 10. [00:28:23] Speaker A: Yeah. It's first or second week in January, right? [00:28:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:27] Speaker A: Or maybe the 15th. [00:28:28] Speaker B: I don't remember the date, but it's sometime in January. [00:28:30] Speaker A: But it is in January, right. And I don't think once the women and children aren't there, they don't require the background checks anymore. That's my understanding. [00:28:39] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Well, that's cool. That's good. [00:28:41] Speaker A: I mean, we should ask them. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll reach out to Bill. [00:28:46] Speaker A: Yeah, just reach out. Yeah. Just be like, hey, what's the deal? [00:28:48] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, but that's one of the things. And I'm trying to get more guys to be able to come out, but I got a couple of guys that got young kids that need to be going to bed at that time of night and then got other guys that have to travel a little bit to get there. [00:29:07] Speaker A: Well, how far? I mean, we got Chattanooga guys. [00:29:14] Speaker B: It's kind of a poor excuse. [00:29:17] Speaker A: I didn't want to know, but stop hiding in the baggage. [00:29:20] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:29:21] Speaker A: Right. I mean, that's what we're talking about, how we don't want to hide, how we're called to be out there. Right. And look, I get it. We got people, too. But we got guys from Clarksville who come to it. We got Chattanooga who comes. You can make the effort to go. And while I respect that, I have kids that are young that age. Right. It's an hour. It starts at 645. We're done by 730. [00:29:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. We get there at 630 because I get there at 615 because I just like to be with everybody. [00:29:56] Speaker B: I get there at 515, so I can do sounds check. [00:29:59] Speaker A: Yeah. But if I get there early, sometimes five. Right. Because I just love to be with everybody. It's a great time for us to fellowship while we're. But realistically, service starts at 645. If I preach, we're done by 730. [00:30:18] Speaker B: Praise God. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Right? [00:30:19] Speaker B: I'm just kidding. [00:30:21] Speaker A: I noticed Rebecca was like, oh, Rick's preaching. We'll be done in 20 minutes. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:27] Speaker A: We got to try to go home. [00:30:30] Speaker B: And we were talking about that. I was like, well, what do you know? We got time to actually. [00:30:34] Speaker A: Now we go to dinner. [00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, since Rick preached. [00:30:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Look. It is what it is. [00:30:41] Speaker B: Drive through Taco Bell. [00:30:42] Speaker A: That's right. So there's no excuse to hide. [00:30:46] Speaker B: There isn't. [00:30:47] Speaker A: Right. It's an hour. [00:30:49] Speaker B: True. And that's basically what this whole conversation has been about. About hiding in the baggage. [00:30:57] Speaker A: That's right. [00:30:59] Speaker B: We can make excuses or we can make ministry happen. We need to focus on what we've been called to do and the way that we've been called to it and the purity that we've been called to it with to be able to answer that call. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And what I would add to that is it's going to be hard. [00:31:26] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:31:27] Speaker A: Right. It's going to be hard. You're going to miss some family stuff. [00:31:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:31:34] Speaker A: Right. I'm going to say we, because I think it's the same for both of us when we were called to this ministry that we're in. Right. The biker community. The biker ministry. Right. [00:31:49] Speaker B: I know exactly where this is going. [00:31:51] Speaker A: Every weekend there's stuff. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Every weekend. [00:31:54] Speaker A: Every weekend there's something. And if we really wanted to, like, almost every night of the week. [00:32:01] Speaker B: About at least four nights a week. [00:32:02] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And I could find it every night of the week if I wanted to go to. I can Cookville or Chattanooga or Clarksville, like every night of the house, wherever. And it was hard at first when I first started doing this, because Linda and I had built this life that we were always together. Like, we wanted to be together. We bought a house that's an open floor plan so we could be in the same room. [00:32:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:31] Speaker A: We built this life for ten years of together. We're going to do everything together. And then God called me to do something else, and it was hard. [00:32:40] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:41] Speaker A: We missed some of those things we were doing together all the time. Yeah. [00:32:45] Speaker B: And the struggle with it has still been because God called us, you and I, because we've called us into this ministry and the life that we had built. Because Rebecca and I are the same way and as empty. [00:33:04] Speaker A: That's right. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Right. And Rebecca sat down with somebody the other day she was talking to and said, I didn't picture being an empty nester this way. [00:33:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, Linda will say, I didn't marry. [00:33:18] Speaker B: A. Oh, Rebecca's always said she was supposed to marry a. I mean, you're. [00:33:23] Speaker A: Kind of a. [00:33:28] Speaker B: Know, I guess. [00:33:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Linda's the same way. And I think the hardest thing about it is I was called to this. She wasn't. [00:33:39] Speaker B: That's the key. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Right. I want her to be involved. [00:33:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:43] Speaker A: I want her to absolutely hang out with the women and be involved and get anything out of it that she can. [00:33:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:33:51] Speaker A: But she's called to a different ministry. [00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:54] Speaker A: Right. And I'm supportive of that. You do whatever that God is calling you to do, but we have to recognize that we're not going to always be together. [00:34:04] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:04] Speaker A: And it has to be okay. And I think that sometimes that change in lifestyle keeps people from getting, from doing what God's called them to do. [00:34:17] Speaker B: I think so. [00:34:19] Speaker A: I think it's an excuse, and I'm not saying it's a bad one. [00:34:22] Speaker B: Right. But it's fear of uncomfortability. [00:34:26] Speaker A: Right. Because I think. Well, I think it probably is a word, but I think in today's society, some people may be like, if I'm not around, maybe she'll leave me. Maybe I'm not providing for her emotionally. I think there's a lot of fear that's wrapped up. But we've made this commitment to each other. Like, we're not getting divorced. We are married. [00:34:52] Speaker B: Somebody die for the God. Right. [00:34:55] Speaker A: We made a commitment to God. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:57] Speaker A: I hope she dies before me. I'm sorry. Or I hope I die before her. [00:35:01] Speaker B: I hope I do. [00:35:02] Speaker A: I hope I die before her. I said it backwards because I don't know what I will do without her. [00:35:06] Speaker B: Amen. [00:35:07] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. She may not understand this, and she'll probably hear this and go, what are you talking about? But she's my rock. [00:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:16] Speaker A: Right. I can do everything I do because of her. [00:35:21] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:23] Speaker A: She keeps me from being in the baggage. [00:35:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:27] Speaker A: Right. It's just like taking away my excuse to do a podcast. Right. [00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:32] Speaker A: She's there because God said, push him. [00:35:34] Speaker B: Right. Absolutely. [00:35:40] Speaker A: I got to go before her. [00:35:42] Speaker B: I'm the same way because I have no clue. No clue. There have been times when I've been out of town somewhere on a run, and weekend after weekend after weekend after weekend, and you call her and she's like, I feel like a club widow right now. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:06] Speaker B: I'll talk to you when you get home. Babe, I miss you. I can't talk right now. [00:36:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:10] Speaker B: Because there's so much that I'm expecting of her. Intentional or not. [00:36:19] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. [00:36:21] Speaker B: And for her to be able to keep those things together is amazing. Absolutely. When you say some strong women, we really do. [00:36:30] Speaker A: I mean, to be able to put. [00:36:31] Speaker B: Up with the two of us. Yeah, exactly. And praise God, they, like, each. [00:36:38] Speaker A: Know. But because you're right, because it'd be like, babe, what are you doing? This weekend. Well, I'm going to Georgia. I got the Kentucky thing or I got to run to. So, and I know it's slowed down right now. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Right now it is. But you know what? You post the run card up on the refrigerator and she goes, all right, I'll deal with that later. I need to know what you're going to be doing this week. When was it that you said you had to go to Oklahoma again and you got to go to Missouri and Illinois and Kentucky and Ohio and what's this about know? I need to know about not just what's listed on this list, but I need to know about all the other things. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Because on that list doesn't include the open house Tuesday night. No. [00:37:30] Speaker B: It doesn't include Saturday nights or Friday nights or. [00:37:33] Speaker A: That's right. [00:37:33] Speaker B: Thursday night bike nights. [00:37:34] Speaker A: That's right. It doesn't include all the local stuff. [00:37:37] Speaker B: Right. That's just runs that we have. That's not including all the meetings we have to go to. That doesn't include all the trips to Atlanta that we got to make or to. Right. You know, for other meetings that we have to be Missouri and Illinois and Arkansas and Oklahoma and all these different meetings that we've got to go. So you look at, I've got to put a lot of miles on my bike. Right. And I wish that my wife were on the back of it with me, but at the same time, my wife is at home praying that while I'm in those meetings that I'm not hiding in the baggage. [00:38:21] Speaker A: That's right. [00:38:26] Speaker B: There's a lot of times where she doesn't like the club life. There's a lot of times when she's like, I'm ready for you to move, to be a jam. Just a. Yeah, I'm ready for you to get out of lead. I'm ready for you to do these things. [00:38:40] Speaker A: We've been through that. [00:38:41] Speaker B: We have. [00:38:43] Speaker A: I mean, Lennon and I have been through that. [00:38:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:38:44] Speaker A: When I was a chapter boss. [00:38:48] Speaker B: Now that I'm a state. Yeah. And I'll come home and go, I got a phone call at 08:00 yeah. And it may be an unscheduled phone call. It may be one that's on the schedule. There's all these different. Or we may be watching a movie and I get a phone call from another boss and they're like, hey, man, hold on. Pause. And I get up and walk out of the room. It's like, who's that? You get those phone calls that you got to walk out of the room for right. And those are the times when you hear the. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Here we go again. [00:39:27] Speaker B: Dear God, please be with him. Give him the words to say. I can hear her praying. [00:39:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Praise God. They do that. [00:39:34] Speaker B: Amen. Right. For her to say, I'm 100% on board with forge brotherhood because of all the things that it does to take me away from her. [00:39:48] Speaker A: That's right. [00:39:48] Speaker B: But at the same time, she knows that the price of ministry, even though there are times that she's still supportive of the ministry, she's still supportive of what God's plan is, and the times when we can do it together, is elation. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, I will tell you, Linda has changed a little bit. Right. She just used to not. I'm not involved. [00:40:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:40:19] Speaker A: But it's funny because she is a full patch member, and when she realized we were talking about it and I said, you know, you didn't patch for me, she's like, what do you mean? I'm like, I never asked you to join. And she thought about it for a minute, and she was like, you didn't? I said, z asked you to, and Z gave you your patch. And she was like, oh, I did patch for Z. So when you got the founder and the international piece saying, I think you should do, you know, you would be a warrior. And now she's really starting to embrace. [00:41:06] Speaker B: That's the. That's the thing. Rebecca, she jokes about, because we've met people, pastors whose wives go, I'm not your typical pastor's wife. Yeah, right. Rebecca is not your typical first lady of a state. No, she's not. [00:41:22] Speaker A: No. Neither is a. [00:41:24] Speaker B: We were at a Christmas party for the crew, for the state. She didn't have one thing on Sid Ford's brotherhood. [00:41:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:33] Speaker B: Or sisterhood. [00:41:35] Speaker A: Well, it's like we went to the toy run, the bossels toy. She wore them. [00:41:40] Speaker B: Yeah. She has a. Rebecca does, too. [00:41:43] Speaker A: A property of. Well, Linda would never wear a property of patch. [00:41:47] Speaker B: Well, that's still a discussion. I'm not saying she's wearing Linda's very clearly. That's. [00:41:58] Speaker A: It's a culture thing. I totally get. [00:42:00] Speaker B: Is it is. It's a safety thing. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I know, but I try to explain. It's the highest form of respect that a wife gets. But she's buying property. Nobody's. Yeah. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Or don't call her old lady. [00:42:15] Speaker A: No, I would never say that to my wife. [00:42:17] Speaker B: No. Anyway, totally different. So here's where we're going to land this. This is where I think we should land it. Okay. We need to use what God has given us every single resource, wife, scripture, prayer, brothers around us. [00:42:38] Speaker A: Amen. [00:42:39] Speaker B: To not hide in the baggage. I agree with that because that call that we have on our life is so crucial to furthering the kingdom and making God's name famous in this land that we can't hide, we can't walk back. We can't try to shirk it or give it to somebody else of what our call is. [00:43:05] Speaker A: Amen. [00:43:06] Speaker B: So don't hide in the baggage. [00:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:09] Speaker B: Now, you might not be 64 and use your fear. Exactly. [00:43:15] Speaker A: Right. Use your fear for the glory of God. [00:43:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:43:18] Speaker A: Use your fear to bring somebody with you. Right. Because just said brothers. Right. So use your fear to your benefit, not to your weakness. [00:43:28] Speaker B: Exactly. Amen. Amen. [00:43:34] Speaker A: It's been a pleasure, brother. [00:43:35] Speaker B: It's always a pleasure. But this one has been a lot of fun. [00:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So I think you guys will notice we're going to start doing more topical stuff. We spent a lot of time doing parables, right? [00:43:44] Speaker B: We did. [00:43:45] Speaker A: And we're just going to talk and see where the podcast takes us. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Now, we still may do a couple of parables that are left. [00:43:54] Speaker A: We might. [00:43:55] Speaker B: Right. That still may come up. But, yeah, topically, we're going to be doing a whole bunch of stuff. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Yeah. We're going to get through it. [00:44:01] Speaker B: We are. We're going to enjoy every minute of it. [00:44:04] Speaker A: That's right. So remember, subscribe. We're on every podcast, platform of choice and YouTube. And YouTube. You could watch us on YouTube. You can subscribe, click the like button, little bell. It'll notify you when we put a new one up, generally every Wednesday, but sometimes we'll go a couple weeks. And that's just how it works. We do this as God calls us to do it. And so we've decided we're not sticking to it. This is the hard and fast schedule. We're going to do what God wants us to do. [00:44:29] Speaker B: Right. Exactly. [00:44:30] Speaker A: So thanks for listening again. It's Rick and Rob with the nomad pastor. Remember to love God and love people.