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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello there, pray dot com listener. I'm Terry and it's
great to have you here with us on Ccpodcasts. We're
here to share the truth of God's word and proclaim
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Please visit our profile and
click that follow button to keep up with us right
here at pray dot com, or jump over to our
website Ccpodcasts dot com to download our freemobile app.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
There you can.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Access thousands of episodes of our Christ centered Bible based content.
On today's episode, you'll be hearing a selection from each
of our three types of content. First, you'll hear Matt
Research share one of our brief daily dose emotions where
we're working through an overview of the entire Bible. Second,
Pastor Tim Budger will share a sixteen to eighteen minute

(00:48):
sermon from the CC Broadcast, which has been airing on
the radio weekly since nineteen thirty six. And Third, you'll
hear an inspiring interview with an interesting Christian from our
ccpodcast Conversation. Before we get going, why don't I say
a quick prayer, God, thank you for loving us enough
to send your son Jesus Christ to save us. I

(01:08):
pray that you would speak through the content wind up
for today so that people would be encouraged and inspired
by you and your word.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Amen.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Okay, here's Matt Reeser, executive director of CC Podcasts, with
our daily dose devotion.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Today. We're going to be in John chapter six, verses
sixteen through twenty one. This is John's account of Jesus
walking on water. And before I use it to chip
away at professing Christians who think there are contradictions in
the Bible, let me take a second to thank the
Family Leader for being our daily Dose devotion sponsor. In
twenty twenty three. You can learn more about the Family
Leader and the announcements at the end of this devotion,

(01:51):
and as always, thank you to the Family Leader for
their support. So this is the third account of Jesus
walking on water. The first one is in Matthew fortie
twenty two through thirty three. We did a devotion on
that text in episode five twenty. The second one is
in Mark chapter six, verses forty five through fifty two.
We did a devotion on that one in episode six

(02:11):
oh nine. And here we are in John six sixteen
through twenty one. In the Book of Luke. Luke doesn't
include anything in his Gospel about Jesus walking on water.
So we're just dealing with three accounts here. And these
accounts have been the subject of much conversation regarding the
reliability the inerrancy of scripture. Are there contradictions? Are there inconsistencies?
How do we make this all work well? In reading

(02:33):
and studying about this today I came across the blog
It's called the Amateur Exegy, and this guy's definitely an amateur.
Here is the conclusion of his analysis of the Matthew, Mark,
and John accounts of Jesus walking on water. He says,
it is clear that these are not stories intended to
be read as complimentary to one another. They can't be.

(02:53):
But what it does teach us is that the gospel
writers were not giving us literal history. Rather, they were
painting their own portraits of Jesus. If the details of
their version contradicted previous versions, who cared? They were intended
to address the community of which they were apart, not
anyone else's, and that should only bother the an arentists.
So this guy, the Amateur Exegy, says that there are

(03:14):
contradictions between the accounts, their irreconcible contradictions, and that shouldn't
bother us. This inspired me in today's devotion to take
the opportunity to tell you and our audience that I believe,
and many credible scholars believe that while there are differences
between the accounts, and there always are across the Gospels,
none of these differences are inconsistent or contradictory. For example,

(03:37):
Matthew's account is the only account that refers to Peter
also stepping out and walking on water briefly before he
loses faith and Jesus has to reach down and rescue him.
That's not included in Mark or John. One of the
accounts says they headed out toward Besseta. John says they
headed to Capernaum, and while those two towns are generally
in the same direction from where they started, which was

(03:59):
near the site or Jesus fed the five thousand, they
aren't in exactly the same direction. So at first glance
this could look like a contradiction, and there are a
few explanations for why it's not. The most convincing to
me is that there was a storm on the sea
and they could have headed out toward beth Sayta, but
got wind blown to Capernaum. Another allegation against this text
by people who don't believe that scripture is inerrant is

(04:21):
the fact that John's account is so much shorter than
Matthew's and Marx. I mean, this is a pretty big deal.
Jesus walked on water. Wouldn't John give something like this
more attention than he does? Well, let me read a
verse from John twenty one, verse twenty five that helps
give some clarity to this question. John writes, Now, there
are also many other things that Jesus did. For every

(04:42):
one of them to be written, I suppose that the
world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
What John is saying is there's tons of stuff that
Jesus did that didn't get written down. In fact, he's
saying there's tons of stuff Jesus did that I John
didn't write down. John has a specific purpose for picking
the things he did write down in the things he
didn't write down, And the account of Jesus walking on

(05:03):
water was significant enough for him to include, even though
he didn't give all the details that Matthew and Mark did.
But I'd invite you to go read these three accounts,
study them for yourselves, and see how it's not terribly
difficult to imagine these accounts being complimentary to one another,
the same story told accurately, but from three different perspectives.
And the reason I'm spending time on this is because

(05:24):
we can't allow people who claim to be Christian, who
claim to be Bible scholars, throw out easy and lazy
accusations about Scripture not being in errant without us, those
who believe in biblical inerrancy standing up to defend scripture
against these deceptions. Let's look at John six sixteen through
twenty one. When evening came, his disciples went down to
the sea, got into a boat, and started across the

(05:46):
sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had
not yet come to them. The sea became rough because
a strong wind was blowing. When they had wrote about
three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the
sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened,
but he said to them it is do not be afraid.
Then they were glad to take him into the boat,
and immediately the boat was at the land to which
they were going. Interestingly, this is a detail at the

(06:08):
very end that's not included in Matthew or Luke that
once Jesus got in the boat, they were immediately on shore.
Pretty cool, kind of like beam me up, Scotty. And
by the way, don't think for a second that that's
not possible. This is the creator of the universe. This
is the one who had healed the lame, who just
got done feeding five thousand, who would rise from the dead,
plus gobs of other miracles that are in scripture and

(06:30):
even ones that aren't. Here's how I look at it.
If there's one miracle that's believable, just one supernatural thing
that ever happened, then everything else is possible. I don't
have trouble believing that he turned five lobes and two
fish into a meal for five thousand or twenty thousand people.
I don't have a problem believing that he walked on water.
I don't have a problem believing that the storm got
calm as soon as he got in the boat. And
I don't have a problem believing that the boat got

(06:51):
there immediately once he got in. When it comes to
interpreting and believing in the Bible, win in doubt air
on the side of inerrancy, air on the side of
believing that the Bible is completely reliable and completely true.
You're never gonna get in trouble that way. You're not
going to find yourself in a spiritually precarious position if
you take that approach. If you take the approach that
the amateur exegy takes, which is sadly the approach taken

(07:14):
by many contemporary so called Christians and denominations and seminaries
and pastors and ministry leaders, you could find yourself in
a very precarious position spiritually when it's all said and done.
By the way, one of the reasons I think John's
account is so short in particular, is because it seems
to be just a brief transition between the feeding of
the five thousand and more teaching that he's going to

(07:34):
do to the people regarding the bread of life, which
ties back to the feeding of the five thousand with
bread and illuminates Jesus' role as the bread of life.
Come back for more on that next time. Thanks for
tuning in, have a great deal to hi.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
I'm Andrew Nordstrom, technical director for the CC podcast. Thanks
for listening here pray dot com. Please visit our profile
and follow us right here, or head over to ccpodcast
dot com, where we've archived thousands of episodes worth of
content and you can.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Access our free mobile app.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
Next, we're going to hear a sermon from Pastor Tim Bucker,
who preaches on our weekly radio program, the CC Broadcast,
which has been on the air since nineteen thirty six.
Thanks for tuning in, and may God richly bless you.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
I begin today with the question, and I ask you
if you've ever been given news or been made aware
of news that just rocks you to the core, just
shakes you, or takes your breath away. We're in the
month of September, and many of us can remember September eleventh,
two thousand and one, when we first heard the news
of the Twin Towers and the hijacking of the airplanes,

(08:56):
and so many people can remember exactly where they were,
and the emotional locking of that memory into our minds
is so real. I recently got a phone call. I'm
fifty five years old and my brother was forty nine,
and he passed away suddenly in his chair, sitting in
his office. And I got news while I was out

(09:18):
with some friends on a golf course, and I got
a phone call and it just took my breath away,
just shook me to the core. That's what happens to
Namiyah when he's serving as cup bearer to the king
in Susa. And the book begins, it says, in the
month of kiss Levi in the twentieth year, while I
was in the citadel of Susa, Neemiah writing Hanna and Iyah,

(09:40):
one of my brothers came from Judah with some other men,
and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant. They're people
Niamiyah was a Jewish individual who his family had come
from Jerusalem, and now he was living east of there,
many hundreds of miles in Susa, and his brothers were
coming there to visit and probably to do some trade

(10:02):
and things like that. And when his brothers come, it
says he questioned them about the Jewish remnant that has
survived the exile. They were kicked out of Jerusalem because
of their disobedience to God. And he also asked about
the city itself, how the city was doing, And they
said to me, he writes, those who survived the exile
and are back in the province in the Jerusalem area,

(10:24):
they are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of
Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned
with fire. Nehemiah has been given information here that shocks him.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
To his core.

Speaker 5 (10:38):
It takes his breath away, and it causes him to
seek the face of God. You know, when nine to
eleven happened, I was in ministry on a college campus,
and I can't even describe how many students showed up
at our events not long after the news of nine

(10:59):
to eleven came out. And that's what happens to Neemiah.
He starts to seek the face of God in a
desperate way, like many people did in America here when
we heard the news of what was what had happened
to the Twin Towers and the hijacking of the plains.
Neamiah says it this way, when I heard these things,

(11:19):
I sat down and wept for some days. I mourned
and fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven. Isn't
it interesting that there are many people who sort of
downplay the existence of God and don't acknowledge his presence much.
But when push comes to shove and we get ourselves

(11:40):
in a reality of a situation where we see how
vulnerable we are in life and how vulnerable the world is.
Many more of us seek the face of God, and
that's what Neemiah. He's experienced this traumatic news from his homeland,
and he sat down and wept, and for days he's
mourned and fasted and prayed and the face of God,

(12:02):
and after some time in prayer, he was ready to
do something. And we can learn from the scriptures about
how God works in the world and how he wants
to enlist us in his work, in his redemptive work.
And we see this so clearly in Neemiah. As matter
of fact, the New Testament tells us that all that
was written in the past was written to teach us

(12:25):
and to encourage us, so that what we read in
the past about what happened and God working in the world,
you and I might be encouraged and have hope in
the present. And we certainly see that when we look
at Niemiah, we see then how he goes about partnering
with God in the redemptive work of God in the world. Now,

(12:46):
this is an actual physical redemption of a city that
Nehemiah's talking about. But of course, when we get to
the New Testament, we're talking about the spiritual redemption of
human souls through the work of Christ that we're called
to be involved in. And there's so many similarities in
the nature of the work we see here from Nehemiah

(13:06):
that the work of God and partnering with God in
the building of His kingdom in the world. First and foremost,
it's a prayerful work. It's a prayerful work. What is
the first thing Namiah did when he heard this news
and was given a burden about a brokenness in the
world that, of course God cared about, and God is

(13:27):
burdening him with it. He weeps, he prays, he fasts,
he mourns for days prayer. You can read his prayer
in Neemiah chapter one, and his prayer continues throughout.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
All of his work.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
The work of God in the world is foundationally supported
with prayer. This is one of the great aspects of
kingdom advancement is the work of prayer. Are you praying
about the burden God has put on your heart? Are
you seeking His face? You know, every challenge, every bit

(14:07):
of brokenness in the world is an opportunity for you
and I to seek the face of God and pray.
Perhaps there's something in your life right now that you're
dealing with that, you haven't been praying about that, you should,
You should begin seeking God with it and laying it
before him. The work of God in the world in

(14:27):
us is first and foremost a prayerful work. But then
we see Nehemiah as he continues to pray, he then
takes action, and he moves into what I might call
a dignified work. See before Niemiah goes before King Artaxerxes,
now the king that he was serving under with this burden.

(14:50):
He ends his lengthy time of prayer with the simple
prayer says, give your servants success today by granting him
favor in the presence of the king. And so clearly
he's praying about his actions and what steps to take,
and for God to give him favor in joining him
in this burden he's given to help redeem Jerusalem. And

(15:11):
then he begins the work in a dignified way as
he goes before the king prayerfully, he says. In the
month of Nissan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes,
when wine was brought before him, this says Namiah wine
being brought that he's supposed to be a cup bearer
for to take to the king to test the wine.
He says, I took the wine and gave it to

(15:32):
the king. And then he adds this little note. He says,
I had not been sad in his presence the presence
of the king. Before he had managed his emotions in
a very dignified way in his service to the king.
But at this point he could no longer hide his sadness.

(15:52):
But he makes note that he had not burdened the
king with unnecessary burdens before. For him personally, Wow, he
was sad, truly sad, and the king took note. The
king noticed, see all of this is bathed in prayer,
and God is opening a door here for Niemiah to
be heard by the king. Arti exerxes about the burden

(16:15):
that God has put upon him, And the king asked him,
why does your face look so sad when you are
not ill? This can be nothing, the king says, but
sadness of heart. So God has opened a door for Nemiah.
Bathed in prayer, he begins to seek God's wisdom about

(16:36):
steps to take to deal with the burden he's been
given about his homeland of Jerusalem. This is the work
of God in the world. You see, Jerusalem is the
apple of God's eye. This is all a foretaste imagery
to teach us about how God works in the world.
And this doorway is open, and Neemiah says this, I

(16:57):
was very much afraid. I mean, he's standing there, the
king's presence, and he's probably trembling in his boots. He's
probably never burdened the king before with anything personal. And
he says, I was very much afraid, But I said
to the king, may the King live forever. He gives
respect and reverence to the King in a very dignified way,

(17:19):
because Nemiyah has been quickened by God in prayer for
the dignity of life and the beauty and wonder of
this world and the need for redemption, and he's being
motivated and inspired by it, and he knows he needs
to appeal to a worldly authority. Sees Neemiah is clearly
serving two kings.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Here.

Speaker 5 (17:38):
He's got the earthly king, King art Exerxes, he's serving,
but on a higher plane, he is serving the God
of Israel, the God of all creation, the King of
all kings. And he's praying to that king as he
makes an appeal to this worldly king. So he's very
much afraid. But he says to the king, may the

(17:59):
king live forever? Why should my face not look sad?
Here he gets vulnerable before the king. Why should my
face not look sad? When the city where my ancestors
are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been
destroyed by fire? He shares his heart. Here's a key

(18:19):
aspect of our leadership in the world. A lot of
times God's favor doesn't come to us when we're strong,
but when we're weak. See when we're humble. And now
Neemiah's humbling himself before this earthly king and being vulnerable
and telling him what's happened in his heart and why

(18:40):
he's sad. Why should my face not look sad when
the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins
and its gates have been destroyed by fire. Now it's
hanging in the balance. Will the king respond in a
positive way? This whole moment has been bathed in prayer,
the foundation of prayer, in the work of the kingdom.
The King's said to me, what is it you want? Oh,

(19:04):
the door has opened for Namiah. The prayer has gone
before him. God has opened this door to talk with
the king about his situation he's involved in this dignified work,
and there Namiyah sits, It's just one of these moments
you probably would never forget in life, you know, these

(19:24):
moments where so much hangs in the balance, and the
king says, what is it you want from me? And
now Niemiah has to decide, am I going to be
courageous and speak up and talk to the king? Or
am I going to shrink back and say, no, it's
not too big of a teal. No, I don't want
to bother you with the king, but he shows courage.

(19:46):
And so often when you and I are in the
world and we want to do what's right before God,
we need to be bathed in prayer and be prayerful
in what we're doing. We need to approach our work
in a very respectful, in dignified way. But sooner or later,
there are going to come those moments where you and
I have to show courage where we have to step

(20:09):
out of our comfort zone as Nehemiah is doing here,
and we have to seize the moment at hand and
take the opportunity that God is laying before us. Just
in honor of our nation in America here in the
nine to eleven that we celebrate in September, I'm going
to share with you one of these moments from a
gentleman named Todd Beemer who was on flight ninety three

(20:34):
in September eleventh back then, and he's talking to his
wife and they knew the plane had been hijacked. They
were hearing the other planes were being crashed, and he
says to his wife on the phone, we're not going
to make it out of here. He says, listen to me.
His wife's name is Lisa. I want you to hear this.
I have talked with the others. We've decided we would
not be pawns in these hijackers suicidal plot. And then

(20:57):
Lisa responds, Todd, what are you going to do? And
Todd says, We've hatched a plan. Four of us are
going to rush the hijacker with the bomb and will
take him out. We'll break into the cockpit of Stewardess
is getting some boiling water to throw on the hijackers
at the controls. We'll get them, we'll take them out.

(21:17):
Will you do one last thing for me? And he
says this to his wife Lisa, and Li says, yes,
what is it? And Todd says, would you pray with me?
And then they prayed, our Father, which art in heaven?
How would be thy name, thy kingdom? Come? Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven. And

(21:39):
he finished the lord's prayer, and then those famous words,
Let's roll, Let's roll. Nehemiah standing before the king, and
the king has asked him what he wants, and he
has to decide. Am I going to take action?

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Now?

Speaker 5 (21:57):
Am I going to move with the king? Am I
gonna go forward? And of course, he says, Then I
prayed to the God of Heaven. In these moments, you know,
you'll never You'll never see an atheist in a foxhole
or under pressure like this. Neemiah, he said, he was
very much afraid. He prayed to the God of heaven.

(22:18):
And he answered the king, and he said, if it
pleases the King, and if your servant has found favor
in his sight, let him send me to the city
of Judoh, where my ancestors are buried, so that I
can rebuild it. And then the King, sitting with the
queen beside him, asked me how long will your journey
take and when will you get back? And if it

(22:39):
pleased the king to send me, it did so, I
said it time. And he asked further of the king
to actually give him permission to pass through the land
and letters to do it safely, and writes to some
forest and wood in the area so he could rebuild
the walls in the city. And the king granted all this,
and Neamia said, he handed all this to me because

(23:02):
of God's hand being upon me, in his favor being
upon me. And Neemiah set out some seven hundred and
fifty to nine hundred and fifty mile journey, some seventy
to one hundred days. He left the palace, He left
the comfort of his land there, his position, his cupbearer,
his status in that city, and he headed all the

(23:23):
way to the broken down city of Jerusalem. And he
and got involved in hard work of rebuilding the apple
of God's eye, the city of Jerusalem, the Israelite people's home. Friends.
This is characteristic of God.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
He calls us.

Speaker 5 (23:39):
Into arenas where we're burdened, where we want to seek
His face, we want to pray, and then we'll be
moved to be involved in some redemptive work.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
With Him.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
And as we do that redemptive work, we do it
in a dignified manner and way that honors God. And
sooner or later it requires courage and self sacrifice. It's
a life altering work. Friends, this has not changed for
thousands and thousands of years. We live in a broken world,
and to be a part of God's redemptive plan, we

(24:11):
have to be spiritually in touch with Him through prayer.
We have to carry ourselves in a way that's honorable
and right before Him, to live our lives in a
manner worthy of our calling in a dignified way. And
then we have to show courage. We have to be
self sacrificing. We have to be willing to let go
of the creature comfort sometimes of this world and get

(24:34):
our hands dirty in the work of the Kingdom of God.
I hope this has encouraged you today. Characteristics of work
in the Kingdom. God is so good. May you be
encouraged to serve Him more fully with your lives based
on the inspiration the model of Neemiah.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Let's pray together.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
Father, thank you for this time, and thank you for
your word which teaches us without air what to believe
and how to live, and the Old Testament was written
to give us hope, to encourage us on, to inspire us.
We thank you for it. We thank you for Nehemiah's
example and his courage and his tenacity and his sacrificial
service to you, and how that has taught so many

(25:15):
of us about leadership over the years. May we continue
to learn what you've revealed to us and what you
want to teach us by your spirit in serving you
in this world by faith. Thank you for the gift
of your son Jesus, the penalty he paid on the
cross for our sins, that we could be right with
you and have peace with you, and then learn to

(25:35):
grow in our faith and service to you through faith
in him. We pray this in his matchless name, the
name of Jesus Amen.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
That was Tim Bucker, Associate radio preacher for the CC
broadcast one of our three podcasts. Before I get you
to our next interview, I want to remind you about
our profile here on pray dot com. If you're heaven already,
go check get out and follow us. You can also
visit our website Ccpodcasts dot com, where we've archived thousands

(26:06):
of episodes of content and where you can find a
link to download our free and mobileile. Next, we'll be
listening to our executive director, Matt Reaster as he conducts
and interview on the Ccpodcast Conversations Inspiring Interviews with Interesting Christians.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
Hey, everybody, Matt Rester with the Ccpodcast Conversations. We're interviewing
interesting Christians with inspiring stories. I've got Christina Baker with
me at the Christian Products Expo in Lexington, Kentucky. And Christina,
you are my ninth interview in the last probably twelve hours,
and so I feel like I'm swimming, but I'm excited

(26:50):
about this one. So trust that the Lord is gonna
make it what we want it to be. And you're
one of the keynote speakers this week. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yes, Yes, I'll be speaking tonight.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
So why would CPE want you to be their keynote?

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, Well, I don't know. Honestly. Every time the Lord
opens up a door, I know that he's opening up
a door for people to receive the message of hope
that comes from the Gospel. And so for every open door,
I know that there are people that either are walking
through a season where they need hope that only comes

(27:27):
from Jesus, or they know somebody that is, or they're
about to encounter someone that is going to need to
know about the hope that's only found in him.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
So how did you come to find that hope and
why did you need it when you found it?

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah? Well, I grew up in an atheist home. My
dad was an atheist. My mom was a nonpracticing Catholic,
so I kind of followed in his footsteps. We're at well.
I was born in Denver, Colorado, but I grew up
in a country called Bolivia. Oh, when my parents got divorced.
My mom remarried of Bolivian so we moved there when
I was pretty young. After my parents divorced when I

(28:02):
was seven.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
So was it your stepdad that was atheist or your
biological dad?

Speaker 2 (28:05):
My biological dad? Okay, so I lived, you know, I
lived with my dad till I was seven, and then
when we moved to South America, I started taking a
downward spiral, started getting into self harm. And a lot
of people may or may not know who this is,
but Marilyn Manson, Oh, yeah, that's very much. I got
into the goth scene and started getting into you know,

(28:26):
self harm and and all of that at a really
young age. By the age of fourteen, I was going
to the bars. There's no drinking age in South America,
so started, you know, with alcohol and just just partying hard,
trying to numb the pain that I didn't even know
was there.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
Did you have other siblings go with you or were
you kind of by yourself? Yeah, finding your own friends,
your new friends whatever.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
I have three brothers, but we didn't have a great relationship,
so you know my Yeah, I have an older brother
and two younger brothers.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
So you went down to Bolivia knowing no one.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Really my family, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
I mean in terms of who you're partying with and stuff, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
No, I mean you just the thing is is in
that like in those kinds of groups, we all would
just kind of find each other. And so Bolivia is
not a very That wasn't a very especially in those
time early two thousands, like late in the nineties, there
weren't a lot of people like that. We were definitely
like a very you know, the anti social outcast of society.
Interesting and I found my people in them because it

(29:25):
was a bunch of people with a lot of pain
inside and we just wanted to be able to express it.
How did we do that? The black hair, the black clothes,
the dog spikes, and the black you know rings around
our eyes and you know, looking we wanted to look
dead because I felt dead inside.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Interesting. You know, I've always looked at goth people and
wondered what's going on there? And I don't want to
be painting with such a broad brush that I assume
all of them are messed up. I mean, maybe they
just like to wear dark clothes and wear spikes on
their net. I don't know. And who am I. I'm
I'm this clean clip boy scout kid. So who am

(30:04):
I to just say they're automatically all lost and have
deep pain? But is that a generality that fits?

Speaker 2 (30:11):
I believe so I do, because you know, what we
see on the outward is usually pointing into something that
is on the inside. So for me, it definitely was that.
And for most of the people that I was around,
it was that I didn't know one person that wasn't
in a place of like utter darkness in their soul,
that was living that. Now could there be an exception

(30:33):
to that? Absolutely? I mean to generalize everybody and say
everybody's like that, right, I get that, But everybody that
I knew. We were all kids that had come out
of broken marriages, abuse, neglect, like there was just we
just kind of all found each other. And that's the
way it is, you know, you have when you've got wounds,
you kind of find other people. I call, you know,
wound liquors. Everybody's just kind of like licking each other's

(30:56):
wounds and you find each other.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, so keep telling the story.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah. So by the age of fifteen, I came home
one night. My stepdad was standing at the foot of
the stairs and as I was going up, he almost
pushed me down, and he was he stopped and he goes,
You're not worth it, and he's he said, you're leaving.
And so my mom at the time, like she knew
if I continued to stay there, she was scared for
my life because of you know, the violence was increasing

(31:22):
more and more. My stepdad was really abusive. And they
put me on a one way ticket from Santa Cruz,
Bolivia to Maui, Hawaii, where they believe my dad was.
And I hadn't seen my dad in almost ten years.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
So the last week my dad was an oil executive
for a big oil company, had a bad drug problem,
which is what caused, you know, the problems between him
and my mom and is one of the reasons why
she left him. And so I go from Santa Cruz
to MAUI show up with an electric guitar on my

(31:54):
back and a Duffel bag with my entire life in it.
And I'm sitting at the Kahlui airport for like six
I was fifteen, wow. And so my dad shows up
after six hours. We recognize each other, except that I
wasn't the bushy tailed, wide eyed you know, six year old.
I was now black on black on black, you know,

(32:16):
just goth kid. And he says Christina, and I knew
it was him, and you know, we give each other
a hug. We get into his pickup truck and he's like,
I've got to tell you something. This is crazy you're here.
And I was like, okay, I had just this thought.
I was like, I just want to get in a
warm bed. I had been traveling for twenty four plus hours. Yeah,

(32:37):
And he's like, I'm homeless and I'm living in a
tent on the beach. I lost everything, you know, he was,
I guess trying to put a CD out. He's a
musician as well, but he retired from the oil field
in his late forties and you know, wanted to do
what he loved, which was music. So he lost all
his money doing that and obviously a bad drug problem.

(32:57):
So we show up to a place called Thousand Peaks
beef tents everywhere. Now mind you, I didn't come from that.
You know, it was a we were My mom married
somebody who was very well to do, but it was
like living in a prison. And so that's how I
ended up at Thousand Peaks Beach. So three days into

(33:18):
we were there for yeah, it was about three days
and the police raided the beach and we had to
move to a campground called Camp Pacosa.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
And so are you like, what the crap? What I mean,
what are we doing here?

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, I mean a tent.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Like from a seven bedroom home. Let me tell you.
I mean, you know, yeah, I mean we in Bolivia.
It's very much you're either very very wealthy or you're
very very poor. It's a third world country, did you know?
She didn't know, but my mom was in a desperate place,
so they didn't even talk to my My dad found
out from his conga player in his band, that I

(33:54):
was at the airport. That's why he was so late,
and so, you know, I'm in a state of shock.
You know, there's a part of me though at the
moment that was like I was happy to get out
of where I was, but I just came into something.
It was like the curtains were just ripped open, like
welcome to the real world. Like really, welcome to the

(34:14):
real world. I don't know what my next meal is
gonna be. I've got twenty bucks in my pocket, and
you're just in a state of shock. It's trauma. So
you're just kind of like when you're walking through trauma
and you're walking through shock, the only thing that's on
your mind is surviving it. Yeah, so like reasoning, I mean,
all that goes out the window. You're just like, I've
got to survive this, and your your brain goes into

(34:35):
survival mode. Every part of you goes into survival mode.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Wow. So then what So I was on.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
The beach for quite some time and a family member
found out.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Are you just sharing a tent with your dad?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah? Yeah, there's a blow up, a blow up ed
and his tent it's like a queen size tent. So
it was just like all blow up ed.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
My dad's like freaking out, like what do I Like,
I haven't seen my daughter in all these years, and
I mean yeah, and I'm like, you know, it was awkward,
but interestingly enough, like I know now looking back, how
the Lord gave us that moment. It was like a
moment where him and I bonded in a place of
deep pain because God was setting up puzzle pieces that

(35:17):
would one day open the gates for my dad to
come to the Lord. But I'll get to that in
a second.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
So I went from house to house. So I get
a plane ticket from my aunt to go to back
to Houston, which is where most of my family is.
Went from house to house and they're like, we don't
want to deal with this clearly very troubled teenager, which
I understand, you know. And my brother was going he
was on an athletic scholarship in Pennsylvania at Messiah College,

(35:45):
so in a little town called Grantham. And so I
end up in Pennsylvania living at a red roof inn.
At this point, I'm sixteen years old. And my brother
goes to his basketball coach and is like, my sister,
she's an eighth. I'm pretty sure she's on drugs. I'm
not really sure all that's going on there, but I'm
trying to find a place for her to live. And

(36:07):
so he goes to the church. The basketball coach who
was a Christian who was a recovered alcoholic, had this
crazy testimony and goes to the staff meeting at the church.
He attends and this couple stands up and says, we'll
take her in.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Like no questions, are like, let us tell you where
she's at. No, we'll take her. So I show up
to their house one week before nine to eleven, September eleventh,
two thousand and one.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
And she opens the door and she's like, you know,
welcome to our home. She's like, we just you know,
we sit down. She's like, we just have two rules
in our house. One your curfeuse eleven. I'm like, I
don't care. I just I want a warm bed. Yeah,
I want a safe place. And then the second one
is you got to go to church with us every Sunday.
And I'm like looking around the room and I'm like
you don't understand, Like I'm an atheist, and they're like
you're on your own kid, and so I live with

(36:54):
them for three years, and I would come down and
I had like pink hair at a crazy and seeing
words on my hoodies, and I would fuzzy slippers and
like smiley faced pajamas, just like I would come in
my pajamas, like are you sure you want to take me?
She's like, yeah, get in the car, Chris, We're going
to church. And this was kind of like a very

(37:15):
you know, this is a very very conservative church. Okay,
So she didn't care. She wanted me in church.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
She didn't care what I look like. She didn't care.
She just wanted me in church. And what I didn't
know is that the Lord was setting up, He was beginning.
You know, the scriptures tell us that one sows one waters,
but it is God that gives the increase. And looking
back on those moments of my life, I know that
the Lord was setting up. He was planting seeds. Whether
I wanted to receive it, whether I was falling asleep

(37:44):
in church or not, whether I was just totally checked out.
God was sowing seed because his word is incorruptible, and
his word will do what it's set out to do.
And so I stayed with them three years, graduated high school,
and once I left their home, I just started going
on a downward spiral again. Just now I started getting
into really heavy drugs and so many things. Okay, I

(38:06):
could you know. There's just so many stories leading up
to this moment. But my rubber meets the road moment.
I got arrested for drug possession. And I had had
many close calls.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Before in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Are you still so I moved to Houston.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Oh yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
I leave their house, I'm kind of out on my own.
I start partying really hard. I mean, I'm out on
my own now. I'm like, I'm doing whatever I want.
And I end up in Houston, Texas, and I'm like
partying really hard, and I had so many close calls
with the cops all the time. It was like I
would almost get arrested and then I wouldn't. And one night,

(38:40):
I'm driving down the road I'd just gone to my
dealer's house and lights come on, pulls me over. I'm
like smoking in the car, smoking weed in the car,
and he rolls down the window, puts me under arrest
immediately and I go to jail that night. Takes all
my drugs. I mean, I didn't just have a ton
of weed. I had other things in the car too.

(39:00):
So I go to jail that night and I remember
just like being in the holding tank and I'm like,
what am I doing here? Like? What am I doing here?
And so the rubber meets the road moment for me came.
I'm out on bail. I'm sitting at my desk because
I worked at a university. By the way, I was
a admissions counselor. Oh wow, I had landed a job,

(39:21):
just kind of following in my dad's footstep. My dad
was an oil executive with a bad cocaine habit, but
he lived very functional. But it catches up to you,
so you can't. People are like, I'm a functional addict.
People say that, but it's like sooner or later, the
addiction does take over. You can do that only for
a while, but in every way physiologically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually,

(39:45):
it begins to take over. And I was already hitting
that point where it was like the addiction was totally
taking over, and I'm sitting at my desk and I
was like, well, if I'm going to go back to jail,
like I have nothing to live for except you know,
and this is a whole nother story of I had
a nine month old baby at home and there's a
whole story with that too, And I just kept like

(40:06):
thinking about him, and I just this voice in my
head was like, but he's better off without you. And
I get a tap on the shoulder and it's this
guy who I knew was a part time pastor. His
name was Hillroy, and he's like, just boldly, He's like,
I have a word from the Lord for you, Christina.
And I'm like, a word from the Lord. I don't
even believe in God in my mind, but I was
like I had this thought. I'm like, how did he know?

(40:27):
I was like contemplating how to take my life. At
the same time he comes and says he has a
word from God.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
And he says, we have prayer meetings every day on
the third floor and we want to invite two out
at noon, and it was like my last resort. I
was like, well, what do I have to lose? So
I am like trembling showing up to this prayer meeting.
I could hear them praying on the other side. These
people were like it was like a humming like a
music coming from inside of this break room. And so

(40:54):
I walked through and I have this thought, I'm like,
if these people, if there's a God these people have,
I'm face to face with him because it was so intimate,
it was so close, it was so personal, like they
were right like they are face to face with God.
And he starts to read to me out of the hill.
Roy starts to read to me out of the Book
of Jeremiah, right before Israel is about to get wiped out,

(41:18):
and he said, this is a matter of life or death.
And I knew what he was saying to me was true.
It's interesting because truth is truth, and my spirit now
I know that I didn't in my mind, I was like,
this is true, because how would he have known that
I'm driving drunk one hundred and twenty miles an hour

(41:40):
down the freeway Monday through Monday from the bars. And
I had this thought like of me dying in a
car accident when he said that, and I knew maybe
this is like next for me. So he said, do
you want to accept Jesus into your heart? And I
was like, like, whoever you are, like, come into my heart,
change my life, help me raise my baby. And immediately

(42:03):
so he leads me through you know, Sinner's prayer, and
he's like, I'm like saying this, Jesus come into my
heart and immediately, like this piece I had never experienced
in my entire life is filling me. Like my top
of my head, tips and my toes and like the
boulders I had been carrying around for twenty plus years
in my life are like lifted instantly.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
And you know when the scriptures talk about being born again,
it truly is being born again. You know, the sky
was bluer, the grass was greener, the fluorescent lights in
the office I worked out were brighter, a light I
had never seen before. I had come through you know,
symbolically meta however you want to call it. Like, it's
like in the spirit, we come through the birth canal
and we are for the first time experiencing life in

(42:45):
the spirit. I'd never experienced something.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
Wow. Let me just stop you right there. It's interesting.
I've got an interview with a guy named Mike Reynolds
on this podcast. People can go back and listen to it,
and he talks about this the same way you are out.
Everything in his life was just gray and black and white.
You know, there was not a lot of color. And
when he got saved, like he started seeing things in color.

(43:08):
Now it's not that he didn't see color, but he
literally would say it was like more vivid color. Which
so like, I don't have that story. I mean, I
was raising a Christian home. I gradually there was not
a day in my life. I didn't believe Jesus was real.
Believe that he died sometime around seventh eighth grade. I

(43:30):
made a personal commitment to him. If you had to
pin me down on when I got saved, I'd say
probably that. But I mean, I believe my whole it's
sows this gradual growth thing. And so I'm so fascinated
when I hear these darkness to light stories because it's
so different from my story, but it's so.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Supernatural, supernatural because you know, my husband has it. Which,
by the way, your story is a story that I
desire for my son. Yeah, that's what we desire for
all of our children because and I believe that's the
heart of the father. The heart of the Father is
for us not to go and wander and end up
in so much pain. As a matter of fact, this

(44:10):
word is given to us so that we can prevent
all of the pain, and we can prevent all of that.
The thing is is that when you're born, I look
at it from a place of like stories, which I
believe are a massive testimony to the goodness of God,
the legacy and family that you were raised in, a
family that taught you the word of God. And I
tell people all the time, if you have parents that

(44:30):
in any way, shape or form took you to church,
nobody's perfect, and as parents we make mistakes every day.
But if your parents taught you that Jesus is Lord
and taught you the scriptures, that in itself is a testimony.
And my husband has that very powerful testimony.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
You do.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
My son is being raised up by the grace of
God and that testimony. But the heart of the Father
is not for us to go and end up in places,
you know, crack houses and be strung out and be
at the bar. That is not the heart of the Father.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
I think that when you are raised and just pitch dark,
you've never experienced light. Yeah, the first time you see it,
are these experiences of like, WHOA, I didn't know this
was out here.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, that's why.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
But stories like you, stories like you and my husband
and my son. Yeah, it's like the light just increases
as you the more you the more you see the
face of Jesus, there's more light and the more you
behold him, it just get your life. You look at
it and go, gosh, God, there's so much more of you. Yes,
but there's been a measure of light all your life.

(45:35):
What a testimony.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, that's cool. Before we go any further, a couple
of things that you've mentioned in your story that I
just want to highlight and stand out to me is
a the couple that brought you in. I mean, what
a great ministry. And I think that you know, people
are wondering like what, how could I ever make an
impact for the Lord. Well, you got a house and

(45:58):
you probably have a bedroom that if somebody needed to use,
and even if that person is not you know, your
idea of what a person should be like, what they
should look like, what they should wear, how they should
act take him in. There's another interview that I did
is our very first episode. A guy named Ron Grueber,
former motorcycle gangster murderer, did prison time, came to faith

(46:20):
in Christ and there was a family in Kentucky, which
is where we're at. Ironically, that took him in when
he was on the run and they required him. They
gave him a job. He needed work and he needed
to make money. He worked on a farm, and they
required him to eat lunch with them every day. And

(46:43):
at lunchtime, you know, they did just this old couple
that had nothing in common with Ron Gruger. They would
just do devotions at lunchtime. And Ron's like, this is
the dumbest thing. Why am I doing this? But I
need a job and I need to play to stay,
so I'm gonna come to lunch. And it just had
this drip drip drip effect that, like you said, God

(47:07):
is setting things up, putting pieces in place that would
eventually lead to him being saved. The other one was
what was the other component of your story where I
somebody jumped off the page to me like, yeah, you
could do this. This is a I slipped my mind,
but you know what I mean, Like the people that

(47:29):
took you in, it's huge, Like people can do that.
I think that Christians who want to have an impact
think they can only do two or three things. It's
like preach on a street corner, or like go door
to door evangelism, you know, but it's like, no, there's
a million things and one of them could be open

(47:50):
your house to somebody. And I mean, think about the
impact that that had in your story, right.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
It changed my life. And the reality of it is
that every single day that we're given by God is
an opportunity to minister.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
And the times go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
The times that we're living in right now is like
this is what my husband and I say all the time.
The fruit is so low hanging. And I want to
encourage your listeners because the fruit is so low hanging
right now. People can wear a mask all day, but
you walk around and it's like people are grasping for hope.
People are grasping for like how do I come out

(48:28):
of the dark place that I'm in? And so the
world is our platform. The world is our pulpit. You're
at the grocery store, you can go to the gas station,
you could be you know it just if you you know,
working in business. Wherever you are, there's always people. And
that's we have Jesus, the Holy Spirit living inside of us.
If you've given your life to the Lord, the hope

(48:48):
of glory the manifest presence of God. And sometimes people think, well,
I don't know what I could do. I don't know
where I can go if there are people around you, Yeah,
those are people that you can minister to.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
The Other one that I just remembered now was these
guys who were doing this prayer meeting at work. I mean,
what a huge thing. Like We've got a big manufacturing
company in Northeast Iowa, John Deere. They make tractors. Yeah,
you've heard of them. Yeah, And I think I know
guys who listen to this podcast who are engineers at
Deer and they're going, Okay, what am I supposed to

(49:23):
be doing? And you know, I've talked I've talked to
a few of them that there's maybe a little Bible
study with the guys they work with over the lunch hour. Yeah,
and you go, what's the effect of that? Well, who
knows what the effect of that is? In your case,
it's enormous, right, I mean change, And even for the
ones who they don't know their lives were changed. Doesn't
that have an impact? Like in the workplace, these guys

(49:45):
are getting together at lunchtime to study the Bible, Like
what's going on over there. They must be serious. Like
you said, these guys must have met God because of
the way that they were and the way that they
prayed and the way that they acted. Yeah, they testimony.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
That was what stood out to me was like it
was so personal. They were not talking to a God
that was far away or a God that was dead,
but they were talking to someone who When I stepped
into the room, the atmosphere was like, Wow, this is
it was it was. It was like an atmosphere that
was alive. These people were coming face to face with him.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
And and that's what that's what that's what impacted me.
And you know, it's interesting you talk about even the bosses.
One of the executives at that company is a good
friend of mine and she's come to the Lord and
she told me. She's told actually like two months ago,
she told me that they would get together in these
meetings and they were trying to shut this thing down.
They didn't know how to and they could not shut

(50:44):
it down. They could not because we didn't use corporate
email to It was just like it was our break
that was off the clock, and they could not shut
it down. God saw to it. People were coming to
the Lord in that little break room all the time.
For that was going on for years, and so I
you know, God brought the church to me because I

(51:05):
wouldn't have never stepped into a church on my own
like I did when I was a teenager because I
had I needed a place to live. But at that point,
I never would have gone into the church. The Lord
brought the church to me. He brought the Body of
Christ to me. And you know, that's just what we
see happening in the world right now that you know
the church has left the building and that's what you know,

(51:26):
with the pandemic and everything, it was like we were
called to a place where it was like, Okay, we
can't gather, but we've got to reach people. People have
got to hear the gospel, and we've been doing that
online and any God just became so resourceful. He's like, Hey,
We're going to use everything and anything to preach the gospel,
to bring fourth and to you know, share with people
that there is hope beyond this.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
So keep telling your story.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah, so I got arrested and you know, I'm going
to this prayer meeting. But you know, it's interesting because
when we come to the Lord it isn't like this,
like oh, now everything is going to be great. In fact,
everything started getting worse. And I was warned about that
because the man that led me to the Lord was like, now, Christina,
He was like, I just want to let you know

(52:10):
God's God's going to begin to deal with all the
things that got you in this place. And I'm so
thankful for that, because if I had just been told one, two, three,
you know, every day is a Friday, you know, like
I would have been in big trouble. And so I
was very thankful that he told he prepared me for
what was coming. And that's often what happens. We give
our lives to the Lord and God takes us into

(52:30):
a wilderness and begins to deal with the things that
had us in that place to begin with. So I
I'm facing a court case and basically for you know,
the drugs and everything. So I show up for court
that morning and it was the very first time that
I had heard the voice, the still small voice of
God in my spirit, and I it's crazy, like I

(52:53):
didn't hear an audible voice or anything. I just I
heard go talk to the DA. And so I told
my attorney I was like, I need to talk to
the DA. He was like, you can't do that, and
I was like, I have nothing to lose once again,
and he's like, you know, I've already given you legal advice.
He's like, okay, you know. And so this DA turned around,
looks at me walk out of the courtroom. He's like,

(53:13):
so what's up. And I remember thinking I'm like, I
don't know what's up. I'm just going to tell him
the truth about what happened. Because all these people that
were discipling me were telling me God is truth. I'm
going to tell them the truth about what happened that night.
And so I was like, look, I'm not the person
that was in that car September second. And I know
you get a lot of people to tell you that
God has saved them, but really, Jesus Christ has saved
me and I'm not that person anymore. And I'm deeply sorry.

(53:35):
And he's like we all make some mistakes, sometimes have
a great day.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
And then I'm like, you just dropped it.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Well. My attorney looks at me, he's like, you're toast.
I gave a full confession with no plea deal, and
I'm like, I can't go back to jail one. Anyways,
I go and sit down and I had this moment.
I was like, all right, Lord, I know you've called
me to preach the gospel. I know you've called me
to tell people about you, So I'll preach the gospel
in jail.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I was like, just take care of my baby.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
It was the only thing that was like, take care
of my son. It was the true moment of surrender.
Sometimes you think sometimes we think, oh, we've surrendered, but
I hadn't until that moment. It was like that was
when I laid everything down and then next thing I see,
it felt like fifteen hours, like fifteen minutes. My attorney
comes up to me. He's pale. He holds up a
yellow piece of paper and I'm thinking, maybe they're postponing

(54:26):
my arrest state because sometimes they give you time to
handle your affairs and then you turn yourself in. And
at the top of this yellow piece of paper it
says order of dismissal And I'm like, Oscar, what does
this mean? And he's like, you're free to go, and
I'm like, what happened? He said, they dismiss your case. Christina.
I run out of that courtroom. And I, you know,

(54:46):
had been watching all these people worship God, praise God.
I follow on my knees and I'm at the top
of my lungs. There's hundreds of people walking around. I'm like, Halleluly,
I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, totally undignified,
because when God touches you, you become undignified. You don't
even care what people think or what people say about you,
or what you look like. Yeah, You're just undignified. And
I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. And I

(55:08):
heard that still small voice again. You see that judge
in there, Do you see her? I'm above the judicial
system of the United States, And I've been watching over
your entire life. And I had this like kind of
film strip of like when I was homeless on the
beach looking up, going is there anybody out there that
sees me when I'm getting arrested a brain tumor diagnosis?
All those moments, he was there with me. And that

(55:29):
was my woman at the well moment where I knew
walking away from that well, I knew that I had
to I was like, I want to live the rest
of my days telling people about you, because I know
that what you've done for me, you'll do for everybody.
And so that was the moment that, you know, incroads
set the course for the rest of my life.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Give us a couple of sentences on the brain tumor diagnosis.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Yeah, in a couple of sentences, I was paragraphing, Yeah, well,
you know I was diagnosed actually before I became a believer,
and then I pretended it wasn't there. And God is
so good because when I was working at this university,
he started sending people after after I'd been led to
the Lord, people that worked at m d Anderson Cancer Center,
and you know, the Lord speaks to us in patterns,

(56:12):
so I knew. I was like, how am I getting
all these students that work at MD Anderson in one week?
And I knew I need to go get a scan.
I went and got a scan and the tumor had
grown significantly, and my neurosurgeon comes in. He's like, we're
gonna have to remove this. And I'm thinking, we'll like
a plan six months. He's like, when I come back
from vacation Monday, we have to remove it.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
And I'm like, oh my gosh, I have like, no
time to process this, went in for surgery. How the
Lord used this is the night before brain surgery. Well,
we meet, We're going up to the o R and
my dad is waiting there. My husband and I are
walking in and he says, I need to talk to you.

(56:54):
He wasn't supposed to be there, and he was the
number one person persecuting me for my faith for two years.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
And he says, I need to talk to you before
you go in. I was like, okay. He was like
I was in the apartment last night and I asked
God that if he brings you through this, I'll serve him.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
And I'm like what, I'm like crying. I'm like, oh
my gosh. My husband and I are like and so
I go in for brain surgery. What a gift from
the Lord knowing that my dad had accepted Jesus into
his heart. And so that was the first miracle, I
would say. The second miracle is that you know they
got the entire tumor. I'm like, tumor free and I

(57:30):
went to stay with my mom. My mom took care
of me after the surgery, and she was not a
believer either, and the same story. She was just in
her bedroom while she was taking care of me and
just surrendered her life to the Lord.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
So you know sometimes we asked like, I know, I
did that too. It's like, go me, I've already been
through so much. But that season taught me to not
do the you know, ask the question of why me?
But God, what are you teaching me in this? And
the man that led me to the Lord, Hillroy, was
like Christina, Sometimes it isn't about what you're going through,
but it's about others that are spectating. Yes, And it

(58:05):
was my mom and dad watching me go through something
because I think that if I had just you know,
been supernaturally healed, which God can do, that wouldn't have
done anything for him. It was them watching me go
through something like this. Yeah, that brought them to their knees.
So I always tell people, you know, the things that
we go through, the adversity. The scriptures say that many
are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers

(58:26):
us from them all, not some, but all. And God
is doing something in the midst of the pain. He's
doing something in the midst of the valley and the adversity.
That is a lot of times it is for us
most of the time, I would say, but there are
people that are watching our lives or watching us walk
through the pain. They're watching us walk through sickness or
whatever the case may be, and it is ministering to
them and God is getting theory. That's so.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Where was the brain tumor on the timeline of everything else?

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Yeah, that is after.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
You were believer. Obviously.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Yes, the operation was okay, but I found out of
it three months after I had my son. I was
having these tension headaches, kept feeling like I felt fell
backwards in my seat, and I went to a neurologist
and they said, it's probably tension headaches, but we'll do
a routine MRI. And that routine MRI I believe saved
my life because you know, well I would say it.

(59:20):
It brought to attention what later on. You know, who knows.
If I wouldn't have known at that point where I
was like, I need to go get another scan, maybe
I would have let it go. Maybe, but I knew
already in the back of my head, I've got this
thing I've got to deal with. And that's a lot
of what the Lord did with me. After I came
to the Lord was like I was always in fight

(59:41):
or flight. I was always surviving. And so one of
the things that seat the Lord took me through a
season of like, hey, you got to deal with stuff.
So that was part of that season learning now.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Yeah, yeah, so you've written this down, this is part
of your story. Do you do a lot of speaking
and writing and what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
I do. I just wrote a book called Hope in
sixty Seconds. It came out in May, and it came
from at the very beginning of the pandemic. I jumped
on an app called TikTok, which I was never a
social media person, but the Lord had given me a dream,
and in the dream, I knew there was like a
darkness over social media. I knew that like I just

(01:00:20):
needed to get on and offer people hope, just like
it was given to me in my darkest hour. And
I get on TikTok and I start. I posted in
the middle of the night, really bad lighting it. One
in the morning after Good Friday, I post this prayer
off of Joshua one and nine, and I wake up
the next morning the video had gone viral, and my
husband and I were a little shock because we were

(01:00:41):
like that's strange. You know, if one person watched it.
I was just like one person, God, send this prayer
to one person. But the videos continued going viral one
after the other, and they didn't stop, and we were like, okay,
what's going on here? Wow, and the account just started
exploding again. I wasn't a social media person. I'm very

(01:01:02):
much I love I'm an extra extrovert, so I love
being with people. Social media was always like very you know,
but it was what God was using, you know, for
us to be able to communicate and preach the gospel.
And so people started reaching out and asking me what
the passion was behind the prayers, and I'm like, well,
the passion behind the prayers is my testimony, because we've
overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word

(01:01:23):
of our testimony. And so I knew it was time
to write the book. I'd always known I'm going to
write a book, but the Lord was like, now is
the time. And so that's why the book is called
Hope in sixty Seconds. Somebody had asked me, so, what
is it about your story that is giving people hope
in less than sixty seconds? And so the story behind
that is God doesn't need a lifetime. All he needs

(01:01:44):
is one moment of surrender. And even just the little
cracked open window because my heart wasn't fully open, but
there was like a little crack wher. I was like, yeah,
I think I'll try you out here, God, and God's like,
oh really, I'm coming right in. And that's so I
just shared, you know, from homelessness, So the brain tumor
and the addiction and tragedy and jail and so many things. Yeah,

(01:02:07):
that happened leading up into this moment. So so we
minister on you know, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and the videos
continue to go viral two and a half years later
because people need hope. Yes, because it's not about the
great lighting. Clearly, it's not about the great camera. It's
not about it's about his presence coming through the videos,

(01:02:28):
his manifest presence coming and touching people's hearts and offering
them the hope that they need.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
So how long have you been what i'd say, walking
with the Lord? And I'm not saying like from the
time you've been saved, but you know you said there
was a time after you got saved where you were
still kind of no, maybe not was there a downtime
after you got saved or is it all kind of
up into the right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Oh, i'd say up to the right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
No, I'm so this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
All took place October two thousand and nine. I got
arrested September second, two thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
Okay, so it's been thirteen years ish, and I mean
I can tell listen to you, you're very biblically literate.
And how'd that all happen?

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Well, did you just dive right in from day one?

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
I did when I got the you know, here's the
thing is like the most overwhelming revelation coming and receiving
Jesus into my heart was that he had been there
the whole time, and I had felt like I had
missed out on like twenty plus years. It's kind of
like if you haven't seen somebody in so long and
you're like, like, let's catch up, you know, like you

(01:03:35):
what's been going on in your life? And like you know,
who are you know? Who are the person you become?
Here these stories where like parents get separated from their
kids at birth, yeah, and they're like, we've just got
to catch up. And I felt that way. It was
like I just want to know everything about you. I
want to know what makes you happy, glad, sad, mad,
I want to know it. And so I just I
would in the middle of the night, I'd have this
little little light over my bed that I would turn on.

(01:03:58):
My son would you know, be sleeping, and I would
just devour the Word. And I was like, you know,
I wouldn't feel tired. I wake up them just full
of the Word. And I just had this hunger of like,
I just want to know everything about you. And so
and I went to Bible College. That was one of
the reasons I started going to the College of Biblical
Studies in Houston, Texas, because I wanted, well, my reasoning

(01:04:20):
at the time was one, I want to know the Lord,
but two I want to be able to intellectually have
a conversation with my dad, who was an atheist. I
was so burdened that I knew that if he didn't
accept Jesus into his heart, you know that he that
that was it, like you're lost, Like and I was
preaching hell, fire and brimstone at that time. That's why
my mom was running for me, because I'm like, you're

(01:04:40):
going to go to hell if you don't accept then
she's coming. They didn't want to, you know, so I learned, okay,
but I just so my heart was so burdened for
my family, and I just was like, God, I just
want to know your word. I want to rightly divide
your word to be able to talk talk to not
just my family, but anybody they can understand that you

(01:05:01):
are real.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Yeah, yeah, man, I love that your son update us
on that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Oh goodness. It's interesting because I didn't know it at
the time, but his name means God has given grace.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
What's his name?

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
His name is Evan, Okay, and little backstory on him.
That's also in my book. I name that chapter when
Grace Meets Darkness. Because I was on my way, had
scheduled an abortion, and my drug dealer's girlfriend, Demetrius, came knocking,
pounding on the door in the middle of the afternoon
and I opened the door. She's pregnant, has two kids

(01:05:37):
in tow and she said, I need to talk to you.
And we go into the bathroom and she's like, pulls
out this Walmart bag with a brown file in it
and it is I start reading. I'm like, I don't
know what I'm reading, but it's like this court case
of the State of Texas versus this doctor. This family
was involved. They were suing this doctor for malpractice because

(01:05:57):
their fifteen year old daughter had died on the op
or having an abortion on the table. And when I
saw it was the doctor I was going to, and
it hit me, It shocked me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
And wow.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
She looks at me. She grabs me for my collar,
and she said, I know you don't believe in God,
but I'm asking you not to kill this child.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Now I don't even believe this as a child, right,
I mean I was in my mind, I'm like, who's
an embryo to dictate my life?

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
And I know now that that was the spirit of
God arresting me even though I didn't know him. Hello,
he still touches people even though they don't know him.
He's not limited to we have to know him for
him to intervene.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
And I collapse on the ground. And she said, my
God will provide for this baby.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
Mmm.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
And so that little baby, seven pound, three ounce little
boy came into my life and was who the Lord
used to lead me to the King. Because I wouldn't
have treasured my life or valued my life even that day,
just sitting there. He was like my reason to live.
He was my reason at the time, my reason to live,
my reason to breathe, my reason to keep going. I

(01:07:01):
would have taken my life that day. So he is
who the Lord. He is so as he is almost sixteen,
he is he truly. He lives out his name's He's
God's grace because he loves the scriptures. He's such a
he's just in tune with the Lord. Has very much
like so my husband, you know, adopted him as a baby.

(01:07:23):
I met Ryan very very shortly after I give him
my life to the Lord. There's a whole story with
what happened with the biological father. That's another chapter in
the book Crazy. But he is a so he competes
does Rubik's cubes. Evan, Yeah, so he you know, I've
seen that on Instagram. He's a math man, he's a
he has an engineering brain. He is just he is

(01:07:48):
the grace of God. It's like the world could be
falling upop, but we're like, but Evan, he's such a
good kid, and he loves the Lord. He's already he's
just finished reading through the Bible for the first time,
and he's just he's full of the scriptures. Just a gentle,
gentle soul. He's a big he's very tall, but she's
just a gentle soul. He's God's grace to my life.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Yeah, man, what a story. So what's where are you headed?
What are you doing? Where are you going? What's God
unfolding in your life?

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
Yeah? You know, I'm really good at God giving me
one assignment at a time. I love that the Lord
is like my assignment. My husband and ies as a family,
you know, because we do it together. Evan, Ryan and
I our assignment are you know, what we're doing on
social media. So we always say, the next thing is
the next video, it's the next prayer, it's the next
person that's going to hear God's voice to those prayers

(01:08:43):
and is going to encounter the Lord. And so that's
been my assignment until the Lord changes the subject. Like
I'm like, Lord, you know, this is what we're doing,
and I'm really good with like this is.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
This is what we're focusing on in Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Still we're in Austin. Yeah, you're at the Boston little
town called about twenty minutes from Austin.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know exactly where Georgetown is
I've been there. So your husband does he work?

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
Does he just do this?

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Yeah? No, it's well he does this. You know, we
do this together. So when I post videos, well he
is he has always worked in production. He's an ld
A lighting designer. Okay, but he's a project manager now,
so he has a you know, a regular job. But
every video that we do, he's on the other side
of the video and he has his hand extended just
praying as I'm praying, and so he sets up lighting

(01:09:32):
and you know, he does all that behind the scenes.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Yeah, So tell us how this social media thing came about.
I mean you told us the TikTok thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Yeah, it blew up.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
But then how did you capture a vision for like
this is actually something I need to do and keep doing. Yeah,
how'd that all develop?

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
Yeah? I mean when the Lord, I feel like the
Lord just kind of entrusted that assignment to us. And
you know how the Lord, you know, when you have
a lord, puts grace on the things that we do.
You know, you have a peace about I just know this.
He hasn't changed the subject. So until he does that,
it's like I've known for the for two and a

(01:10:08):
half years. You know, the need is still there. You know,
it's not like I mean, this turned into a prayer ministry.
Who was like, okay, Lord, like people need prayer every day,
and so to be able to give people that one
minute of hope, that one minute that our prayer is
that people they won't see the video, they don't see me.
That's always our prayer, and we pray that to get
every single prayer that goes out. Ryan and I and

(01:10:31):
Evan we come together. We pray over every video. We
don't post one video without praying over it and praying
this that when they see the video, they don't see me,
they see the face of Jesus and they hear the
voice of the Lord, and that that moment would be
a moment that would inspire them to open their Bible
to spend time in prayer. Sometimes you've got to watch
other people love God to learn how to love Him yourself.

(01:10:51):
And so that's that's our you know, our prayer every
day is that just that moment where people experience His presence,
can connect with His heart in a moment and then
le their own lives and go deeper with the Lord.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
And what kind of feedback are you getting I mean,
I'm sure you get a lot of feedback, but what
give us two or three that stand out.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Yeah. Well, one of my favorite testimonies a realtor in Florida.
He was scrolling through TikTok in the middle of the
night and was losing his bit just everything that was
happening during the pandemic. He has a gun on the
table and he was just because that's what happened. People
get on TikTok and they're just like kind of like

(01:11:29):
you're They're like numbing. Yeah, yeah, you're just like mine.
It's so mindlessly. You're just like going through each video
and the video comes up, and what I do is
I'm like, hey, wait, let me pray for you. Sometimes
I'll jump out, let me pray for you. And he
said he was going to keep scrolling, but he just
something told him to stop. And he said that the
presence of the Lord filled his room and he had

(01:11:50):
this gun. He was just shaking and he heard the
still small voice of God say, son, I've got you.
Don't do this. Wow, And he said it just he said,
I'm a grown old man weeping in my bedroom, and
I rededicated my life to the Lord. That day, and

(01:12:11):
that's one of my favorite moments. But every day we
receive just testimonies of people getting arrested in that moment
where they're thinking about doing something, or they're involved in
something they know they shouldn't be involved in looking at
stuff online, they shouldn't be looking at whatever the case
may be, in that moment, and the Holy Spirit just

(01:12:31):
comes in that moment, breathes his life over them, and
they have hope, and all of a sudden their mindset
is shifted where they look at him and they see
the better way that God has for them. So I
believe that's been primarily how the Lord has been using
that you know, TikTok social media. It's a very dark
place it is, But the reality of it is is

(01:12:51):
if we don't go, who will we have to occupy
until the Lord comes, even the dark places, because God
wants to send people into the you know, I've always said,
like the church came to me, I wouldn't have gone
into a church, And there are millions of other means
that are out there that are just waiting for one
of us to go, Hey, yeah, there's somebody that can

(01:13:11):
totally save you from the dark pit. That you're in
and his name is Jesus. But we have to be
the ones to go. And so that's what TikTok has
been is like God, and I would say this, God,
you know, stop their scroll, arrest them in that moment
where they will reconsider where they're at.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
Yeah. Yeah, this podcast is similar in a different way.
There are people that hear this stuff who maybe aren't
going to go listen to a sermon, aren't going to
log into desiring Good dot org or some but but
they're gonna hear your story or they're gonna hear one
of the other stories. And what blows my mind is

(01:13:50):
there's a handful of interviews that when I got done
with them, I was like, eah, that didn't go the
way I was hoping that it would, and I just,
you know, you almost think about bagging it, you know,
and we're not going to publish that because no one's
gonna be interested in it. But you throw it up
there and then invariably I don't get feedback, you know,
all the time from everything. But every single interview that

(01:14:13):
I've done that I've thought that wasn't good or that
content wasn't really interesting. People aren't gonna be interested in this.
Somebody will specifically contact me and say that interview and
I'm thinking there's probably four or five of them, like
was huge for me and powerfully impacted me. It is
like you're like, really, wow, you know what I mean?

(01:14:34):
And so it reminds you like the Lord's doing his
thing and we're just the vessels, So just get out
of the way and let him do it, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Yeah, And I want to say something about that because
I've really been meditating on this, as in the Book
of Acts. But the apostles, like and even Paul talked
about he didn't come with clever speech. He came with
the anointing and the power of the Holy Ghost. And
so it was that releases the pressure off of us
because when we had God's manifest presence on our lives

(01:15:02):
and we are preaching none other than Jesus Christ and
him crucified, it doesn't matter what we say the most
simple thing. You're like, oh, that didn't sound so good.
I didn't get the goosebumps. I didn't feel the power
of God. But it doesn't matter because his power makes
the most simple things that we say like the most
impactful thing that could change somebody's life.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
Yes, and it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
Doesn't need to be loud, it doesn't need to be
It's just his presence that changes lives. It's his presence
that melts the hard heart and changes it brings back
the heart of the sons to the Father. And so
I just, you know, I and his word. The scriptures
say that his word will do what it's set out
to do, in a word, return void. So that means
that all the pressure is off of us. Were broken

(01:15:44):
vessels being put back together by the Father, and and
he just comes anoints us with his presence and the
most simple things become powerful in him. I love that
because we have no pressure on us.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
Yeah. And it's a ton of fun to be used
in that way and not have to be bogged down
with the pressure. Yeah, that's so good. So you're speaking,
have you spoken yet?

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
Tonight?

Speaker 3 (01:16:08):
Tonight?

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
Tonight?

Speaker 3 (01:16:09):
And what are you? Are you basically saying what we
talked about here?

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
Yeah, well I'll share, I'll share my story. Yeah, I
am going to speak out of job. I just was so,
you know, with the scriptures or you know, you can
read the same scripture, yeah, for fifty years and then
the Lord's like, oh, but look at this, and there's
in Job one thirteen it says and while he was
yet speaking, and it says it three different times in

(01:16:33):
that chapter that while Job was getting word about calamity
striking his house, yeah, another calamity was striking. And so
that's just going to be my encouragement tonight is that
you know, when it rains, it pours, but God is
doing something in the midst of it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
Oh amen, Christina Baker, thank you so much for your time.
How can people follow you online, social media, website, all that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Yeah, Christina Baker dot com, Christina without an age and
we are yep, and I'm on Facebook under Christina Baker.
Instagram it's Christina Baker and TikTok. If anybody is daring
enough to go on TikTok, it's just Christina dot Baker.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
You know, we aren't on TikTok as a ministry, and
I thought about going on it just because there's people
there and to your point, like go where they are.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
Yes, and God will use it. Yeah, because there's something
going on with TikTok. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff.
We understand the darkness there, and it is dark, but
we have to be a light in the darkness, because
if we don't go, who will. So you know they're
one minute because this generation, you've got to catch them quickly.
It's just a if there's been studies done. If you

(01:17:40):
don't catch people within the first three to second, three
to ten seconds, you've lost them. So I believe your
your ministry will definitely be a blessing on TikTok.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
Awesome Christina, Thanks for your time. God bless your ministry,
God bless your family, and really really enjoy getting hear
your story and I know our audience will for having.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
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