October 14, 2025 • 45 mins
Today, I’ve got another great conversation lined up with someone who has such a genuine heart for God and for people, Daniel Smith.
Daniel grew up in Gympie, Queensland, in a Christian family with two older sisters and an older brother. After finishing school, he went on to study Biology at university before heading down to Tasmania to spend two years at a Bible school. Not long after that, he met and married his wonderful wife Hannah, and together they moved to Toowoomba, where they’ve been living for the past eight years.
These days, Daniel works full-time for the Gipps St Church of Christ, where he’s involved in preaching, helping smaller congregations, running youth group, and much more. He and Hannah have two young boys — four-year-old Oliver, and their one-year-old, Franklin.
Daniel became a Christian when he was 14, after spending a lot of time digging into the arguments for and against God’s existence — watching debates, reading books, and exploring all the evidence. Through that search, he became convinced that God is real and that Jesus truly is the Son of God — and that faith has shaped everything since.
So, with that, sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with my friend Daniel Smith.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome back to Unwith Eli.
Today I've got another great conversation lined up with
someone who has such a genuine heart for God and for people.
So without further ado, let me introduce you to my friend
Daniel Smith. Daniel grew up in Gimpy, QLD in
(00:26):
a Christian family with two older sisters and an older
brother. After finishing school he went
on to study biology at university before heading down
to Tasmania to spend 2 years at Bible school.
Not long after that, he met and married his wonderful wife
Hannah, and together they moved to Toowoomba where they've been
living for the past eight years.These days Daniel works full
time for the Gipp Street Church of Christ where he's involved in
(00:48):
preaching, helping smaller congregations, running youth
group, and much more. He and Hannah have two young
boys, 4 year old Oliver and their one year old, Franklin.
Daniel became a Christian when he was 14 after spending a lot
of time digging into the arguments for and against God's
existence, watching debates, reading books and exploring all
the evidence. Through that search, he became
(01:08):
convinced that God is real and that Jesus truly is the Son of
God and that faith has shaped everything since.
So with that, sit back, relax, and let's get right into it.
Welcome to Elm with Eli. Stay tuned.
(01:41):
Welcome to the podcast, Daniel. How's your day been so far?
Thanks, ELA. It's been good.
It's been really good today. I've been mostly in the office.
I've been preparing some lessonson the book of Hosea.
We've got some lessons coming upon Hosea.
So that's that's kind of interesting and different.
I've been organising some churchevents.
We've got some youth group things, some a seniors afternoon
(02:04):
tea and some other stuff that we've been organising.
So that's been most of my day. We've been busy.
We've had, we've just had a big event at, at our church in
Toowoomba here we've, we call itthe lectureship.
So we have this big event where we have all these lessons over
the over a couple of days. So that was this last weekend.
(02:24):
And so we had a bunch of Christians staying at our house
with us and that's always a lot of fun.
Our boys love it when the house is filled with guests, so that's
been a lot of fun having people around and we're kind of doing a
clean up at the moment of all ofthat, which is fun.
Yeah, nice. And you got camp challenge less
than that. That's right, yeah.
(02:45):
Doing the lessons for Camp Challenge.
Yep. So just just putting some of
that together at the moment. I'm really excited because I
haven't been to Challenge before, so it'll be my first
time and I've heard only good things.
So if there's people out there who've had a bad experience at
Challenge, I'm yet to meet them,so we're really looking forward
to. That that's going to be great.
So, Daniel, would you mind introducing yourself for those
(03:07):
who may not know you? Sure.
My name's Daniel Smith. I live in Toowoomba in
Queensland. I'm a Christian, I'm a husband,
I'm a father. I'm a full time minister at a
church here in Toowoomba. I'm a big fan of the Elm with
Eli podcast, by the way, I do like podcasts and, and this is a
(03:29):
good one. I've I've really enjoyed the
interviews that you've done withother people Eli and I've learnt
a lot from it and, and found it really encouraging.
So I appreciate you doing that and I hope that there are
there's a growing audience for this podcast.
Thank you very much, Daniel. That's very nice of you to say.
Before we get into your story, could you tell us how you came
(03:51):
to know Christ and his church? Sure.
Yeah, I, I don't have a really dramatic story.
It's not the kind of thing you'dturn into a movie or, you know,
a mini series or something like that.
Some people have this big story about how their life fell apart
and they went to jail and, you know, lots of tears and things
like that. My story isn't that dramatic.
(04:12):
I, I was raised in Christian home.
My parents showed me the love ofGod and they they told me the
good news about Jesus. And as I got into my teenage
years in high school, I was exposed to more of what the
world offered and then kind of acontrast of the things that the
world offers offered and the things that I had experienced
(04:35):
growing up. And I saw that what I had seen
and received from my parents wasthe riches that are in Christ,
which are far superior to anything that I saw that the
world offered. So I decided to put on Christ in
baptism when I was 14 years old,and that was the best decision
(04:55):
of my life. Thanks for sharing that, Daniel.
So do you have a specific baptism story like on the day I
guess that really made you want to make that decision?
It was one night in particular where I'd been thinking about it
a lot and I was just kind of looking for one more bit of
proof. I just one more bit of evidence
(05:17):
that kind of sealed the deal forme to say, yes, this is
definitely the thing that I wantto do.
And so I was sitting outside. I was actually lying on the
grass and just looking up at thestars.
You know, David looks up at the stars in, in Psalm 8.
And in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.
And David talks about when I consider the stars, the
(05:38):
handiwork of God. I guess I had a similar moment.
It's hard to look at the stars and not contemplate who's the
creator and that immense mind ofthe designer behind all of these
things. And so I was lying there and
thinking, if this isn't enough proof, then what is?
(06:02):
And am I kind of just using thisas a bit of an excuse here?
I feel like I'm looking at the best proof that there is to tell
me that there is a God, that I am one of his many parts of
creation and I need to, to stop putting it off and, and decide
to trust him. So I was, I, I went in and told
(06:24):
my parents, all right, I've mademy decision.
I need to get baptized. And they were, they were really
excited for that. And so now I encourage people,
if they're not sure about getting baptized, I say just go
outside and look at the stars because that helped me.
Thank you for sharing that, Daniel.
That's really encouraging. So you grew up in a Christian
family, right? Yes I did.
(06:46):
My mom and dad are Christians. So what was that like for you
growing up and how do you think it helped shape your faith early
on? My mom and dad were very direct
in showing me how to love Jesus and how to love the church.
They did this through teaching, but then I think they mostly did
it through their example. That's the one thing I've
(07:08):
learned since becoming a parent.You can't deceive your kids.
You can't trick them. They see who you really are,
like when you get home and who you are when no one else is
looking. And for me, it was.
It was obvious that my parents were genuine in their faith.
They were really dedicated to God.
They were committed to serving the local church and and they
(07:31):
encouraged us to do the same. You know, on weekends we would
be mowing the church building onSaturday nights, my dad would be
up late writing lessons for the next day.
Through the week, my mum would be visiting with people in the
church and people who needed help.
And you can't fake that stuff. So that really shaped me and
(07:52):
that showed me a genuine love for Christ and I couldn't point
to them and and see any hypocrisy.
I saw people who are genuinely living out their faith and I
wanted part of that. After school, you went on to
study biology at university. Jane, what grew you to science
in the first place? I was actually thinking about
(08:13):
this the other day and I remember there being a
particular moment where I realised how much I loved
science. And it was, we were playing a
game, it was a board game and I can't remember the rules of it.
I just remember you had to roll dice.
You know, you had a few demos that you had in your hand, you
rolled them and I think if you scored a one you got more
(08:33):
points. Again, I can't remember the
rules, but in the game I remember people seem to get A1A
lot and I was thinking this is this is not really fair.
I'm rolling the dice and I'm trying to play with the
statistics here. Like I know there's a one in six
chance of rolling A1 and yet it seemed to be showing up more
(08:56):
than that. And so after the game had
finished and I remember I didn'tlose the game, but I, I'd said,
I, I reckon these dice are loaded.
I think they're rigged here. Then I, I spent a few hours that
afternoon just rolling the dice and I did it like a few 100
times and I collected all the, the data and I made this huge
(09:17):
big spreadsheet of all the timesI rolled it and how many times
it landed on one, A two or three, etc.
And I figured out the, the dice,you know, so it should be a one
in six chance that it lands on A1, but it was more like a one
in three or a one in four chance.
So the, the dice were actually low.
They were actually rigged. And I, I was so vindicated by
(09:38):
that. I, I really love the idea that
you can put something to the test and science is all about
that. You have a hypothesis, you put
it to the test, you get your results and you make your
conclusion. And so I remember thinking at
that point, that's what I want to do.
I want to figure things out. I want to try and make sense of
the world by putting things to the test.
Did learning about how everything works in creation
(09:59):
make you see God's purpose in itmore?
Or did it ever make you questionthings a bit?
Yeah, I think there were certainly some questions that
came up, but more so it made me see God in the world that I was
studying. For me, the the complexity and
the diversity of biological organisms was a clear sign that
(10:23):
God was putting his signature inthe universe.
He was saying, you know, I was here.
I remember there's a particular moment in the microbiology
lecture where this hit me where the, the, the lecturer, he was
talking about the, the particular immunological defence
mechanism in the human body. And, and he's kind of going
(10:44):
through the layers of it. Like the first layer is you've
got white blood cells that kind of eat up invading germs.
And the second layer, you've gota more complex adaptive immune
response where you've got B cells and T cells that are,
they've got memory and then theytarget specific invading
bacteria. And kind of as you, as you keep
(11:05):
on going down, you keep saying, OK, but how does that work?
And then the next layer explainsthat.
And then you say, OK, but how does that layer work?
And you explain the next layer. And remember, we were down to
like the eighth or ninth layer. And then the the professor just
said, and that's, that's all, that's all we know.
And to me, that was really mind blowing that we only know so
(11:31):
much. I just kind of expected that he
would keep on explaining and explaining, but he was saying,
look, we only know down this many layers and who knows how
many layers there really are here.
Who knows how complex it gets. But we've studied microbiology
for a century now and we've madeall sorts of incredible
discoveries. But it's staggering how much we
(11:52):
don't know. And I find it very hard to
believe that an atheist could study the immune system and not
have their atheism severely shaken.
Not really question this. And people say that the nervous
system is far more complex than the immune system.
So I was only studying one part of the human body.
And to me, it was overwhelming how clear it was that this
(12:17):
complexity is put here by a deliberate design, not by
accident, not by chance. And so sometimes, you know, if
I, for the fun of it, I've kept some of my old textbooks on
microbiology and genetics and immunology.
And when I open up those textbooks, to me, it's like it's
the same as looking at a waterfall or looking at the
(12:38):
stars. You, you're reminded once again
that that same kind of awe of how amazing this world is and
how clear it is that it's here for a purpose.
I think, I think CS Lewis says, if you want to be a sound
atheist, you've got to be careful what you read.
And and I'd modify that to say, if you want to be a sound
(13:00):
atheist, I'd I'd avoid studying microbiology because that that
made me see God's handiwork and I couldn't avoid the conclusion.
Yeah, exactly. I think you're exactly right.
I think confuses me how atheistsdon't really question how
everything's are set out with a purpose and work perfect.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and we know that in every
(13:21):
other part of life that when we see complexity and when we see
deliberate design, we always know that there's someone behind
it. Like, you know, they released
the the new iPhone recently and everyone's always, you know, in
awe of the new technology and how these brilliant designers
have put this together. But the iPhone has nothing on,
(13:42):
you know, just just the tiniest part of the human body.
You can just pick out the smallest cell and the complexity
that's there is a billion times anything that the latest iPhone
has. Yeah, exactly.
So Daniel, then you made a pretty big move by heading all
the way down to Tasmania for Bible school.
What led you to make that decision?
There are a couple of factors. The first was that I didn't
(14:05):
realise when I signed up to study microbiology that it
doesn't make for a very good career.
So all the people that I worked with in microbiology didn't have
very stable jobs. They're constantly moving around
the country. They never worked long in a
particular place and so I didn'treally want that for my life.
(14:27):
And I certainly didn't want thatif I was going to have a family.
And so I thought, well, I need, I need to do something else.
I need to change this. And, and I wasn't really sure
what to do in the meantime. And then there was an
opportunity that came up to headto Tasmania and study the Bible.
And I'd always wanted to know the Bible more.
(14:48):
I mean, who doesn't? I think most people want to have
a better understanding of the Bible and and so I wasn't
planning on going into full timechurch ministry.
I just knew that I wanted to be a Christian for the rest of my
life and so it'd be good to to know the Bible more.
It would be useful no matter what God had in store for me as
(15:09):
a career. So, Daniel, what do you think
God taught you during those two years about himself and even
yourself? It's a it's a really good
question. This is the best thing about
this podcast, Eli. You've got really well thought
about questions. I know it's not easy being an
interviewer, but you really ask some penetrating questions that
(15:31):
make your guests think hard. What do I think God taught me
during those two years? I think part of it is that
there's only so much you can learn from books.
Like I went to study and so I studied a lot of books, but
knowing the Bible better than other people doesn't make you a
better Christian. Paul talks about that in First
Corinthians 13 where he says, ifI possess all knowledge but have
(15:54):
no love, I am nothing God. God says in Hosea, you know, I
desert, I am mercy and not sacrifice.
It's not just about knowing the law.
It's not just about knowing, youknow, memorizing the Bible.
The Pharisees went to Bible school.
They, they all went and did their study and they had a lot
of knowledge, but they lacked godly wisdom.
(16:17):
And so, you know, wisdom is not primarily about how many books
you read and it's not primarily about whether you went to Bible
school or not. Wisdom is a, an attitude that we
have. Proverbs tell us and Job tells
us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
And so you can go to Bible school, you can get top Marks
and all the while still not havewisdom.
(16:38):
So probably going to Bible school taught me what you can't
get from Bible school and what you what you don't need to go to
Bible school to get is this wisdom, this cultivation of
godly wisdom. Daniel, around that time you met
Hannah. What made you know she was the
right person to walk beside you in life and faith?
(17:01):
I could talk about Hannah all day.
She's the best person I've ever met.
And we started dating about 11 years ago.
So in in those eleven years, I've gotten to know her really
well. And every day I, I think more
and more highly of her. But if but you're asking what
made me know she was the right person.
Well, there's a there's a obvious first answer, which is
(17:25):
that she was a Christian, she loved Jesus and she wanted to
serve him in every aspect of herlife.
I know that that's probably kindof a cop out, easy answer, but
the, the truth is that that makes such a difference and that
has been the the best blessing for our lives.
(17:45):
We, Hannah and I don't always agree on the small details in
life. We were just at the shops
yesterday and she, we found the shirt and she really wanted me
to buy this shirt and I didn't want to buy it.
And so we were in the shop for like half an hour just going
back and forth. I was saying no, she was saying
yes. Eventually she convinced me.
(18:07):
So we bought the shirt. But you know, we, we disagree on
on small things like that, but on big matters, we have very,
very few disagreements. And that's because we've got the
same purpose. We're living for the same goal.
And that's what I knew when I married her.
And that's what we've continued with all this time through our
(18:28):
marriage, how we spend our money, how we spend our time,
how we raise our children, how we use our possessions, what
people we spend time with, All of those things we agree on
totally. And so we might disagree on the
details, but, you know, it's never like I'm saying, well, I
think we need to be more active in the church.
(18:49):
And she's saying, no, I think weneed to spend more time, you
know, on holiday or something. We always agree on the most
important things. We're A-Team there.
And if you're a team on the mostimportant things, then you can
easily sort out the details. You and Hannah got married, and
now you've got Oliver and Franklin.
What's family life been teachingyou lately about faith?
(19:13):
Every day it feels like there's some experience as a dad that
teaches me about our Father in heaven and our relationship to
him as children of his. I think it we just have to take
the most of those teaching lessons that come all the time.
This past weekend we were at a park with our son Oliver, and
(19:38):
he, he loves climbing trees. And so he found a tree in the
Bush and he started climbing it and I was standing there with
him. He's only four years old, so he,
he can climb trees pretty well, but he needs help sometimes.
He gets stuck pretty often. But I was just amazed at how he
kept climbing and climbing. You know, he doesn't climb trees
on his own. He climbs trees as long as I'm
(20:01):
standing there next to the tree and so.
As he was doing that, I was thinking he has this total
confidence in being able to do something that is really pushing
his limits, really pushing his abilities.
But he he believes that he can do it because his dad is there
(20:23):
standing next to the tree and I was there to catch him if he
fell. I was there to help him if he
got stuck or something. And eventually he did get his
foot started. It was right up the top of the
tree. So then I had to go climbing up
the tree to save him and, and I got his foot unstuck and then he
climbed down. But the, the whole experience is
(20:44):
a good lesson in our relationship with our Father in
heaven. You know, if only we could have
that same confidence of God's presence, that if God is with
me, I can climb a tree, I can dowhat seems really hard and even
impossible as long as God is there.
You know how David says in Psalm23, he talks about though I walk
(21:07):
through the valley of the shadowof death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me. And so that was the kind of
confidence that Ollie had in climbing the tree.
And all of those moments show methe kind of attitude that I need
to have towards my Heavenly Father.
Do you know the song Eli? Be with me, Lord.
(21:30):
The line that I'm thinking of from it is be with me, Lord.
No other gift or blessing you could bestow could with this
one. Compare a constant sense of Thy
abiding presence wherever I am to feel that thou art near.
That's that's the song that I was thinking of as Owen was
climbing the tree. A constant sense of thy abiding
(21:52):
presence. And so look, that's, that's just
one example, but there's, there's constant examples.
When you see children, they teach you so much about what it
means to be children of God. Are there any family experiences
that have really stuck with you and taught you something new
about God? Again, there's there's just so
many. One that I was reflecting on
(22:14):
recently was our boys when we'vebeen teaching them how to pray.
When you're first learning to pray, the first thing that you
do is you pray for things that you can see.
And so we would be sitting around the dinner table and
having a prayer and Ollie would be just pointing to things in
the room and saying I pray for the table and I pray for the
(22:36):
light switch and I pray for the air conditioner.
And as he did this, you know, it's kind of funny until you
realise I probably do that too. I so often I probably just pray
for the things that I can see that are right in front of me,
and I don't pray for things thatare more important.
(22:58):
I just, I'm so obsessed with what's happening right now in my
life with the things that are immediately there that I'm not
actually praying about. What's more significant.
Does that make sense? Yeah, thanks for sharing that,
Daniel. You've been serving full time at
Gipps Street Church of Christ for around 8 years now.
What's your day-to-day in ministry like?
It varies a lot. All days are different.
(23:19):
I've never had two days that arethe same.
But I have all sorts of jobs to keep me busy, and I've never run
out of jobs to do. I usually spend my time
preparing lessons and classes, planning church events,
designing, you know, Flyers, posters, signs for events,
studying with non Christians, studying with new Christians,
(23:41):
visiting people who are in need.My phone rings fairly constantly
and so I often don't answer it because I'm in the middle of
something and then I'm usually calling people back.
A lot of the time people call mefrom our own congregation, but
sometimes from other congregations.
They need some help on something.
Because I've got the flexibilityof working for the church, I can
(24:03):
change my hours around a bit andI can help people out with
different things that they're doing.
Today I was in my office, but tomorrow I'll be mostly
travelling about town with Hannah and the boys.
We'll be visiting some people doing some Bible studies.
So all all days are different, but all days are fun.
Awesome. What are the parts you're most
passionate about? People understanding the Word of
(24:24):
God. I think that that's such a
satisfying thing. Have you ever had that
experience, Eli, where someone is teaching a class, or maybe
you're just studying through theBible yourself and there's
something that you haven't understood before and that maybe
you didn't even realise. You didn't understand it, but
suddenly something that's hard becomes clear and you've got
(24:45):
that kind of, oh I get it now moment.
That's a really satisfying thingto be able to help people reach
reach that moment. Everyone wants to understand the
Bible. They just don't always have the
tools or the time or they don't know how to unlock the Bible.
So to be able to be part of thatand help people to unlock the
Bible and make it clearer, that's what I'm passionate
(25:07):
about. That's very good.
I know part of what you do involves helping smaller
congregations in the area. What's that experience been
like, Daniel? And how have you seen God
working through the small churchcommunities?
Yes. So it's, it's one of the things
that I really love about my job is that it's not just here in
Toowoomba, but I, the church here encourages me to help other
(25:30):
congregations and especially ones that are smaller in number.
I grew up in a small church, so I love small church communities
and I, I really feel for them. I love how small church
communities are intergenerational.
You really get that in a small congregation.
In the congregation that I grew up in, I remember a lot of the
(25:52):
time sitting around in the coffee break and we would be,
I'd be chatting to people who were retired, people who were 60
or 70 years older than me. And that was was really easy to
do. It was really natural.
It just happened because there'snot that many people to talk to,
so you have to talk to everyone.I think God really wants the
(26:14):
church to be an intergenerational family.
And so small churches, that's really easy for that to happen
in small churches, that takes a lot more intentionality to make
that happen in large congregations.
The other thing that I love about smaller churches is how
valued each member is. You know, in a big congregation,
if you're away, if you're sick, maybe someone will notice.
(26:36):
But it can happen that you can, you can be away and no one
notices because there's so many other people there.
In a small congregation, you always notice when someone isn't
there and you're not a spectatorin In a small congregation, you
really notice when people aren'tthere.
You notice that if if someone hasn't been there, you want to
(27:00):
check in on them and say, hey, hey, how are you?
Because there's only a few of ushere.
So it really matters when one person isn't there.
In a bigger congregation, you often feel like a spectator,
like you could just not be therefor a couple of weeks and maybe
no one would even notice. And so I really love being in a
small congregation. I love that Australia has so
(27:21):
many small congregations becausethere's, there are a lot of
strengths to being in a small congregation, but I also know
there's so many challenges with that.
It can be really discouraging. You can feel small and
insignificant. There's not many people here.
There's so many people who aren't in the church.
It can feel like you're on the losing side.
But you know, we've got to remember that we're more than
(27:42):
conquerors through Christ who loved us.
We've got to remember that no matter how small the church is.
And Paul often planted small churches.
You're still more than a conqueror no matter how many
people are with you meeting on aSunday.
Yeah, I think I can definitely relate to that because I've been
raised in a small church. You know, even just for the
(28:04):
share time in the morning, people are praying for those who
are sick. When in a big church you
wouldn't have that, you know, people wouldn't even notice
you're gone for multiple weeks. So it's really important to have
those kind of relationships. And do you feel, Eli, like
you've got those kind of intergenerational relationships
that you're able to talk to people who are older?
(28:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, because most of my church are all older people,
so yeah. Yeah.
And that's a really good life skill to have to be able to talk
to people who aren't just the same age and kind of in the same
demographic as you. But it also it helps you to
relate to people like what's what's your experience been?
Because mine has been that the more I've been able to speak to
(28:45):
people who didn't seem that similar to me, especially in age
and in just in a different part of life, the more I've found
that we do have a lot in common.Yeah.
So next question, Daniel, going back to your teenage years, you
became a Christian at 14 after really wrestling with those big
questions about whether God exists.
What started that curiosity for you?
(29:08):
I I've got another CS Lewis quote for you.
This is a, a quote that stuck with me.
Yeah. When I was young, I had this
pinned up on my wall. Christianity, if true, is of
infinite importance. If false, it's of no importance.
The one thing it can't be is moderately important.
I might have, that might be a paraphrase there, but he, he
(29:28):
wrote something like that. And so I just, that really
resonated with me. I decided right from the start
it doesn't make any sense to be a moderate Christian to be
moderately committed to Jesus. Jesus is either everything or
he's nothing. He can't be in between.
And so that all revolved around those big questions, Does God
exist? Is Jesus the Son of God?
(29:50):
Is the Bible real? What was it that finally
convinced you, Daniel? There are lots and lots of
arguments for and against the existence of God.
And I spend a long time looking into as many as I could.
You know, I watched all the YouTube videos, I read all the
books, studied and studied and studied.
(30:12):
And you know, Paul is right whenhe says in Colossians 2 and
verse four, he talks about, I say this so that no one will
deceive you with plausible arguments.
Paul acknowledges there that there are going to be arguments
against the faith that sound good, that sound plausible.
(30:32):
I think we can spend our whole lives listening to plausible
arguments, reading another book,watching another YouTube video,
listening to another argument. And Paul warns about that in in
Second Timothy, about people whoare always learning but never
coming to a knowledge of the truth.
So there's a point at which we can get a little bit too
(30:54):
obsessed with apologetics and arguments for and against God.
There's a point where we just need to come back to the simple
truths that we know. And those truths that really
stuck with me. The the things that really
convinced me were the immensity and the staggering magnitude of
(31:16):
the universe that demanded a creator and the complexity of
biological life on this planet that demands a designer.
And there's no one alternative. You know, life without God just
doesn't make any sense. Without God, life doesn't have
any meaning. But I see meaning all around me,
in my life and in others. Without God, Jesus is nothing
(31:38):
more than a moral teacher. But that hasn't been my
experience when I studied the life of Jesus.
I don't see just a regular moralteacher.
He's so much more than that. Without God, there's no such
thing as ultimate right and wrong.
But everyone I know believes in right and wrong.
Without God, there's no such thing as free free will.
But we live with the belief thatfree will is real.
(32:00):
And so with all of this together, there comes to a point
where you think I can keep on studying all day long, but these
things are true. And there's no more studying
that I'm going to do that's going to make these things
untrue. The universe just doesn't make
sense without God. And there are good, valid
reasons for believing that He isreal and for what the Bible says
(32:22):
about Him is true. Once that truth clicked for you,
Daniel, how did it start to change the way you lived or saw
things? Well, instead of studying
whether or not God existed, I started studying what's God
like? And when I did that, I, I fell
in love with God. I realized that my faith wasn't
(32:43):
just, you know, a thing in a book wasn't an academic pursuit.
It's not about being right. It's not about winning an
argument. It's about faith working through
love, Paul says in First Corinthians 8 about knowledge
puffs up, but love builds up. And so instead of being focused
on winning arguments, that was ashift in my life to say my life
(33:06):
is going to be spent edifying, building up in love as God asks
us to. So over the years, Daniel, have
there been any moments that really confirmed your faith for
you, like times where you've seen God at work?
Absolutely. Yeah.
This happens all the time. And it's so wonderful to be on
(33:27):
the lookout for God because he shows up in places where you
don't expect. I was talking before about how
he shows up in, you know, the stars and in the, the complexity
of the cell and that kind of thing.
But more and more so I see how he works in people.
And it just confirms to me, yeah, he's real.
I see this in when people live their lives the way that God
(33:51):
wants them to live, they find what they're looking for in joy
and peace and meaning. There are lots of people in the
world who, you know, they're, they're looking, they, there are
people in the world who have money, they've got good health,
they've got lots of friends, they've got popularity, they've
got status, they've got power. They've got all the things that
should mean that you have meaning and joy and peace, but
(34:13):
they don't. And then there are people that
you meet, and I'm sure you've met people like this, Eli.
There are people in our congregation and people who I've
met in the church in different places who maybe they have
disabilities or they don't have money or they don't have any
friends. They don't have what the world
thinks you need to have. And yet they have what Paul
(34:38):
would call the peace that passesunderstanding.
They've got joy and they've got hope and their lives are broken
in a worldly sense. But because they follow Jesus,
they've, they've got all of those things.
And that that confirms to me when the Bible says God created
you and he knows what's best foryou, God knows what he's talking
(35:01):
about. And, and those are the moments
where where I see people like that who shouldn't have peace
and joy and hope that they do. And it's because they follow God
and God knows what he's talking about.
So those are the moments that stand out for me that say, yeah,
he's real. Yeah, I can say that his way
really works. You've mentioned that your work
(35:22):
includes youth ministry. Daniel, What would you say to
young people who are wrestling with the same big questions that
you once did? Well, it's something that
someone said to me, and I think it was my dad who said to me
when I was younger, I had all these questions and they said to
me, just because you don't have an answer, it doesn't mean that
(35:45):
there isn't an answer. And that there's a lot of wisdom
in that. You know, I'm, I'm a bit older
now, but I still don't have all of the answers to all the
questions. There are still lots of
mysteries to me, and you can jump on that and say, Oh well, I
don't know the answer, thereforethere is no answer.
(36:06):
But that's that's a pretty proudway of going about it, as if as
if your mind is so great that you should be able to understand
any mystery in the universe. Instead, I've got a pretty small
finite mind and I could be wrongor I could just misunderstand
things, or maybe God just hasn'trevealed the answer to some
(36:29):
things and that's OK. When Job had a lot of questions
for God, remember that God doesn't give him the answers
that he was looking for. He basically says to Job in the
end there, I don't owe you an answer.
I'm God, I created you. I've given you enough evidence
for you to trust me. And that's what faith is.
(36:49):
Faith isn't when we answer all the questions and it all makes
sense and there's no more unanswered questions.
Faith is when we have enough of the questions answered that we
can trust in God for the questions that still remain
unanswered. And I think there is enough.
(37:09):
I think that God has given us enough evidence to trust that He
is real. And there's still a lot of
questions that I have, but I cantrust him with all those
questions that I don't have the answer to.
I trust that He's got the answer, and I'm OK with that.
Second last question, Daniel, what are some of the biggest
lessons God has taught you through serving, leading, and
(37:32):
raising a young family all at once?
Yeah, I think I'm just constantly learning and maybe
that's the lesson that we are just constantly learning.
We learn from the Word of God. We learn from people around us
who have Christ in their lives. We learn from our experience.
And you remember what Paul says in Philippians 3 he talks about
(37:54):
not that I have already attained, but I press on.
And I think when he was writing that he he was old at the time,
you know, he'd done his missionary journeys.
He'd lived as a Christian for decades.
He'd taught and preached and written half the Bible.
And he still he still was pressing on.
(38:16):
And what was he pressing on to? He says in in that same chapter
there, you know, he counts all thing law, the things as loss
because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
And so the biggest lessons that God has taught me is just that
you're never quite there and youneed to just keep on pressing on
(38:37):
to know Christ. I think Hosea says in Hosea
chapter 6 somewhere, let us press on to know the Lord.
And so that's that's the goal inwhatever stage you're in at
life. You're never too old to press on
to know the Lord. Thank you Daniel, and finally,
looking back on everything God'sdone in your life, what do you
(38:57):
hope people take away from your story?
Well, the way I like to look at it, you know, God has been doing
wonderful things in my life. He's blessed me richly.
He's taken care of me, and I'm thankful for that.
But I like to kind of flip it around and think instead of the
way that God has been in my life, I like to think that
(39:20):
sometimes we treat God like he'sthe support actor and we're the
main actor. We're the lead in our lives.
In reality, it's flipped around.It's God is the lead.
He's the main actor in in this great big story of redemption
and, and we're the supporting actors.
And so you and I and, and everyone listening to this and
(39:43):
whoever, whoever takes on some of this stuff, we just need to
remember that we're not the centre of the story.
God is the centre of the story. And he's called us to play a
little part in all of this. He's using you, Eli, to to run
this cool podcast that encourages people and builds
people up. If he can use me in some ways,
then that's good. But this is a story about him.
(40:04):
And so he gets all the glory, hegets all the credit.
And we might get a little, you know, have you ever watched a
movie and actually read the credits and like read these
people who are 4 minutes into the credits and their name is
like Tiny and it comes up on thescreen for a second.
That's that's, that's us. I think, you know, he gives us a
line in the credits, but he's, he's right there at the top.
(40:28):
This is the story that's about him.
That's wonderful. Daniel, thanks so much for
coming on today and sharing yourstory.
Thanks Eli. I've enjoyed being here.
Thank you for having me and and again, thanks for all you do
with this great podcast. Thank you so much.
I've loved hearing how your faith grew through all that
curiosity that you had, you know, dig deeper into God, and I
(40:50):
think that really had a positiveimpact.
Absolutely, yeah. I'm, I'm glad that I can share
that. I know that that doesn't, not
everyone will be able to relate to that if you haven't grown up
in a Christian household. But I think we, you know
yourself, your experience, Eli and and mine, we have, we have a
similar upbringing. And there's a time where you've
(41:10):
got to take on faith for yourself.
You, it's not something that youinherit from your parents.
It's not something that just gets passed down in the genes.
There's a moment in your life where you have to kind of grab
hold of it and say, Yep, I believe this too.
And, and this is my own faith and my own journey.
Yeah, you can be encouraged and pressured, but real faith is
(41:31):
done individually. Yeah, absolutely.
And that's that's it. At the end, on Judgement Day,
our mum and dad aren't going to stand there on our behalf.
We've got to stand before God and and give him an account for
what we've done with the life that he gave us.
And so even though it's a blessing to have so many people
around us doing that with us, wecan't pretend like it's their
(41:55):
responsibility to get us to heaven.
Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Daniel,
for coming onto the podcast today.
I've had a really good time. Thanks Eli, I've enjoyed it too.
All right. Well, I think the next time I'll
see you is challenge. Sounds good.
Yeah, I'm excited for that. And your whole family's coming.
Yeah, Yep. Excellent.
Hey, how was Bali? I I never got to hear about
(42:17):
Bali. Yeah, yeah, it was great.
I love Bali. That's cool.
Yeah, I bet. I bet it was fun.
I've heard so many people going to Bali and loving it so I'm
glad you had a similar. Experience.
It's great. Very different though, isn't it?
Yeah. Crazy.
Different from just a holiday inAustralia, yeah.
Exactly. Has you've you've been powering
on with this podcast? It's fantastic the people who
(42:38):
you've interviewed in the last little while.
I love the interview with Bob Marks and oh.
Thanks so much. Brett Christensen, it's
fantastic what you're doing. Thank you.
You're really pressing into it. You, are you doing a lot more
just this year or are you hopingto just keep it going?
Yeah, I know. It's been good.
I'm. I'm really enjoying doing it.
(42:59):
It's encouraging to me and encouraging to others.
I've heard. Yeah.
So I'm not planning to stop at the moment.
I'm staying strong. Good, keep on doing it because
it's a great resource. I've recommended it to lots of
people. Thanks and I'll continue to
recommend it. Thanks.
Yeah, it's, it's really good. Are you like obviously it helps
out a lot of other people. Did the interviews help you as
(43:19):
well? Yeah, they do.
They they teach me a lot actually.
It's been great. I've got some good ones coming
up. That's good.
And how long does it take you todo all of this?
Like especially the editing part.
How long do you spend on that? If I do it all in one go, it's
like a day, but it used to take a lot longer before.
But I've kind of gotten a lot better in editing, so it usually
(43:40):
just takes a couple of days justwith all the free time I have,
yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Is it difficult because you you wouldn't get a whole lot of
feedback straight away? Like when you release podcasts,
it's kind of a slow thing where people like, they might save it
and they'll be like, yeah, yeah,yeah, that's great.
No, Well, it's a really good thing.
I'm glad you're doing it and I appreciate you having me on
(44:02):
because. Yeah.
I was wondering, are you ever going to be interviewed
yourself? You're going to have someone
interview you one day. Yeah, exactly.
I should like on on my own podcast or be interviewed.
Yeah, on your own podcast. Yeah, I don't know, maybe think
it'd be fun. I did that before, but I deleted
the episode. I had my dad interview me and it
was called All About the Host. Right.
(44:23):
Yeah. OK.
OK. Yeah.
So maybe an updated one, maybe an upcoming.
Episode. Yeah, All right.
Well, thank you, Daniel. Thanks for.
Coming. It's been great and I'll see
you. What challenge?
Sounds good. See you then.
See ya, see ya. We put your feet.
(44:49):
Down.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Unwith Eli.
Today I've got another great conversation lined up with
someone who has such a genuine heart for God and for people.
So without further ado, let me introduce you to my friend
Daniel Smith. Daniel grew up in Gimpy, QLD in
(00:26):
a Christian family with two older sisters and an older
brother. After finishing school he went
on to study biology at university before heading down
to Tasmania to spend 2 years at Bible school.
Not long after that, he met and married his wonderful wife
Hannah, and together they moved to Toowoomba where they've been
living for the past eight years.These days Daniel works full
time for the Gipp Street Church of Christ where he's involved in
(00:48):
preaching, helping smaller congregations, running youth
group, and much more. He and Hannah have two young
boys, 4 year old Oliver and their one year old, Franklin.
Daniel became a Christian when he was 14 after spending a lot
of time digging into the arguments for and against God's
existence, watching debates, reading books and exploring all
the evidence. Through that search, he became
(01:08):
convinced that God is real and that Jesus truly is the Son of
God and that faith has shaped everything since.
So with that, sit back, relax, and let's get right into it.
Welcome to Elm with Eli. Stay tuned.
(01:41):
Welcome to the podcast, Daniel. How's your day been so far?
Thanks, ELA. It's been good.
It's been really good today. I've been mostly in the office.
I've been preparing some lessonson the book of Hosea.
We've got some lessons coming upon Hosea.
So that's that's kind of interesting and different.
I've been organising some churchevents.
We've got some youth group things, some a seniors afternoon
(02:04):
tea and some other stuff that we've been organising.
So that's been most of my day. We've been busy.
We've had, we've just had a big event at, at our church in
Toowoomba here we've, we call itthe lectureship.
So we have this big event where we have all these lessons over
the over a couple of days. So that was this last weekend.
(02:24):
And so we had a bunch of Christians staying at our house
with us and that's always a lot of fun.
Our boys love it when the house is filled with guests, so that's
been a lot of fun having people around and we're kind of doing a
clean up at the moment of all ofthat, which is fun.
Yeah, nice. And you got camp challenge less
than that. That's right, yeah.
(02:45):
Doing the lessons for Camp Challenge.
Yep. So just just putting some of
that together at the moment. I'm really excited because I
haven't been to Challenge before, so it'll be my first
time and I've heard only good things.
So if there's people out there who've had a bad experience at
Challenge, I'm yet to meet them,so we're really looking forward
to. That that's going to be great.
So, Daniel, would you mind introducing yourself for those
(03:07):
who may not know you? Sure.
My name's Daniel Smith. I live in Toowoomba in
Queensland. I'm a Christian, I'm a husband,
I'm a father. I'm a full time minister at a
church here in Toowoomba. I'm a big fan of the Elm with
Eli podcast, by the way, I do like podcasts and, and this is a
(03:29):
good one. I've I've really enjoyed the
interviews that you've done withother people Eli and I've learnt
a lot from it and, and found it really encouraging.
So I appreciate you doing that and I hope that there are
there's a growing audience for this podcast.
Thank you very much, Daniel. That's very nice of you to say.
Before we get into your story, could you tell us how you came
(03:51):
to know Christ and his church? Sure.
Yeah, I, I don't have a really dramatic story.
It's not the kind of thing you'dturn into a movie or, you know,
a mini series or something like that.
Some people have this big story about how their life fell apart
and they went to jail and, you know, lots of tears and things
like that. My story isn't that dramatic.
(04:12):
I, I was raised in Christian home.
My parents showed me the love ofGod and they they told me the
good news about Jesus. And as I got into my teenage
years in high school, I was exposed to more of what the
world offered and then kind of acontrast of the things that the
world offers offered and the things that I had experienced
(04:35):
growing up. And I saw that what I had seen
and received from my parents wasthe riches that are in Christ,
which are far superior to anything that I saw that the
world offered. So I decided to put on Christ in
baptism when I was 14 years old,and that was the best decision
(04:55):
of my life. Thanks for sharing that, Daniel.
So do you have a specific baptism story like on the day I
guess that really made you want to make that decision?
It was one night in particular where I'd been thinking about it
a lot and I was just kind of looking for one more bit of
proof. I just one more bit of evidence
(05:17):
that kind of sealed the deal forme to say, yes, this is
definitely the thing that I wantto do.
And so I was sitting outside. I was actually lying on the
grass and just looking up at thestars.
You know, David looks up at the stars in, in Psalm 8.
And in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.
And David talks about when I consider the stars, the
(05:38):
handiwork of God. I guess I had a similar moment.
It's hard to look at the stars and not contemplate who's the
creator and that immense mind ofthe designer behind all of these
things. And so I was lying there and
thinking, if this isn't enough proof, then what is?
(06:02):
And am I kind of just using thisas a bit of an excuse here?
I feel like I'm looking at the best proof that there is to tell
me that there is a God, that I am one of his many parts of
creation and I need to, to stop putting it off and, and decide
to trust him. So I was, I, I went in and told
(06:24):
my parents, all right, I've mademy decision.
I need to get baptized. And they were, they were really
excited for that. And so now I encourage people,
if they're not sure about getting baptized, I say just go
outside and look at the stars because that helped me.
Thank you for sharing that, Daniel.
That's really encouraging. So you grew up in a Christian
family, right? Yes I did.
(06:46):
My mom and dad are Christians. So what was that like for you
growing up and how do you think it helped shape your faith early
on? My mom and dad were very direct
in showing me how to love Jesus and how to love the church.
They did this through teaching, but then I think they mostly did
it through their example. That's the one thing I've
(07:08):
learned since becoming a parent.You can't deceive your kids.
You can't trick them. They see who you really are,
like when you get home and who you are when no one else is
looking. And for me, it was.
It was obvious that my parents were genuine in their faith.
They were really dedicated to God.
They were committed to serving the local church and and they
(07:31):
encouraged us to do the same. You know, on weekends we would
be mowing the church building onSaturday nights, my dad would be
up late writing lessons for the next day.
Through the week, my mum would be visiting with people in the
church and people who needed help.
And you can't fake that stuff. So that really shaped me and
(07:52):
that showed me a genuine love for Christ and I couldn't point
to them and and see any hypocrisy.
I saw people who are genuinely living out their faith and I
wanted part of that. After school, you went on to
study biology at university. Jane, what grew you to science
in the first place? I was actually thinking about
(08:13):
this the other day and I remember there being a
particular moment where I realised how much I loved
science. And it was, we were playing a
game, it was a board game and I can't remember the rules of it.
I just remember you had to roll dice.
You know, you had a few demos that you had in your hand, you
rolled them and I think if you scored a one you got more
(08:33):
points. Again, I can't remember the
rules, but in the game I remember people seem to get A1A
lot and I was thinking this is this is not really fair.
I'm rolling the dice and I'm trying to play with the
statistics here. Like I know there's a one in six
chance of rolling A1 and yet it seemed to be showing up more
(08:56):
than that. And so after the game had
finished and I remember I didn'tlose the game, but I, I'd said,
I, I reckon these dice are loaded.
I think they're rigged here. Then I, I spent a few hours that
afternoon just rolling the dice and I did it like a few 100
times and I collected all the, the data and I made this huge
(09:17):
big spreadsheet of all the timesI rolled it and how many times
it landed on one, A two or three, etc.
And I figured out the, the dice,you know, so it should be a one
in six chance that it lands on A1, but it was more like a one
in three or a one in four chance.
So the, the dice were actually low.
They were actually rigged. And I, I was so vindicated by
(09:38):
that. I, I really love the idea that
you can put something to the test and science is all about
that. You have a hypothesis, you put
it to the test, you get your results and you make your
conclusion. And so I remember thinking at
that point, that's what I want to do.
I want to figure things out. I want to try and make sense of
the world by putting things to the test.
Did learning about how everything works in creation
(09:59):
make you see God's purpose in itmore?
Or did it ever make you questionthings a bit?
Yeah, I think there were certainly some questions that
came up, but more so it made me see God in the world that I was
studying. For me, the the complexity and
the diversity of biological organisms was a clear sign that
(10:23):
God was putting his signature inthe universe.
He was saying, you know, I was here.
I remember there's a particular moment in the microbiology
lecture where this hit me where the, the, the lecturer, he was
talking about the, the particular immunological defence
mechanism in the human body. And, and he's kind of going
(10:44):
through the layers of it. Like the first layer is you've
got white blood cells that kind of eat up invading germs.
And the second layer, you've gota more complex adaptive immune
response where you've got B cells and T cells that are,
they've got memory and then theytarget specific invading
bacteria. And kind of as you, as you keep
(11:05):
on going down, you keep saying, OK, but how does that work?
And then the next layer explainsthat.
And then you say, OK, but how does that layer work?
And you explain the next layer. And remember, we were down to
like the eighth or ninth layer. And then the the professor just
said, and that's, that's all, that's all we know.
And to me, that was really mind blowing that we only know so
(11:31):
much. I just kind of expected that he
would keep on explaining and explaining, but he was saying,
look, we only know down this many layers and who knows how
many layers there really are here.
Who knows how complex it gets. But we've studied microbiology
for a century now and we've madeall sorts of incredible
discoveries. But it's staggering how much we
(11:52):
don't know. And I find it very hard to
believe that an atheist could study the immune system and not
have their atheism severely shaken.
Not really question this. And people say that the nervous
system is far more complex than the immune system.
So I was only studying one part of the human body.
And to me, it was overwhelming how clear it was that this
(12:17):
complexity is put here by a deliberate design, not by
accident, not by chance. And so sometimes, you know, if
I, for the fun of it, I've kept some of my old textbooks on
microbiology and genetics and immunology.
And when I open up those textbooks, to me, it's like it's
the same as looking at a waterfall or looking at the
(12:38):
stars. You, you're reminded once again
that that same kind of awe of how amazing this world is and
how clear it is that it's here for a purpose.
I think, I think CS Lewis says, if you want to be a sound
atheist, you've got to be careful what you read.
And and I'd modify that to say, if you want to be a sound
(13:00):
atheist, I'd I'd avoid studying microbiology because that that
made me see God's handiwork and I couldn't avoid the conclusion.
Yeah, exactly. I think you're exactly right.
I think confuses me how atheistsdon't really question how
everything's are set out with a purpose and work perfect.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and we know that in every
(13:21):
other part of life that when we see complexity and when we see
deliberate design, we always know that there's someone behind
it. Like, you know, they released
the the new iPhone recently and everyone's always, you know, in
awe of the new technology and how these brilliant designers
have put this together. But the iPhone has nothing on,
(13:42):
you know, just just the tiniest part of the human body.
You can just pick out the smallest cell and the complexity
that's there is a billion times anything that the latest iPhone
has. Yeah, exactly.
So Daniel, then you made a pretty big move by heading all
the way down to Tasmania for Bible school.
What led you to make that decision?
There are a couple of factors. The first was that I didn't
(14:05):
realise when I signed up to study microbiology that it
doesn't make for a very good career.
So all the people that I worked with in microbiology didn't have
very stable jobs. They're constantly moving around
the country. They never worked long in a
particular place and so I didn'treally want that for my life.
(14:27):
And I certainly didn't want thatif I was going to have a family.
And so I thought, well, I need, I need to do something else.
I need to change this. And, and I wasn't really sure
what to do in the meantime. And then there was an
opportunity that came up to headto Tasmania and study the Bible.
And I'd always wanted to know the Bible more.
(14:48):
I mean, who doesn't? I think most people want to have
a better understanding of the Bible and and so I wasn't
planning on going into full timechurch ministry.
I just knew that I wanted to be a Christian for the rest of my
life and so it'd be good to to know the Bible more.
It would be useful no matter what God had in store for me as
(15:09):
a career. So, Daniel, what do you think
God taught you during those two years about himself and even
yourself? It's a it's a really good
question. This is the best thing about
this podcast, Eli. You've got really well thought
about questions. I know it's not easy being an
interviewer, but you really ask some penetrating questions that
(15:31):
make your guests think hard. What do I think God taught me
during those two years? I think part of it is that
there's only so much you can learn from books.
Like I went to study and so I studied a lot of books, but
knowing the Bible better than other people doesn't make you a
better Christian. Paul talks about that in First
Corinthians 13 where he says, ifI possess all knowledge but have
(15:54):
no love, I am nothing God. God says in Hosea, you know, I
desert, I am mercy and not sacrifice.
It's not just about knowing the law.
It's not just about knowing, youknow, memorizing the Bible.
The Pharisees went to Bible school.
They, they all went and did their study and they had a lot
of knowledge, but they lacked godly wisdom.
(16:17):
And so, you know, wisdom is not primarily about how many books
you read and it's not primarily about whether you went to Bible
school or not. Wisdom is a, an attitude that we
have. Proverbs tell us and Job tells
us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
And so you can go to Bible school, you can get top Marks
and all the while still not havewisdom.
(16:38):
So probably going to Bible school taught me what you can't
get from Bible school and what you what you don't need to go to
Bible school to get is this wisdom, this cultivation of
godly wisdom. Daniel, around that time you met
Hannah. What made you know she was the
right person to walk beside you in life and faith?
(17:01):
I could talk about Hannah all day.
She's the best person I've ever met.
And we started dating about 11 years ago.
So in in those eleven years, I've gotten to know her really
well. And every day I, I think more
and more highly of her. But if but you're asking what
made me know she was the right person.
Well, there's a there's a obvious first answer, which is
(17:25):
that she was a Christian, she loved Jesus and she wanted to
serve him in every aspect of herlife.
I know that that's probably kindof a cop out, easy answer, but
the, the truth is that that makes such a difference and that
has been the the best blessing for our lives.
(17:45):
We, Hannah and I don't always agree on the small details in
life. We were just at the shops
yesterday and she, we found the shirt and she really wanted me
to buy this shirt and I didn't want to buy it.
And so we were in the shop for like half an hour just going
back and forth. I was saying no, she was saying
yes. Eventually she convinced me.
(18:07):
So we bought the shirt. But you know, we, we disagree on
on small things like that, but on big matters, we have very,
very few disagreements. And that's because we've got the
same purpose. We're living for the same goal.
And that's what I knew when I married her.
And that's what we've continued with all this time through our
(18:28):
marriage, how we spend our money, how we spend our time,
how we raise our children, how we use our possessions, what
people we spend time with, All of those things we agree on
totally. And so we might disagree on the
details, but, you know, it's never like I'm saying, well, I
think we need to be more active in the church.
(18:49):
And she's saying, no, I think weneed to spend more time, you
know, on holiday or something. We always agree on the most
important things. We're A-Team there.
And if you're a team on the mostimportant things, then you can
easily sort out the details. You and Hannah got married, and
now you've got Oliver and Franklin.
What's family life been teachingyou lately about faith?
(19:13):
Every day it feels like there's some experience as a dad that
teaches me about our Father in heaven and our relationship to
him as children of his. I think it we just have to take
the most of those teaching lessons that come all the time.
This past weekend we were at a park with our son Oliver, and
(19:38):
he, he loves climbing trees. And so he found a tree in the
Bush and he started climbing it and I was standing there with
him. He's only four years old, so he,
he can climb trees pretty well, but he needs help sometimes.
He gets stuck pretty often. But I was just amazed at how he
kept climbing and climbing. You know, he doesn't climb trees
on his own. He climbs trees as long as I'm
(20:01):
standing there next to the tree and so.
As he was doing that, I was thinking he has this total
confidence in being able to do something that is really pushing
his limits, really pushing his abilities.
But he he believes that he can do it because his dad is there
(20:23):
standing next to the tree and I was there to catch him if he
fell. I was there to help him if he
got stuck or something. And eventually he did get his
foot started. It was right up the top of the
tree. So then I had to go climbing up
the tree to save him and, and I got his foot unstuck and then he
climbed down. But the, the whole experience is
(20:44):
a good lesson in our relationship with our Father in
heaven. You know, if only we could have
that same confidence of God's presence, that if God is with
me, I can climb a tree, I can dowhat seems really hard and even
impossible as long as God is there.
You know how David says in Psalm23, he talks about though I walk
(21:07):
through the valley of the shadowof death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me. And so that was the kind of
confidence that Ollie had in climbing the tree.
And all of those moments show methe kind of attitude that I need
to have towards my Heavenly Father.
Do you know the song Eli? Be with me, Lord.
(21:30):
The line that I'm thinking of from it is be with me, Lord.
No other gift or blessing you could bestow could with this
one. Compare a constant sense of Thy
abiding presence wherever I am to feel that thou art near.
That's that's the song that I was thinking of as Owen was
climbing the tree. A constant sense of thy abiding
(21:52):
presence. And so look, that's, that's just
one example, but there's, there's constant examples.
When you see children, they teach you so much about what it
means to be children of God. Are there any family experiences
that have really stuck with you and taught you something new
about God? Again, there's there's just so
many. One that I was reflecting on
(22:14):
recently was our boys when we'vebeen teaching them how to pray.
When you're first learning to pray, the first thing that you
do is you pray for things that you can see.
And so we would be sitting around the dinner table and
having a prayer and Ollie would be just pointing to things in
the room and saying I pray for the table and I pray for the
(22:36):
light switch and I pray for the air conditioner.
And as he did this, you know, it's kind of funny until you
realise I probably do that too. I so often I probably just pray
for the things that I can see that are right in front of me,
and I don't pray for things thatare more important.
(22:58):
I just, I'm so obsessed with what's happening right now in my
life with the things that are immediately there that I'm not
actually praying about. What's more significant.
Does that make sense? Yeah, thanks for sharing that,
Daniel. You've been serving full time at
Gipps Street Church of Christ for around 8 years now.
What's your day-to-day in ministry like?
It varies a lot. All days are different.
(23:19):
I've never had two days that arethe same.
But I have all sorts of jobs to keep me busy, and I've never run
out of jobs to do. I usually spend my time
preparing lessons and classes, planning church events,
designing, you know, Flyers, posters, signs for events,
studying with non Christians, studying with new Christians,
(23:41):
visiting people who are in need.My phone rings fairly constantly
and so I often don't answer it because I'm in the middle of
something and then I'm usually calling people back.
A lot of the time people call mefrom our own congregation, but
sometimes from other congregations.
They need some help on something.
Because I've got the flexibilityof working for the church, I can
(24:03):
change my hours around a bit andI can help people out with
different things that they're doing.
Today I was in my office, but tomorrow I'll be mostly
travelling about town with Hannah and the boys.
We'll be visiting some people doing some Bible studies.
So all all days are different, but all days are fun.
Awesome. What are the parts you're most
passionate about? People understanding the Word of
(24:24):
God. I think that that's such a
satisfying thing. Have you ever had that
experience, Eli, where someone is teaching a class, or maybe
you're just studying through theBible yourself and there's
something that you haven't understood before and that maybe
you didn't even realise. You didn't understand it, but
suddenly something that's hard becomes clear and you've got
(24:45):
that kind of, oh I get it now moment.
That's a really satisfying thingto be able to help people reach
reach that moment. Everyone wants to understand the
Bible. They just don't always have the
tools or the time or they don't know how to unlock the Bible.
So to be able to be part of thatand help people to unlock the
Bible and make it clearer, that's what I'm passionate
(25:07):
about. That's very good.
I know part of what you do involves helping smaller
congregations in the area. What's that experience been
like, Daniel? And how have you seen God
working through the small churchcommunities?
Yes. So it's, it's one of the things
that I really love about my job is that it's not just here in
Toowoomba, but I, the church here encourages me to help other
(25:30):
congregations and especially ones that are smaller in number.
I grew up in a small church, so I love small church communities
and I, I really feel for them. I love how small church
communities are intergenerational.
You really get that in a small congregation.
In the congregation that I grew up in, I remember a lot of the
(25:52):
time sitting around in the coffee break and we would be,
I'd be chatting to people who were retired, people who were 60
or 70 years older than me. And that was was really easy to
do. It was really natural.
It just happened because there'snot that many people to talk to,
so you have to talk to everyone.I think God really wants the
(26:14):
church to be an intergenerational family.
And so small churches, that's really easy for that to happen
in small churches, that takes a lot more intentionality to make
that happen in large congregations.
The other thing that I love about smaller churches is how
valued each member is. You know, in a big congregation,
if you're away, if you're sick, maybe someone will notice.
(26:36):
But it can happen that you can, you can be away and no one
notices because there's so many other people there.
In a small congregation, you always notice when someone isn't
there and you're not a spectatorin In a small congregation, you
really notice when people aren'tthere.
You notice that if if someone hasn't been there, you want to
(27:00):
check in on them and say, hey, hey, how are you?
Because there's only a few of ushere.
So it really matters when one person isn't there.
In a bigger congregation, you often feel like a spectator,
like you could just not be therefor a couple of weeks and maybe
no one would even notice. And so I really love being in a
small congregation. I love that Australia has so
(27:21):
many small congregations becausethere's, there are a lot of
strengths to being in a small congregation, but I also know
there's so many challenges with that.
It can be really discouraging. You can feel small and
insignificant. There's not many people here.
There's so many people who aren't in the church.
It can feel like you're on the losing side.
But you know, we've got to remember that we're more than
(27:42):
conquerors through Christ who loved us.
We've got to remember that no matter how small the church is.
And Paul often planted small churches.
You're still more than a conqueror no matter how many
people are with you meeting on aSunday.
Yeah, I think I can definitely relate to that because I've been
raised in a small church. You know, even just for the
(28:04):
share time in the morning, people are praying for those who
are sick. When in a big church you
wouldn't have that, you know, people wouldn't even notice
you're gone for multiple weeks. So it's really important to have
those kind of relationships. And do you feel, Eli, like
you've got those kind of intergenerational relationships
that you're able to talk to people who are older?
(28:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, because most of my church are all older people,
so yeah. Yeah.
And that's a really good life skill to have to be able to talk
to people who aren't just the same age and kind of in the same
demographic as you. But it also it helps you to
relate to people like what's what's your experience been?
Because mine has been that the more I've been able to speak to
(28:45):
people who didn't seem that similar to me, especially in age
and in just in a different part of life, the more I've found
that we do have a lot in common.Yeah.
So next question, Daniel, going back to your teenage years, you
became a Christian at 14 after really wrestling with those big
questions about whether God exists.
What started that curiosity for you?
(29:08):
I I've got another CS Lewis quote for you.
This is a, a quote that stuck with me.
Yeah. When I was young, I had this
pinned up on my wall. Christianity, if true, is of
infinite importance. If false, it's of no importance.
The one thing it can't be is moderately important.
I might have, that might be a paraphrase there, but he, he
(29:28):
wrote something like that. And so I just, that really
resonated with me. I decided right from the start
it doesn't make any sense to be a moderate Christian to be
moderately committed to Jesus. Jesus is either everything or
he's nothing. He can't be in between.
And so that all revolved around those big questions, Does God
exist? Is Jesus the Son of God?
(29:50):
Is the Bible real? What was it that finally
convinced you, Daniel? There are lots and lots of
arguments for and against the existence of God.
And I spend a long time looking into as many as I could.
You know, I watched all the YouTube videos, I read all the
books, studied and studied and studied.
(30:12):
And you know, Paul is right whenhe says in Colossians 2 and
verse four, he talks about, I say this so that no one will
deceive you with plausible arguments.
Paul acknowledges there that there are going to be arguments
against the faith that sound good, that sound plausible.
(30:32):
I think we can spend our whole lives listening to plausible
arguments, reading another book,watching another YouTube video,
listening to another argument. And Paul warns about that in in
Second Timothy, about people whoare always learning but never
coming to a knowledge of the truth.
So there's a point at which we can get a little bit too
(30:54):
obsessed with apologetics and arguments for and against God.
There's a point where we just need to come back to the simple
truths that we know. And those truths that really
stuck with me. The the things that really
convinced me were the immensity and the staggering magnitude of
(31:16):
the universe that demanded a creator and the complexity of
biological life on this planet that demands a designer.
And there's no one alternative. You know, life without God just
doesn't make any sense. Without God, life doesn't have
any meaning. But I see meaning all around me,
in my life and in others. Without God, Jesus is nothing
(31:38):
more than a moral teacher. But that hasn't been my
experience when I studied the life of Jesus.
I don't see just a regular moralteacher.
He's so much more than that. Without God, there's no such
thing as ultimate right and wrong.
But everyone I know believes in right and wrong.
Without God, there's no such thing as free free will.
But we live with the belief thatfree will is real.
(32:00):
And so with all of this together, there comes to a point
where you think I can keep on studying all day long, but these
things are true. And there's no more studying
that I'm going to do that's going to make these things
untrue. The universe just doesn't make
sense without God. And there are good, valid
reasons for believing that He isreal and for what the Bible says
(32:22):
about Him is true. Once that truth clicked for you,
Daniel, how did it start to change the way you lived or saw
things? Well, instead of studying
whether or not God existed, I started studying what's God
like? And when I did that, I, I fell
in love with God. I realized that my faith wasn't
(32:43):
just, you know, a thing in a book wasn't an academic pursuit.
It's not about being right. It's not about winning an
argument. It's about faith working through
love, Paul says in First Corinthians 8 about knowledge
puffs up, but love builds up. And so instead of being focused
on winning arguments, that was ashift in my life to say my life
(33:06):
is going to be spent edifying, building up in love as God asks
us to. So over the years, Daniel, have
there been any moments that really confirmed your faith for
you, like times where you've seen God at work?
Absolutely. Yeah.
This happens all the time. And it's so wonderful to be on
(33:27):
the lookout for God because he shows up in places where you
don't expect. I was talking before about how
he shows up in, you know, the stars and in the, the complexity
of the cell and that kind of thing.
But more and more so I see how he works in people.
And it just confirms to me, yeah, he's real.
I see this in when people live their lives the way that God
(33:51):
wants them to live, they find what they're looking for in joy
and peace and meaning. There are lots of people in the
world who, you know, they're, they're looking, they, there are
people in the world who have money, they've got good health,
they've got lots of friends, they've got popularity, they've
got status, they've got power. They've got all the things that
should mean that you have meaning and joy and peace, but
(34:13):
they don't. And then there are people that
you meet, and I'm sure you've met people like this, Eli.
There are people in our congregation and people who I've
met in the church in different places who maybe they have
disabilities or they don't have money or they don't have any
friends. They don't have what the world
thinks you need to have. And yet they have what Paul
(34:38):
would call the peace that passesunderstanding.
They've got joy and they've got hope and their lives are broken
in a worldly sense. But because they follow Jesus,
they've, they've got all of those things.
And that that confirms to me when the Bible says God created
you and he knows what's best foryou, God knows what he's talking
(35:01):
about. And, and those are the moments
where where I see people like that who shouldn't have peace
and joy and hope that they do. And it's because they follow God
and God knows what he's talking about.
So those are the moments that stand out for me that say, yeah,
he's real. Yeah, I can say that his way
really works. You've mentioned that your work
(35:22):
includes youth ministry. Daniel, What would you say to
young people who are wrestling with the same big questions that
you once did? Well, it's something that
someone said to me, and I think it was my dad who said to me
when I was younger, I had all these questions and they said to
me, just because you don't have an answer, it doesn't mean that
(35:45):
there isn't an answer. And that there's a lot of wisdom
in that. You know, I'm, I'm a bit older
now, but I still don't have all of the answers to all the
questions. There are still lots of
mysteries to me, and you can jump on that and say, Oh well, I
don't know the answer, thereforethere is no answer.
(36:06):
But that's that's a pretty proudway of going about it, as if as
if your mind is so great that you should be able to understand
any mystery in the universe. Instead, I've got a pretty small
finite mind and I could be wrongor I could just misunderstand
things, or maybe God just hasn'trevealed the answer to some
(36:29):
things and that's OK. When Job had a lot of questions
for God, remember that God doesn't give him the answers
that he was looking for. He basically says to Job in the
end there, I don't owe you an answer.
I'm God, I created you. I've given you enough evidence
for you to trust me. And that's what faith is.
(36:49):
Faith isn't when we answer all the questions and it all makes
sense and there's no more unanswered questions.
Faith is when we have enough of the questions answered that we
can trust in God for the questions that still remain
unanswered. And I think there is enough.
(37:09):
I think that God has given us enough evidence to trust that He
is real. And there's still a lot of
questions that I have, but I cantrust him with all those
questions that I don't have the answer to.
I trust that He's got the answer, and I'm OK with that.
Second last question, Daniel, what are some of the biggest
lessons God has taught you through serving, leading, and
(37:32):
raising a young family all at once?
Yeah, I think I'm just constantly learning and maybe
that's the lesson that we are just constantly learning.
We learn from the Word of God. We learn from people around us
who have Christ in their lives. We learn from our experience.
And you remember what Paul says in Philippians 3 he talks about
(37:54):
not that I have already attained, but I press on.
And I think when he was writing that he he was old at the time,
you know, he'd done his missionary journeys.
He'd lived as a Christian for decades.
He'd taught and preached and written half the Bible.
And he still he still was pressing on.
(38:16):
And what was he pressing on to? He says in in that same chapter
there, you know, he counts all thing law, the things as loss
because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
And so the biggest lessons that God has taught me is just that
you're never quite there and youneed to just keep on pressing on
(38:37):
to know Christ. I think Hosea says in Hosea
chapter 6 somewhere, let us press on to know the Lord.
And so that's that's the goal inwhatever stage you're in at
life. You're never too old to press on
to know the Lord. Thank you Daniel, and finally,
looking back on everything God'sdone in your life, what do you
(38:57):
hope people take away from your story?
Well, the way I like to look at it, you know, God has been doing
wonderful things in my life. He's blessed me richly.
He's taken care of me, and I'm thankful for that.
But I like to kind of flip it around and think instead of the
way that God has been in my life, I like to think that
(39:20):
sometimes we treat God like he'sthe support actor and we're the
main actor. We're the lead in our lives.
In reality, it's flipped around.It's God is the lead.
He's the main actor in in this great big story of redemption
and, and we're the supporting actors.
And so you and I and, and everyone listening to this and
(39:43):
whoever, whoever takes on some of this stuff, we just need to
remember that we're not the centre of the story.
God is the centre of the story. And he's called us to play a
little part in all of this. He's using you, Eli, to to run
this cool podcast that encourages people and builds
people up. If he can use me in some ways,
then that's good. But this is a story about him.
(40:04):
And so he gets all the glory, hegets all the credit.
And we might get a little, you know, have you ever watched a
movie and actually read the credits and like read these
people who are 4 minutes into the credits and their name is
like Tiny and it comes up on thescreen for a second.
That's that's, that's us. I think, you know, he gives us a
line in the credits, but he's, he's right there at the top.
(40:28):
This is the story that's about him.
That's wonderful. Daniel, thanks so much for
coming on today and sharing yourstory.
Thanks Eli. I've enjoyed being here.
Thank you for having me and and again, thanks for all you do
with this great podcast. Thank you so much.
I've loved hearing how your faith grew through all that
curiosity that you had, you know, dig deeper into God, and I
(40:50):
think that really had a positiveimpact.
Absolutely, yeah. I'm, I'm glad that I can share
that. I know that that doesn't, not
everyone will be able to relate to that if you haven't grown up
in a Christian household. But I think we, you know
yourself, your experience, Eli and and mine, we have, we have a
similar upbringing. And there's a time where you've
(41:10):
got to take on faith for yourself.
You, it's not something that youinherit from your parents.
It's not something that just gets passed down in the genes.
There's a moment in your life where you have to kind of grab
hold of it and say, Yep, I believe this too.
And, and this is my own faith and my own journey.
Yeah, you can be encouraged and pressured, but real faith is
(41:31):
done individually. Yeah, absolutely.
And that's that's it. At the end, on Judgement Day,
our mum and dad aren't going to stand there on our behalf.
We've got to stand before God and and give him an account for
what we've done with the life that he gave us.
And so even though it's a blessing to have so many people
around us doing that with us, wecan't pretend like it's their
(41:55):
responsibility to get us to heaven.
Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Daniel,
for coming onto the podcast today.
I've had a really good time. Thanks Eli, I've enjoyed it too.
All right. Well, I think the next time I'll
see you is challenge. Sounds good.
Yeah, I'm excited for that. And your whole family's coming.
Yeah, Yep. Excellent.
Hey, how was Bali? I I never got to hear about
(42:17):
Bali. Yeah, yeah, it was great.
I love Bali. That's cool.
Yeah, I bet. I bet it was fun.
I've heard so many people going to Bali and loving it so I'm
glad you had a similar. Experience.
It's great. Very different though, isn't it?
Yeah. Crazy.
Different from just a holiday inAustralia, yeah.
Exactly. Has you've you've been powering
on with this podcast? It's fantastic the people who
(42:38):
you've interviewed in the last little while.
I love the interview with Bob Marks and oh.
Thanks so much. Brett Christensen, it's
fantastic what you're doing. Thank you.
You're really pressing into it. You, are you doing a lot more
just this year or are you hopingto just keep it going?
Yeah, I know. It's been good.
I'm. I'm really enjoying doing it.
(42:59):
It's encouraging to me and encouraging to others.
I've heard. Yeah.
So I'm not planning to stop at the moment.
I'm staying strong. Good, keep on doing it because
it's a great resource. I've recommended it to lots of
people. Thanks and I'll continue to
recommend it. Thanks.
Yeah, it's, it's really good. Are you like obviously it helps
out a lot of other people. Did the interviews help you as
(43:19):
well? Yeah, they do.
They they teach me a lot actually.
It's been great. I've got some good ones coming
up. That's good.
And how long does it take you todo all of this?
Like especially the editing part.
How long do you spend on that? If I do it all in one go, it's
like a day, but it used to take a lot longer before.
But I've kind of gotten a lot better in editing, so it usually
(43:40):
just takes a couple of days justwith all the free time I have,
yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Is it difficult because you you wouldn't get a whole lot of
feedback straight away? Like when you release podcasts,
it's kind of a slow thing where people like, they might save it
and they'll be like, yeah, yeah,yeah, that's great.
No, Well, it's a really good thing.
I'm glad you're doing it and I appreciate you having me on
(44:02):
because. Yeah.
I was wondering, are you ever going to be interviewed
yourself? You're going to have someone
interview you one day. Yeah, exactly.
I should like on on my own podcast or be interviewed.
Yeah, on your own podcast. Yeah, I don't know, maybe think
it'd be fun. I did that before, but I deleted
the episode. I had my dad interview me and it
was called All About the Host. Right.
(44:23):
Yeah. OK.
OK. Yeah.
So maybe an updated one, maybe an upcoming.
Episode. Yeah, All right.
Well, thank you, Daniel. Thanks for.
Coming. It's been great and I'll see
you. What challenge?
Sounds good. See you then.
See ya, see ya. We put your feet.
(44:49):
Down.
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