Paul Granger, Where Did You See God? Resilience in Life and Leadership Episode 043

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Stephanie has a fabulous conversation with Paul Granger. Eye opening and encouraging!

When asked who he is, Paul likes to say "a child of God and ambassador of Christ",  because he's learned that these elements of his identity supersede and shape the rest.  One of the ways God has invited him to live out the call to "love God and love others" is through the "shepherding gift": providing pastoral support, creating space for conversation and community, and advocating for those that may go unseen.

Functionally, he has spent the last two decades serving with various ministries, and now serves full time alongside YWAM in loving his neighbors in authentic ways.  He also loves to create, whether it is his podcast "Where did you see God", writings, or videos.  He loves spending time with his wife and kids, and they see their home -- which God gave them in a crazy way -- as an important piece of how they love their neighbors as a lifestyle.

https://www.wheredidyouseegod.com/

Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean and how to we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma; and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries, and, sometimes a few rants, to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way, and you want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!

https://stephanieolson.com

INSPIRE your team to LEAD WITH SUCCESS and MOTIVATE others with Stephanie bringing 20+ years of speaking experience. If you need to EMPOWER, ENGAGE, and EDUCATE your people-Book Stephanie as your speaker today!

https://www.stephanieolson.com/ask-stephanie-to-speak

Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean, and how do we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, an expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma, and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries and, sometimes, a few rants to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way and want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!

https://stephanieolson.com

Episode Transcript

Stephanie Olson (00:03):
Welcome to resilience in life and
leadership with your hostStephanie Olson, speaker, author
addictions sexual violence andresilience expert. Welcome to
resilience in life andleadership. And I am ready to
introduce to you Paul Granger.
When asked who he is Paul likesto say a child of God and an

(00:24):
ambassador of Christ, becausehe's learned that these elements
of his identity supersede andshape the rest. And one of the
ways God has invited him to liveout the call to love God and
love others, which is biblical,yes, is through the shepherding
gift providing pastoral support,creating space for conversation
and community and advancingthose that may go unseen. I love

(00:48):
that. Functionally, he has spentthe last two decades serving
with various ministries and nowserves full time alongside YWAM.
And loving his neighbors inauthentic ways. He also loves to
create, whether it is his in hispodcast, where did you see God
writings or videos, and he lovesspending time with his wife and

(01:12):
kids, and they see their home,which God gave them in a crazy
way as an important piece of howthey love their neighbors as a
lifestyle. Welcome, Paul. Hello,and welcome to resilience and
life and leadership. And I'mexcited to introduce to you to
Paul Granger. Hello, Paul, howare you?

Paul Granger (01:33):
Hello. I'm doing great. It's great to be here.
And I'm excited to haveconversation I have

Stephanie Olson (01:38):
to. So you are doing some really cool things I
really love. I love what yourstory. I definitely want to hear
crazy prayer things. I want tohear about some of that stuff.
Because I get that I have hadthat myself. But first just you
are. You're working with YWAM.
So Youth With A Mission and andI just want to hear kind of how

(02:00):
your journey led up to that andwhat God is doing in your life
and how we got you there.

Paul Granger (02:08):
Yeah, yeah. So it is it's quite a story. And
there's many directions I cango. But I think where I need to
start because you know, I don'tknow, when you talk about God, I
don't know where your listenersfall on that. I imagine there's
some that are like, yes, yes, Ilove God and others who are like
I've been I've always believedin God, but also, I've been
praying and he has an answeredprayer. And then also some who

(02:29):
might be like, I thought thiswas about resiliency and
leadership. Right? I didn't seeGod in the title. And so what I
want to encourage people withis, you know, God plays a big
role in my life. I believe Godexists. I believe he speaks in
the works. But a lot of whatI've learned is also stuff that
can be valuable for someone whois still wondering who God is,

(02:51):
or doesn't know that God exists,right? Because we're all
designed in the same way. We'reall humans with these fallible
minds and fallibleunderstandings that are trying
to navigate this fallible world.
Yes. And some of the thingsthat, you know, we can learn
along the way can betransferable. Now, there's some
things that I'll share thatreally do play into the idea of

(03:12):
believing that God exists andthat you can talk to him. But my
hope is, is that for someonethat's particularly on the fence
about God, that this mightencourage them, because one of
the things that makes it hardfor us to actually trust God
believe that he exists is thereality that hard things still
happen. Yeah, it's reality thatwill try to seek Him that will

(03:34):
try to do the right things. Andstill bad things happen. Or
someone who's not trying to dothe right things is thriving, or
like, yes, come on God, ifyou're a loving if you're just
what's the deal, and I, I reallyhad to press into this a number
of times my life, but back in2013, I was working for the

(03:55):
Salvation Army Boys and GirlsClub, and I loved it an amazing
place, an amazing team. I lovedworking with the teenagers that
I was serving. But a number ofthings were happening that made
me feel like it might be time totransition, including the birth
of our first child. And

Stephanie Olson (04:15):
that always does it by the way. Yeah, it
plays

Paul Granger (04:18):
a pretty hefty role and what your life will
look like. And so because I saythat I believe in God, because I
am trying to orient my lifearound that belief, I should
probably incorporate God intothat decision making process.
And so I began praying about it.
Alright, God, what should I do?
What are your thoughts? And, youknow, oftentimes when we pray,

(04:40):
we're looking for God to give usanswers. That's really what we
want. Just tell me what to do.
And do we really

Stephanie Olson (04:45):
want the answers we are looking for too,
right?

Paul Granger (04:49):
We're looking for the answer for the short
question of like right now.
Yeah. And based on my desires,and a lot of times when God
doesn't answer it's because he'sactually looking at a much
bigger cause. question that wehaven't been willing to ask yet
or too scared to ask or Yeah.
And so, you know, the shortversion of that story is God
didn't give me a direct answer.
One thing I learned is that ifyou're, if you're praying about

(05:10):
something, and you're asking forguidance for God, if it's
something he definitely wantsyou to do, he'll he could throw
out a yes, but we want that neonless that neon Yes, all the
time. That's like a rarity. Ifit's something you shouldn't do.
He's pretty good about throwinga no out there. Yes. But it's in
that in between space. A lot oftimes, I feel like what God is
trying to say to us is you'reyou're getting so honed in on

(05:31):
trying to make the right choicethat you're missing the bigger
invitation. Yeah, I'm justinviting you to seek me. That's
what you're doing. You'repraying so great. Choose
whatever you're wanting, I'm notagainst go ahead and choose the
bigger thing is, Are you seekingthe in some sometimes we have to
step forward and a 51%. Right.
And that's where I was, there'sthis local ministry, that

(05:53):
through a series of events thatseemed like it was from God, a
role opened up that seemedtailored to me. And as much as I
loved the Boys and Girls Club,and I didn't want to go like I
finally I was at 51%, go intothis new ministry, this other
ministry and, and I went thatdirection. And I share that
because, again, when you feellike you're trying to seek out,

(06:13):
then you feel like things shouldwork out. Yes, that was the
start of the hardest five yearperiod of my life. And it didn't
start off hard in the sense ofwhat it became, it started off
hard in the sense that the rolewas more than it really should
have been. I was running aninternship program, for example,

(06:33):
that when I was hired, had fiveyear long interns. But once I
was hired, they had justadmitted the next class that had
jumped to 12. Oh, that's a bigdifference, almost triple the
scope and what they did. Theyall worked in the same area when
I was starting, but the newclass would be split into two

(06:55):
different areas. So the scope ofthis one piece, yeah, had
increased and there wasn't aframework and nothing was built
out, it was still very much agrassroots organization. It's
like, Hey, we're gonna go inthis direction, we'll figure it
out as we go, which can begreat. Also, if you're stepping
into something new that youdidn't choose, it can be hard,
because you have to build it outnow, right? That was one of

(07:17):
basically three roles that Iheld. And when I was hired, I
was told look, you know, we'rekind of in a place where we have
to wear a lot of hats. But I cantell you, this is not
sustainable. And so at somepoint, this has to change. But
right now, are you willing topersevere I'm like, Yeah, I've
been doing ministry for a while,like, I get it multiple hats,
hard work, I'm good. And a yearlater, things were in works for

(07:38):
it to change. But then anotherstaff unexpectedly left, and the
person that we were hiring totake on one of my roles, was a
perfect fit for this newlyvacated spot. And I was trying
to be prayerful about it, myGod, like I really need this
person. And based on some ways,things were going I'm like, if I

(07:58):
give this person up, I don'tknow that another opportunity is
going to come by anytime soon.
And I might be stuck in anotheryear. But I felt a sense that,
yes, this is what I'm supposedto do, I suppose to release. And
so I told the other person,look, I know that we are far
enough in the process, thatthey're supposed to work
alongside me, you're gonna be ina harder place. So go ahead,
take the person. And sureenough, like no other

(08:21):
opportunity open up the scope ofmy role increased. There is a
press a pressure, sometimesthere's a pressure all the times
in life, but increasingly so inministry in churches that
success and value is measured byoutcomes. So yeah, your church
is a successful church, if it'sa big church or ministry, number
eight, if you got big numbers,right. And one thing that I've

(08:42):
learned just in life and anotherministry roles is it's just not
always the case. It's not alwaysthe case in life. numbers alone.
Don't tell the story. But alsosometimes you can have Singler
numbers. Yeah, that produceincredible impact that maybe you
don't see at the time. Maybeit's not the impact you were
looking for. But it is theimpact that needed to happen.

(09:03):
Yeah. But the expectation wasgrowth, growth, growth, and
there was a change inleadership. And this is someone
who came from a corporateenvironment where that was very
much like growth in numbers wasthe big thing. And for some
reason, something happened. Ican think of one particular
meeting that might have been thething but he was the type of

(09:24):
person that could quickly makeup his mind about someone. Okay,
then that would be who theywouldn't change, right? And if
you matched up with how hedefined hard working, success
driven, you know, all starworker, then you're good.
Sometimes even if you weren't, Iguess I saw that happen. And if

(09:44):
you didn't match it, yeah, thenyou could exhaust yourself
trying to prove yourself and itnot work out. We are completely
different personalities. We aredriven by completely different
things right and I do not workin a corporate environment by
design, like, I know that I'mdesigned to function and thrive

(10:04):
in ministry context. Yeah. So wegot off to a wrong foot. And
that foot was never fixed, neveramputated, it was just silly.
And at first, I thought it wasjust frustrating at first, and I
was very confused. And I, I tendto give people the benefit of a
doubt. And so the correctionsthat he was giving, I was like

(10:24):
this. Does that make sense?
Where's this coming from? ButI'll try. And I'll do this.
Maybe if I do it this way. Wegot about six months in, was the
first time he said to me, Look,I just don't know that you're a
good fit here. And maybe youneed to think about doing
something else. At this point.
I'd invested a lot a coupleyears why I actually knew that
the way that I was functioning,like I was prayerful from start

(10:44):
to finish. Yeah, I feel like I'msupposed to be here. I know that
I'm producing value, I'm good atwhat I do. So like, I don't know
that I agree with thisassessment that I'm not the
right fit, right. Because again,what I didn't know then is that
the fit was fitting this certainmold producing specific
outcomes. Now, here's what'shilarious is at the time, like I

(11:05):
continued to push this, I had tomatch this expectation of more
and more and more interns, eventhough I knew that wasn't a
healthy thing. I knew thatwasn't the best thing. And I
began to learn, I don't eventhink it's as possible as he
thinks it is. Because in thecorporate world, maybe you can
amass a lot of interns becausethere's money involved in that

(11:26):
there's no money reallyinvolved. And

Stephanie Olson (11:29):
it's very different. It is it's very

Paul Granger (11:31):
different. And but here's the thing, I came to find
out a few years in, I starteddoing some research reaching out
to similar organizations, anorganization where I had been an
intern once. And that a Model Alot of what I did after, and
when I was there, they they werestruggling to get year long,
folks. But the summer, theycould get enough folks, but I
reached out and they're like,No, like across the board. All

(11:55):
of us are struggling to findinterns like this one location,
like I was thinking aboutleaving their internship program
because they just can't getfolks to come in. And that gave
me a little bit of peace on twolevels. One, okay. It's not my
incompetence that's causingright to be a struggle to get
folks and to, I'm actuallygetting folks, I'm getting more

(12:16):
folks than some of theseestablished organizations. So I
might actually be good at whatI'm doing. But it wasn't being
seen. There is one particularmoment after that first hard
conversation, where Iimmediately I was like, I can't,
I can't be in an environmentlike this, like that this
meeting was incredibly crushing.
And I was accused of things thatweren't accurate. Like, I don't,

(12:38):
I can't be an environment likethis. So I'm gonna start to find
another job. I was mad at thisboss too. And the course is a
very short time, maybe evenwithin a day. One, I felt like I
was inviting me to not leave.
And I was like, ah, and then twowas feeling like I was inviting
me to show love to this bossthat I had justification for

(13:00):
being mad at. Yeah. And one ofthe ways that God's designed me
is, you know, you've got thefivefold gifts and scriptures is
talking about the apostle. Someare made to be apostles,
prophets, evangelists,shepherds, teachers. Shepherds
is where I fall most and what Ireally feel like that is the
capacity to see and walkalongside others. And so what

(13:21):
was really annoying is from thestart, I knew that this was
going to be a hard role for thisnew boss coming in. He was
taking over from the founder,right? He was taking on an
organization that was displaced,right to Yeah. And so from from
even before he started beforeour first meeting, I'm like,
I'm, I'm going to be a loyalemployee. Like I'm going to, I'm

(13:43):
just going to I'm going tosupport this guy, right? So like
to come from that place, and tobe in that place, and then get
hit as hard but God was like,nope, keep on going. He kept on
bringing to mind things thatthis guy was going through, even
outside of the work environment.
And I'm like, Alright, like, Ican't I can't villainize him.
Yeah, I can't blame the youknow, there's a scripture that
says The battle isn't againstflesh and blood, right? You want

(14:03):
to make it about flesh and bloodpeople and this person.
Sometimes it's not thatsometimes it's not good guys and
villains. And so but I was like,I don't know what to do here. So
I guess I've got to work harder.
It was a grassroots ministryenvironment. So people are
mostly casual. I starteddressing up button up shirts, I
started arriving early, leavinga little later, I worked through

(14:25):
lunch, I produced monthlyreports, I, you know, built out
these programs. I got this thesheet that has this list of
stuff that I did just prove thatI wasn't incompetent, prove that
I wasn't hardworking. And one ofthe most deflating moments was
after six months of that. Heended up saying, like, in my
presence, like we were the onlytwo in the room. It wasn't

(14:46):
directly to me. It was almostlike an aside comment.
He said, You know, I just I wishI just wish you would put more
effort into your work. And I'mlike, but that's all I've been
doing. Like if he had saidyou're not producing good work.
That's yeah, we could talk aboutthat. But I was put up for
effort. And yeah. And that wasthe first moment that I, I

(15:10):
didn't get it then. But I beganto realize this reality, that we
want to believe that we canchange people's minds. Sometimes
you can't. Sometimes you coulddo everything, right. But it was
never actually about you, orwhat you were actually doing. So
that means that sometimes youcan't actually change that

(15:31):
person's perception, right. Butwe will exhaust ourselves, we
will exhaust ourselves. Andthat's what I did. I equated it
in my mind to it was like, I'dfallen into this pit. And it was
this deep, dark pit. And Ididn't want to be in the pit.
And I wanted people to help meout. And it felt like some
people didn't notice I had fun.
So pit. By the way, I shouldmention the other elements of

(15:52):
this is that this ministry wasdeeply tied to my church, a
friend group and my community.
So we live together, we playtogether, we work together. So
there was no escape. It wasn'tlike I could come home from
downtown and like, let it go,like, right was constantly
around me. And it also meantthat the people that were

(16:14):
wounding me, were also friendswith the people that I wanted to
be able to see me and yeah, theycouldn't see they could couldn't
see, they couldn't understand.
They couldn't believe that itcould because this is a ministry
and was a great ministry. Socould these negative things be
happening? And so I'm in thispit, and I'm longing for someone
to see me. And the worst is whensomebody would see me and would

(16:34):
blaming, like, Oh, this is thisis your fault, or are you sure
this is really what's happening,or I had someone who was a close
friend, we we would meet forprayer for years early in the
morning. And his he ended upaccused because he was friends
with the other party. He endedup accusing me of a lot ended up
reprimanding me at times, andended up ultimately saying,

(16:59):
like, you know, you need to takeyou're just not taking any
blame. I mean, I spent a lot oftime over those years, taking on
the blame, blaming myself morethan blaming others and trying
to prove myself and after years,after years of this you know, I
kept on coming back to a placeGod, I cannot do this anymore.
Another hard meeting wouldhaven't got this is not working.

(17:21):
Can I leave. And I began to feelstronger and stronger. Like God
was inviting me to stay inwasn't promising you better way

Stephanie Olson (17:31):
that you're saying that God was inviting me
to stay? And I would probablysay he wouldn't let me go.

Paul Granger (17:41):
And I've this language of invitation is one
that I've fallen into more andmore because we do think of it
as like, like we said earlier,God telling me what to do. Yes.
Like, this is an orchestratedthing. And we got to crack the
code. We also when hard thingshappen, we can feel like it's
God, like are gonna get you. Buthe was inviting me because he

(18:01):
was trying to do abundantly morethan I could ask or imagine what
I was asking for what I wasimagining is for my boss to see
me accurately, for my job to beactually sustainable. And for me
to be free to actually operateand things I was good at. And
that makes logical sense. Like,who wouldn't want that? Right,
right. And what I love aboutthat passage where it says God's

(18:21):
able to do abundantly more thanyou can ask or imagine is, what
it basically means is, it's likeGod's hearing what we're asking,
seeing what we're imagining andsaying, I get why that sounds
good. You can't see what I see.
But I'm actually after somethingmuch bigger than a good work
environment, I'm actually aftersomething much bigger than you.
Yeah. And I want to invite youinto what I'm doing. Because I

(18:42):
know now on this end, a lot ofwhy I was invited to remain is
because I was able to stand inthe gap and protect a lot of
young folks who are coming in todo internships coming into a
very hard environment just ingeneral, but the where the
organization was and there wasthen the hard stage of
transition. So there was a lotof messy and dropped things. And

(19:03):
like I was able to stand in thegap, I was actually able to
provide a level of consistentspiritual support and equipping
that might not have been thereotherwise, even in the midst of
a ministry because there was somuch work that needed to be
done. Right. Right. Like I, Iwas the one thinking No, there
needs to be a spiritual stuff,touch point, so and so. That's a
lot. It's great to be invited byGod to serve in those ways. It

(19:27):
was still hard because on myend, yeah, it was miserable.
Like I hit the most hopelesspoint I'd ever hit. And what I
realized it was on the closetfloor one night, and I'm weeping
and I had other things going onin life too, that were
compounding on this, but I'mlike, God, I've done I've done

(19:47):
everything. I've doneeverything. And it's very clear
now that nothing's going towork. And it was almost like I
was saying to me once about timeyou realize that it's not up to
you, right? Right, because yeah,human logic totally made sense.
I cannot have a healthy workenvironment until my boss sees
me accurately, I cannot have ahealthy job until the

(20:08):
responsibilities are realistic.
And no matter how much researchand evidence I brought about
people who did similar rolesthat were like, I do a third of
what you do, and I'm exhausted,like, like I, God was invited me
to see that there's, maybethere's something he sees,
doesn't. And this was the bigone. There was a two part

(20:29):
meeting after somethingparticularly rough happened,
that I invited in someone who isa spiritual father for me,
Pastor for both of us, but alsoon the board of the of the
ministry, to very hard meetingswhere it became honored, utterly
clear, if it hadn't before, thatthere was absolutely nothing I
could do to prove myself that Iwas being accused of things that

(20:51):
weren't actually my fault, andat times where the other guys
fought, and that there was noway he was going to allow my
role to become sustainable orhealthy. And what the invitation
ended up becoming then wasthrough this, the pastor, he
basically said something to theeffect of you don't work for

(21:11):
this person. You don't work forthis organization, you work for
God. So what is your boss Godtelling you to do? And I said, I
feel like he's inviting me tostay, but I don't. But if I
stay, once we get to December,you know, I can tell you exactly
what's going to happen, becauseI've been here and it's
repetitive year after he's like,don't worry about December.
Yeah, that's gonna work thatout.

(21:32):
If God's telling you to stay,then that's what you get to do.
Yeah, right. And the big twist,though, right, because I've been
to that place before and stayedwas different is recognizing
that reality that I don't workfor this person I worked for God
meant that if I to the best ofmy ability, I was trying to seek
God and what He was inviting meto do, and then I was doing it,

(21:53):
then I could have confidence inthat. I didn't have to prove
myself to my boss, I didn't haveto prove myself to others. I
could look like a fool to them.
Yeah, and have peace because Iknew I was doing what God was
inviting me to do. And it didn'tmatter what happened in the job.
Because God was my boss. And,and he would take care of me.
And it was like, a light came onin that pit. And one of the

(22:14):
things that I realized when thatlight came on is I had felt
utterly alone, like God hadabandoned me. And it was almost
like, in my mind, I picture Ilook at the wall, right? The
first part of it is I look atthe wall, and I see the claw
marks of my futile efforts toget out. And I can see I was
never gonna get out of here.
Yeah, yeah. But then I look inthe other direction, and they're
sitting on the ground is Jesus.
He's been with me the wholetime. He's been with me in the

(22:36):
midst of the loneliest, darkestpart, he never left me like it
was just this clear sense thatthis whole time, it was so hard
for me because I felt like I hadto prove myself, because I felt
like this situation had to be acertain way, because I was
starting to feel hopeless,because I felt alone. But when I
actually began to see what wasactually true, that God did see
me that I wasn't alone. Thatyes, things were hard. But God

(23:00):
was actually trying to dosomething bigger than what I was
after, right? There is thisfreedom. And I felt this
release. Now we were supposed tohave a clean slate. But a few
days later, we had our firstmeeting. And he came in with a
four page document of somethingthat I'd done wrong. He
approached it differently. Buthe still had a four page
document, something I had donewrong in his mind. I knew I

(23:23):
hadn't done anything wrong. Iunderstood. I saw his mental
pathway. Yeah, I also knew hewas wrong. And what I felt like
I was saying is, you don't haveto defend yourself, you don't
have to prove yourself. And Ifelt this release, because
before I had to, or else, he'sjust gonna fire me, right. This
time, I didn't have to. So Ianswered his questions, but I

(23:43):
didn't do it in a defensive way.
And by the end of theconversation was the first time
in years that he let somethinggo, that he didn't acknowledge
that he was wrong, but he justlet it go. And I was like, Oh,
well, we're in a whole whole newworld that's numbered. Yeah. And
I mentioned that my pastor said,once December comes, God is
going to work it out. There wasabsolutely no way that anything

(24:05):
could work out to make itbetter. I was wrong. come
December, something happened.
That was so mind blowingly onlythrough God, that I was like,
Okay, this is somethingdifferent here. I was able to
operate in a level of peace andjoy that defied understanding.
Now, this is where in the storypeople are, like, Yay, this is
the ending of the story. No,because,

Stephanie Olson (24:29):
of course not.

Paul Granger (24:31):
The mindsets had not changed, right. And a new
person had come started workingfor the ministry and there's I'm
not going to get into the weeds.
And I I'll say anytime you sensehesitancy it's because I know
that I'm still friends withpeople connected. So like,
sometimes they'll start to saysomething. I'm like, man, but
there are people that might hearthis that might still doubt my
story and my Yeah, but I willsay this. My last few months

(24:52):
there became pretty miserablebecause When I was hired, the
person who hired me said, Look,I don't when I bring somebody
in, it's because I know them, Itrust them. And I know
thereafter what we're afterhere, so I give them the keys.
So that's where I started is thekeys of the car. The next guy
that came in was like, Yeah,sure you still have the keys.

(25:16):
But we're gonna transition overto one of these vehicles where
it has the steering wheel onboth sides. So at any point,
when you're learning how todrive, I can grab the wheel, I
can write brakes. And that'swhat it was, is I was never
actually in control of the car.
Even if it looked like it was inthe driver's seat. I was never
in control. My last threemonths, someone else was put

(25:36):
over me that was appear was new,and so is a really insulting.
But it was like he took my keysand kicked me out the car. Like
over the course of the months,without even me being talked to
about it. I started losingauthority over things, things
that I was in charge of, Isuddenly found out was starting

(25:59):
to be done outside of memeetings that I should have been
a part of. I would walk by aroom and they're talking about
my area of responsibility. AndI'm like, so again, God, what's
the deal guy? Like, can I go?
I'll stay if you want me tostay. But can I go? Silence?
Silence, no answer. And I'vebeen in that place enough to
know that silence doesn't meanthat God's not communicating

(26:21):
silence doesn't mean that God'signoring us sometimes. I'm
asking the wrong question.
Sometimes silence is simply Godsaying just hold up. Wait. It's
like a kid who asked, Are wethere yet? Are we there? I can
answer your question. But it'snot going to change what's
actually going on in you, youjust want to arrive. And so God

(26:43):
just patiently was silent. And Iknew I came to realize, I think
the guy's inviting me to wait.
And it was strategic. Becausewhat ended up happening is
things were in play, to get meout of the organization. That
led to a meeting on August2 2018, where I was invited in
and ultimately fired, like,told, basically, all I was told

(27:06):
is we just don't think you're agood fit. And boom, it's done.
That should have been the mostsoul crushing moment because I
had invested five years I hadprayerful I had sought God from
the start God, should I go tothis place? Right? So God, what
are you doing, but what God wasdoing was actually preparing me
for something abundantly more,right. And he actually gave me a
heads up that week that this wasgoing to happen. And it was such

(27:29):
an out of the place thing thaton the day, I came home to grab
something. And I saw my wife andI was like, hey, so I got caught
us for this meeting. And I thinkI'm gonna get fired today. And
she's like, there's absolutelyno way. Because if you were
doing something wrong, therewould have been a corrective
conversation before, if youweren't producing enough there
would have done like a 30 dayplan, they're not going to fire
you. And I'm like, actually, Ithink I'm gonna get fired. And

(27:51):
I'm going to this coffee shop.
And as I'm reaching for thedoor, I'm trying to think, What
in the world could they possiblysay? Well, if they say this,
well, I could tell them aboutthis. And if they say this, I'm
thinking about this. I actuallyhad like this packet of papers.
Yeah, right. Of all the body ofwork, that the things that I
built, the outcomes I hadproduced, like I had that,

(28:13):
right. And all I heard Godsaying was not an antenna.
That's not what this is about. Ido not want you to defend
yourself. I do not want you toprotect your job. I want you to
represent me well and be whohave invited you to be and was
able to go into this space andreceive what should have been
the most destructive news andactually be able to go home and

(28:35):
smile. Why not? DidI like what happened? No, right?
Was it right? No. Like it wasn'tright. What happened? To this
day? I still have like, traumaresponses. Yeah, things that
happen over the course of thatfive years. To this day. I still
doubt myself because when youare fired, or whatever term you
want to let go terminated. Whenthat happens. It hits you

(28:55):
internally. Yeah. It makes youwonder what do other people
think about you? But God hadalready prepped me to say look,
it's like she was saying peoplethought a lot of wrong things
about my son. So you're in goodcompany. Yeah. It's the whole
sharing in the sufferings ofChrist. It's right. The goal
isn't for everyone to see youaccurately. The goal isn't to
avoid looking like a fool. Thegoal is to be authentically who

(29:17):
God's invited you to be. Andthere are a lot of authentic God
Vollers that look like foolsJesus looks like a fool John
look like a fool David look likelike a lot of people that look
like fools. And so you know, thestart the opening question. You
know, you talked about why wham.
And what's beautiful is I don'tknow that my path would have I

(29:39):
would not have my path would nothave led there by my own
efforts. I actually hadconnected with YWAM years before
when I worked at the Boys andGirls Club. They had been
running a ropes course I broughtthe teens there. I had
connections there throughout theyears. When I lost the job, I
felt a few invitations for Godone was do not operate out of
fear right now because at thetime I'm a husband, I'm a home

(30:01):
owner, and I'm not just a parentof two, my wife was pregnant
with our third child when I lostmy job. So I'm like, I have to
make money. Right? Right God,like I have to make money. And
the only way you make money isyou win the lottery, or you have
a job. So I have a job, right?
And God's gonna, you think youneed money. I'm telling you that
I'm provider, what you need isme. I can provide through a job

(30:23):
or through people, for freesources, you can even imagine I
can make money appear in afish's mouth, do not operate out
of fear, do not get a jobbecause you need a job. Here's
the other thing that God didn'ttell me them. But I began to
learn. The other reason I wantedthe job was because of how I
looked. Right. Unemployment doesnot look good. It's not a good
outfit. And I already had a lotof people questioning me, like,

(30:46):
speaking for years, peoplespeaking negatively into my
identity, calling me incompetentlike all these things. And
nothing would just prove themmore than if I got like, a
really good role, right? Andthen I could come back and say,
Hey, I'm the executive directorof this organization. What do
you think about that? Right?

(31:07):
Like, there's a part of me thatkind of wanted that God's like,
I get that, yeah, I need you torelease that. I need you to
release all these things thatyou think you need, and I need
you to trust me.
He invited me into six months ofunemployment. That time was one
of the most beautiful seasons ofmy life, because there's so much
that I knew that God equippedbefore that God was inviting me

(31:29):
to do that, even in ministries.
I was stifled, because,unfortunately for a lot of
ministries, they get caught upon the financial piece, because
you gotta pay the bills. Like Iget it, like there's a logical
piece. But sometimes that canlead to outcomes being hurt.
Sometimes that could be lead todonations being the goal, even
in the most well intentionedmoments, it can stifle, yeah,
the invitation that God's givenwhen it would look like

(31:51):
foolishness to go thatdirection, well, nobody was
paying me a paycheck. So I wasable to serve in some really
beautiful, authentic ways,including, that's where the
podcast started, I didn't evenwant to do a podcast. But God
was invited me to publictransparency. And that was three
and a half years ago, I didn'tknow if it would last more than
one, but I'm still going yeah.
And I've been able to, likeexperience just God working

(32:13):
through conversations in abeautiful way. But at the end of
the six months, I found myselfin a position where I was at the
last four stages for this reallygood reputable job where it
would pay enough money, andpeople would respect me, I had a
few other opportunities that oneguaranteed I would be able to
get this job if I wanted to, youknow, another one would be

(32:35):
ministry based, I would have toraise support, but they had
already offered me the role. Andthen there was this conversation
I had with a guy named Chris,then chuck, who is leading over
at wire enrichment, who hebasically, we had been having
conversations we had connectedbecause of the unemployment
unexpectedly we knew each other,but our friendship deepened. And
he basically said, Look, I wantto invite you to pray about

(32:57):
joining our team. Like I knowyou, I know how you operate. And
what he basically said is it'snot we're trying to fill a role.
It's not that you have to dothis certain thing, like your
job would be to do whateverGod's inviting you to do,
including your podcast, yourpodcast would be part of your
ministry. I'm like, Man, that'scool. I don't have to fit that
on the side. Yeah. And so it'sthis beautiful thing I can do
whatever it is, God's invitingme to, I'm already respected

(33:18):
coming into it. The one caveat,there's no money. Nobody in YWAM
gets the page that everybodyraises support, right. And so to
go from unemployment, to havingto live off support could seem
like a foolish thing, especiallywhen I had a newborn at home.
But God had been pushing thereality of who he is, as

(33:38):
provider, as wise as one whodoes abundantly more. And he had
already put some things in placeto give me a peace and knowing
that guide, he actually can doit, including where our money
had already was, should havealready run out by that. Right,
right. But not only did it notrun out, I had been in the
hospital for weeks, a baby hadbeen born our cat needed dental
surgery, we had to do some carrepairs, like additional things

(34:00):
Christmas doll in that time. Wedidn't even have to scale back
how we were living. We weren'tliving extravagantly, because
again, I was ministry worker.
Yeah. But we didn't have to goto ramen and bread and butter,
like, so counted alreadypronounced sided. Yeah. And so I
took what definitely felt like aleap towards foolishness. But I
also knew was a leap towardsGod. And I knew that even if

(34:21):
things didn't work out, I know,within myself that I'm stepping
towards God, I'm not steppingtowards money. I'm not stepping
towards reputation. I'm steppingtowards God. And I and I believe
that he's going to catch me evenif part of me is still. That was
three years ago. We have notmissed a bill. We did not lose
our home. We have not had toscale back and go to bread and

(34:44):
butter that God has continued toprovide. It's been three and a
half years since I've gotten atraditional paycheck. Right?
There was a two year seasonwhere my wife felt like I was
inviting her to leave her job.
And then we did the YWAM if youwork Why wham, one of the
invitations is to do what'scalled a discipleship training
school in order to be on staff.
This is one of the elementssteps to get there. And we were

(35:07):
able to go as a family and dothis. And we didn't have the
money for it. And of all places,we could have done it in
Richmond. God invited us to doit where that started, which is
why wham Kona in Kona Hawaii. Sowe lived in Hawaii, why is three
months to live? Like, notsomething we would have ever

(35:29):
have dreamed? Oh, and we livedthere for three months. And
that's amazing. And so, youknow, in all of this, you know,
we talk about resilience inlife. And yeah, right. Yeah. And
we're told resilience comes fromjust from resolve, or comes from
building up the skills and thosethose are great things. But what
happens when your resolve isthere? When your skills are

(35:52):
there? And you're still gettingbeaten down? Yeah, what happens
if your app operating likeyou're supposed to operate? That
you are, you are operating withintegrity, that you have been
very mindful, and you're stillgetting punched down into a pit?
Like, whatdo you do then? And for me, the
answer was, to find out whatwhat do I really believe about
God? And how willing Am I totrust that? That's right,

(36:16):
because Christians will say alot of things about what they
believe about God. But themoment things get hard that
resolve falters a little bit,yeah, the moment it looks like
we're gonna lose something likethe rich young ruler came to
Jesus is like, how do I geteternal life, Jesus said, sell
everything you have, give it tothe poor, and follow me. There's
too much that was too crazy of acall too hard of a call, like we
had this happen. And we willmake up, make decisions not to

(36:38):
try to dishonor God, but to tryto protect in the ways that we
feel like need to protect what Ihad the privilege through this
hard season, to recognize thatsometimes resilience comes from
believing that God actually iswho He says He is. And he can
actually do abundantly more,even if it looks like
significantly less is in themidst. I love

Stephanie Olson (37:00):
that. Oh, I am I am digging this conversation.
I gotta tell you, there's somuch that is resonating with me
and so much that God is justpersonally taking me through
some stuff. That is just righton what you're saying. And I
think that sometimes, when it'sa Christian that's hurting you.

(37:24):
Yeah, it's that much harder.
Because you're like, God, canyou not tell them that they're
being a jerk? You know, I mean,it is so, so hard. I love this
story. Because this is aboutwhat God does in the face of our
circumstances. And that,frankly, he's not trying to

(37:45):
change those. He's trying tochange us. And he can do
incredible, incredible things.
But we do have to trust him. Wehave to trust him. I actually
just gave a message called theend of the story. And it's all
about, you know, I'm an avidreader. But I like the story. I

(38:06):
don't ever want to turn to theend of the chapter, and know how
a book ends. But when we grow upreading the Bible, or knowing
the Bible, we see the story ofAbraham, and we're like,
awesome, Abraham, God's gonnaprevail. Well, Abraham didn't
know the end of his story,right? We don't know the end of
ours, but he trusted God throughthat. And I think that, that is

(38:32):
so beautiful. I love that. Oh,my goodness. Okay.

Paul Granger (38:35):
Well, and that story piece to what's beautiful
is, we can get frustrated withthat idea. Because we're
actually thinking about storiesin the wrong way. The reason
that we might jump to the end isbecause it's really just a
conveyance of information forus. Like, I want to know what
happens. What are the course ofevents? What's the outcome,
like? And it's, it's all aboutthe information. Yeah, but a

(38:57):
good writer isn't just trying togive you information. Like
they're trying to take you on ajourney. They're trying to help
you to experience stupid thingslike there. There are things
that you experience aboutAbraham, that if you didn't know
the depth of the pain that hehad to feel in his heart when he
had to sacrifice Isaac, right?
Like, like, if you just knewjust thought about the
information, you might miss thehumanity, the reality exactly.

(39:18):
And then life, God is afterabundantly more, he's not just
trying to tell us what jobs tohave, what to do, and get us to
a certain outcome, because likeyou said, he is trying to grow
and mold us. But he's also doingall this with eternity in mind,
Scripture is very clear that allthis is going to fade away. This
is not our home. Right? Right.

(39:39):
And we even recognize even ifsomebody didn't believe in God,
like right, it's just a fewgenerations that you're
remembered like even the memoryof you unless you're someone
significant is gone. Like I'mworking on my family ancestry
right now trying to find out andit took forever to finally
cracked the code of who my greatgrandparents were. But what that
made me realize is that likeman, like those those people

(40:02):
like nobody, like nobody knowswho they are anymore and

Stephanie Olson (40:05):
that you are literally related to you don't
even know them. Yeah, bloodliterally right? Yeah,

Paul Granger (40:10):
no. And, and yet, this is what we will we will
focus so hard on the here andthe now. Yeah thinking that
that's the thing that lasts whenthere's something that lasts far
beyond that that money can'tactually capture. And God is
looking at our story that he'swriting for us. And he's like,
you're still thinking temporal,like, there is a reason that I'm

(40:34):
not telling you. It's becauseI'm trying to do something
within you now and how you seeme and how there's a reason I
didn't give you this thing youprayed for because there's
actually something better thereis a there is a there is like
God sees so much more. But yeah,keep on reading stories in that
informational way, rather thantrusting the journey that the
writer has written?

Stephanie Olson (40:53):
Absolutely.
Well, and, and I love that youwork with youth. And that,
because I think when you'retalking about things like this,
I personally in my day life, Irun a nonprofit. So totally get
all of the whole money thingsand what you're saying. And our
mission is to provide preventioneducation to youth, and families

(41:16):
on human trafficking, socialmedia, safety, health
relationships. And so we go intoschools, we talk to youth, but
that's, that's who we serve. Andone of the things about youth
that is so striking to me, and Ithink we as adults fall into
this quite a bit. And whenyou're in middle school, that
might as well be forever. Thatis life, you know, you're not

(41:40):
getting out of it. You don't.
And, and I think that sometimesthat's where God has us in that
place. That is, okay. Am I goingto get out of this situation? Or
beyond this situation? Whetherit's good or bad? This is the
moment that I am kind ofcaptured in? And I can't see

(42:03):
beyond that. And that is? That'sa tough place to be, I think.

Paul Granger (42:09):
Yeah. And what's so hard too, is that it's, it's
shaped by so much, right? It'sshaped by our own desires of how
we want things to work. But alot of times even our desires
are shaped by external forces.
Yeah, what what are we told isthe way that things are supposed
to go? What are people around usexperiencing? How are we
comparing to them? What arepeople actually saying to us?

(42:31):
Whether they believe itthemselves or not? That's how
much I mean, employment is oneof those areas, right? Is there
is an expectation that youeither work, you landed in the
money, or if you're unemployed,it's just bad, right? You know,
there's something wrong withyou, right? And we're
conditioned into what workssupposed to look like how it's

(42:53):
supposed to feel, and, and allthese things, but it's so much
about reputation, it's so muchabout like, there's no respect
for the service worker, right.
But for the CEO, right, right,there is there's respect and
there's so there's so much thatshaped and then when an
individual is trying to figureout their place in the midst of
this, particularly young adult,young adults is where I feel

(43:14):
like that is most position me inthe recent years, who are in
this season of, they're still inthe midst of youth in a sense,
but they're on the cusp ofadulthood. And it's murky, and
it's unclear when you fullytransition and how you
transition where you go. Andthere's so much pressure, about
figuring out what you have todo. And also figuring out what

(43:36):
God wants you to do. And dothose things come together. And
how do I know? And I'm askingGod, and he's not telling me and
I and I and likehyperventilating? Yeah, having a
quarter life crisis. And, andit's heartbreaking, because so
often, the fears that exist,aren't actually real fears. No,
but they, they we've we willfind ourselves inundated in this

(43:59):
and get to a place like youmentioned where it's like, and
now I don't see a way out,right? Because the only pathways
I'm aware of are all these andeither I don't want to go down
that path, or I don't even knowhow I can go down that path.
Yeah, and there's this passagethat talks about the wide gate
and the narrow gate inScripture. And a lot of people
find the wide gate and somedon't find the narrow gate and I

(44:19):
I pictured as though this it'sthis wide road that has been
heavily traversed. Maybe it's astraight road and you can see
Yeah, there's a city at the endof this road. Yeah, so that's
inviting a lot of people gonedown it it's easy to see it's
clear and there's a destinationwhy would you ever choose this
overgrown weeded path that aboutfive feet in it turns and you
have no idea where it goes andthere's Are you gonna get lost?

(44:42):
Right hills? Breyers snakes?
Yeah, it's dangerous. Yeah. Andthe only thing making you
consider going down is the factthat you see Jesus veering off
the Y road down this dark path,right and so the question
becomes, now, why am I chooseThe path that I'm choosing, and
there are all the reasons tochoose the normal, logical

(45:03):
paths. The only logical reasonto choose that path is because
that's the one that Jesus goingdown and he invited me to follow
him. Any other things like, oh,because I like adventure? Well,
you like adventure until yourlife is at risk in a significant
way, or your loss or you'retired, or, or right, like any of
our other reasons are going tohit a point where they're not

(45:27):
enough. And this is why whenPeter was walking on the water,
like, he had a lot of reasonsthat got him to actually walk on
water for several steps. Yeah,the the moment he stopped was
because all of those reasonsfaded away, he saw the waves, he
was too far from the boat to beable to swim back. And all that
was left was the only reason totake another step forward is
because Jesus invited themright. And that reason wasn't

(45:49):
enough. And he sank, and Jesusstill loved them and pulled them
out. Right. So like in life,it'll look like there's no way
forward there will look likewhere Jesus is inviting us is,
is a foolish path. And he's nottelling us where it leads. And
the thing is, is that where itleads us to him, like it's not
about any functionaldestination, as we understand

(46:09):
it, it's him. So even if I landin unemployment, even if I land
at a job, where I'm almost 40,and I don't get a paycheck, and
I'm right, like I could, I couldthink about it in human terms
and make a case for how foolishI am. But I can also step back
and say, I've seen what God'sdone. Right, right. Like, I know

(46:30):
how he's worked. This is why Godinvites us to remember, because
it's easy to forget who he isand what he's done. But when we
remember, yes, we can put thatup in place of this big logical
mindset we have and say, eventhough it doesn't make sense,
this actually was true. So howcould this still be true? If God
is the same yesterday, today andforever?

Stephanie Olson (46:53):
Well, and I think that's the problem with
American Christianity, becausewe really do have an easy road.
And so when when God says, Okay,follow me down this path. And it
just, that doesn't make sense.
But you look at some places inour world, where, you know,
like, Hey, you get to followJesus. Now, here's the thing,

(47:17):
your family's probably going tobe get killed, you will probably
be tortured and die. But this isthe end result, and people are
running in droves. And I thinkthat's one of and I'm I, I am
happy to not have thepersecution that they have.
Right. But I think that's one ofthe things that we lack here.

(47:40):
Because we don't get to see Godwork in some of those incredible
incredible. Yeah, yes. Sospeaking, that was

Paul Granger (47:52):
the wisdom when Jesus Well, I'm just going to
add to that what Jesus said tous is, hate your father and your
mother. Hate your children hateyour own life? Yeah. But dying
to sell. And that that's, that'swhy he was so wise in saying
that is because as long as youhave things, and that's what we
have in American culture, like,advancement, job security,

(48:12):
reputation, like as long as youhave things, our default is
going to be to protect and holdthose things. What do we mean,
when you don't have those thingswhen you release them? When
you're in an environment whereyou don't have it? It's a little
easier to see what's actuallytrue? Yeah, not what you believe
is true,

Stephanie Olson (48:29):
which is why there is so much growth with our
I mean, if if we've got thistime, where God strips
everything from us, we have achoice, we can either turn to
God or turn away. And when weturn to Him, and Jesus is all we
have, it's amazing what he doesin that time period. And so

(48:53):
yeah, yeah. Okay, so that kindof leads me to crazy prayer
things. Let's talk about that.

Paul Granger (49:01):
So you got to hear one crazy prayer things, which
is I'm in a toxic workenvironment where I'm being
accused of things that aren'ttrue. And I cannot prove myself
no matter how hard I work, Ipray and God invites me to stay.
Yeah. People did. Like, Iactually had people close to me
that at times got upset with mebecause it seemed like I was

(49:24):
being really stupid. Yeah,you're doing this to yourself.
At this point, Paul, like at thestart, I felt bad for you. Then
after a while, I was like, ah,but now, after a few years,
you're you are choosing to stayhere and there was someone who
was in an HR role, who basicallysaid the same kind of things
like this is on you, like you'rechoosing to stay on like, this
is A Minute of jury. Where's whyI'm coming into the mix of this

(49:49):
conversation and calling andlike things that we claim to
believe and so to stay in aplace that I didn't want to
stay. That seemed destructive,because God invited me to say
Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. And Ican see on this end, how God has
worked through craziness. Theother big story, and this is
where the phrase I started usinga lot is, I posted on Facebook a

(50:12):
fall 2016. So I was in the midstof the rough of it. And I posted
it on Facebook. Hey, we feellike God's inviting us into this
crazy prayer thing. I can't tellyou anything about it yet. But
if you want to jump in and be apart of this crazy prayer thing,
start praying and God knows whatyou're praying for? Well, what I

(50:32):
was referring to is that Godinvited us to pursue a house. I
did not want to pursue a housewhen I was in the midst of a
rough, rough, toxic. Yeah,right. Right. I did not want to
pursue a house when my wife waspart time with the church. I was
working for a ministry so wedon't have the money that God
had already blessed us with ahome. So I was I was happy with

(50:53):
where we were living. And I'mconstantly cognizant of how, how
much we have compared to howmany how little so many of the
world has Yeah, and so I cannever feel justified saying I
need more space. Because thereare people living in a fraction
of what I have if that friendsthat I have in the community
that are unsheltered. So I was ahard know, when this idea of

(51:18):
another house came up in thehouse that we had walked by a
lot. And it's a beautiful house.
Large, beautiful house right onthe corner, right catty corner
to one of the housing projects,huge yard. And so in terms of a
space where God could do amazingthings for the community. We
weren't alone. And having thatsense. A lot of people would
actually looked into and pursuedthis house. It never went
anywhere. Because the guy whowas living there was saying, oh,

(51:39):
I want a million dollars for it.
And then he didn't laugh. Youbrought down 500,000 He didn't
laugh. And at the time in thecommunity, the house in the
state that it was in, reallyshould have definitely should
have been less than 200,000.
Wow, maybe well, less than that.
And it was just constantlyoverpriced. And we thought it

(52:00):
was abandoned because it lookedlike it was boarded up. But it
turns out someone did livethere. He just put paper over
all the windows. Oh, he wasstill they were looking to sell
it. And then my wife was like,Well, you know, what do you like
we had gotten to a point wherewe decided no, we're not gonna
buy anything. But she saw thesign. She's like, I kind of want
to see inside and we're like Ikind of went see inside too. We
left thinking we're absolutelynot getting this house because

(52:21):
the floors were splintered. Thewalls were led paint. There's no
closets in the bedrooms, rightlike really the kitchens falling
apart Nicola older houses, theyjust didn't like closets. I
guess they liked wardrobes, Idon't know, weird. And so it was
a hard No. Until one day I'mcoming home from work. And the
house was just a few blocks fromus. But it was out of the way.

(52:43):
But I felt like I was invitingme to drive out of the way. And
then I found myself feeling likeI should pray about this house
in the sense that I got was Ifelt like God was saying, I want
you to pursue this house. AndI'm not promising you're gonna
get it. Kind of crazy. Okay,pursuing a house is not a small
thing. No pursuing a house thatyou might not get in, you know

(53:05):
that you might not get itfurther. It's kind of crazy.
When you don't have the moneywhen you don't want to even buy
a house when it's a house that'sfalling apart when it's
overpriced. All these things,but we felt like I was giving us
an invitation. So we took astep. That step revealed a lot
more impossibilities, but alsoreveal moments where God

(53:26):
suddenly showed himself inunexpected ways, sources of
income that we just came out ofnowhere. Two people in the same
day called my wife and said,Hey, we there's a job opening up
with the Ministry actually sameministry that I worked for. So
my wife was also working for theministry that I got, okay. Like,
at the same time, that was awhole other part of the whole

(53:47):
conversation about

Stephanie Olson (53:48):
that experience to her relation, right. That's
not good. But

Paul Granger (53:52):
there is this preschool, that our, our kids
had been a part of that we lovethat she actually taught out and
the director position wasopening. And two people called
and said, we really want you toapply for this job. Like she was
not planning on leaving the parttime at the church. Definitely
not for full time anytime soon.
But like, because we had just,we had two young ones at that
point. But yeah, she felt thispiece about it, hilariously, the

(54:14):
location of it half a block fromthe house, we're looking at
this, right. And so all thesethings are happening. It gets to
a point though, where, like,we're in contracts, but we don't
know how this is going to workout. They're not pulling back or
anything we're like, but you'vegot wires twisted together and
duct tape wrapped around like,you're gonna need to come down
on price or you're gonna need tocover these things. Nope,

(54:36):
absolutely not. We're not goingto like oh, hold and strong. And
it got to the point wherethere's no way this is going to
work. All that's left is for usto sign the papers and I could
see the house from our kitchenwindow like it was tall enough
that it would just over thetrees. And in the morning, the
morning sun would illuminatethat first a top of the house.
And in the good moments. It'slike oh, it's a sign from God in
the bad moments. It's likeinsulting. Oh my gosh. And I'm

(54:57):
fixing my eggs. And I'mlamenting that we're not going
to get the house, we've put somuch into it that somebody else
is going to move in. And I feltlike what God was saying to me
was like, what is it that you'reactually after here? Because it
doesn't seem like it's me.
Because when he said to pursuethe house, the reason he said

(55:18):
but I'm not promising you'regonna get it is because he
actually wanted us to pursuehim. That's what this was all
about. After goal, this was notto get a house. And when I
realized that, I realized thatmy lament was founded in
logical, but was because theoutcome, the goal was the house.
It was this good heart check.
And I'm like, Alright, God. Allright, I hear you. I'm still in
this. I'm still I'm still gameto stay at the table. Even

(55:39):
though right now, I don't knowhow this goes any further. But
I'm, I'm here for it. And sureenough, a few more months,
somehow, the table didn'tdisappear. Things didn't clear
up. But God continue to showhimself and on March 15, to
2017, easily one of the hardestmoments of my job moment, not

(56:01):
just like, in what I was goingthrough. But with my
responsibilities, like, that wasthe height of the busiest part
of my season, like the middle ofme running a month long of
service groups, the directement.
I'm like, God, you're funny. Butwe got the keys. We got the cow.
Wow. And then we had to go intothe renovations. And we didn't

(56:24):
have the money for that, like,but I can't tell you to this
day, how it all worked out. Likewe, whatever money we had to
cover, like was was barelyenough to cover maybe the most
vital stuff like you know,electricity, right? Yeah, small
stir. But we were able to dostuff that we did not think we
were able to do. And I can'ttell you to this day, how the

(56:45):
numbers work out. It's not likewe suddenly got a large,
anonymous $50,000 gift orsomething. It's like God
provided God provided. I don'teven know how he did. And so it
all started with our willingnessto seek God. And then he comes
at us with this invitation wedidn't know is coming. And the
question became, are we willingto trust God that much? To step

(57:07):
towards something crazy,something illogical, something
that people will look at us andsay, Are you sure about that?
Right? You might be beingirresponsible. You have kids,
you need to think about this.
What if you lose everything?
Like, are we willing to trustGod enough to step into the
crazy to embrace looking likefools because the wisdom of God

(57:27):
is foolishness to man? Yeah.
And, and that happened before?
The whole job thing. So it'slike, it wasn't even about the
house. It was about meunderstanding who God was, how
he can operate and how he can doabundantly more so that when I
found myself a little bit laterthat year, having that hard
meeting, where God was tellingme to stay, and I was like, oh,

(57:47):
it's gonna work. Like, I hadthis touchpoint of knowing. But
here's what I know about God.
Now, here's how I know he canwork. Here's how I've seen him
work through impossible. Somaybe I can remain in this
environment, even thougheverything seems horrible. It
helps when I lost the job andwas able to trust God to step
into unemployment. It helpedwhen I was approached about why
wham was able to say, oh, I cango into this knowing I can work

(58:08):
when my wife felt like I wasinviting her to leave her job.
And everyone's like, okay, it'sone thing for Paul, but for both
of you to lose income, right,right. And through the pandemic,
all the way up until now. Likethese moments, these crazy
prayer thing moments have helpeddeepen my understanding that God
is God. Yeah, that He ispowerful. But it's also good and
loving. And even if it doesn'tplay out the way that I want it

(58:31):
to. It's because what I wantedwas so much lower than what he
actually had.

Stephanie Olson (58:39):
Yeah. Okay, I'm super inspired. I really am.
It's not often that I walk awayjust going, Ah, I just from a
from a podcast, I think like, Ijust needed God used this to
just speak to me. So I, I reallyappreciate everything you've
said, this has been amazing.
Thank you so much.

Paul Granger (59:03):
And I appreciate the opportunity. And I want to
say this because I there is atakeaway that someone could get
from this that I do not wantthem to get. And the takeaway
could be something like, oh,man, wow, I just admire Paul's
faith. Like, I wish, I wish Icould have faith like that. But
I just I don't even know that Icould never do what Paul did
like, this is not about me.
Like, I did not think I could dohalf the stuff 90% of the time.

(59:28):
This is a story of how God cando abundantly more. This is a
story of how God could worksometimes in spite of us. So
anybody listening, you arealready in the position for God
to do something like to write astory like this. He wants to
write a story like this. Youlook at who Jesus chose as his
disciples. They were not who theworld would have chosen. No,

(59:50):
they were not they would nothave chosen themselves. They did
not feel sufficient. So anybodylistening this This type of
story can exist for you. Yeah,this is not about me. That's why
it's mustard seed faith. It'snot like, oh, Paul has great
faith like, No, I had mustard. Ihad just enough to say, Okay,
I'll step into the crazy, butGod, I don't know what you're

(01:00:11):
doing. So I wanted to I want toemphasize that everyone
listening this is this can be astory for you as well,

Stephanie Olson (01:00:17):
well, and I appreciate that because you said
something really important thatreally speaks to that. You said
that still today you have traumaresponse that or that. And that
just shows I think that's animportant piece that this wasn't
you just going, Okay, I'mgetting beaten up. But guess

(01:00:38):
what, I'm a Christian. And thisis awesome. You know, that
wasn't your experience. And youstill reel from it sometimes.
But God. And that's the beautyof the story that, that we are
still human. And we are still,you know, flawed human beings.
And we are still, but God usesthat and uses us. And he loves

(01:01:04):
to show off. And he couldn'tshow up if we were perfect. So,
I mean, it's just amazing. So Ithat I really appreciate you
saying that. Because I think somany people think, well, I've
got to do this, or I have to bethis and it really isn't about
us, it's about him.

Paul Granger (01:01:25):
Or if I'm having a trauma response, that means that
I failed, or I missed the mark,right? Like the Apostle Paul
talks about having a thorn inhis flesh. And there's a lot of
theological debate about whatthat means. But if you read it,
what it comes across to me is,is essentially whatever the
actual thing is, it's like Paulsaying, God, can you just take
this away, because if you couldtake this away, I could serve
you so much better, I would beso much more effective, I could

(01:01:47):
do so much more for you. Like,it's clear that he wants to
remove for God's glory. And he'sthree times he's in fact about
it. And God doesn't take itaway. One of the things that
Paul realized this is one, it'sto protect him from becoming
conceited. Because he was aPharisee. He was the Pharisee of
Pharisees like he was. So like,that's within him. Like that's

(01:02:08):
one of his imperfections that ifhe didn't have that thorn, he
would start to think he's theChristian Christian. Right.
Right. And it was so as a giftto him, to protect him from
himself. But the other pieceswhat you noted, is it gives an
opportunity for it to be aboutGod, not just for others to see
because there are people thatare like, man, that Paul, he's

(01:02:28):
flubbing over his words, but I'mfeeling something. So that must
be God and not Paul. And forPaul to say, Man, I was flooding
over my words, but God stillspoke. So that was God and not
me. So yeah, like, we don't haveto. It's eight. Yeah, it there
can be some lament about thehard things that remain. Yeah.
But we can also recognize thatif God hasn't taken away, we

(01:02:50):
prayed for him to take it away,that he might be using it or
doing something through it,whether it is to protect us from
ourselves, whether it is tobuild up something ourselves, or
sometimes it's not even for us.
That's right. So that as I'mlamenting about the trauma
responses, I still feel someoneelse can hear and say, I lost my
job too. And years later, I'mstill feeling like afraid to
send an email and I'm not alone.

(01:03:11):
I'm not alone, right? Sometimesit's not even about us.

Stephanie Olson (01:03:14):
And we may never know. And we may never
that's what and I think that'swhy you know, telling our
stories, sharing the good andthe bad and the awful that is
really, I mean that. What a helpthat can be to someone else. And
it shows it's not about usbecause we may never see the

(01:03:36):
results. Love it. Okay, Paul,how can people find you?

Paul Granger (01:03:41):
Yeah, the easiest place is WWW dot Where did you
see god.com? There you can findthe podcast you can find things
that I've written. I've got adevotional, it's a whole other
story. But I felt like I wasinvited me to write a devotional
on Revelation. I didn't evenknow that book. Wow, I want to
read a book totally on that. Butit's called a journey through

(01:04:03):
revelation for the person whodoesn't want to read Revelation.
So you can find that on Amazon.
But if you don't like this isnot about making money. So
there's a free PDF, feel free todownload the free one, I don't
care. But and within thepodcast, there are some seasons
that are parsed out on thewebpage you can find the podcast
and all your normal podcast. Butthere is a questioning series

(01:04:23):
where God invited me to open aspace for people to process
issues they've got with God andChristianity and the church is
pretty heavy. There's thehealing season was last season,
which I wanted to just be oneepisode ended up being 51
Episode Wow, journey for sure.
And then I was going to take abreak. And then I felt like I

(01:04:44):
was saying now I want you tostart another series. And so the
season I'm in now is calledsitting in suffering. And
there's been some I mean, justsome powerful stories. So if any
of those resonate with wheresomebody is, you can find those
directly parsed out but WWW dotwhere do you see I got.com And
the idea there is not I do notwant to promote myself or

(01:05:05):
anything like that. What I'mtrying to do what I feel like
God's invited me to do is justto create spaces to process what
is a hard thing? God is a hardthing to process. Yeah, life is
a hard thing to process. So howcan stories and introspection
creating a space for all this bea place where we can come to
know God a little deepertogether?

Stephanie Olson (01:05:23):
That's fantastic. Well, I always ask
one final question on mypodcast, which you already
answered, what does resiliencemean to you? But is there
anything you'd like to add tothat? Because you answered it so
beautifully?

Paul Granger (01:05:38):
Yeah, I think I'll emphasize one particular piece,
you know, the way that we oftentalk about resiliency can seem
out of reach, right? If, if youwere just too heartbroken to
crushed, it's been going on toolong, you have nothing left.
Resilience can just feel out ofreach. Yeah. But what's
beautiful, is that there is aGod who made you, who knows you,

(01:06:02):
who loves you, who sees you whois sitting with you in the pit,
whose capacity is more thanenough. So when your capacity is
sapped and your knowledge ofwhat to do is shot. Yeah, God is
right there. And is enough andhas enough. And he's not trying
to accomplish fixing yoursituation. He's trying to do

(01:06:24):
abundantly more than you can askor imagine. And all you have to
do, the simple invitation is todo what it was really hard for
Peter to do in that moment, isjust to take that next little
step, even if it's into thedark, stormy waves that will
probably kill you. Yeah, you'renot stepping towards waves.
You're stepping towards Godsaying, Alright, God, I'm gonna

(01:06:44):
take you at your word. And ifyou look at scripture, that's
the story of so many who weresapped of their capacity, didn't
know what to do. So many of thepeople we celebrate, we were in
those places. The same God thatwrote amazing stories with their
lives, is currently writing inAmerica an amazing story for
years. You just got to decide,are you willing to go along for

(01:07:07):
the journey?

Stephanie Olson (01:07:09):
I love it.
Thank you so much for your time,and your wisdom and your story.
I have really enjoyed talking toyou. And I am personally going
to check out all your work, andI'm just thrilled you're doing
some really good things. And Iappreciate your obedience to
God, and allowing him to use youin such an incredible way. So

(01:07:31):
thank you so much, Paul.

Paul Granger (01:07:35):
My pleasure. And thank you and thank you for
creating a platform for peopleto share stories and process
it's so incredibly valuable likethis. This conversation was a
blessing for me as well. Yeah,they love you.

Stephanie Olson (01:07:47):
And I hope it was a blessing to you. I can
only imagine that it was thankyou so much for being a part of
resilience in life andleadership, and we'll see you
next time. Bye. Thank you forlistening. Please share with
anyone you think will benefitfrom this podcast.