Ep. 20 - Everyone LOVES Game day! - The Bowtreader Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Hey guys, John, with the bowtrader podcast.
Thanks so much for joining usand following along with what
we've got going on.
You know, we're always searchingfor the perfect shot and we're
not doing that just in archery,but in life and purpose, you
know, really in moments thatmatter.
Uh, every area we draw is, it'sdefinitely a choice and we want

(00:31):
to make sure that we're makingchoices that are pointing us
closer to what is really true inthis life.
So whether you're aiming foranswers or you're just along for
the ride, grab your bow and joinin with us.
Who knows what we're going toget into, but one thing for
sure, we will not miss thejourney.

JOHN (00:51):
Okay, so let's go around the table.
We'll introduce everybody.
Of course, I'm John, um, and,uh, excited that you guys have
joined us on the Bow Traderpodcast.
This is episode 19, episode 4for our second season.
So, uh, we're getting back torecording on a, on a, uh,
consistent clip here.
So, uh, I got, I got Dub overhere this morning.

(01:13):
Good morning.
Good morning.
There he is.
All right.
And we got Brandon.

BRANDON (01:17):
Howdy, I just wanted to say something different this
week.
Hey, mixing it up.
Yeah, don't want to be stagnantAnd I've been too obedient with
So, uh, I don't think there's asuch thing as

JOHN (01:29):
too obedient.
It depends on who you'reobedient to.
Well, I mean, when it's me, Ireally don't think that's
exactly right.
And then we got a new voice thismorning.
We got Kip Drown.
Kip, tell everybody goodmorning.
Good

KIP (01:40):
morning and I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Hey,

JOHN (01:43):
look at that, man.
I love it.
Okay.
So today we're going to betalking about now, Kip, you
know, we talked about thisbefore we got started.
We're going to be talking abouta lot of archery and I know
you're not an archer.

KIP (01:54):
No, I'm not.

JOHN (01:55):
But you ask questions.
You have a question, you ask it.
Uh, but Kip, I wanted him to behere because he's a great friend
of mine.
And, um, Kip actually spent a,a, um, large part of his life
coaching basketball.
41

KIP (02:12):
years.

JOHN (02:12):
41 years.
Yes.
That is wild.

KIP (02:17):
It's, it's a crazier game now than it was when I was in
it.
I'm, I'm thankful to God that hetook me out when he did, because
it has blown up and it's so, somuch different.
Yeah.

JOHN (02:27):
Yeah.
I mean, you still got to go downand score.
You know, and you gotta go downand try to keep the other team
from scoring

KIP (02:35):
the things on the court.
The fundamentals never change,right?
But it's the things off thecourt that have really made it
tougher for coaches.

JOHN (02:42):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Just this week, there was acoach that said, you know, I
tried to keep this thing going,but I'm out.
Yeah.
I think it was from Miami.

KIP (02:50):
Uh, yeah.
Um, and Jim, I can't say, Inever could say his last name,
but yeah.
Great coach.
Yeah.
But he just, he got tired ofdealing with all the other
stuff, so, uh Right.
Yeah.
But it's, it is become a youngerman's game.
Yeah.

JOHN (03:04):
I guess we'll call it that.
It's, it's challenging, youknow, and, and college sports in
general is, um, man, it's somuch different than, than it is
so much different than it waseven.
Um, you know, it's it's uh it'shappened really quick.
Um so we we're going to betalking about the mental game of
archery and and I think thatreally applies across the

(03:27):
spectrum of the sports world isthere's this mental game that
you have to you have toovercome, right?
That's right.
To really get to where you canperform at a high level and
specifically with archery, youknow, we'll see it in.
Um, what we'll see this, this,this, this mental struggle that

(03:48):
people will have, um, you know,one of them is called target
panic.
And we have, we have all from anarcher standpoint have struggled
with that at some point.
Um, you know, and it can, it canrear its ugly head in all kinds
of different ways.
Right.
I gotta make sure I'm not, um,getting away from my mic here.

(04:10):
But, Dub, you've, you'vestruggled with this before.
Talk to us about it.

WES THE DUB (04:16):
With target panic?

JOHN (04:17):
Yeah, target panic, specifically.

Well, I feel like there's a couple different
versions of target panic.

JOHN (04:24):
Right, that's what I'm saying.
It can rear its head in a lot ofdifferent ways.

Yeah, so, what I really struggled with was
punching the trigger.
For me, that was a big thing.
I had to get that under controlCuz in front of deer like I can
have a control shot 20 yards 50yards outside, whatever When I
got in front of a deer, I waslike Slamming it and I had to

(04:52):
get over that.
I still do it sometimes but I'vegotten way better

JOHN (04:59):
Yeah, we've got we've got some some folks this past season
that were struggling with it andman they were shooting trees.
Yeah, that's how bad it wasgetting, you know, they go to
they go to shoot and would justIs that why I do that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We just, I mean, you just, you,you basically, you, you, you'll
flinch right as, right as soonas you go to go to release the

(05:22):
shot, you know, or right beforeyou release the shot, you'll
flinch either with your bow armor with your release hand or, or
something or both or both, youknow, or your whole body will
just convulse right before youshoot.
I mean, man, it's, it's crazywhat it'll look like with folks.
Um, or you won't keep consistentpressure on, on your, on your

(05:43):
back wall and, um, and it will,um, man, it'll, it'll cause,
it'll cause some major issuesdown range when, uh, when, when
you're shooting.
But I mean, so let's look at itfrom a, just from a sports
standpoint, you know, we've allseen.
We've all seen plenty of timeswhere we'll see this, this
athlete before we got started,we were talking about Michael

(06:05):
Jordan, right?
And I wasn't really in on thatconversation completely.
So y'all kind of catch me up towhere what y'all were talking
about.
But We'll see this athletethat's just this incredibly
talented athlete, you know, youlook at them and you've seen
some of the plays they've madeand you see some of the stuff
they do and you read their statsabout, you know, how fast they

(06:25):
can run a 40 and, um, whattheir, what their, what their
jump is and, and, you know, allthis kind of stuff and then it
gets to game day and it justdoesn't translate onto the
field, you know, so what, what'scausing that?
What's the problem?

KIP (06:44):
You know, when I was listening to you talk about
target panic, my first thoughtwent to in basketball shooters,
because they have a target,they're shooting at that rim,
particularly free throwshooting.
Because when you shoot freethrows, you stop and now you
think.
During the course of a game, youtake a jump shot or whatever.
It's a flow to it and you tendto, you know, have rhythm and

(07:06):
things, but you've seen a lot ofgreat players that would go to
the free throw line and now allof a sudden, They've got to
engage the mind and, and, youknow, and they all of a sudden
they can't do it, you know, and,uh, that's why as in basketball
with free throw shooting, we'reconstantly wanting kids to have
a routine.

(07:27):
They go through every time.
Okay, you're going to bounce it.
How many times?
234, whatever, whatever.
Now you're going to take abreak.
You want the same routine everytime that you get ready to do
that so that it becomes musclememory to them, you know, and I
would guess it'd be kind of thesame thing with shooting a bow,
you know, that you would want tokind of go through that, that

(07:48):
routine as you prepare to shootand do it every time to try to
get yourself calm and be able tocalm.
Hopefully have the best, uh,effort, best outcome that you
could have,

JOHN (07:59):
right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I didn't realize that y'allwould do that from a basketball
standpoint.
You see, you see people thatare, you know, shooting free
throws and they're like they dothe exact same thing every time.
I've always wondered, like, whyare you, why are you spending
the ball that way?
Because they do it every singletime.
So I guess that's what you're,what you're talking about.
And you

KIP (08:18):
know what, what upset me as a coach is I would know kids
routine, but now we wereshooting, say, 50 free throws in
a practice.
I would walk around and I'd seea kid, he's been practicing for
two hours, he's tired and nowhe's just bouncing at once and
shooting it.
I'd go up to him, I said, shootyour routine routine because
that's where you again get themuscle memory.
And so when you just go throughthe motions and you really

(08:40):
don't, you're not getting thatroutine down, you might as well
not shoot free throws.
You might as well go to thelocker room, get a shower and go
home, you know?
So it's all about.
Making them comfortable andgiving them confidence.
Here's what I do.
So when I stepped to the linewith one second to go, we're
tied.
I got a free throw to make.
I'm going to do the very samething that I did last Monday

(09:01):
afternoon in practice at fiveo'clock, you know, and it's the
very same thing so thattransfers over.

JOHN (09:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I tell people all the time, badpractice might be worse than no
practice at all.
Um, so I think one of the thingsthat we'll struggle with from an
archery standpoint is havinglittle to no shot process.
You know, where we're not goingthrough what we're going to do,
right?
And if you don't practice that,just like what you're talking
about, if you're not practicingthat, when you get in that

(09:29):
moment, Wes, like you weretalking about a minute ago, Dub,
um, I don't have to go back andforth between Wes and Dub today
because Wes Chester's not here,so there's no confusion.
But when you, when you get inthat moment, which is a, um, you
know, kind of a high stressmoment, you got a, you got a
deer or whatever standing infront of you that you're trying
to harvest.
If you're, if you've practicedand you know what your shot

(09:51):
process is, or if you'restanding on the free throw line,
you know, and you've got 20, 000fans around you and you've got,
you know, your opponent standingright next to you and your buddy
standing on your other side,that's a high stress moment,
right?
And, um, if you know what yourprocess is and you just go
through that process, yourchances of success.

(10:12):
Probably increase infinitely.

BRANDON (10:14):
There's no tail end.
I mean, I know I had theopportunity to play baseball at
Georgia Southern for.
Really good coach, JackStallings.
Oh yeah.
Um, we call him Skip and bysaying I played baseball at
Georgia Southern, it meansbasically I had really good
seats.
So I didn't, I guess by my thirdyear, I played a little, you

(10:35):
know, a decent amount.
Um, but one of the things hewould say is perfect practice
makes perfect.
You know, you hear the sayingpractice makes perfect, but like
you were talking about, ifyou're not gonna.
Go through your routine.
If you're not going to practicecorrectly, you might as well go
to the locker room.
And so he would always tell us,perfect practice makes perfect.

(10:56):
It's not just practice makesperfect.
And the other thing he would do,and you're talking about the
pressure situation, is he wouldalways ask us a question.
He would say, so you're at bat,we're down one, time runs on
second, two outs in the bottomof the last inning.
He says, pressure situation,what do you do different?

(11:16):
And everybody's kind of quietbecause you're like, you know,
you don't want to say the wronganswer.
So, and especially with Skip,you know, and so you're like,
uh, just sitting there and he'slike, what do you do different?
And a couple of guys mightvolunteer to say something.
And he's like.
No, in his own way, you know, itcould have had a couple of

(11:36):
explicit is with it, you know,but he, he would be like, no.
And then he would finally get tothe point where he would say,
what do you do different now?
Nobody's answering.
And he would say nothing.
He's like, you do nothingdifferent.
You know, you, you execute whatyou've practiced.
And so that was always somethingthat I remembered.
Um, in other areas of life, um,including bow hunting, when we

(12:00):
went to Colorado elk huntingthis year.
Um, I remember riding out there,we drove, so long ride, um, Dake
and I had a lot of time to talkand I told him, I said, Dake,
when the elk steps out in frontof you, go ahead and having,
have seen it in your mind.
Like, think about it.

(12:21):
Picture it in your mind anddon't let the moment be too big.
You know, don't let that momentbe too big.
Already have it in your mind.
I'm gonna kill the elk.
You know, picture it differentways or whatever.
But, have that mentality of It'snot the situation's not too big,
you know, and I think that helpsis going ahead and even in

(12:44):
sports.
I used to visualize goingthrough the routine going
through the routine before weever got in a situation.
And I think that helps a lotwith the mental side of bow
hunting is I'll think aboutlike, all right, this moment's
not too big.
You know, I'm practiced.
I'm ready.
Um, I'll just execute what I'vebeen practicing, you

JOHN (13:06):
know, Yeah.
Yeah.
So the, the other side of thator the thing that we have to
contend with from an archerystandpoint is we have equipment
that we have to make sure is setup the way that it should be.
That's why you come toBowtreader.
Hey, that's why you come toBowtreader.
Yeah.
But I mean, listen, seriously,um, if your equipment isn't set
up right, if your draw lengthisn't right, if your peep's not

(13:26):
where it needs to be, if yourpeep is turning when it, you
know, and it's not straight andyou're, you're looking through a
third of the peep instead of thewhole peep, That's affecting
everything with your shot.
Right.
And, you know, one of the thingsthat I talk about with people
all the time when they're comingin to buy new equipment, you
know, I've talked about thisbefore, the archery world as an

(13:52):
industrial, as a, as an industryvertical is extremely small,
right?
There's only, there's only somany bow companies.
Um, There's only so many sitecompanies and rest companies and
all this kind of stuff.
So they're, they're all vyingfor your attention and there's
only a few of them that aredoing it.
And from a marketing standpoint,you know, there are some

(14:15):
companies that are way better atmarketing than others, but that
does not necessarily mean thatthey make the best equipment.
Yeah.
Right.
And I tell people all the timewhen they come in, you know,
somebody will come in andthey'll be like, You know,
they'll walk in the door andthey'll say, I want the new
Matthews, you know, or I wantthe new, I want the new Hoyt or

(14:35):
I want to check out the newBotech or what, you know,
they're, they're, they come inand they're, they've already,
they already have basicallydecided what bow they want to
get and you know, the way thatwe've always approached it with
people is, you know, all right,talk to me about what your
budget is.
Right.
Okay.
And then.

(14:55):
So, let's look at all of theoptions in that, in that price
range instead of, I want the newMatthews or, or whatever the
case may be.
Now, listen, I'm not picking onany of the bow companies.
They, they all, they all makefantastic machines, but that's
what they are.
And some people are going toperform better with machine A

(15:18):
versus machine B, right?
So when we go through and we'rehaving people shoot new bows.
The bow doesn't have anything onit.
It doesn't have a sight on it.
All it's got is a rest and a Dloop.
And then we set their drawlength and we let them shoot at
like five yards.
And I don't care how many timesthey shoot it.
And I really don't care what bowthey get.
I mean, listen, I've gothundreds of bows in here at any

(15:39):
given time.
They all need a new home.
Period.
That's it.
And, um, you know, so we startlooking at it.
And we'll, we'll, we'll puttogether a checklist for people.
And I'll ask them, you know,what's on your list?
And they're like.
What do you mean?
And I said, well, what mattersto you when you shoot a bow and
you know, almost, I'll almostnever hear somebody say grip,

(16:02):
you know, and to me, that's themost important thing about a bow
because that's where you'reholding that bow is going to do
more.
It's going to mean more aboutwhat's going to happen when you
release your arrow than anythingelse, you know, because and, and
the other side of that is if Idon't have a grip.
If I have a bow on a bow thatI'm having to think about how

(16:24):
I'm holding it, I will not shootit.
I won't like if I if I can'tgrab it and and know that my
hand is where it needs to be andI'm not having to sit there and
like really look at it and payattention to how I've got my
hand on the bow.
If I'm having to do that, I'mnot shooting the bow.
Even if I love everything elseabout the bow, I'm not going to
shoot it because I know when Iget in that situation.

(16:47):
Um, I'm going to have to addthat to my shot process.
I'm going to have to add that tomy thought process, right?
And there's only so much room inmy brain.
I'm not a very intelligentperson.
Okay.
I don't have extra space.
So, I need to, I need to reallywhittle that thing down to where
I have very little to thinkabout and if the draw cycle is a

(17:10):
little bit harder, you know,whatever.
Yeah.
I mean, I can practice to that.
I can, I can.
I can beat my muscles intosubmission to a point where I
can handle the draw cycle, youknow, um, and that really comes
from practice, you know, whatwe'll have guys come in here is
it's funny, you know, I'm notpicking on them because they're
huge, but we'll have guys likeathletes from Georgia Southern

(17:34):
that will come in that are onthe football team and they look
like they could go outside andthrow my truck in the ditch.
I mean, they're huge.
And they cannot draw a 70 poundbow to save their life.
They just can't do it.
And it's because you use musclesthat you don't normally use when
you draw a bow.
And now we can work with them alittle bit and show them what to

(17:57):
do.
It's kind of funny, we do it onpurpose.
Like they'll come in, yeah Iwant to shoot a bow, I'm
thinking about getting a bow, sowe'll just hand them a 70 pound
bow.
So, knowing you know, there's an80 percent chance they ain't
drawing it.
And then, you know, once we workwith them a little bit and show
them what to do, they're able todo it, right?
But anyway, going back to thatidea of how you go through and

(18:18):
you select that piece ofequipment.
I think the grip is a huge dealand then once we get something
set up, let's say we havesomebody come in come in that's
got a bow that that they've beenshooting for two or 3 years and
they tell us that they'rethey're they're struggling and
they can't figure out what'sgoing on.
We just watch them shoot for afew minutes and you know, it may

(18:39):
be that when they're shooting,so Kip, on the, on the sights,
on most sights on bows, theyhave a level on them and that
helps you determine if you're,if you're holding the, the, the
riser of the bow completelyvertically, you know, holding it
level and um, that has an impactdown range if you're not doing
that.
Typically, you know, at 20yards, so what, what'll happen

(19:01):
is um, 20 yards.
You'll just cite in for that,right?
So, or whatever, whatever yourshortest distance is that you're
going to cite in for, uh, whichis typically 20 yards.
You'll cite in to that.
You'll move your pen whereveryou need to get to be hitting.
But then when you go down range,if you're not holding that bow

(19:22):
straight, if you're holding it,if it's canted over to the
right, well, as that pen comesdown, Right?
What are you going to startdoing?
You're going to start hittingleft of your target, you know,
so at 30 yards, you'd be, youknow, a little bit left, maybe
an inch left or something, inchand a half left.
Well, most people will be like,well, that's not a big deal.
I just haven't practiced much at30 and then they'll back up to

(19:44):
50 and they're like six inchesoff.

BRANDON (19:46):
Yeah.

JOHN (19:47):
And they're like, well, you know, what's going on?
You know, and and in a fewminutes, we can work with them
and show them, hey, this is whatyou're doing.
This is what you need to do andYou get to that point where you
realize you've got a problemwith your bow or with the way
that you're holding your bow,and you have to change that.
And the reality is, we we're,we're we're creatures of habit.

(20:11):
Yeah.
And changing something likethat, it sounds so simple, but
changing something like that isextremely hard.
to the point that you have to doit over and over and over again.
So if you go back to that oldway of doing it, it feels, it
feels awkward, right?
Um, so I think that that's a bigpart of being able to overcome

(20:33):
having that issue.
And I mean, people just don'tlike to practice.

BRANDON (20:38):
Yeah.
You know, something that Ithought about as you were
talking to is eliminate Um, thethings you can eliminate that
are going to cause you tostruggle.
So, like you said, if if youhave a grip that you have to
think about, you don't use thatbow, right?
You're going to change thatgrip.
Are you changing?

(20:58):
Yeah, you do something to tochange the the bow, right?
That eliminates one thing youdon't have to think about and
you you said that but I thinkabout um that in really any area
of life too is get rid of thingsthat Um, you know, things that
aren't should not or don't haveto be a distraction.

(21:19):
Yeah.
You know, or don't have to besomething that occupies part of
your process.
And I really think that's greatbecause you got, you know,
there's enough stuff to thinkabout and You know, I'm kind of
like you.
I'm, I'm not a real smart man.
Um, and uh, we joke around a lotat the office that, um, kind of
like a goldfish, you know, onetime around the bowl and

(21:39):
everything's new.
Um, and so, uh, you know, makeslife exciting, but it kind of
can hinder, uh, hinder in otherways.
But I think eliminate anythingyou can eliminate that's going
to mess you up.

JOHN (21:55):
Go kill, go

BRANDON (21:56):
kill that.
He's not talking about a deer.
No, no, no.
He's

JOHN (22:00):
talking about the heat.
I mean, who needs the heat?
You know, we live in Georgia, sothis is the time of year where
we get to really control ourpower bill.
Put a shirt on.
Which we've actually had awinter this year.
We have definitely had a winterthis

BRANDON (22:16):
year.

JOHN (22:16):
We got, what, five inches of snow last

BRANDON (22:18):
week or something?

JOHN (22:19):
Yeah, and any of you folks that are listening where you
think you get snow, you don'tget snow like we get in Georgia.
We, we get, we get snow's evilcousin.
It's more like a slushie.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah, it's, it's, um, you know,I think that, I think that.

(22:46):
We are so bent on wanting theeasy way.
Yeah.
To the goal.
Yeah.
Right.

KIP (22:52):
Well, you know, you were talking about being off an inch,
you know, and then one of thethings that we always tried to
make our players understand isthat little things are critical.
You know, they all want to dothe big things, you know, and,
and, but it's the little thingsoftentimes that separates from

(23:14):
you doing it.
Yeah.
Perfect.
Or, you know, achieving the goalor are missing the mark, you
know, and so, um, you know, Ijust think, uh, and you have
been talking about thisrepetition as a teacher to me.
That was the key learningrepetition and we do it with

(23:35):
perfect practice.
You know, you don't you don't,um, go through and do things
halfway.
You got to do it right everytime and players have trouble
fighting through repetition.
They want to keep doing otherthings.
I know when we, we would dodrills, we'd do breakdown
drills.
Had three, four assistants andwe'd have three players here,
three players there doingthings.

(23:56):
We'd do them for two, threeminutes.
But we'd do them about daily.
So they'd go someplace andthey'd do something for like two
minutes because we're trying tokeep their attention, you know.
And so they'd do it perfect.
And then we'd rotate them andthey'd keep moving them, you
know.
But we were constantly repeatingthose things daily and we were
trying to stress do it right.
Do the little things right, youknow.

(24:16):
So you don't have to be outthere necessarily doing things
two, three hours.
But if you'll take, you know,sometimes just 5, 10, 15 minutes
of doing it exactly right, we'llstart to develop that perfect
practice and that muscle memory.
That can be the difference inand doing, doing something
almost right and hittingsomething or exactly right.
In this case, killing yourtarget.

JOHN (24:38):
Right.
Yeah.
Or, or, or hitting that, hittingthat, you know, That layup that
you need to get that shop.
Yeah.
Yeah.

KIP (24:46):
So, um, yeah, we learned very quickly that if we stayed
too long on anything, we lostthe kids.
We had to keep them going.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, youknow, and we had, we'd say water
break, we give them one minuteand go get it.
Water, boom, drink back.
And then we're going, we're justkeep, keep that cycle going.
Yeah.
But that's how basketball isplayed.
You know, now hunting, I wouldassume you guys have You don't

(25:08):
have time on your hands to sit alot of times as you're waiting
for a target.

JOHN (25:12):
No way, man.
So I sent an email out everyday, you know, when I'm going to
go hunting, a little calendarinvitation.
Tell them where they are.
Yeah.
They never respond.
And that's,

BRANDON (25:23):
and that's the other thing is in, in basketball, you
know, you get multipleopportunities.
to do things in and and in othersports.
You know, if you struggle at oneat bat, there's always typically
another bat coming, right?
Um, but the thing with huntingis you may hunt all year for one

(25:47):
or two shots.

JOHN (25:48):
Yeah.

BRANDON (25:49):
And, you know, you definitely don't want to screw
that up.
No, and it's

JOHN (25:54):
easy to screw it up.
Yes, it's definitely easy toscrew it up.
So what I'm hearing, Kip, whatyou're saying is, you know, from
the, from a sports standpoint,from basketball that you coached
for 41 years, practice wassomething y'all did.
Way more than you played.
It sounds like,

KIP (26:10):
Oh, yes.
Our practices were laid out.
It would take me a lot of timestwo to two and a half hours to
make up a practice, a two hourpractice plan, you know, because
I wanted things to be exactly inthe right order.
I wanted to go from one thing tothe next to build, you know, and
it was, it took up most daysover two hours to just build

(26:31):
that practice plan.
Yeah.
And, um, because again, we knewthat it was going to be on the
floor.
where we were going to have achance to get better.
They're not going to get betterin the game.
You know, there's too much, toomany things going on.
And so, you're hoping they reactnow with the skills that they
took from practice and they'regoing to be able to transfer
those over to game time.

(26:53):
And, um, so, but yeah, nowplayers don't like practice.
We were talking about AllenIverson, you know, before we
went on the air and his, hispractice rant several years ago.
But, you know, players don'tlike practice.
But, um, I think after theyprobably get away from the game
and they look back and they, Iknow a lot of them have told me,
I wish I would have been morefocused on practice time.

(27:18):
You know, uh, it's something youjust do every day, you know, but
they, they're not able, a lot ofplayers can't fight through that
to, to go to that next level.
It's just a, it's a mental blockalmost of, man, we do this, we
do this drill every day.
Well, yeah, but you're not doingit right.
You got to do it right.

JOHN (27:35):
So what creates that mental block that we, that we
struggle with?
Because, you know, and we'regoing to talk about this more
about how we struggle with it inother aspects of life, but from,
from specifically from a, from asports standpoint.
Why do we have this block thatwe can't get past that we don't,
we don't give things the creditthat they deserve?

(27:56):
What causes that?
Are we all just goldfish andonce around the bowl and we've
forgotten how important it is orsomething?
Or, you know, what, what is it?

KIP (28:05):
Well, you know, in athletes that I

JOHN (28:08):
dealt with,

KIP (28:09):
yeah, we said there were three kinds.
There were sloths, there wereget buyers and there were extra
milers.
Okay.
Give me an example.
If we told a kid to go shoot 50free throws, a sloth will go
shoot 25 and he'll sneak out ofthe gym and leave.
They're lazy.
They're just not going to putthe work in.
You know, now they want thecredit and they want the glory,

(28:29):
but they don't want the work.
Now the get buyer will shoot 50free throws and you know, he may
do it right.
He may not do, may not followhis rhythm, you know, those
things, but he'll shoot 50.
He'll shoot 50.
Yeah.
The extra miler.
Which in my experience, I've hadabout 10 percent of my players
that I would call extra milers.
We're talking about hundreds andhundreds of players.

(28:50):
Yeah.
They'll shoot 50 free throws.
They'll shoot another 20.
They'll go over and they'll dosome, um, maybe something on the
dot mat or they'll go over andwork on an offensive move with
an assistant coach.
They'll put in another 35, 40hour extra time to get better,
you know.
Those are the kids that aregoing to go to another level.

(29:11):
Those are the kids that are notgoing to have that middle block
because they have put in thetime to take themselves to a
different level.
So, you know, it all goes backto preparation, you know,
Prepare yourself for thatmoment.
You were saying you may only gettwo shots in a season.
Man, that's tough mentally tosit there and stay focused and

(29:33):
ready when you may not get ashot all day.
Right.
So, um, but you want to prepareyourself for that moment when it
comes.
Because you grab it.
Right.
It's not going to be thereoften.
You've got to grab it when itcomes.

JOHN (29:44):
Yep, yep.
That's exactly right.
So.
Brandon, what do you think?
What do you think causes that,that mental block that we, we
have to struggle with?
That's cool that you, you would,uh, label your players in that
way.
We didn't tell, we didn't,

KIP (29:55):
we didn't tell them what their

JOHN (29:55):
label was.
Y'all didn't call them sloth.

KIP (29:57):
It was in my mind though.

JOHN (29:59):
You thought it every time.
You know, we're not supposed tohave favorites, but I mean, we
all have favorites.
I

KIP (30:04):
really like that extra miler over there.
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.

JOHN (30:07):
You know, I, I call them, uh, with, with customers, uh,
and you know, uh, I will, I willtalk about.
We have a lot of customers thatcome in our shop and everything
and uh, some of them are EGRs,which means extra grace required
and, and, but any given personcan need a little extra grace on

(30:29):
any day, you know, but uh, thereare some that need it every
single day.
But

BRANDON (30:35):
anyhow, go ahead, Brandon.
What do you think?
So, I know for me, when I was inhigh school, I was kind of a big
fish in a small bowl, right?
So, I never really got to thatpoint where I thought about
failure much, you know?
Um, when I got to college, uh, Iwas a small fish in a big bowl.

(30:56):
And so, I had to be the extramiler if I wanted to stay on the
team because I was less talentedthan pretty much everybody else
on the team.
You just wanted to keep yourgood seats.
Yeah, I just wanted to be ableto, well, back then, spit
tobacco on people's shoes, onthe bench, you know, that kind
of thing.
And so, you know, um, and so forme, once I got to college, one

(31:18):
of the things I had to get overwas fear of failure.

JOHN (31:22):
And

BRANDON (31:23):
so I think a lot of people struggle because instead
of seeing themselves succeed,they have a fear of failure that
keeps them from being able toexcel.
And that was something I had toget over.
I realized the first at bat Ihad in college, man, uh, faced a
guy who transferred him fromClemson.
This was before the portal.
So, um, yeah, he came in, but,and it, but it was more rare

(31:47):
back then.
And so.
Um, he comes in and I face him.
Um, he was a junior, I'm afreshman first, first at bat in
an inner squad game at GeorgiaSouthern.
And this guy had a pretty nastyattitude towards when he
pitched, which was good.
I mean, he was coming at you,right?
And so knowing it was my firsttime at the plate, he threw it

(32:10):
straight at my head and Iremember hearing it.
Um, I don't know how much I sawit, but, you know, he threw at
this and at this time, this waspretty, this was fast and he was
probably sitting around 92 and,you know, you get to a certain
speed, you can hear the seams onthe baseball, um, even when it's
not at your head.

(32:30):
And so he threw it right at myhead.
I still remember it hitting thebackstop and I'm like, that was
different.
Like, the speed of that wasdifferent and I realized this
isn't high school anymore.
Yeah.
And I realized, like, I'm reallygonna have to work harder, even
harder than I did in high schoolto compete at this level and

(32:53):
that caused me to, for a coupleof years, have a greater fear of
failure than going out andtrying to really compete and
succeed.
If you don't compete, you don'thave a chance.
Um, you can have all the talentin the world, but if you don't
have a competitive nature andyou just lay down, not only are
you not going to go far inathletics, you're not going to

(33:16):
go very far in life.
Um, we talk about a lot of timeson our staff that, you know, we
want people on our team thathave character that are
competent, um, that have theright chemistry.
Those three C's you hear a lot,but I always had a fourth one.
And it doesn't start with C, soit messes up the whole thing,

(33:37):
but it's grit.
Like, do you have grit?
Are you able, have you ever hadto face adversity and keep
going?
And I think that's the thing is,is like, can you stay focused
and have a winning mentality,even when.
It's not a layup.

(33:57):
Mm.
When you gotta hit a threepointer to win the game.
Yeah.
Instead of a layup, what's yourmentality?
Am I'm afraid I'm gonna fail?
Or do I see, you know, have aconfidence to succeed?
I think there's a difference ina confidence and an arrogance,
but I think, do I have aconfidence that I can make this
shot?
I know for my boys, they allgrew up playing football and

(34:20):
baseball.
And, um, especially withbaseball, we, I don't know how
many baseballs I've thrown and,and front toss to kids over the
years.
But, um, one of the things thatI've, I've taught them is,
there's no thinking in the box.
Like, you don't get in thebatter's box and start thinking.

(34:43):
If you start thinking, you're,you're toast.
And so, you better be ready whenyou step in the box.
You get, you know, and that'swhere you build that confidence
is, and you talk about doinglittle things.
So many, especially young kids,they don't want to hit off a
tee, you know, they think thatthat was something they should
have quit doing when they werefour or five years old.

(35:06):
But one of the most importantthings you can do in preparation
for baseball is hit off a tee.
And so those little things, yourgrip, those kinds of things with
a bow, those little thingsmatter.
And.
that gives you confidence tosucceed when that moment comes.
And if we have a fear offailure, that's a challenge.

(35:27):
But I think what helps youovercome failure and it's kind
of one of those things that Youknow, which comes first, the
chicken or the egg kind ofthing.

JOHN (35:35):
Well, the chicken came first.
Well, we know that.
Just to say.
Yeah.

BRANDON (35:41):
And so, um, you know, when, when you look at this, one
of the things I think helpsovercome failure is success.
You know, fear of failure issuccess.
And so, you know, having successbegins to build confidence.
You know, you gotta work untilyou get to that point of having

(36:01):
a little bit of success and thenit snowballs a little bit, you
start feeling like, okay, youknow, by my third year at
Georgia Southern, I startedthinking, okay, I kind of belong
here now, you know, whereasbefore I'm like, man, I don't, I
don't even know if I'm going tomake it, I think they may cut me
today, you know, and that fearof failure, um, was a great

(36:24):
hindrance for me.

JOHN (36:25):
Yeah, you know, I see it in the, from a business
standpoint, uh, with being anentrepreneur and starting
something, you know, from anidea and.
So, you know, talking withpeople and saying, hey, I got
this idea about doing thisbecause II rarely will just go
and do something.
You know, I usually I'll have anidea and I'll think about it and

(36:46):
I'll pray about it for a whileand a while might be a day or it
might be a few years.
Yeah.
You know, and and then I'llstart talking to people about
it.
Close friends, right?
Um, who I trust that, um, that,who I know that will pray for me
and, and help me go through andmaking a decision and
everything.

(37:06):
And um, man, it's, you want totalk about a fear of failure?
I mean, it's, it, it can beparalyzing, you know, uh, when,
when you're, when you'restarting a business or you're,
you're running a small businessand you're trying to make
decisions about what to do and,um, you know, from this

(37:27):
standpoint with this businesshere, you know, we've got this,
this inventory that we have to,that we have to deal with and we
have to, you know, we have totry to decide, okay, what's,
what are people going to want tobuy?
What do we need to have in here?
What do we need to make sure wehave?
What do we need to, you know,not focus on, you know, because
I mean, I don't think we can beeverything, you know, I don't, I

(37:51):
don't want to be, um, a, um, Um,a general store, so to speak,
you know, we we want to bepretty specific with what we're
doing.
That's what we started out to doand that's that's what we've
always focused on but it's it'sa challenge, you know, to to be
able to do that.
I'll tell you this, every time Imake my mortgage payment, I
praise the lord because it isnot a guarantee.

(38:14):
I'll promise you that.
I mean, even 8 years in to doingthis, you you really never know
and and the thing about thisbusiness is it is extremely
seasonal.
Um, you know, but we are, we,we're convinced of what our
mission is and that's where thatconfidence comes from with us is
we know what our mission is andwe stay focused on that and um,

(38:39):
everything else, you know, seemsto take care of itself and it,
it, it never ceases to amaze me.
He never ceases to amaze me howhe will make a way, you know, if
I'll just.
Um, you know, I think, I thinkfrom that standpoint, um, from

(38:59):
a, from an entrepreneurstandpoint, and I think that
this transfers over, but if I'llput, if I put all the weight on
my shoulders and try to carry itall by myself, man, I, I become
so stagnant.
It's too much.
Yeah.
And, and begin to worry.
And I'm not a worrier.
I really am not and I don't wearthat as a badge of honor to say

(39:22):
I'm not saying man I'm so holylook at me or something like
that.
I just don't worry.
I think it's the dumbness inthere That I just can't fit it
in to worry about it.
I just said just slides rightall ignorance is I mean, I guess
but anyway I just I don't worryabout things and My wife she'll
she'll she'll Um, she's alwaysthe first one to see if I'm

(39:45):
worried about something.
Mm hmm.
You know, like she'll just seeit.
I won't say a word.
You know, guys, we're reallygood at not saying stuff and I
won't say a word and she'll justcatch me one day.
She'll say, hey, what are youworried about?
You know, what's going on andyou know, let's talk about it
and um and man, the lord usesher to really recenter me on

(40:06):
some things.
Praise god for a good wife.
Young man, let me tell yousomething.
Don't you hit yourself to awoman that's not going to
support you?
That's right.
It's not going to be faithfulbecause it is not always going
to be a bed of roses and Youknow, you're gonna go through
some tough stuff and you knowLike Brandon was saying, he

(40:30):
wants people with grit on hisstaff.
You want a wife with, with somegrit because y'all are going to
go through some stuff and youwant to be able to get through
it together because, you know,at times that's going to be all
you got.
Yeah.
You know, I don't care if yourmom and daddy are still alive or
if you've got a brother thatlives, you know, two doors down
or what your, your bride is whatyou got.

(40:54):
And no one that.
The two of y'all are, arewalking through that together
is, it is, it is huge.
It is absolutely huge.
Yeah, there's no, there's noquestion about it.
All right.
So we look at this, we look atthis idea of practice and that
people don't like to do it.
And, and I, I know this for afact, because, you know, I talk

(41:16):
about our business being veryseasonal.
I'm telling you right now, it'sJanuary.
It's the end of January.
Season went out two weeks ago,two and a half weeks ago,
whatever.
I'm telling y'all right now, andall of you listening know this,
you have put your bow up, you'verolled it under the bed, you've

(41:37):
put it in the closet.
It's riding around in yourhunting trailer or something.
And you're not going to look atit again until June or July.
Mostly, most of the time, July,right?
And then you'll come into theshop and something will be wrong
and we'll need to fix it and youknow, and that's fine.
We want to fix it.
We want to provide that service,you know, but then it every

(42:01):
every day that you're waiting onsomething to get fixed is
cutting down on your time to beable to practice, you know, and
with what Kip was saying, goingand doing something for you.
A short period of time.
A lot is a whole lot better thandoing something for a long
period of time a little bit.
Right.
So, so instead of taking thatlast month before the season

(42:22):
opens and practicing for 2 hoursa day or an hour a day, you
know, keep your bow out rightnow and shoot it for 10 minutes
a day.
It's still cool outside.
The mosquitoes haven't startedcoming back out yet.
You can go outside and enjoy itand keep shooting and.
You know, really hone in on whatthose fundamentals are, making

(42:46):
sure that you've got a shotprocess down that may be
something you've never eventhought about before.
You know, it may be that youjust think, okay, I'm going to
draw my bow and I'm going toshoot and that's it.
And then every single timeyou're doing something a little
bit different, you know, alittle bit different anchor
point can mean, you know, at 40yards, it can mean hitting two
or three inches different up ordown left or right.

(43:08):
You know, uh, so really drawing.
focusing in on thosefundamentals and getting to a
point where you're reallyfocusing on that stuff and doing
it a little bit at the time andcreating that muscle memory.
Because I think that there's a,I think there's a huge thing
about that, you know, dub overhere.
He's not saying a whole lotbecause he's not guilty of not

(43:30):
shooting his bow.

BRANDON (43:31):
Yeah, you told me the other day, he's probably shot
the new bow for this year about4, 000 times.
I mean,

JOHN (43:37):
he's got to put a new string on it already.
That's awesome.
Yeah, he was, he was building anew string for his bow yesterday
because he is slap wore hisstring out already.
Yeah, it's bad.
It's, I mean, and, and thosestrings, we, we know that we
can, we can get somewherebetween five and 10, 000 shots
for those strings and itbasically still look new.
And his string looks like he putit in a blender at some point.

(43:59):
I mean, it's, it's, it's rough.
Um, so, um,

KIP (44:04):
that's an extra

JOHN (44:05):
for sure.
Um, and it's not just cost somuch money an gonna, we're gonna
talk a talking about equipmentan into the sport of archery
your daughter or remortgsomething like your kidne know,

(44:28):
going really extrem Because youcan't get into it without
without doing that now, can yougo crazy with it?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I've seen multiplepeople spend five grand on a
boat.
I didn't think that was possibleYeah, you know until we start I
mean, they just start addingstuff and adding stuff and by
the time it's you know, all saidand done I mean, it's five

(44:48):
grand.

BRANDON (44:49):
Yeah, and I think it can go back to because I'm I'm
I'm a gadget person I lovegadgets.
I love, like, just tinkeringwith stuff.
But what I have to be carefulof, again, is don't add so much
stuff that it complicates theprocess.
Right, yeah.
You know, it's like baseballnowadays, and my youngest son is
guilty of this.
Um, they'll get up there, theygot an elbow guard, a shin and

(45:14):
ankle guard, they got somethingon their wrist, or, you know,
they got all this stuff on, andI'm like So, I think, is that
really necessary?
How are you even

JOHN (45:24):
going to swing

BRANDON (45:24):
with all that on, right?
Pretty soon, you look more likea a knight in armor than you do
a baseball player and so, youknow, and I think the same thing
with our equipment is like,don't complicate it.
Like, try to keep it as simpleas you can so you don't have to
have have more than you need andI think that keeps the expense
down.

JOHN (45:44):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it does.
I think it does.
You know, I heard a quote, um,Um, like a year ago and um, uh,
I texted Kip yesterday.
I said, hey, there's this coachthat said this thing one time.
He's like, he probably thought Iwas crazy.
It's like, man, John coaches saystuff like that all the time.
They, they can be pretty pious.

(46:06):
But anyway, I found it and it'sum, he says, it's not hard to
find people who have the will towin but it is extremely
difficult to find people whohave a will to prepare to win.
And there's definitely adifference.
There's definitely a difference.
The person who said that was TomOsborne, who of course was the
University of Nebraska headfootball coach from 73 to 97.

(46:30):
He's uh, he's one of two coacheswho have a shared national
championship.
So, they shared a nationalchampionship with Michigan.

KIP (46:39):
I don't remember that.
Yeah.

JOHN (46:41):
Yeah, look it up.
It's weird.

KIP (46:43):
Well, he had a great run in

JOHN (46:45):
20, uh, 25 years, right?
So yeah, I mean, and, and, uh,boy, he had those corn huskers
where they were striking fear inthe lives of whoever they were
going to play.
They put together five back toback 11 win seasons.
That's pretty, that's prettygood.
I think in five seasons they hada record of 62 3 or something

(47:07):
like that.
I mean, that's, that's, that'spretty solid.
Yeah.
Um, that was back in the daywhere when you paid for a
player, you know, you just Itwas done in a You dropped a
Cadillac off at his mama's houseand the trunk was full of cash
and, you know, then you got thatplayer on your team.
Well,

BRANDON (47:22):
so much of college sports and what I used to love
about it was the purity of it.
And yet, it was never reallythat pure, you know what I mean?
It's just, what's happening nowis it's just, it can be
publicized, right?
Yeah,

JOHN (47:36):
yeah, and made a big deal about.
And I think that's the part ofthe game, Kip, that you were
talking about that's just sodifferent.

KIP (47:43):
I feel for coaches now, it's become two questions I ask
coaches.
How much am I going to play andhow much are you going to pay
me?

JOHN (47:52):
Oh yeah.

KIP (47:52):
And you know, that's, that's the bottom line for them.
And, um, so, but it is what itis.
Yeah.
Uh, and the problem is when youlet the genie out of the bottle,
you can't put it back in.
So they've got a mess and it'llbe interesting to see how they.
They try to corral it some, youknow, and try to get a handle on
it some because right now theyreally don't right and uh,

JOHN (48:15):
right now they're just pouring gas on fire.
It's wild, wild west out thereright now.
Yeah.

KIP (48:20):
And so, um, they've got to get some type of, um, system in
place.
That's going to try to settlethis down because from a
monetary standpoint, schoolscan't afford to keep They can't
keep paying this kind of moneyor, or boosters, they can't keep
it for them to go throughboosters and say, I need 4
million, 4 million for thisquarterback, you know, I mean,

(48:42):
that there comes a point intime, people are going to say no
more.
Well,

JOHN (48:45):
and NIL money is not the same as donating to the, to the
right from a, from a taxstandpoint.

KIP (48:52):
And right now.
Um, they're universities wouldrather you had given NIO money,
right?
Because that gets players,right?
Players win games, right?
So facilities is not quite asimportant as it used to be.
And, you know, right down theline, other things aren't quite
as important because you've gotto pay players.

JOHN (49:09):
And man, over the past decade or a couple of decades,
facilities have gone.
I mean, it is insane when you goto these college campuses and
look at the facilities they got.
It is unreal.
And

BRANDON (49:22):
really to me, it's worse than professional sports
right now.
Because at least in, you know,the MLB, NFL, NBA, Um, you got a
contract, right?
So you know you at least gotthem for 4, 5, 8 years.
Whatever you sign them to.
These guys leave after 1 yearnow.
I mean, there's nothing thatkeeps them there.

(49:43):
You know, so they have a goodyear and then somebody is like,
Hey, we'll give you 6 millionand they're gone.
Yeah.
There's, there's no restraints.
And I agree with Kip if theydon't get it under control, man,
it's, it's a, like a runawaytrain right now.
So.
Yeah.
I think the track is running outthere.

KIP (50:02):
Yeah.
I don't know.
I, I, I, you know, to be honest,I don't, I don't even want to go
down this rabbit hole very far,but yeah, I think it's going to
have to come something to dowith Congress.
Yeah.
I think there's going to have tobe some kind of some federal
laws that are going to be, and Ithink it's being discussed of,
of however they do that to tryto keep the playing field

(50:23):
somewhat level.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, um, yeah.
And I hate to say that because Ihave no government.
I

JOHN (50:29):
know, man, I hate regulation.
We got a president in right nowthat hates regulation.
And, um, I just, I, I, I don'tknow the answer.
But like you said,

BRANDON (50:38):
go ahead.
If they do as well with thenational debt as they do, if
they could do that with collegefootball, it would definitely.
Fix it.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because we do, we do well withthat.

JOHN (50:50):
Right.
Yeah.
We're, we're experts at that.
Oh my goodness.
Um, so we talked about, we,we've, we, we have this, we have
this bent of wanting to get ontothe goal.
We want the product without theprocess.
We want game day without anypractice day.
I mean, because who doesn't lovegame day?
Everybody loves game day.
You know, you love the stressthat it creates.

(51:11):
I mean, we really do.
Yeah.
It's why

BRANDON (51:13):
you go through two days in football.
It's not because you love twodays is because when they turn
the lights on Friday night, it'sone of the most incredible
things you can experience.
I mean, the smell of grass to,you know, play in front of
people, you know, all of thosethings, you'll do a lot of, a
lot of work to get to thatpoint.
But um, but very few people likeyou said, want to put in, they

(51:37):
want to be great.
They don't want to put in thework to be great.

JOHN (51:39):
Yeah, we want the victory without the, the, the, the
battlefield to get there.
That's right.
Right.
And we look at that from a, froma spiritual standpoint with this
idea of temptation.
None of us want to have to gothrough the valley of
temptation.
Right.
I mean, I, I don't.
I don't want to.

(52:00):
Yeah.
You know, Jesus taught us topray that we would not be led
into temptation, you know, buthow about you guys?
Do you face temptation?
Nah, man, never.
Of course.
I mean, it's constant, right?
Right.
It's every day.
It's like we can't get away fromit.
I mean, Dub, even you, you're 16years old.

(52:21):
You feel tempted by stuff,right?
All the time.
All the time, right?
And I mean, so, you know, Wedon't, we don't want to, we
don't want to go through thatand we even question, you know,
when we, when we are goingthrough temptation.
God, why are you, why are youallowing this to happen?
You know, why are, why are you asovereign God allowing me to go

(52:44):
through temptation?

BRANDON (52:45):
Yeah.

JOHN (52:45):
You know, I go back to that idea of a player thinking,
coach, why are you making me dothis?
You know, yeah.
The coach does it because theyknow what's best for the player
and what's best for the team.
Yeah.

BRANDON (53:01):
The worst thing that can happen to you as a player is
a coach quit coaching you.
Because they give up on you.

JOHN (53:09):
Yeah, there's, there's a, there's a, there's a
conversation talking about cutsin the future.
And the thing

BRANDON (53:15):
that happened to me one time, speaking of failure.
It is we were in the bottom oflast in and we're down a couple
of runs.
We got men on first and second,uh, nobody out.
So I go up, my job's just to laydown a blunt, which is harder
than you probably think attimes, but, uh, get a high
fastball should have pulledback, back, didn't popped it up

(53:37):
to the pitcher.
Um, you know, didn't advance forrunners.
I mean, it's terrible at bat andI've got to make the wall back
to the dugout.
And I remember, I'm thinking,Coach Stallings is fixing to
cuss me up one side and down theother and he didn't say
anything.
And I, and that cut me waydeeper than if he had cussed me

(53:59):
out.
Did he even look at you?
I mean, he didn't evenacknowledge, like, my presence.
Like, you know, I can still foga mirror.
You know, that was about thebest I could do.
But I'm like, you know, hedidn't even acknowledge it and
in that moment, I'm like, Idon't even know that he expected
me to be successful and I don'tthink it was probably that bad

(54:21):
but it hurt me more that hedidn't get on me then if he had
and So, yeah, I mean it's thesame way with God if if God is
not Um, correcting us, um,teaching us, training us, even
rebuking us, then what kind offather would he be?

(54:44):
I mean, you know, he doesn'tgive up on us.
So,

JOHN (54:47):
yeah, well, there's, there's definitely a difference
between a test and a temptation.
So, we need to, we need toclarify that.
So, what would you guys say aregoing to be, um, key things that
we can look for to determine isthis a test or is this a
temptation?
What are you guys when when youface something in your life And

(55:09):
you're trying to determine whichI think we should be.
I think we should be pretty umastute with this of Being able
to look at a situation and beingable to say This is temptation.
I need to I need to get awayfrom this, you know I need to do
whatever I got to do to makethis stop short of giving in to
it, right?

(55:29):
And then we also need to be ableto look at the situation and
say, you know This is a testthat god's putting me through
And I don't know why he'sputting me through it exactly,
you know, and I don't reallythink that's the question we
should ask.
I mean, I think asking God whyis, you know, that's pretty,
it's kind of superficial.
You know, maybe we ask God, youknow, what do you, what do you,

(55:51):
What do you want to accomplishin my life with this?

KIP (55:53):
That's what I was going to say.
Ask what instead

JOHN (55:55):
of why, you know,

KIP (55:56):
Charles Stanley said that he says, when you get caught in
those situations, you know,don't get caught up on why God.
But what do you want me tolearn?
You know, you've apparently ledme to this point.
So what do you want me to wantme to take from this?
Yeah.
And I think that's when weapproach it with the right
mindset.
So, I think that that god in ourtest that he's trying to grow

(56:18):
us.
Yeah.
You know,

JOHN (56:20):
what are you trying to prune out of my life?
Yeah.
Uh by putting me through this.
Right.
Right.
So, what are the, what are thosethings we look for?
There's gotta be those keyindicators that that we look, we
look at to say, man, this isflat out.
This is temptation.
You know, I've gotta, I've gottaapproach it as such, right?

(56:40):
Yeah.
So, what are those things thatwe look for?

KIP (56:42):
Well, I think, you know, I think we, we go to the Bible,
right?
Is, is it, is it going againstGod's teachings?
And if it's going against God'steachings, it's not coming as a
test from God.
It's coming as a temptation fromSatan

JOHN (56:54):
because we know he's consistent, right?
We know he's faithful.
You know, he's not casting ashifting shadow.
He's not going to say this todayand then something else
tomorrow, right?
So we, we, we've got that, we'vegot that standard that we can
compare it to.
Okay.
That's perfect.
What else?
Yeah.

BRANDON (57:11):
I think that's huge.
I mean, I think if you compareeverything to God's word, then
You know, God's not gonna doanything that goes against his
character or his revealed will.
He's not going to tell you to dosomething that goes against his
character or revealed will.
You know, um, God didn't tellyou to move in with that person
because it's financiallyadvantageous.

(57:34):
Um, like I can 100 percentguarantee you that was not God.
Um, and so you look at stufflike that and, and that's,
that's pretty clear.
Um, you know, what's interestingis a lot of times I think in a
test, you come acrosstemptation.
Sure.
You know what I mean?
Well, yeah, I mean, because, andso I don't know that they always

(57:57):
are completely exclusive, youknow, um, when we go through a
test, a lot of times thetemptation is to quit, um, you
know what I mean?
And so I think, you know,there's going to be even
temptation within the test.
But being able to discern, isthis a test?
Is this something that God'sputting me through?

(58:18):
I think a lot of times lookingat, um, Can I learn something
from this?
Is, and the question of what,what can I learn?
What is God doing in me?
Is this something that is, isnot gonna in any way be
beneficial to me?

(58:38):
In my growth, in my intimacywith him, in life in general, if
there, if there's really nobenefit to it spiritually, then
I would say it would lean moretowards a temptation than it
would towards a test becausewhat God's always trying to do
is to, to sanctify us, to makeus more like Christ.

(59:01):
You know, there's obvious whichmeans he's trying

JOHN (59:04):
to bring us closer to him.
Yes, right So we're we're we'rereally good at using we speak we
speak church and ease.
Yeah Christian ease You know,but really When we boil it down
to the fundamentals, we'vetalked about fundamentals a lot
this morning, fundamentally, Godsent Jesus because he wants a
relationship with us.

(59:24):
That's right.
Fundamentally, God created theworld because he wanted us to
have a domain to live in.
Yeah.
Right.
So when we look at all thesethings that are God's character
attributes, his charactertraits, it all points to him
wanting to have.
a personal, intimaterelationship with every single

(59:45):
one of us.
You know, when we look at theidea of, of Jesus going to the
cross, he would have done thatif it was only me he had to
save.
Right.
Right?
And realizing that, that shouldundo.
That's part of all of us.
I mean, that's part of mysalvation story is realizing

(01:00:07):
that what Christ did, he wouldhave done it if it was only for
me and that it completely I Icame, I came un, un, unhitched
from who I was.
I mean, it it was an immediatething.
Yeah.
You know, but the reality is,you know, when I came down off

(01:00:28):
that high You know, I still hadthose same temptations because I
was still in the sameenvironment, you know, I didn't
get saved and go to heaven andget and be in a place where
there was no longer anytemptation.
There was no longer any kind of.
So, most of the stuff that I hadto deal with.
There's no longer bills I had topay or obligations that I had to
meet or anything like that.

(01:00:49):
I still had to live in theconfines of this world, right?

BRANDON (01:00:52):
Most of your circumstances didn't change.
You changed in thecircumstances.

JOHN (01:00:55):
Yup.
Yup.
It's exactly right.
So, alright.
So, so we've we've identified acouple ways that we can we can
say um this is temptation.
This is a test, right?
We've got these two.
We've got these two buckets thatwe can work with.
I think another thing that wecan look at is, um, talking with
other believers about it.

(01:01:16):
I think it, I think there's somuch to, you know, just like God
made us to be in relationshipwith him.
He made us to be in relationshipwith each other and to sit down
and talk about stuff with, with,with believers, with people who
we know that, you know, itdoesn't necessarily have to be
somebody that's, um, furtherdown the road.

(01:01:39):
You know, then we are because Ithink that I think we're, we're
all going to, um, we're allgoing to get hit with struggles
at different points and, andface it in different ways and,
and, and can be derailed bystuff that, you know, in the
past, it wouldn't have affectedus as bad, but now it will
affect us really bad.

(01:02:00):
I mean, think about when youwere a kid, what's your biggest
temptation?
You know, I mean, I'm talkingabout as like a little kid, my
biggest temptation was likecandy or something, you know,
whereas today candy is not a bigtemptation for me, you know, but
as a, as you know, when you getto be 40 or 50 years old, the,
the new candy that's temptingyou is financial security or,

(01:02:25):
or, um, you know, buildingwealth or, um, So, when you get
a little bit older, maybe what'stempting you is building a
legacy.
You know, how are people goingto remember me?
Right.
Right.
And I mean, that's a temptationbecause why do you want to be
remembered?
Mm hmm.
You know, when I when I leave aroom, I don't want people

(01:02:45):
thinking about me and howawesome I was.
I want people thinking aboutJesus.
Yeah.
You know, how do I live a lifethat causes people to think
about Jesus when I leave theroom?
Yeah.
You know, I don't want peoplethinking about, you know.
You know, man, that guy'scologne smell is horrible or
golly, I'm glad he finally shutup, you know, or something like
that.
I want, I want people to when,when, when they've, when I've

(01:03:07):
had an interaction with them,they're like, man, something was
different.
I don't, you know, I can'treally put my finger on it right
now but something was different.
How do we live in that way?
That's what we're called to do.
That's that's what it means tobe in a intimate relationship
with the lord is that We knowhis character.
We know how he wants us tobehave.

(01:03:27):
We know how he wants us tobehave if we realize we've made
a mistake, right?
Because, news alert, we're allgoing to make mistakes.
You know, how we respond to themsays a lot about our character.
Um, and our character shouldpoint to God.
That should be what it'spointing to because that's why

(01:03:49):
Jesus came and did what he did.
So when we're facing thattemptation, what is always, what
is always the easy way out?
The, or what is the easiest wayout, I would say, in the moment?

KIP (01:04:05):
Well, I guess the easiest way would be what Joseph did,
and that's run.
Yeah.
Get away from it.

JOHN (01:04:11):
Yeah, so that, that would be the easiest way.
So he was, he was, he was um.
He was physically tempted by awoman, right?
And he got out of there soquick, he left his jacket.

KIP (01:04:25):
He knew that to stay in that environment was going to
put him at risk.
And so he simply.
left the environment.
And of course, he was in asituation that was his job, but
he didn't get a chance to comeback because he got fired,
thrown in prison, you know, buteven though he didn't do
anything wrong, but I think, youknow, if we know situations can

(01:04:49):
put us in peril, And I think thewisest thing to do is try to
avoid the situation if possible.
Yeah.
You know?

JOHN (01:04:56):
Yeah.
Stay away from that.
Uh, Dr.
David Jeremiah told a story in asermon, uh, that I listened to a
while back.
And he said that, uh, he said hehad a guy come to him and said
that he's struggling with, um,struggling with lust in his
life.
Right?
And where he's looking onanother woman in a way that he
shouldn't and, and all this kindof stuff.

(01:05:18):
And, uh, so David asked him, hesaid, well, when, when is there
a time where you're strugglingwith this more than any other
time?
And he said, well, you know,yeah, I'm struggling with it a
lot when I get home from work.
And he said, David said, okay,well, how do you, what, what
happens when you get home fromwork?
Tell me, tell me your routine.
What, what happens?
He said, well, uh, I don't livethat far away from where I work.

(01:05:40):
So I walk home, I walk homeevery day.
And, uh, he said, you know, Iwalked through the worst part of
town.
And there's basically like a redlight district and um, you know,
so I see all this stuff beforeI, before I get home and uh,
David was like, really?
He said, uh, he said, why do yougo that way?

(01:06:03):
And he said, well, it's theshortest way.
And David looked at him and hesaid, And he said, go the long
way.
He said, what do you mean?
He said, don't walk throughthere.
If you get home and thistemptation is hitting you harder
than any other time and yourealize that you're walking
through this stuff, going homeand seeing the things that

(01:06:23):
you're seeing, whether you'regoing in there and and partaking
of anything or not, you'rewalking through there and you're
seeing it and it's getting intoyour head and you're thinking
about it, right?
And then you get home and thattemptation is.
Where it's the greatest.
He said, don't, don't walkthrough there.
Go the long way, you know, so Ithink that's a really good

(01:06:44):
response to temptation is tolook at it and say, okay, what
got me here?
You know, what, what steps did Itake to get me here with him?
It was physical steps that hewas taking.
He was walking through a part oftown that he didn't need to be
in, you know, now, um,

BRANDON (01:07:03):
Well, that kind of goes back to the routine, right?
Of, uh, a shooting routine or,you know, or this archery or, or
basketball or whatever it islike you can get into a bad
rhythm just like you get into agood rhythm.
Right.
And, and obviously that was abad rhythm.
Yeah.
And so recognizing, and, and,you know, and like I said
before, when you, you got saved,most of your circumstances did

(01:07:27):
not change.
Right.
Change was you.
But there are circumstances wecan control and, and, and like
Kip said, you know, don't, don'tgo, don't put yourself into
those situations, environments,circumstances, if you know, this
is what leads me to temptation.

JOHN (01:07:46):
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, the fastest way tomake temptation, the, the, the
battle of temptation go away isto give into it.
Absolutely.
That's the fastest way.
It's the easiest way.
Yeah.
To make, to make, to maketemptation go away, give into
it.
Yeah.
Now, the problem is you're goingto be left with guilt and the
struggle that comes along withmaking a poor choice.

(01:08:08):
And the collateral damage.
And yeah, and who knows?
I mean, depending on what thetemptation is, you know, I mean,
it could be, you know, maybeyou, maybe you, um, travel for
your job and you go out of town.
Yeah.
And when you're out of town, um,and you're not with your wife
and you're not home with, withyour family, you're, you're

(01:08:28):
going to face temptations thatyou wouldn't if you were at home
with your family.
I mean, let's just be, let's behonest about this.
You're, you're going to facethose temptations knowing that
that's going to happen.
What do you do, you know, what,what, what do you, what do you
do to put yourself in a placewhere you're, you're not gonna,
you're, you're not gonna, youknow, get tempted by something

(01:08:51):
and, and, and be in that placewhere you, you're having to,
you're having to struggle withit.
And I don't know what the answeris.
I mean, I don't know what thetemptation is.
It could be, it could be athousand different things that
you're being tempted by, youknow, it could be.
Hanging out in the bar at thehotel or going to the bar down
the street or, or, you know,looking at things on your, on

(01:09:12):
your computer that you shouldn'tbe looking at, or watching
things on television in thehotel room that, that you
shouldn't be watching, you know,I mean, it could be any number
of things.
It could be.
You know, meeting with a, uh, a,uh, a female coworker, you know,
that, that works in the townwhere you're at or something, or

(01:09:33):
that, you know, the two of youwere there for a meeting and
dude, that's, that is not a goodroad to walk down, you know,
regardless of what yourintentions are.
That is not a good road to walkdown.
Yeah.
Um, um, because I, I think that,that that can become something
that it doesn't need to become.
Yeah.

(01:09:53):
For both of you.
Um, so it's, it's something thatwe have to, we have to get ahead
of.
You know, just like we say wewanna, we wanna do, we wanna
practice the way that we wannaplay.
Well, when we're doing that,obviously we have to make
preparations to be able topractice.
You know, we have to make surewe've got the equipment that we
need, we've, we've got, uh, witharchery, we've got a target that

(01:10:16):
we can shoot at, all this kindof stuff.
If I know that I'm going to betempted in a certain way, I need
to prepare to make sure I don'tgo in that place to be tempted.
You know, I think Martin Luthersaid that, um, He said that we
can't keep, we can't keep birdsfrom flying over our head.

(01:10:38):
Um, but we can keep them frombuilding a nest on top of our
head, right?
Um so, which is pretty simple.
You know, if a bird comes to tryto tries to build a nest on your
head, you know, you just swat itoff.
I don't know why anybody let himdo that but but it's it's a good
analogy.
It's it sounds absurd.
Uh what do you mean?

(01:10:58):
But yeah, I mean, it's like, Imean, uh some of the some of the
temptations that that um Thatthat we face in life.
So I'll tell you this, this pastyear, I had a revelation of how
much I, I, I, I literally gotdown on my knees one morning.

(01:11:22):
I do, I get up in the morningsand my routine is to get up and
I pray.
And sometimes I fall asleep whenI pray because I'm not fully
awake yet and you know, I wakeup and God, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to fall asleep andyou know, I just feel like he is
not mad at me for it.
Disciples did that too.
I think.
Yeah, they did.

(01:11:42):
In the garden.
They did.
Yeah.
They just couldn't stay awake.
But anyway, um, I get up in themornings and I pray and I, and I
read my Bible and I was, I waspraying one morning and I
realized, um, Um, I was, I justmet with a friend who was, um,
who had, who had given in tosome temptation and man, he was,

(01:12:02):
he was broken because of it.
I mean, he, he called me and,and wanted me to come over and,
and I went over and sat andtalked with him and man, he
just, he fell apart because he'dgiven in to some temptation and,
um, the temptation that he had,had And that's what I had given
into was I mean, it was, it was,it was a real thing.

(01:12:25):
It was, it was causing issues.
It was stuff that he needed tosit down and talk with people
about and everything.
And, and, you know, he just, hewanted me to pray with him and
pray for him.
And I still pray for him andcheck in with him on, you know,
about it to make sure, you know,things are going good the way
things should be going andeverything.
And, um, anyway, I was, I waspraying one morning and I

(01:12:49):
realized that there are certainthings that absolutely do not
tempt me.
And that's not because I'm sogood, you know, it's not, I
mean, it's, it's because God hasprotected me from those things,
you know, so.
We still, yeah, we have allthese temptations that are

(01:13:09):
thrown at us, but it's still ina controlled environment because
God is sovereign, right?
So, when we, when we get tolooking at the things that do
tempt us, and we have this, wehave this deceiver, we have this
enemy, we have Satan who, heknows what's going to trip us
up.
And he's going to throw it at usevery single chance he gets.

(01:13:31):
Because he He didn't care aboutus.
Like don't don't we don't needto misunderstand what he's what
he's about He didn't really careabout hurting us.
He's trying to hurt god You knowAnd I guess he didn't realize
that he lost

BRANDON (01:13:47):
Maybe he does maybe He just trying to take out as many
as he can.
Yeah along the

JOHN (01:13:53):
way.

BRANDON (01:13:53):
Yeah,

JOHN (01:13:53):
I guess so.
Yeah, but I mean he is He isconsistently um Um, uh,
buffeting us and trying toattack us.
And I think just like you said,if we get to a point where we
feel like we're not beingtempted, man, we need to, we
need to, we need to reallyexamine what's going on.

BRANDON (01:14:13):
And I think too, you know, scripture talks about how
the devil's like a roaring lion,you know, prowling around
looking for him, he can devour.
And to devour, it literallymeans like to destroy, right?
It's to, not just like we thinkabout eating a hamburger and we
devoured that hamburger, butlike to completely destroy and

(01:14:36):
tear apart.
You think about a lion, how iteats, and that's what the enemy
wants to do to our lives.
Is, he doesn't want to hinderus, he wants to take us out.
Um, and, and completely destroyus.
And so I think, um You know, itsays be sober and alert, be, be,
um, sober minded.

(01:14:57):
And I think the thing that wehave to do is expect it.
You know, we, we, we need toexpect adversity.
It's part of life and we need toexpect that temptations going to
come is it's a part of lifeThere are things we're not
perfect You know and things aregoing to be tempting and I think

(01:15:18):
not being surprised by it, youknow

JOHN (01:15:21):
Or or completely Like taken off guard by it.
Yeah.
If we're not expecting it, ifwe're not, if we're not on guard
about it, man, when it happens,we don't know what to do.
You know, we're, we're like,we're like a deer in headlights.
You know, we're just, we're,we're just sitting there
treading water and, and, and,and don't even know how to
respond.
Right.
You know, like, man, why is thishappening?

(01:15:43):
I go to church every Sunday.
Um, um, um, you know, I, Iaccepted salvation.
Why is this happening?
Well, you know, Being saveddoesn't mean that we get put
into an armchair, a comfy chairwith wheels on it, and we get
rolled right into heaven.
You know, there is a fight thatwe've got to go through while
we're here.
And I think that, in large part,that happens because it brings

(01:16:08):
us into closer, into closerrelationship with God.
He gets to show us how, if we'lldo it the way he designed for us
to do it.
How it's how he's faithful,right?

BRANDON (01:16:24):
Yeah, I think when you go through a test or a
temptation, it's going to do oneof two things.
It's going to draw you closer toGod or it's going to push you
away.
And I think we have to make thedecision and make a
determination that I'm going todraw close, even though this
hurts, even though this is hard.

(01:16:45):
I'm going to draw close.
I'm not going to take the easyway out.
And, and that's not always easy.
And I think, you know, you weretalking about making decisions
earlier and you said, I'll gotalk to friends.
Uh, you know, talk to my wife.
I think the same thing as you'regoing through a test or a
temptation.

(01:17:06):
One of the biggest things weneed is godly community around
us.
That we can go to some, I've gotpeople, you know, who I can text
in a moment and just say pray.
I don't have to send a long textexplaining what to pray for.
I'll just, I'm able to text themand just say pray.
And when I do that, um, I knowthey're praying for me in that

(01:17:29):
moment.
And I think we, we have to havethose people in our lives that
we know come hell or high water,they're going to be there.
And they're able to walk with usthrough these things because
we're not meant to do lifealone, and we can't do life
alone.
At least not the way God wantsus to.

JOHN (01:17:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I wanted to share a, a, um, averse.
It's from 13.
It says, No temptation hasovertaken you except such as is
common to man.
But God is faithful, who willnot allow you to be tempted
beyond what you are able.
But with the temptation, willalso make the way of escape that

(01:18:12):
you may be able to bear it.
So, I think a couple of thingsthat we need to look at right
there is that number one, ifwe're tempted, it's not because
we're outside of God's willnecessarily.

(01:18:33):
Alright?
Because it says, it says,basically it says it's going to
happen.
Um, you know, that now, theregoing to be times where we're
going to be tempted and we'regoing to be completely outside
of God's will and that's whywe're tempted because we're,
we're going somewhere weshouldn't be going, right?
But there are times where we canbe firmly in God's will doing

(01:18:55):
what he's called us to do.
We can be on a mission tripsomewhere and our only goal in
that mission trip is to be therefor God doing what we feel that
he's called us to do and we canface temptation in that time,
right?
Am I wrong or do y'all

BRANDON (01:19:09):
agree with that?
No, I mean, it's, it'severywhere.
I know, uh, gosh, I can't evenremember who said it.
But, uh, it was a, it was afootball coach.
And he said, um, talking to hisplayers when they would come in
as freshmen.
And he said, you know, guys, youdon't have to go looking for
temptation.

(01:19:29):
Temptation's gonna find you.
And, and I mean, I think that'sthe truth.
It's going to be where you are,you know, because the issue is,
I mean, James tells us not tosay the devil's tempting me.
You know, we're led away by ourown evil desires.

JOHN (01:19:47):
Yeah.
I think we're pretty quick toblame stuff on the devil.
You know, the devil made me doit and all this kind of stuff.
And, you know, I've, I've talkedabout recently that we need to
be really careful saying.
The devil made me do something.
Yeah.

BRANDON (01:19:59):
Well, I mean again that kind of really goes against
scripture Yeah, it's it's ourown evil desires.
Now.
He may put the bait out there.

JOHN (01:20:06):
Sure Yeah, look at what he did with Adam and Eve with the
original, you know, the originalsin You know He didn't force
them to do anything He all hedid was ask some questions To,
to make them think, well, didGod really, God really say that?
Does God really mean that hewould do that?

(01:20:29):
And then the next thing youknow, they're hiding from God.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like, what?
Come on, Adam.
You've ruined it.
You know, and it was Adam'sfault in case any of you think
it is Eve's fault.
Uh uh.
Adam was standing right there.
I mean, she was naked.
He didn't go far.
Let's be honest about this.
It's

BRANDON (01:20:48):
a tough situation.
I mean, you know, if, well, I'mnot, I'm not going to go there.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
So.
So, she's naked as you said.
It's kind of if your wife'sfeeding you fruit in that
situation, kind of hard to sayno, right?

(01:21:08):
Maybe D can edit that part out.

JOHN (01:21:12):
No, no, we're not editing that out.
That's true.
I mean, you know, we're we weare we are pretty simple
creatures, Brandon when it comesdown to it.
I mean, oh my gosh.
That is a fact.
Sorry.

KIP (01:21:28):
You know, Satan

JOHN (01:21:29):
I've enjoyed being on this

BRANDON (01:21:31):
podcast.

KIP (01:21:33):
I made it I made it four

JOHN (01:21:34):
episodes.
Brandon's like, well, I just gotcut.

KIP (01:21:39):
You know, he's he's the presenter.
He's the one who presents thetemptation.
You're right.
It is our choice.
We have that choice to make.
But Satan knows us.
That he no longer can have yoursoul, right?
So he wants to have your impact.
Yeah, he wants to have yourinfluence.

JOHN (01:21:58):
Yeah.
He wants

KIP (01:21:59):
to diminish now what you can accomplish for Christ.
Because, um, once, once you godown that road, then people are
going to look at you and say,well, I thought you were
Christian.
I thought this.
And so that, that ability to dofor Christ, what he has for you
to do.
has been affected.

(01:22:20):
Yeah.
You know?
And um, so while he may doesn't,while he doesn't make us do
things, um, he knows that wehave that ability to make a
decision one way or the other.
And he's going to constantlycome at you.
Because he's hoping that if I,if I tempt you 10 times, maybe

(01:22:41):
one of the 10, you're going totake the bait on, you know, and
that will be the start then ofdiminishing what you can do for
Christ.
Yeah.
And we don't

BRANDON (01:22:49):
realize there's a hook in that bait.
Yeah.
And I think too, until we learnto overcome a certain
temptation, he's going to keepputting in front of us.
And so one of the things that Istruggled, we played a lot of
inter squad games going back tobaseball and the sports aspect.
I struggled hitting a fastballinside.
Well, our whole team knew that.
I mean, after a while, you, youfigure that out.

(01:23:11):
What do you think I saw all thetime in inter squad games?
Inside fastballs.
And so, um, he's the same way.
I mean, if he knows that there'ssomething we struggle with, he's
going to keep putting it there.
And so we, we need to be awareof that.
You know, that this is going tohappen.
My mind is going to go to thisplace.
And I think that comes back tothat Romans 12, two passage of

(01:23:35):
renewing our mind.
How does that happen throughGod's word?
So it's amazing when we spendtime in God's word.
Um, how a lot of things that westruggle with will begin to go
away.
Not always.
I'm not saying like, if youstruggle with pornography, that
just reading the Bible is goingto fix you.
That praying hard is going tofix you.
There's some other things thatin steps that you've got to

(01:23:57):
take.
Yeah.
You've got to take other steps,but there are things in your
life that will begin to changeas your mind's renewed because
you'll begin to thinkdifferently.
Um, and I think that's one ofthe ways that we, God has given
us the ability to overcome thosetemptations is to think
differently.
But until we are able to find away, um, until, you know, God

(01:24:22):
shows us a way or we begin topractice biblical principles,
um, the enemy's going to keepputting that thing in front of
us, you know.
So,

JOHN (01:24:32):
yeah, you know, I, I've, I've never struggled with
pornography.
It's never been a, never been avice for me or anything, but I
can tell you had it been one,having a daughter would have
changed all of that, you know,and, and I think that maybe that
that has prevented it frombecoming an issue for me because

(01:24:53):
it is, you know, when we weregrowing up, it was not as
readily available as it istoday, but I mean.
We all have little boxes in ourpockets right now that within a
few seconds we could be lookingat something that we don't want
to be looking at.
Yeah.

BRANDON (01:25:09):
You know, we did a series, um, I'm sure you guys
remember when, uh, the bookFifty Shades of Grey came out.
Um, not, not, not a good book.
Um, and so, uh, and we did aseries because it became so
popular.
called 50 Shades of Gray.

(01:25:31):
The color is, I think the grayand the title was someone's
name.
But we did a series called 50Shades of Gray, meaning the
color and we call it the blackand white on sexual issues.
And so in that series, we talkedabout, um, just sex in general.
We talked about sexuality.
We talked about pornography andwe talked about abortion.

(01:25:55):
And so, we were getting hatebefore we ever preached the
first message.
And, you know, and, and weapproached it with a lot of
grace.
But in that pornography message,this was a few years ago.
That is still, by far, the mostlistened to message we've ever
done in 16.
5 years.
Wow.

(01:26:15):
And you know, and for men, Ibelieve that that that lust
aspect for women is probably thenumber one thing that trips us
up in many ways.
Um, we all have certain thingsright there, bigger temptations
than others.
But I think That's one of thosethings that, that podcast hadn't

(01:26:37):
been listened to that, or thatmessage hasn't been listened to
that many times because it's nota struggle, you know, or because
they like your voice so much orsomething.
Well, they could listen to anymessage to hear my incredible
voice, but it's, um, it's one ofthose though, that is listened
to over and over and over andover again.

(01:26:58):
And because it is an issue, it'sa struggle that people have.
And one of the tougheststruggles to overcome.
And I think one of the thingsthat a lot of times we don't
realize and talk about this withUm, sex outside of marriage is
God created us in a way thatwhen we have, um, intimacy with

(01:27:21):
our spouse, there is a, um,chemical released in our brain,
um, and is the love hormonebasically is what it is.
And it actually is such astrong, um, almost, almost to
the point of like a drug thatit, It bonds us to our, our, our

(01:27:44):
spouse.
It bonds us to our, our, um, ourwife, our husband, whatever.
Well, the same thing happenswhen people experience that
intimacy outside of marriage.
Same thing happens withpornography.
And so this chemical is releasedin our brain, which begins to

(01:28:04):
cause us to desire to recreatethat, that action again.
And, and when we do that, it, itbecomes an addiction.
It becomes something that we, wehave been bound in a way to
this.
And I think that's one of thereasons pornography, um, lust,

(01:28:26):
uh, sexual addiction, throughthe years, sexual addiction and
pornography have been the two,the most difficult things that
I've seen for men to get out of.
Um, a lot of times even more sothan drug use and abuse is, is
breaking a cycle of sexualaddiction.

JOHN (01:28:46):
Well, when you are doing, when you're doing drugs, there's
a, there's a, um, there's anoutward expression of that,
right?
Everybody, I mean, like if Icame, if I came to the table
this morning and I was, I washigh.
The three of you would be ableto see that.

BRANDON (01:29:03):
Sure.

JOHN (01:29:04):
Right.
But if I came to the table thismorning, having been up for two
hours, looking at pornography,ain't a single one of you here
that would know that.
Yeah, you could hide it a loteasier.
Yeah, I mean, you can hide that.
So, I think that that's one ofthe things that makes it, makes
it more of a challenge to getover or to get past is that
yeah.

(01:29:25):
You know, any, any kind ofaddiction that you can hide
really well makes it that muchharder to, to deal with, you
know, um, so, man, it'sunfortunately, you know, we're
not sitting here saying, okay,if you're tempted, this is, this
is what you do.
Boom, you're done.
You're never going to have toface that temptation again.
You've got it whipped, you know,square it with it, beat it and

(01:29:46):
you're done.
Unfortunately.
That's just not the way itworks, you know, and I think
that that's the that's thestruggle that that we go through
is that You know, just like oneof you said Kip you said this
Satan knows that he you know, heknows he can eventually get us

(01:30:07):
with this and like he'll he'lltry Ten times knowing that you
know, maybe one out of those tentimes he's gonna get us Well,
that doesn't necessarily meanthat for 10 days, we're going to
face this temptation and that onthe seventh day or the sixth
day, we're going to give into itand then, you know, we'll be
good.
Absolutely.
You know, it might be over thecourse of 10 years or three

(01:30:30):
decades

BRANDON (01:30:31):
that he tempts us with this stuff.
You know, when Jesus was temptedin the desert and it says, you
know, after the thirdtemptation, Um, Jesus resist and
it says that satan left himuntil an opportune time, right?
And yeah, he wasn't done.
The only other time I found inscripture is that it says it was

(01:30:53):
an opportune time is when Jesuswas in the garden.
And he was wrestling with goingto the cross and basically he's
like, father, you know, ifthere, if there's a way, this,
this, this judgment I'm about togo through this, this cross and
take it away from me and I mean,when I read it and I see that,

(01:31:15):
that that's the next time ittalks about it being an
opportune time, like, I thinkmaybe those were two, the two
greatest times of temptation forJesus is in the desert.
And right before he went to thecross and as you're saying, it
might be 10 years apart.
Well, this is, well, three yearsapart, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and you look at that and,and, um, realizing it may not be

(01:31:38):
something that is just constant,but for some people it is.
And I think about this, how manymen and women, but speaking a
lot to men in this is.
How many of them are living inthe guilt and shame and
condemnation because theyconsistently fail in this

(01:32:00):
temptation and how many havejust given in or given up and I
would encourage people who arelistening like you can overcome
it not by yourself but with thepower of the Holy Spirit and
with community around you, youcan overcome it and then some
practical steps of Um, likeyou're talking about, you know,

(01:32:22):
what do you do when you're onthe road, you know, they're
again, uh, what, what is aroutine you can go through that
gives you that ability, you knowwhat it might be at some point
you don't go on the road, youknow, if you, yeah, if you, if

JOHN (01:32:37):
you can't

BRANDON (01:32:37):
figure

JOHN (01:32:38):
out how to take those steps, get a different job.
Exactly.
That means marriage

BRANDON (01:32:42):
is more important than your job.

JOHN (01:32:44):
Well, yeah.
And, and you're, and you're,you're.
Your influence for God is moreimportant like we're, we're,
we're called to be hisambassadors.
I use that word all the timethat we're, we're supposed to be
his ambassador and I love howTony Evans talks about that.
He talks about refs in the NFL.
You know, we know that they'rerefs because they got those

(01:33:05):
awesome, beautiful white andblack striped shirts.
Yeah, they're zebras, right?
We know, we know who they are.
We can pick them out on thefield.
And they are there to make surethat the games played by the
rules that the NFL Commissionhas set up.
That's all they're there to do,is enforce the rules of the
game, right?

(01:33:25):
And to make sure that it'splayed within the confines of
what's been set up.
I mean, that's what we'resupposed to do.
We're supposed to make sure thatwe're living our lives the way
that God intended us to livethem.
And so often, you know, I mean,let's go back to that, that,

(01:33:47):
that, that idea about, uh, beingan entrepreneur.
There are so many times whenI'll look at a situation and
I'll be like, man, I don't knowif I can, I don't know if I need
to do this this way.
Uh, or, um, I don't know if Ineed to bring this, these
products in, you know, how am I,how, how are we going to do

(01:34:08):
this?
How's this going to work?
Um, how am I going to, you know,Um, offer this to a, to a I have
to, I have to go back to whatthat mission is, right?
And what that purpose is.
And then just say, you knowwhat, this is what God's called

(01:34:28):
me to do.
I'm going to be obedient to it.
That's right.
And I'm going to trust him totake care of the consequences.
And it's so easy to say that,but it's so stinking hard to do.
You know, it's so, it's so hardto say, you know what.
But I feel, I feel like I feelled to, to, to, to give this

(01:34:51):
money to this organization.
And man, this, this amount ofmoney, this, this hurts a little
bit, right?
And I say it hurts a little bit,like it makes it like you have
to sacrifice a little bit to doit.
You know, let's say you're goingto give a hundred dollars, you
know, and, um, 100 is a bigdeal.

(01:35:16):
Yeah.
You know, that particular weekor that particular month or
whatever, but you've made thatcommitment that you're going to
do that, you know, followthrough on it and let God work
it out.
And I, listen, I'm not, I'm notsaying that this is.
I don't, I don't prescribe theprosperity gospel.

(01:35:37):
I'm not saying if you'll give100 to God, he's going to give
you 500 back.
Don't misunderstand what I'msaying.
I don't believe that.
Dang it.
Yeah.
Sorry.
You know, but I mean, I do, I dobelieve that.
That when, when God, when Godleads us to do something,
whether it's financially orwhatever, you know, take that

(01:35:59):
out of the game.
It's easy to talk about numbers,you know, cause numbers are
black and white.
You know, if you give 5, then,you know, don't worry.
God's going to make up that 5somewhere.
You know, it doesn't necessarilymean he's going to put 20 in
your pocket or something likethat.
He might put four 50 in yourpocket.
I don't know.
I mean, I think he's, I thinkhe's faithful.
And if he's called you to dosomething, he's going to make a

(01:36:19):
way for you to do it.
And, um, I just, that, that hasbeen probably the biggest
challenge that I have faced.
I don't know if I want to sayit's a temptation.
I mean, I think, I think it is atemptation because sometimes
you'll do things.
I think the temptation comesfrom what is your motive for

(01:36:41):
doing it, right?
What is your motive for making adecision to do something?
I think that's where thetemptation can present itself.
Because, you know, sometimes youcan, you can make a decision to
do something because you feelcalled to do it.
Sometimes you can move onsomething a little bit faster
than you should.
And when you do that, you know,you're, you're putting yourself

(01:37:02):
in a, in a bad, in a bad place.
Sometimes you're completelyblinded and deceiving yourself
and you're really just actingout of selfish ambition.
You know, like I want the praiseof man.
Over the praise of God.
And the reality is we'reprobably more guilty of that
than we even realize.

(01:37:24):
Um, because it's, it's so simpleto, to get there because, you
know, we, we, we always talkabout things from a horizontal
standpoint, from a verticalstandpoint, horizontal is
everything we can see, hear,touch, smell, all that kind of
stuff.
That's everything in front ofus.
Well, the reality is everythingthat I can see right now, like

(01:37:45):
we're sitting over in the, inthe front corner of the store
and we can basically seeeverything.
All this stuff is going to begone one day.
I'm going to be gone one day.
So that vertical part of my lifeis the one that matters more
than anything else.
And we are all so guilty ofputting so little effort into
the vertical part of our lives.

(01:38:07):
That, that part of our life isgoing to last for eternity.
You know, and so getting back tothat mission, I know what my
mission is.
My mission is to help peopleunderstand that.
Yeah, what's interesting aboutwhat you're

BRANDON (01:38:20):
saying.
with, you know, I actually wrotethis in my journal and do a lot
of journaling.
And, um, I asked myself thequestion, do I really believe
that only those things that areeternal, you know, are worth
pouring my life into?
And, and, you know, I want tosay the answer is yes, but when

(01:38:41):
I look at my life, is that thereality of do.
do my actions, back up myconfession, you know,

JOHN (01:38:49):
and how often do we evaluate that?
Yeah.
Right.
Like Kip, how often are, do wereally sit and, and evaluate,
okay, this week, this is what Idid and I did really good.
Or do we only do it when ourbirthday rolls around?

BRANDON (01:39:02):
Yeah.

JOHN (01:39:03):
You know, or do we only do it when a new, when a new year
rolls around, right?
So.
New year, new me,

BRANDON (01:39:10):
man.

JOHN (01:39:11):
Yeah.

KIP (01:39:12):
Well, I think, you know, we, we should probably daily,
right.
You know, we should probablydaily take a look at everything
that we're doing and, and, uh,is this going to honor God or
not?
But we get caught up in theworld.
We get caught up in the busynessof things.
The work of day life.
Yeah.
And, uh, those things slipthrough the cracks.
And a day or two becomes a week.

(01:39:34):
A week becomes a month.
And, you know, uh, we look backand we realize, you know, Man, I
really didn't I really didn't dothat much for God lately, or I
really didn't grow in him inthese last few weeks or, you
know, I call it drifting, youknow, to drift from him, but,
um, you know, it's, um, I thinkthat's really the key is that we

(01:39:55):
live this life daily because ifwe try to live it monthly, you
know, yearly or whateverquarterly or whatever, yeah,
it's just, it's just too big,you know, so it's just a day by
day process of trying to beobedient to God.
Yeah.
And, uh, trying to live as, ashe directs us through his word.
And, uh, that's why, you know,it's so important that we, we

(01:40:18):
read his word daily, that wespend time in prayer daily, that
we worship him daily.
You know, um, I'm a big, bigbeliever in the word focus and
you know this from our Sundayschool class, you know, and, uh,
you know, focus is critical toanything you do, whether it be
hunting.
or athletics or your job orwhatever.

(01:40:39):
But the key is that, that God'sgot to be kind of like an
umbrella over everything andeverything else falls under
that.
So if we keep our focus on God,everything else will, we'll
find, you'll work all thosethings out for us.
You know, it's when we allowthat focus to go, as you say,
horizontal, you know, and itgoes, it goes that way that we

(01:41:01):
get ourselves into trouble.

BRANDON (01:41:03):
You know, something that, that really points to that
is in the church.
A lot of times we'll have peoplewho, when it comes to like
giving or being generous, um,they'll make the comment of,
well, I just don't know whatyou're going to do with the
money.
Um, but then I look at that andI go, but you're trusting us

(01:41:24):
with your spiritual life, right?
You're trusting us to guide youspiritually in this vertical
relationship.
But you're not trusting us withthe financial aspect of your
life with dollars and cents.
Yeah.
And so it's not necessarily, Idon't want to trust God with my
money.
I don't trust you with my money.

(01:41:47):
And I'm like, but why would youtrust us with what's most
important?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You, you see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
It's where the priority is.
Yeah.

JOHN (01:41:57):
Yep.
Man, that's uh, that's a, that'sa tough thing to deal with, you
know, I've, uh, I've, I've neverbeen called to be a pastor and
I, I praise the lord for that,you know, because that is a
tough, that's a tough job, man.
I mean, it's like every,everything that you get to do.

(01:42:17):
Um, I, I talked about this witha, a, a pastor friend of mine.
I was really close to him.
And.
I was starting another businessat the time.
This was, and this was 20 yearsago.
And so he would ask me questionsabout it and everything.
And, you know, I was able topull, I was able to pull

(01:42:39):
spreadsheets and look atfinancial data and stuff.
And that's kind of what you doto, to judge how, how a new
business is doing.
You know, you look at theperformance and I asked him one
day, I said, how do you do thatwith church?
Yeah.
You know, like, what do you lookat?
And he said, John, we, we can't,you know, cause we can't, we

(01:43:00):
can't look at people's hearts,you know, and I, I, I've always
thought, man, what a struggle.

BRANDON (01:43:06):
Yeah.
Well, and I came out of theconstruction business, so I was,
um.
Um, in roofing for 10 years.
And so I was accustomed to everyday when I left, I could look at
what I had accomplished.
Yeah, you were buildingsomething.
Yeah.
I could look at this, the schooland I could go before I got here
this morning, there were no roofpanels on that wing of that
school.
Yeah.

(01:43:27):
Now there are.
When I got into ministry, one ofthe toughest transitions was I
left almost every day.
Not knowing really what did Iaccomplish.
Yeah.
And and that can be a challengebut that's where you know you go
back to god's word and he tellsus like if you do not grow weary
in doing good and do season youwill reap a harvest.

(01:43:49):
Yeah.
It doesn't say you might.
It says you will.
It says you will.
Yeah.
Yeah.

KIP (01:43:53):
You know, it's interesting you say that because Sunday as
we were driving home fromchurch, my wife looked at me and
she goes, you know, we go toFirst Baptist, Doctor Waters and
she goes, do you think DoctorWaters when he.
preaches his heart out, youknow, for salvation and no one
comes forward.
Do you think that that hurtshim?
You know, do you think that thatsaddens him or whatever?

(01:44:14):
And I thought about it for aminute and I said, well, you
know, he wants people to come,but I think he also understands
that what he's doing is plantingseeds and we don't always see.
That seed grow immediately, youknow, and so while you don't,
you see a school being built andyou can take satisfaction that

(01:44:37):
as Christians, we have to plantseeds and and uh, you know, I
tell the story.
I had a kid one time played forme and he was going through a
lot of things when he played forme.
We didn't have the bestrelationship.
This is when I was coaching highschool boys basketball and about
10 years after he graduated, wecame back for a funeral for one
of his teammates.
Yeah.

(01:44:57):
And he pulled me aside and hesaid, coach, you're not as
stupid as I thought you were.
And I kind of laughed and wetalked a little bit, but what he
was saying was, coach, you, youwere putting things into my life
that at that time I didn'tunderstand and I couldn't relate
to.
But as I've grown, gotten olderand I've had family, I'm married

(01:45:19):
and things, he says, now I lookback on the things that you were
telling me.
And I realized how true thosethings were, you know, so all I
was doing at that moment when heand I were not butting heads and
we were not having the greatestrelationship, I was trying to
plant seeds in his life.
And it was very, most of thetime you don't get to even see
those grow.

(01:45:39):
Yeah.
I, I thanked him that he, hetold me that, you know, because
it reinforced my belief thatthat's what we do as Christians.
We plant seeds and then, I don'tknow, somewhere in the New
Testament it says somebodyplants, Paul's talking, I think
it's maybe he and, I can't evenremember who it was, Apollo or
Apollo.
And he says, one of us waters,one of us plants.

(01:46:01):
God's in charge of God gives theincrease.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, you know, that's that'skind of what day by day we plant
seeds Yeah,

BRANDON (01:46:09):
you know what I had to realize in in preaching pretty
much every week somewhere is Godcalls me to do two things.
He calls me to Say what he toldme to say and he calls me to do
my best saying it and I had toget to a point where I would go

(01:46:31):
in my office, I would kneel downat the couch after a message,
and I would ask myself, did I dothose two things?
And if I did, I went to lunch.
You know, if I didn't, there wasa moment of repentance and
saying, Lord, I know I shouldhave done that.
You know, but talking about Dr.
Waters and did somebody respondor not?

(01:46:51):
I think one thing I had to, youknow, really ask myself is,
well, why do I want them torespond?
Is it to make me feel like Ipreached a good message or is it
because I truly care about themand their salvation?
The other thing that I had torealize is exactly what you just
said.
I can't save anybody, right?
Yeah, I can't do it.
All I can do is be faithful withthose two things and and I'll

(01:47:15):
even tell our people we give anopportunity to respond to
salvation like Um, you're,you're not going to hurt my
feelings by not responding.
That's not what I'm here for.
You know, I'm not here to get myego, um, you know, stroked and
feel better about myself becauseI preached this message.

(01:47:36):
But I'm, I'm given thisopportunity because God wants
you to come to him.
And I think being able to remindmyself of those things has been
very freeing for me.
Um, to not even walk aroundbeating myself up all day
Sunday, you know, because man,if I could have preached a

(01:47:56):
little better or that messagewas terrible.
And to be honest, usually Godwill do more through messages
that I think were bad than hedoes.
You know, sometimes you walk offand you're like, man, I'm going
to spike my Bible.
That was like, that was, thatwas so fun, man.
I felt like the spirit wasmoving, man.
That was awesome.
And and you know, and it's like

JOHN (01:48:19):
don't do that.
But if you do, please get it onvideo.
Yeah.
Well,

BRANDON (01:48:23):
I've done a lot of stupid things that are on video.
And so, um, but, but, you know,a lot of times what I find is
God does more through, as weknow, like when I'm weak, he's
strong and it's not my strengththat brings people to salvation.
It's the message.
And the message has an anointingof the Holy Spirit that.

(01:48:44):
Um, does things that we can't doand, and looking at I remember
one time, um, after a message, Ifelt like it was so bad.
I didn't want to give himsalvation invitation, but in my
heart, I knew I was supposed to,and I walked off the stage and
didn't, and the Lord rebuked meand was like, do not ever not

(01:49:07):
give that opportunity.
Because you're looking at whatyou've done.
And, and I remember that, likeit was just, and it's been
several years ago, but you know,God gives the increase, you
know, and.
Um, that word is good seed, andif you can just get it out
there, it's going to find somegood soil, um, and eventually

(01:49:28):
it's going to produce a harvest,um, you know, in people's
hearts, and so,

JOHN (01:49:33):
um, Well, and, and, you know, so, a lot has to happen
for salvation to occur, right?
The reading of the word, and themovement of the Holy Spirit,
without those two things, thereare none saved, right?
And.
Um, you know, I I talk about it,um, like with doing youth events

(01:49:55):
or doing summer camps orsomething every, every year, the
same kids are getting saved, youknow, and it's like, and that's
okay.
You know, it's like, man, wewant you to, we want you to, to
go through that or whatever.
We want you to, you know,hopefully it's going to stick at

(01:50:16):
some point, but it's like, it'sfalling on that rocky ground.
Yeah.
You know, and it grows a littlebit, but then something comes
along and just completely wipesit out.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.

BRANDON (01:50:24):
Quick funny story.
Um, oh, funny and, and yeah,funny.
Um, so we had a lady in ourchurch who, um, was getting on
up in age, and this was early,early on after we started the
church.
And we probably had a hundred,150 people come in at that time.
A lot of college studentsstarting to drift in and, um.

(01:50:47):
So, every week that I would givea salvation opportunity, we
would ask people to stand ifthey wanted to receive salvation
and so, I would say, you know,just stand to your feet.
We want to help you take yournext steps in faith.
It's the beginning, not the end,right?
And so, um, you know, and Iwould say, stand your feet.
Well, this lady, poor lady, shewould gotten where she just,

(01:51:11):
she's kinda like me.
She couldn't remember stuff.
Well, she would stand up forevery salvation invitation.
But what was funny about it isthere were people there who
wanted to stand up, but theywouldn't.
And when she would stand up,they would feel free to do it.
And so I actually did herfuneral and I'm like, I wonder

(01:51:31):
how many people responded tosalvation over the years because
they felt the freedom to be ableto do that.
But it's kind of like you said.
So, I think that justconsistently responding over and
over for her, it was a differentreason.

JOHN (01:51:44):
Yeah.

BRANDON (01:51:44):
But I think a lot of times, it can be the rocky soil
or it can be what we talkedabout last week, not having a
security in our salvation.
Yeah, not,

JOHN (01:51:53):
not truly knowing for whatever reason or thinking,
man, maybe, maybe I, maybe Ididn't actually.
Maybe I didn't, you know,experience salvation.
Maybe I didn't receivesalvation.
Maybe I'm, maybe I misunderstoodsomething because if I, if I'm
facing this temptation now, whyam I facing this temptation?
Why haven't I been, why haven'tI been fixed?
Right?
And and

BRANDON (01:52:15):
then one thing I would caution people to is if you, if
you've had a difficult timeovercoming a temptation, it
doesn't mean God's given up onyou.
Like, it doesn't mean God hasn'tpicked you or chosen you.
It means you're human.

(01:52:35):
Right?
Yeah.
And, and I've had people whohave had that struggle that God
must not love me if I have tokeep dealing with this.
Well, again, goes against hisword.

JOHN (01:52:45):
Yeah.
And God wants more for us.
Right.
And Kip, you wrote a book.
Talk to us about that becauseyou talk a lot about.
How God wants more for us andmore from, from this life and
more for us to, to be able toput aside the things that, that
drag us down.
Um, Well, you know,

KIP (01:53:03):
I kind of, it's kind of a story in my life a little bit.
I was saved at seven.
But I actually, as I look backyears later, I didn't really
grow.
I just kind of drive it.
The analogy I had was kind offloating down a lazy river.
I was going in the rightdirection.
but it wasn't very fast.
And it wasn't

JOHN (01:53:21):
because of effort that you were.
Oh, I was, I was in church.
I

KIP (01:53:25):
was, I was doing everything that you, my grandfather was my
pastor.
My parents were there everySunday.
You know, I mean, I was doingall the things, but it just, I
believe, and I know I reallybelieve I was saved, but I just
wasn't doing the work to, togrow in my, my faith.
And there came a point when Iwas about 37.

(01:53:46):
And some circumstances in mylife occurred that I really came
to where I, I realized that Icould do, I could be much more
for God, that there was so muchmore of God that I was missing
out on in my life.
And, and over the course of thenext 20 some years, um, God kind
of put that on my heart.

(01:54:08):
And you know, when, um, when Godtook me out of coaching, he gave
me time, he, he isolated me.
And during that period ofisolation.
I kind of went back to all thosethings that had occurred in that
time in terms of, of I needed togrow more.
I need, and you know, thatverse, uh, you know, John 15,

(01:54:30):
one and two, I think it is wherehe says, I'm the true grapevine.
The father is the gardener.
You know, he cuts off everybranch of mine that does not
produce fruit and he prunesthose branches that do bear
fruit.
So they'll produce.
produce even more.
And that word, just more juststuck in me.
And, and I felt during that timethat he wanted me to share some

(01:54:52):
of the things he had taught meabout growth, about spiritual
growth.
And so, um, you know, I, I, I, Iwrote it down and put it in a
book and took a couple of yearsto write, which was a great
experience.
Uh, so far, God's not used it alot, you know, I know the
feeling.
So, uh, you know, but He hasopened up some doors through it.

(01:55:15):
Yeah.
And, uh, you know, I continue topray that he'll use it, the
book, and myself, uh, in termsof sharing.
I look at myself now as, Icoached basketball for 41 years,
and I look now as, I feel likehe's put a desire in my heart to
coach spiritual growth, and soI'm just looking for
opportunities now to do that,uh, to, to share what God taught

(01:55:37):
me about, because I think, I, Icome at spiritual growth from
how a coach looks.
not from how a minister wouldlook at things or a theologian
or someone like that.
So I come at it from an idea ofa game plan, putting together a
game plan that God showed me.
I felt like in Phoenix, youknow, and, and I tried to live
out for 20 years.

(01:55:58):
So, um, you know, that's thedesire of my heart right now.
I'm in a phase where I'm kindof, Okay, God, now what, you
know, the book's written and I'mwanting to do this, um, but I
don't feel like he's opening alot of doors, you know, so, um,
but, uh, I trust him.
I really do.
I trust him for his timing.
And right now my big thing isprepare yourself, you know, make

(01:56:21):
sure you're ready when God isready to use you.
It's like the verse in the Biblethat I love, I look around and I
see all this bold stuff whereGod, one of the, I think it was
one of the prophets talkedabout, you're like an arrow.
God, God, God, God, God.
has been put in the quiver andit's just sitting there.
It's just waiting and waiting.
And when your time's ready, whenGod's ready, he'll reach in,

(01:56:42):
grab that arrow, you, and he'll,he'll fire it.
He'll shoot it.
And he'll put you into whateverhe wants, you know?
So, um, you know, uh, I, yeah,spiritual growth has become
like, I desire my heart, uh, forfirst for myself, because if I
don't do it, I can't talk aboutit, but then to help other

(01:57:02):
believers, hopefully in thatjourney to become more for God.

JOHN (01:57:06):
Yeah.
Well, you're gonna, you'regonna, you're gonna like the
lesson this week, Ben.
Good.
Good.
Yeah.
So, Kip and I, we're, we're inthe same, uh, Sunday school
small group together.
And, uh, and we're going througha study, uh, called Holiness by
J.
C.
or R.
C.
Ryle?
I think it's R.
C.
R.
C.
Ryle.

(01:57:27):
Uh, which he was, uh, he was,uh, a man from another time.
He was like, his contemporarieswere like, uh, Abraham Lincoln,
right?
To put in perspective when, whenthis book was written, but it's,
it's rich and it's, uh, so whatwe're talking about this week in
our, in our quest for holinessis growth.
Uh, and that really falls intowhat we're talking about today.

(01:57:49):
You know, how do we get to aplace where we overcome
temptation?
Well, the reality is it's notgoing to go away, right?
That's what we've talked aboutso far today is it's not going
to go away just like with Jesus.
Satan himself tempted him andthen came back 3 years later to
tempt him again.
When it was the, like you said,the opportune time or the
opportune moment to do that.

(01:58:10):
So, it's not going to go away,but how we can be prepared for
it.
You know, how we can be preparedto handle that and be on our
guard.
You know, and realizing that,you know, we look at, we can
look at life as a race.
And which race are we trying towin?
Are we trying to win that racethat that that horizontal race

(01:58:33):
or are we pressing on towards adifferent goal?
And I think that that's what Ithink that's what we really need
to set our mind to is the Thegood and true goal that we
should be driving towards, um,and you know, like I said, it's
gonna, it's gonna hit us atdifferent times and different
moments and, and, and differentseasons of life.

(01:58:55):
It's going to present itself in,in different ways and being in
that place to be able to, torespond to it, um, is, is, uh,
is what we're, what we're calledto do.
You know,

KIP (01:59:07):
this whole podcast about growth.
Yeah.
You're trying to grow.
Archers.
Yep.
You know, uh, you're, and, andeverything in our life's about
growth.
Right.
We should be growing ourmarriage.
Yep.
We should be growing, you know,everything we do should be,
should be that idea.
Satan is trying, he doesn't wantgrowth, you know, in our lives.
He doesn't want us to get closerto God, so he's doing everything

(01:59:29):
in his power to go against us.
Yeah.
To stunt that growth.
To stunt that growth.
Yeah.
And so, you know, if, if, ifwe're not growing, we're not.
Living as God would have us todo not just spiritually.
Yeah, but in everything.
Yeah, and so Yeah, it's life'sabout constant growth and change
is not always good.

(01:59:50):
So we don't have to necessarilychange We just got to do what
we're doing better sometimes.

JOHN (01:59:54):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's not always about Igot to change, I got to change
this.
I got to change that.
That may not be the answer, youknow?
I mean, it's okay to fightchange because sometimes you
might be doing exactly what youneed to be doing.
You might not be getting theresults that you think you
should be.
That doesn't mean you need tojust do a complete overhaul
change of everything in yourlife.
Yeah.
Sometimes, sometimes perfectexecution does not yield good

(02:00:17):
results.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, so like we startedout the conversation talking
about that athlete that we seethat is just an incredible
athlete, you know, If he hadn'tpracticed and prepared and known
and studied that that playbookAnd know that okay when they
call this play, this is theroute i'm supposed to run.
Well, he might run A fantasticroute and he might get open But

(02:00:42):
if he's five yards from wherethe quarterback is expecting him
to be they ain't gonna connect.
Yeah,

BRANDON (02:00:47):
and think about another baseball analogy

JOHN (02:00:49):
Yeah,

BRANDON (02:00:50):
you've practiced you go to the plate you execute the
swing perfectly you get theright pitch You want to hit you
square it up.
You're on time.
You mash it a line drive andit's straight to the center
field,

JOHN (02:01:01):
right?

BRANDON (02:01:02):
Yeah.
You know, perfect execution.
Yeah, but what, but what

JOHN (02:01:06):
the coach called was a bun.
You're supposed to lay thatthing down.
Well, or, or, or, yeah.
Yeah.
You walk out there and you'relooking at the first base
coaching, you're like, what?
But what, what was the lastthing he did?
Oh, home run.
I got it.
Coach It's probably not what hecalled.
I wish it was that easy.

KIP (02:01:22):
Yeah.
Now you're in disobedience, sothat Yeah.
You know, I think about, um,

BRANDON (02:01:26):
I guess the last thing I would say in regard to this
is.
My advice is just to encouragepeople who may be struggling
with something is one, toremember you will not regret
living for God.
Like when you get to the end ofyour life, you're not going to
regret living for God.
Two, you're not going to regretdoing things God's way.

(02:01:47):
Nobody ever made the greatestmistake of their life doing what
God told them to do.
Um, three, don't let shame keepyou from getting help.
And the last one I would say isdon't do life alone, you know,
in our lives, we all have, weall have fans, we all have
friends and we all have foes.

(02:02:08):
And the ones we really want arethose friends who will walk
beside us and, um, cause we'renot meant to do it by ourselves.
That's a

JOHN (02:02:18):
good word.
That's really good.
All right, guys, let's wrap itup.
Thank all of you for joining usthis morning.
Wes, thank you for being here.
I know you didn't say a lot, butI know you were listening over
there.
So.
We never know what these seedsare going to do in your life,
buddy.
So, Kip, I appreciate you beinghere.
It's been an honor, John.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
So, and Brandon, I'm glad youwere here.

(02:02:39):
We'll have you back again.
Don't worry.
You think so?
Oh, wow.
New life.
New life.
Just don't screw it up again.
That's right.
That's right.
Alright, let's get out of
here.

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Ep. 20 - Everyone LOVES Game day!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 20 - Everyone LOVES Game day!