August 15, 2025 • 53 mins
Are we chasing happiness the wrong way? Best-selling author Pastor Mike Hayes, known for his million-copy book God’s Law of First Things, and Dr. Jeffrey Garner, pastor, community leader, and spiritual director, join us to unpack their new book Real Happy: Jesus’ Surprising Path to Genuine Joy. Together, they dive into the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, reframing them as “happy oracles” that reveal joy is not found in material gain but in spiritual depth. In this inspiring conversation, Mike and Jeffrey share powerful personal stories and timeless truths that challenge cultural myths about happiness and guide us toward a deeper, more lasting joy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to I Am Refocused Radio with your
host Shamaia Read. This show is designed to inspire you
to live your purpose and regain your focus. And now
here's your host, Shamaiah Read.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome talking to Focused Radio. We are back again and
this time we have two special guests. We're going to
have Pastor Mike Case and also we're going to have
doctor Jeffrey Garner. They are going to share with us
a new book that you need to go get right now.
It's all right out right now on Amazon. I got
five stars, got a lot of people talking about it.
(00:37):
I mean over one hundred plus I think the last
time taking its one hundred and forty something gratings. So
this is definitely something you wanted to then to the town.
The book is Real Happy Jesus Surprising Path to Genuine Joy.
And I think you're going to get a good take
out of this because a lot of times we are
always shopping for a new book and something that's going
(00:57):
to inspire us, and this is going to do just that.
So first and foremost, I want to welcome you both
to the show, Pastor Mike Case, and also for you,
doctor Jeffrey Garner. I know y'all busy with y'all schedules,
So thank you for claying some time talking to our
audience today. How y'all doing.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well. It's our pleasure. Thank you for having us on.
We're looking forward to the talk.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
I appreciate it be here, really excited to be on
the show.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I appreciate it. So let's get right to the chase,
because y'all you can google them on Google. They're pretty
high maintenance. They got a lot of good stuff on
the resume. So we're gonna go right into the book.
Let's go with Mike. How did you have a chance
to meet doctor Jeffrey Garner and what sparked idea to
(01:46):
make this book happen.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Jeff and I met, we knew love each other, but
met in about two thousand and ten and at a
conference that actually he hosted in his building. Actually he
let us use it to host a conference in his
building in San Francisco. And as I got to know Jeff,
(02:10):
I respected his work and his brilliance, his scholarship, his mind.
And Jeff can tell some of this as his own story,
but from me, I had this book in my heart.
I was in Israel a few years earlier, and I
was there on the Mountain of Beatitudes where Jesus taught
(02:32):
these principles, and just felt it in my heart really
strongly to write a book about happiness, because I was
learning a lot that I didn't know. And the reality
is everybody, everybody in the world wants to be happy,
but everyone in the world is not happy, and I
was basically one of them. I was doing everything I
(02:53):
knew to do right, I was working hard, I had
a good family and friends and so forth. But deep
down inside, I wasn't real happy. And we can get
into the core reasons for that, but one of them
is that so many of us in the world have
had whatever our experience is, whatever our religious background is,
(03:18):
and mine happens to be a Christianity, but whatever your
background is, it is replete with guilt and shame and
feelings of remorse, and fairly sure that God is not
pleased with us. We're always striving to make him happy.
(03:40):
I'm pretty sure he's not really happy with us. And
that's what a lot of religion amounts to, is the
pursuit of trying to make a reluctant and unhappy God happy.
With us, even though we know that we're flawed and
not perfect. So when I had a real breakthrough with that,
understood how much God wants us to know how happy
(04:06):
he is with us and wants us to have a
relationship that is mutually enjoyable. You know, when you start
to see God as your father, you can't imagine a
good father, and he's a good father. I couldn't imagine
a father. I had a great father. My lay dad
(04:27):
was a great father, and I knew how much he
loved me and how frilled he was when I was
happy with whatever I was doing.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
He was happy with me.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
And so when I changed my concept and started looking
for it in places where it should have been obvious
but it wasn't, it revolutionized my life. And now I
have gone through difficult things as we all face in
our lives, but I have a deep, settled joy and
a happiness that I didn't have for much of my life.
(05:01):
And I found myself trained to pastor, raising up a
church where I was encouraging others, and I wasn't even
sure I was in good standing On some days. My
relationship was shaky because I thought it was based on
my behaviors, and performance, and if I was doing good,
(05:24):
I thought God was probably okay with me. If I wasn't,
or I'd made any kind of a mistake, I was
sure that he wasn't. And then that all got turned
on its head. And when I understood and in the
research of this book, and Jeff is a brilliant scholar
and researcher, and we actually got really serious about this
(05:44):
because one of the mistakes that I made, and that
I think a lot of people make, and I want
Jeff to amplify this, but one of the mistakes I
was making is that I wasn't sure God wanted me
to be happy, and I was sure that it was
somehow trivial. In fact, when I first felt the impetus
(06:08):
to write this book and I talked to Jeff about it,
I was questioning the importance of it because I was
sure that to God, as big and great as he is,
that happiness must be a really trivial subject for him.
And when I found out how anchored he is in us,
being filled with joy as his highest creation, and how
(06:32):
happy he wants to be and is with us, it
changed my world. So Jeff and I took a deep
dive into this, and I understand now what I didn't before.
Happiness is not only not trivial to God, but our
happiness is of extreme importance to him.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And with that said, for you, Jeff, unless you get
here too when you think about the bad too and
how they often deal with pain and poverty of the spirit, mourning, persecution,
how do you hope when readers started reading this book
can get better grass to the sense of Jesus calling
(07:16):
that happiness to take a fit because it's not something
that I believe we just kind of do sometimes it's
something we have to learn.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Yeah, that's a I like the way you framed that question.
I you know, when Mike asked me to kind of
participate on the side of participating research of it, so
it was his kind of it was his moment, like
he had a spiritual moment in Israel where he on
the Mount Viatitudes where he really sensed that there was
(07:50):
more to this, and so when he invited me onto
the team to be part of researching and working through it,
I didn't have any idea of like where this was going.
I was just kind of like, Oh, let's let's dig
in and let's see what it is. I mean, I'm
not sure. And he had said, because he had already
(08:11):
done some research. He had said, you know, I suspect
that this is happiness. And my initial thought, like what
you're asking, My initial thought was happiness and mourning happiness
and hungry happiness. Like the language was so there was
such a stark contrast of the things that we typically
(08:34):
associate with unhappiness is now Jesus is kind of connecting
these dots together, right, so poor in spirit, hunger and thirst,
you know, meek, you know. And so I was like, yeah,
I'll research, I'll jump into it. And I remember that
looking at the word, digging into the word a little bit,
(08:56):
and then digging back into the kind of the Greek
idea of where macarios the Greek word for happy, where
that comes from. And then I was like, so, my
doctoral my expertise is in the field of exegetical so
original languages and exegetical theology. And I was like, this
(09:20):
is really weird, Like why didn't the translators translate this
as happy because it is obviously happy. There is another
Greek word for blessed, and that's not the word Jesus uses,
So why are we using that word in English. So
I'm digging there doing a little bit of research, and
then I started having my own epiphany around, you know,
(09:40):
which is Translators do this sometimes because one person kind
of sets the precedence and then everyone else kind of follows.
And I think for translators the thought was, well, happy
is just too fluffy, Happy is just too shallow. Happy
doesn't Jesus couldn't possibly be talking about happiness, So let's
(10:02):
go ahead and call it blessed well. For us, blessed
is so flat. I mean, it doesn't what does that
even mean anymore?
Speaker 5 (10:10):
You know?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
And and oftentimes we put it in this kind of
this ethereal place out here. It's kind of who you're
blessed well, and it's so abstract we don't even know
what that means. It's like, but macarios isn't. Macarios is
like if you if you're in Greece. Mike and I've
been to Greece a couple of times together, and you know,
(10:32):
they macios is the word they use for blissful. It's
not just like I'm happy with a smile. It's like
I am like belly laughing happy, and that this is
the word that Jesus uses I found like this deserves
another another look. And so, you know, going back and
looking at this word and then trying to connect it
(10:53):
with what Jesus was saying, I realized, Wow, this was
a word that was used by you know, Socrates was
kind of the as the father of philosophy, he's kind
of the first thinker, and happiness was his subject that
he started digging to. And then Plato and Aristotle like
this is what they would talk about, the happy life.
(11:14):
But it was always connected to the gods. It's always
connected to the pantheon of the Greek gods, you know,
the goddess of wine, the goddess of merriment and mirth,
you know, and it's never connected to ordinary people. In fact,
ordinary people couldn't have it. Eventually they started saying, you know,
through virtue, you could, you could have macarios, but we're
(11:36):
so far removed from having any virtue that we can't
get to virtue, let alone then get to happiness. And
Jesus steps on kind of debuts his first message, his
first sermon with this word happiness. Like he's going to
offer them not ten commandments or you know, eight paths
of what you need to do or he's going to offer.
(12:00):
He's going to offer people happiness. And so he starts
with just ordinary fishermen, the common folk, blue collar workers.
He starts off by redistributing happiness from the gods so
to speak to the ordinary people. And he does it
by marrying that word with our everyday struggles right poor
in spirit, hunger and thirsting for righteousness, being meek and
(12:25):
not being necessarily assertive and grabbing or taking or being
aggressive and pulling things to us that it's not something
that we that we pursue. It's not external, but it's
an internal reality. It's something that's in here which we
kind of intuitively know, but the world around us tells
(12:46):
us something different. So I you know, when when you know,
when Mike said that and suggested that, and then I
started digging through it, I had my own moment in
that journey of going, Gosh, this is something that not
only does God want for us, but this is something
(13:07):
that God is doing everything that God can to get
it to us, no matter where we're at, and we
just have to kind of make room for it, you
know that. And that was kind of like for me,
that was kind of like the first like I think
The image I have on my mind when I say
that is if you're in a dark room and you
walk over and you pull back the curtain and the
sun's shining outside, and if you just if you just
(13:29):
pull back the curtain, it makes room and the sun
comes flooding in, like it just it rushes in. And
I felt like that's what Jesus was offering us in
those when he went through these eight beautiful happy oracles,
that he was offering us, Hey, it's as it's as
easy as this, it's right here, it's it's in your breath,
(13:51):
it's in your moments. And so I think at that
point I was so excited to then start unpacking, you know,
the the An eight with Mike and looking at each
one because it was a I've never heard anyone approach
it from that perspective before, and I felt it was
fresh and not just for the sake of the beatitudes,
(14:14):
but I think it was offering what a lot of
scholars have been a recent scholar theologians have been saying
that there has to be a return to within theology,
there has to be a return to joy and a
return to happiness. But they weren't giving the theological tools
for that. They were just observing that there's a need here,
(14:35):
there's a loss, there's a deficit, and it was like, yes,
we're onto this is the first place to begin.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Again, listen to hom we focus ready watching this online.
I'm talking to our guests today too of the pastor
Mike Case and also doctor Jeffrey Garner talking about their
boody and get right now is available? Is We're happy?
Jesus surprising path to genuine joy? I want to kind
of diving one night. Genuine part genuine joy you kind
of touch on it with the spirit. And if you
(15:08):
say spirit versus material, we live in a world where
material happiness it's like a band aid. No, we all
naturally want to have success. We all naturally want to
achieve certain things, whether it's on paper with a degree
or if it's a certificate, some award. It's always something
(15:29):
that we see in the physical world. But when think
of the spiritual side of things, we can have all
those materials but still feel empty. How does the book
navigate that tone as well? Because what I'm getting from
it is that there is a in there place that
(15:50):
needs to be developed, and it's kind of hard to
do that from an external point of.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
View, I think you know, and Jeff did a good
job opening this up. And if I could just jump
on the translation for a moment, because all of these
eight oracles, they don't really build on each other, they
all stand alone. However, I think it's fitting that this
was the first one because the normal translation to English says,
(16:20):
blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven, and the proper translation of those words
is more like this, really blissfully, unbelievably happy are those
who create a void in their heart for God to fill.
(16:44):
It's definitely the word for void or empty. Now that's
very different than Blessed are the poor in spirit? Because
listen through the ages and church history is the thing.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
That I've always been interested in.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
My dad taught Old Testament church history in a Bible college.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
I was raised around. I love history.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
But when you look at the history, one of the
reasons that the church centuries ago created what they called
a vow of poverty is that those who are in
ministry cannot own any personal accruiterments of this world. They
can't have their own place, their property, even their clothing,
(17:28):
and so the goal became. I read a very sad
book written by a monk whose goal was the one garment,
robe that I have made of like burlap, the one
garment I have. I must not come to the end
of my life and die with this garment having a
(17:52):
life still.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
Left in it.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
I have to time the ware of this garment and
my lifespan so that it's totally worn out and worthless
when I live my last day. Otherwise I'm not going
to satisfy this requirement that I have taken, which is
a vow of poverty, taken primarily from this verse. This
(18:17):
is not what Jesus intention was at all for us
to live under a vow of poverty. It was are
you willing to create an empty place that I can fill?
How long are you going to keep filling it with
boats and houses and girls and men and designer clothes
(18:41):
and fame and fortune. There's no room for me. So
if you want real happiness, you've got to start emptying
some things out and then there's room for real, genuine
joy to come in. But you know what, I'm not
sure because we're all living our lives, right, and I've
(19:02):
lived probably I know, more years than either one of
you guys have so in that regard, I got you. Well,
it's almost like we have to learn this for ourselves,
because I had someone I was talking to about this
one time. They're like, well, you've had a lot of success, though,
let me experience some success and then I'll tell you,
(19:23):
whether I agree with you or not, that that's not
the way you find real happiness. But see, I can
tell you from the other side of that journey that
striving for happiness by the stuff we accumulate is a
worthless journey. I live here in Dallas, and I suppose
(19:43):
I'm a frustrated Cowboy fan, because if you follow the Cowboys,
you're going to have some frustration. But I remember one time,
at one time I had twenty five of the starters
on the Dallas Cowboys in the Great Years members of
my church, and I knew them very well, and I
(20:03):
was a chaplain for the Cowboys for them for those teams,
I did chapels for them, pregame chapels for several years.
I remember when a few years ago in the Great
Years of the Cowboys, when they won three out of
five or six years the Super Bowl. One of the
linemen that was all pro and he was a funny guy,
(20:24):
and he attended our church, and I asked him about
the joy of winning the super Bowl, and he just
got in his ring and he's like, you know, it
didn't last as long as I thought. I said, really.
He said, yeah, you know, you set your whole life
goal for this, then you win it. And he threw
back his head and left. He was a real funny
guy anyway, and he said they do it every year.
(20:44):
In other words, if I'm placing my whole life and
happiness on winning this and I did, then next year
it's a whole new contest, and I don't know if
I will or not, so maybe I won't be happy
very long.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
So we all have to learn that.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Lesson though, for ourselves, that the pursuit of things as
success doesn't result in happiness. And then, as I was
going to say, the opposite that Jesus taught surprised me.
In the Beatitudes, the opposite of happiness is not unhappiness.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
The opposite of happiness is worry.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Because in that message, the second half of his message,
after he gives us eight ways to be really happy,
he just attacks worry. That's why I've got this little
poppy pin on my shirt.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Here.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
We put it on the front of our book because
the translators changed it in about the fifteen hundreds to
a lily, but it was actually the word for poppy,
because that's a flower that grows all over the northern
hills of Israel, and Jesus probably just pointed down at
one that was growing. There were growing everywhere when I
(22:01):
was sitting on that hill and got the impetus to
write this book. And Jesus said, consider the poppies. They
don't work hard, they don't dress themselves. They're planted and
rooted in ground that they have no guarantee that it's
going to rain tomorrow. But they're beautiful and they're waving
in the breeze. And he made the analogy they are
(22:25):
happy because they're worry free.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
They're just dependent.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
He said, Solomon, our greatest king, was never dressed like
one of them. Look at them. They're filled with joy,
they're bright in color, and they're not worrying. So the
other half of the message of happiness is the learning
the absence of worry and worry at the same time,
(23:00):
they don't fit.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Or scaring. Listen, not refocus, ready in watching this online
and you can get a copy of this book, like
I said, is on Amazon available. Real Happy, She's a
surprising path to genuine joy. And everything he's saying ties
back to my earlier pitch about focusing on the word
genuine because when you think about genuine, first thing I
(23:24):
feel is what's really real and what's just kind of
noise out there. And when you think about some places
in the Bible and talks about you know, God knows
the plans for you. He's not guessing the plans. He's
saying he knows the plans. So that kicks out worry
out the door. Supposedly we're human nature, so we're going
(23:46):
worry no matter what. But he kind of does take
care of those aspects of I already have my plans
for you. You don't really have to worry about a
whole lot except for maybe follow my lead. Maybe because
when we try to our own path, it seems to
take us to hard knocks of life. So my last
thing I want to say before I pass it to
(24:08):
Jeffrey is the other thing that's interesting when you look
at the Bible. I'm an amateur, I'm not a pastor,
but looking through a lens of someone who's trying to
learn about it and trying to understand it better. The
only way you actually get better is if you get involved.
(24:29):
Like you can't just feel happy and say happy things
and have happy thoughts. You have to have to be
involved at some point, and that takes you outside your
comfort zone. So that's basically I'm trying to pitch to you,
doctor Jeffrey, is when you think about being active, how
(24:51):
much does that play and whole weight to the whole
process of being happy because anybody can have a happy thought.
How you start changing. You don't mean to.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Say, yeah, you know you're connecting that, you're connecting to
dot that it's it's it's like really in fact, it's
it's how Jesus ends that sermon on the Mount. He
talks about you know, there's two men building a house,
and one builds his house on sand and it collapses
because of a storm, and the other one builds his
house on a rock and the same storm comes along
(25:25):
and his house is fine. He just says, the people
that take my words and just talk about them are
people that build their house on sand. It's not going
to do you any good. Storm is going to come
along and because you're not actively following and engaging them
in your life doing them. But if you're a wise person,
(25:46):
you take what I'm saying and you act on it.
You do something about it, and as it as it
relates to you know, I like to the principles of
real happy, of the beatitudes and the behaviors that we
take on. I think you know, Jesus gives like three
(26:06):
action items that a person can gage that they can
engage in. On the same sermon, right after he talks
about the happiness, he says, you can, you know, be
generous and give. That's one way you can make room
is by taking some of the extra stuff you have
in your life and sharing it with someone else. He
talks about fasting, But you can Another way is you
(26:29):
can abstain from something instead of just consuming everything media, TV, entertainment, whatever.
Pull back and create margin in your life by abstaining
from something, by creating some abstinence in your life. And
then the third thing he says has to do with
our times. It's prayer creating margin or time in your
(26:52):
life to have a conversation with God or to let
God have a conversation with you. It creates space for
the happiness and the joy of Heaven to flood into
your heart. But if you're so busy pursuing this, chasing that,
trying to accomplish, accomplish, this, trying to possess that, if
(27:13):
you're so busy with all of that, you won't have
margin in your life to experience the happiness that God
wants to fill you with. And Mike said it so well,
you know, it's like we're trying to put Saint Augustine said,
you know, we have this God sized hole inside of us,
(27:33):
and we feel empty, and so we start cramming everything
from material to you know, accomplishments, achievements, education, whatever it is.
And you get the degree, and then you're like, well,
I need another one, I need another one. It's never enough.
It's constant, it's with everything, and at some point you
(27:55):
have to stop and just go, Okay, these things don't
fit in this hole in my heart. I am made
in the image of God. In fact, there's this Jewish
idea that when it says that we are made in
the image of God, it's like an imprint, Like if
you took your hand and you pushed it into the
sand and it creates a space right that we are
this imprint of God and the only thing that can
(28:17):
fit in that is God. That we have this kind
of this space for God to feel. And so you
have to find the things that get you there, and
you have to act on it. And I think when
a person does that, they find themselves behaving or responding
their way into new ways of thinking, into new ways
(28:40):
of experience that you can't have. You have to have
an experience of it by the things in your life,
by your behaviors that open you up to an understanding.
That's what I'm trying to say. And so yes, absolutely
it is not just we sit around and we talk
about it, but it's an actual stepping forward, responding in
(29:05):
obedience to what to not call that Christ is calling
us to.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And Pastor hayes On kind of jumped on that is
that you think about renewing of your mind. Bible talks
about somewhere y'all know the address better I do, but
he also talks about knack of farming to the world.
But best question, and I think your mind, how I
would like to say our mind.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
It's not in the scripture.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
It should be, but you can't, it said that you
can't feel your way into an action, but you can
act your way into a feeling.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
And there's a whole lot of people sitting around and listen.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I don't mean this statement I'm about to make to
be harsh or to be judgmental about anybody I have
taken in my life before. I have taken antidepressant medication
when I needed it. And I understand that maybe fifty
percent of America takes some form of something trying to
(30:06):
make sure that their metal capacity is where they would
like it to be. But the bottom line is those
experts that are in that field, and I am not
one that is an expert on the brain and understanding
the mind and how that works, will tell you. They'll
be the first to tell you that, you know, we
can medicate and we can help, but most of the
(30:30):
people that we treat, there is a common thread that
is often there, and it is that their life has
spiraled in and in and in until they are the
middle of the whole thing.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
So your thoughts become how you're doing. It's like that funny.
This is probably a dad joke. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
For some reason, I find it funnier than everybody else
but this guy that was real narcissistic.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
He was sitting with his friend in a restaurant over.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Coffee and he talked about himself NonStop for two hours,
and then finally he said, listen, I have taken so
much time talking about me. Let's change the subject. What
do you think about me? So somehow our lives get
(31:28):
so entwined with us. And what Jesus was saying is
kick some walls down and get out there and get
involved a little bit with somebody else and their situation,
and you'll be shocked how much joy you can get
out of that. This is very practical, but I literally
(31:50):
tell people that I'm counseling because most of the people
I know have more clothes in their closet than they
can wear. And they probably even have a storage place
rented for two hundred dollars a month to put some
more stuff that they can't put in their closet. And
I say to them, listen, why don't you go home
and go through your closet and be really generous. Don't
(32:12):
think about I'm going to get rid of the junk
or the stuff that's out of style. Be really generous
and take half of the clothes in your closet, half
of the shoes and give them away. Go give them
to a local ministry or goodwill that's doing things for
people that have nothing. And they are shocked at how
(32:33):
happy they feel with that act of physically getting rid
of some stuff that they really don't need because we
attach meaning to it that it doesn't deserve. You can
fill your closet up until you have no room, and
then you go rent a storage room and then you
fill that up.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
My contention is, if you've.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Got a storage building that you have visited in three years,
you don't need the stuff in the storage building, give
it away.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
So I think what we've come down to is happiness
is a verb. It's an action word.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
It shows up, it bubbles up out of your heart
and you can't help but just show it and give
it away, and it is infectuous.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Try it with a smile.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
You would be shocked how many people respond, and it's
their second response.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Their first response is to look at you weird, like
what do you want?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
And then almost instantly it's followed by a nice smile back.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
And that's something that doesn't cost you a thing.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
I smiled at somebody the other day and they looked
at me kind of almost a defensive, dirty look, and
then in one second they smiled back at me and said,
nice smile.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Thanks. I was in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Here while back, and I went in to my wife
and I were walking around in Georgetown and we went
in a antique shop and there were two elderly ladies
behind the counter, and I said, good morning, how are
you doing? Gave him a nice smile, and one of
them said, you must not be from here? Are you
from Texas? And I said, I happened to be from Texas.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
How did you know?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
I thought she picked up my accent. She said, no,
you said hi and smiled. We don't do that around here.
So everybody wants to be happy, but not everybody's practicing
a good way to do that.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
So that's what we're trying to do. Man, Just spread
the joy.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Once again. Listen. I'll be focus reading and watching us
a line and get the book copy of the book
that we've been discussing about. The whole show, Real Happy Jesus,
Surprising Path twos and you enjoy. Last thing has to
Doctor Jeffrey Garner is also in the Bible. You know
(35:08):
that there's so many different characters and stories. And what's
interesting is that every character has its flaws, has its battles,
has its ups and downs. But you can make a
point that this principle of real happy is until we
(35:29):
surrender certain things, then we probably truly will never find
that happiness.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Yeah, in fact, you know, really a great All the
four gospels have a different motif for focus on what
it looked like to follow Jesus, and the one that
you're hitting on right now is stated over and over
in Mark. Every time somebody comes to Jesus. In the
Gospel of Mark, they leave something behind. Every time. There's
(35:58):
the nets, there's the the money left at the table
with Matthew, with Levi.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
There's the.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Blind man blind man Bartimaeus, who Jesus heals him and
he gets up, and it says, and he left his
cloak behind. And the cloak was was the what they
would catch the money and that people would give. So
he leaves the container that he would beg for money,
and he leaves that behind. And then the very end
of the book you have the young man running through
the garden without any clothes on. It's just like this,
(36:29):
you know, when Jesus goes to the cross. It's this
moment of letting go of everything, right, And I think
you're touching on a point that is that's really important.
That's really important because when we recognize what we're getting
in return, we have to let go. We let go
of something in order to open ourself up for something greater. Right,
(36:51):
there's something greater that's being offered to us. But if
I keep holding onto my toothpick for dear life, like
this is my whole life. My life depends on this toothpick.
And God's trying to offer me a golden fork, and
I'm like, but man, you have no idea. This wooden
toothpick has been with me through thick and thin. And
so there is that idea of letting go, of letting
(37:13):
go of something in order to be open to receive
something else. And one of the stories that we open
up with in the book Real Happy is it's kind
of the setting was for me was in twenty fourteen,
the two thousand and ten the San Francisco Giants were
(37:34):
playing in the World Series and I had I was
sitting at the park waiting, listening to the game, waiting
for my son who was playing had football practice and
we hit a home run, and you know, I jump
out of my car and I'm like so excited because
we hit this home run and we're going to win
(37:54):
the World Series, right, So I jump out of my
car and I start running around my car just who
you know, just jumping up and down and having a
moment like. And there was this homeless guy that's sitting
under a tree right watching this, watching this crazy guy
running around a Volkswagen Jetta, like you know, And so
(38:17):
he gets up and kind of ambles over there, and
and he starts kind of running around the car with me.
But I wasn't really thinking of it, you know, I
just was like, yeah, he runs around the car with me,
and we stop, and then he high fives me and
I high five him, and and then I turn around
and we're done kind of with the whole celebration. I
turn around and go over to the car to get
back in the car, and and as I open up
(38:38):
the door to get in the car, he taps me
on the shoulder, and so I turn around. He goes,
he goes, hey, why are we so happy?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And I was like, and he hit me.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
You know, this guy doesn't even know why I'm happy,
but he sees me happy and he wants to be
happy too, so he jumps in to my little party
that I'm having just because we all yearn. We all
yearn and we all long for happiness so much that
will celebrate. But then that's not enough, right, It's not
(39:15):
enough to just celebrate with someone else in a meaningless way.
We want to understand the meaning of happiness. And I
think that's what Jesus is doing that if a person
is willing to give up whatever and start walking down
this path, they're going to get the meaning behind the
(39:37):
joy that Jesus is offered, because that's what we want.
Why is it such good news that you're given to me?
Why are we so happy and have so much joy?
And I think the journey lets that unfold in a
deeply meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Last time, I'll it with passion. My case is soonewa washing.
I listen to this as incentives for them. Real happiness is.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Real happiness is understanding that you are deeply loved just
like you are. You don't have to perform anything, you
don't have to achieve anything, you don't have to do
anything to be impressive to God. And our example is
that when Jesus says the Son of God was being
baptized in the Jordan River, he was thirty years old.
(40:28):
He hadn't even started his ministry. He hadn't healed one person,
he hadn't preached one sermon. He had accomplished nothing but
maybe being a good son to Joseph and learning some
carpentry skills. But the Bible says that when he came
up out of the water, baptism being an act of
obedience and submission. When he came up out of the water,
(40:49):
the heaven's open and the Father was heard to say,
this is my dearly beloved son, in whom I am
so pleased. And if we don't understand that we are
unbelievably cherished and loved by God without accomplishing any of
(41:10):
the world's success marks. It's not how many benchmarks you
check off in your life that makes you happy. It
is that before you were ever formed in your mother's womb,
God bathed you in his love and his happiness. And
here's the victory that I found in researching this book
(41:31):
and change my life. Because I wasn't real happy, I
was put on happy. My happiness was I wasn't fake,
but I was going from one high to the next.
If I accomplish this, if I do this, if I
build this bigger, if I meet this person, if I
accomplish that, if I earn that, and that is in
(41:54):
my early forties, that burnt me out. That will burn
you out. I heard something crash and it was on fire,
and I looked.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
Around and it was me. Because you can only go
so long.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
And that's what millions are doing right now, trying to
do enough to earn what is already theirs. And it's
as simple as that. And real happiness is just that.
And you know what, we are sometimes often stubborn, you know.
I read one time in an old Scottish hunting lodge
(42:32):
that had been used for great world leaders to meet
and solve problems.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
They had a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Trunk of a tree had been carved out and was
mounted over this massive fireplace. And the author that had
written this that I was reading said that he was
sitting there in the evening, a couple of them, smoking
(43:00):
dog laying at his feet asleep, had had a beautiful meal,
great friends around, but things were quieting down, and he
looked up at the mantle of this fireplace, and across
the front of this massive wood mantle was carved the
words in Old English, would you choose.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
To be right or be reconciled?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
And he said, I thought about that and it changed
my life because so many times we fight to be right,
to look right, to wear the right thing, to have
the right job, to earn the right girlfriend, and meanwhile
we're not reconciled to anything in our lives. It's all
in chaos, and we're constantly striving to climb a mountain
(43:50):
that when we get to the top of it, we
won't be any happier than we were at the bottom
of it.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Because it's a spiritual issue.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
It's not an accomplished issue, and there is real happiness
available and it's.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
Right under our nose. And it's almost like that.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
One of the Beatitudes literally says, happy are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
Now.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Mourn there doesn't always mean just like you would cry
over the loss of a love one at a funeral.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
It just means it's the word sad.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
You want you're sad, you want to be happy, then
make room for my comfort, because I'll comfort you to
such a level you cannot stay sad. So do you
want to be sad or do you want to be comforted? Well,
I choose to be comforted. And it's so comforting to
(44:46):
me to hear from my father. I love you just
like you are, Mike, long way from perfect, but I'm
going to love you through the whole journey. And I
love you right now. And if you don't accompl it's
another thing. I won't love you anymore or less. And
John the Beloved and by the way, doctor Jeff should
(45:10):
be talking right here because his PhD is actually in
the study of John the Beloved and his writings, and
that's one of the revelations of John is that he
writes the Book of John. And I learned this from you, Jeff.
He writes the Book of John to teach us that
(45:30):
he's not the beloved. We are the beloved. It's not
John the beloved, it's us the beloved. That John is
writing to us about how to be that.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
So, yeah, I've heard that before in that frame where
you said, I think that's good because I think the
way you broke it down to with Jesus later in life,
and it wasn't his degrees and his massive following and
(46:12):
what he was able to accomplish from the scene. It
was the moment when God said, this is my son
who I am. Will please and if we can marin Nate,
if you will on that see, then we can see
(46:34):
that we too can be in that position where he says,
I'm pleased with you. I'm not pleased with your following,
I'm not pleased with your platform. He says something that
last thing I'm gonna do is give it to Jeffreyl fast.
But before we do that is he says something that
really hit home and I think be related to anyone
(46:55):
who watched this and listeners, and that is being don't
do this show? Been blessed to do this Since twenty seventeen,
I probably interviewed people I never even imagine that I'll
be able to even talk to, let alone just made
a connection with. But it's just like the reference point
(47:17):
with the cowboys who had a ring in the championship trophy.
Once that passes by, you're like, now what, because you
built the height of what it could feel like. But
then when that moment passed, you just find out that
these are normal people who just breathe oxygen. So what
(47:40):
they have millions of dollars. So what some of my
billions of dollars. But the point is it, so what?
Because yes, they have accomplished a lot, but that doesn't
define the true meaning of life. So in the Bible
talks about what does a profit a man? To gain
the whole world, but to lose it. So I think
(48:02):
about that just by some of the points you made,
because we will spend most of our lives trying to
prove ourselves to others. But the question is for what though,
And with that outlet, doctor Jeffrey has last words on
the book and what he helps people take out from
(48:25):
everything I'll do.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yeah, I you know, Mike and I have talked about
this a lot, like what we hope for the book. Yeah,
more than anything is just that the message that God
is happy in delights in your happiness and your joy,
and God is willing to do everything God can do
(48:48):
to bring that about in your life. It's just up
to you to receive it and to put yourself in
a position to let God love you and to let
God's joy and happiness come into your life. And I
think you know, for both Mike and our greatest joy
now that we have the joy is to see others
embrace that and become messengers of that beautiful good news,
(49:11):
become messengers of joy, messengers of happiness to their world,
their neighborhood, their friends, and their family. I think that
would be it. And maybe to that end, you know,
if I can, I would just say I would love
to just take fifteen seconds here and give people an
(49:31):
opportunity to experience it right now. Like it's not something
that you have to run off and accomplish somewhere, but
in this moment, if you just stop right now and
took a deep, deep, deep, deep breath, created space in
your lungs, created space, and just kind of let all
the worry that Mike was talking about, all the anxieties
(49:52):
and stresses, let all of that just rush out, and
for one moment, recognize the richness that is present with
you in breath. That God is near you, God is
with you. There is enough in this moment, in this minute,
in this hour to take care of this moment, this minute,
(50:12):
this hour. And if you'll put a little smile on
your face, even in the midst of sorrow, even in
the midst of setback and disappointment, if you'll smile because
God is with you in this moment, and you're not abandoned,
you're not alone, and there is enough of God's presence
to get you through this, to move you forward to
(50:35):
what your ultimate calling and greatest design of God is
for you to become what you're meant to be. There's
enoughing that just to breathe that in, smile and just
let God love you. The image that I have in
my mind is what Mike was talking about, a moment
ago of Jesus standing in the waters. And I love
the way that Luke says it. It says and when
(50:57):
the people were getting baptized, Jesus got baptis too. It's
almost like he follows them into the water.
Speaker 5 (51:04):
You know, It's like.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
But when he's in the water, he is fully available
for that moment to shine on him and to receive it.
And I would just say, let God smile on you,
Let God love you, and receive the joy that He
has for you. And as for the book, get the
book and read about all the different places. Because happiness
(51:27):
comes in a spectrum, you know, it's and that's what
we talk about. There's a full spectrum of happiness, of
God's happiness that you can have in those eight paths
that are kind of laid out for us, in those
eight steps that are laid out in real happy.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Well once again the Army Focused radio and watching this
online talking to our guest doctor Jeffrey Garner and also
pastor in my case, so both you all want to
say thanks for what you're doing for the community, and
like always, thank you for your time.
Speaker 5 (51:57):
Well, it's been a joy to be on with you today.
A great job.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
I love your spirit, your heart for doing this and
twenty seventeen, you've been at this a decade, very soon,
and I'm grateful for that. I was thinking about it
as you gave us a moment to mention the book,
and I appreciate that it is on Amazon and everywhere
you want to get a book. But something that we're
proud of just recently because I enjoy audible books myself
(52:24):
and I listened to them. Jeff and I recorded this
on audible in our own voice. The parts that we wrote,
we recite, and we did it where it's designed for
receiving and for rest. It's a great book to listen
to as you relax in the evening or go to sleep,
and folks can download that too. And everything they do
(52:47):
in the way of purchasing this book, And it also
has a workbook that's downloadable for it that goes with
the book.
Speaker 5 (52:55):
So we've designed it.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
People are doing book clubs with it, studies and so forth,
So just avail yourself of it, and it helps us
push this rock further up the mountain, because our heart
is really to see everybody filled with the kind of
happiness and joy that we found. So thank you so
much for your time and for having us on as guests.
(53:18):
You've done a great job.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Appreciate Yeah, I have a little
You are listening to I Am Refocused Radio with your
host Shamaia Read. This show is designed to inspire you
to live your purpose and regain your focus. And now
here's your host, Shamaiah Read.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome talking to Focused Radio. We are back again and
this time we have two special guests. We're going to
have Pastor Mike Case and also we're going to have
doctor Jeffrey Garner. They are going to share with us
a new book that you need to go get right now.
It's all right out right now on Amazon. I got
five stars, got a lot of people talking about it.
(00:37):
I mean over one hundred plus I think the last
time taking its one hundred and forty something gratings. So
this is definitely something you wanted to then to the town.
The book is Real Happy Jesus Surprising Path to Genuine Joy.
And I think you're going to get a good take
out of this because a lot of times we are
always shopping for a new book and something that's going
(00:57):
to inspire us, and this is going to do just that.
So first and foremost, I want to welcome you both
to the show, Pastor Mike Case, and also for you,
doctor Jeffrey Garner. I know y'all busy with y'all schedules,
So thank you for claying some time talking to our
audience today. How y'all doing.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well. It's our pleasure. Thank you for having us on.
We're looking forward to the talk.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
I appreciate it be here, really excited to be on
the show.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I appreciate it. So let's get right to the chase,
because y'all you can google them on Google. They're pretty
high maintenance. They got a lot of good stuff on
the resume. So we're gonna go right into the book.
Let's go with Mike. How did you have a chance
to meet doctor Jeffrey Garner and what sparked idea to
(01:46):
make this book happen.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Jeff and I met, we knew love each other, but
met in about two thousand and ten and at a
conference that actually he hosted in his building. Actually he
let us use it to host a conference in his
building in San Francisco. And as I got to know Jeff,
(02:10):
I respected his work and his brilliance, his scholarship, his mind.
And Jeff can tell some of this as his own story,
but from me, I had this book in my heart.
I was in Israel a few years earlier, and I
was there on the Mountain of Beatitudes where Jesus taught
(02:32):
these principles, and just felt it in my heart really
strongly to write a book about happiness, because I was
learning a lot that I didn't know. And the reality
is everybody, everybody in the world wants to be happy,
but everyone in the world is not happy, and I
was basically one of them. I was doing everything I
(02:53):
knew to do right, I was working hard, I had
a good family and friends and so forth. But deep
down inside, I wasn't real happy. And we can get
into the core reasons for that, but one of them
is that so many of us in the world have
had whatever our experience is, whatever our religious background is,
(03:18):
and mine happens to be a Christianity, but whatever your
background is, it is replete with guilt and shame and
feelings of remorse, and fairly sure that God is not
pleased with us. We're always striving to make him happy.
(03:40):
I'm pretty sure he's not really happy with us. And
that's what a lot of religion amounts to, is the
pursuit of trying to make a reluctant and unhappy God happy.
With us, even though we know that we're flawed and
not perfect. So when I had a real breakthrough with that,
understood how much God wants us to know how happy
(04:06):
he is with us and wants us to have a
relationship that is mutually enjoyable. You know, when you start
to see God as your father, you can't imagine a
good father, and he's a good father. I couldn't imagine
a father. I had a great father. My lay dad
(04:27):
was a great father, and I knew how much he
loved me and how frilled he was when I was
happy with whatever I was doing.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
He was happy with me.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
And so when I changed my concept and started looking
for it in places where it should have been obvious
but it wasn't, it revolutionized my life. And now I
have gone through difficult things as we all face in
our lives, but I have a deep, settled joy and
a happiness that I didn't have for much of my life.
(05:01):
And I found myself trained to pastor, raising up a
church where I was encouraging others, and I wasn't even
sure I was in good standing On some days. My
relationship was shaky because I thought it was based on
my behaviors, and performance, and if I was doing good,
(05:24):
I thought God was probably okay with me. If I wasn't,
or I'd made any kind of a mistake, I was
sure that he wasn't. And then that all got turned
on its head. And when I understood and in the
research of this book, and Jeff is a brilliant scholar
and researcher, and we actually got really serious about this
(05:44):
because one of the mistakes that I made, and that
I think a lot of people make, and I want
Jeff to amplify this, but one of the mistakes I
was making is that I wasn't sure God wanted me
to be happy, and I was sure that it was
somehow trivial. In fact, when I first felt the impetus
(06:08):
to write this book and I talked to Jeff about it,
I was questioning the importance of it because I was
sure that to God, as big and great as he is,
that happiness must be a really trivial subject for him.
And when I found out how anchored he is in us,
being filled with joy as his highest creation, and how
(06:32):
happy he wants to be and is with us, it
changed my world. So Jeff and I took a deep
dive into this, and I understand now what I didn't before.
Happiness is not only not trivial to God, but our
happiness is of extreme importance to him.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And with that said, for you, Jeff, unless you get
here too when you think about the bad too and
how they often deal with pain and poverty of the spirit, mourning, persecution,
how do you hope when readers started reading this book
can get better grass to the sense of Jesus calling
(07:16):
that happiness to take a fit because it's not something
that I believe we just kind of do sometimes it's
something we have to learn.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Yeah, that's a I like the way you framed that question.
I you know, when Mike asked me to kind of
participate on the side of participating research of it, so
it was his kind of it was his moment, like
he had a spiritual moment in Israel where he on
the Mount Viatitudes where he really sensed that there was
(07:50):
more to this, and so when he invited me onto
the team to be part of researching and working through it,
I didn't have any idea of like where this was going.
I was just kind of like, Oh, let's let's dig
in and let's see what it is. I mean, I'm
not sure. And he had said, because he had already
(08:11):
done some research. He had said, you know, I suspect
that this is happiness. And my initial thought, like what
you're asking, My initial thought was happiness and mourning happiness
and hungry happiness. Like the language was so there was
such a stark contrast of the things that we typically
(08:34):
associate with unhappiness is now Jesus is kind of connecting
these dots together, right, so poor in spirit, hunger and thirst,
you know, meek, you know. And so I was like, yeah,
I'll research, I'll jump into it. And I remember that
looking at the word, digging into the word a little bit,
(08:56):
and then digging back into the kind of the Greek
idea of where macarios the Greek word for happy, where
that comes from. And then I was like, so, my
doctoral my expertise is in the field of exegetical so
original languages and exegetical theology. And I was like, this
(09:20):
is really weird, Like why didn't the translators translate this
as happy because it is obviously happy. There is another
Greek word for blessed, and that's not the word Jesus uses,
So why are we using that word in English. So
I'm digging there doing a little bit of research, and
then I started having my own epiphany around, you know,
(09:40):
which is Translators do this sometimes because one person kind
of sets the precedence and then everyone else kind of follows.
And I think for translators the thought was, well, happy
is just too fluffy, Happy is just too shallow. Happy
doesn't Jesus couldn't possibly be talking about happiness, So let's
(10:02):
go ahead and call it blessed well. For us, blessed
is so flat. I mean, it doesn't what does that
even mean anymore?
Speaker 5 (10:10):
You know?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
And and oftentimes we put it in this kind of
this ethereal place out here. It's kind of who you're
blessed well, and it's so abstract we don't even know
what that means. It's like, but macarios isn't. Macarios is
like if you if you're in Greece. Mike and I've
been to Greece a couple of times together, and you know,
(10:32):
they macios is the word they use for blissful. It's
not just like I'm happy with a smile. It's like
I am like belly laughing happy, and that this is
the word that Jesus uses I found like this deserves
another another look. And so, you know, going back and
looking at this word and then trying to connect it
(10:53):
with what Jesus was saying, I realized, Wow, this was
a word that was used by you know, Socrates was
kind of the as the father of philosophy, he's kind
of the first thinker, and happiness was his subject that
he started digging to. And then Plato and Aristotle like
this is what they would talk about, the happy life.
(11:14):
But it was always connected to the gods. It's always
connected to the pantheon of the Greek gods, you know,
the goddess of wine, the goddess of merriment and mirth,
you know, and it's never connected to ordinary people. In fact,
ordinary people couldn't have it. Eventually they started saying, you know,
through virtue, you could, you could have macarios, but we're
(11:36):
so far removed from having any virtue that we can't
get to virtue, let alone then get to happiness. And
Jesus steps on kind of debuts his first message, his
first sermon with this word happiness. Like he's going to
offer them not ten commandments or you know, eight paths
of what you need to do or he's going to offer.
(12:00):
He's going to offer people happiness. And so he starts
with just ordinary fishermen, the common folk, blue collar workers.
He starts off by redistributing happiness from the gods so
to speak to the ordinary people. And he does it
by marrying that word with our everyday struggles right poor
in spirit, hunger and thirsting for righteousness, being meek and
(12:25):
not being necessarily assertive and grabbing or taking or being
aggressive and pulling things to us that it's not something
that we that we pursue. It's not external, but it's
an internal reality. It's something that's in here which we
kind of intuitively know, but the world around us tells
(12:46):
us something different. So I you know, when when you know,
when Mike said that and suggested that, and then I
started digging through it, I had my own moment in
that journey of going, Gosh, this is something that not
only does God want for us, but this is something
(13:07):
that God is doing everything that God can to get
it to us, no matter where we're at, and we
just have to kind of make room for it, you
know that. And that was kind of like for me,
that was kind of like the first like I think
The image I have on my mind when I say
that is if you're in a dark room and you
walk over and you pull back the curtain and the
sun's shining outside, and if you just if you just
(13:29):
pull back the curtain, it makes room and the sun
comes flooding in, like it just it rushes in. And
I felt like that's what Jesus was offering us in
those when he went through these eight beautiful happy oracles,
that he was offering us, Hey, it's as it's as
easy as this, it's right here, it's it's in your breath,
(13:51):
it's in your moments. And so I think at that
point I was so excited to then start unpacking, you know,
the the An eight with Mike and looking at each
one because it was a I've never heard anyone approach
it from that perspective before, and I felt it was
fresh and not just for the sake of the beatitudes,
(14:14):
but I think it was offering what a lot of
scholars have been a recent scholar theologians have been saying
that there has to be a return to within theology,
there has to be a return to joy and a
return to happiness. But they weren't giving the theological tools
for that. They were just observing that there's a need here,
(14:35):
there's a loss, there's a deficit, and it was like, yes,
we're onto this is the first place to begin.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Again, listen to hom we focus ready watching this online.
I'm talking to our guests today too of the pastor
Mike Case and also doctor Jeffrey Garner talking about their
boody and get right now is available? Is We're happy?
Jesus surprising path to genuine joy? I want to kind
of diving one night. Genuine part genuine joy you kind
of touch on it with the spirit. And if you
(15:08):
say spirit versus material, we live in a world where
material happiness it's like a band aid. No, we all
naturally want to have success. We all naturally want to
achieve certain things, whether it's on paper with a degree
or if it's a certificate, some award. It's always something
(15:29):
that we see in the physical world. But when think
of the spiritual side of things, we can have all
those materials but still feel empty. How does the book
navigate that tone as well? Because what I'm getting from
it is that there is a in there place that
(15:50):
needs to be developed, and it's kind of hard to
do that from an external point of.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
View, I think you know, and Jeff did a good
job opening this up. And if I could just jump
on the translation for a moment, because all of these
eight oracles, they don't really build on each other, they
all stand alone. However, I think it's fitting that this
was the first one because the normal translation to English says,
(16:20):
blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven, and the proper translation of those words
is more like this, really blissfully, unbelievably happy are those
who create a void in their heart for God to fill.
(16:44):
It's definitely the word for void or empty. Now that's
very different than Blessed are the poor in spirit? Because
listen through the ages and church history is the thing.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
That I've always been interested in.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
My dad taught Old Testament church history in a Bible college.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
I was raised around. I love history.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
But when you look at the history, one of the
reasons that the church centuries ago created what they called
a vow of poverty is that those who are in
ministry cannot own any personal accruiterments of this world. They
can't have their own place, their property, even their clothing,
(17:28):
and so the goal became. I read a very sad
book written by a monk whose goal was the one garment,
robe that I have made of like burlap, the one
garment I have. I must not come to the end
of my life and die with this garment having a
(17:52):
life still.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
Left in it.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
I have to time the ware of this garment and
my lifespan so that it's totally worn out and worthless
when I live my last day. Otherwise I'm not going
to satisfy this requirement that I have taken, which is
a vow of poverty, taken primarily from this verse. This
(18:17):
is not what Jesus intention was at all for us
to live under a vow of poverty. It was are
you willing to create an empty place that I can fill?
How long are you going to keep filling it with
boats and houses and girls and men and designer clothes
(18:41):
and fame and fortune. There's no room for me. So
if you want real happiness, you've got to start emptying
some things out and then there's room for real, genuine
joy to come in. But you know what, I'm not
sure because we're all living our lives, right, and I've
(19:02):
lived probably I know, more years than either one of
you guys have so in that regard, I got you. Well,
it's almost like we have to learn this for ourselves,
because I had someone I was talking to about this
one time. They're like, well, you've had a lot of success, though,
let me experience some success and then I'll tell you,
(19:23):
whether I agree with you or not, that that's not
the way you find real happiness. But see, I can
tell you from the other side of that journey that
striving for happiness by the stuff we accumulate is a
worthless journey. I live here in Dallas, and I suppose
(19:43):
I'm a frustrated Cowboy fan, because if you follow the Cowboys,
you're going to have some frustration. But I remember one time,
at one time I had twenty five of the starters
on the Dallas Cowboys in the Great Years members of
my church, and I knew them very well, and I
(20:03):
was a chaplain for the Cowboys for them for those teams,
I did chapels for them, pregame chapels for several years.
I remember when a few years ago in the Great
Years of the Cowboys, when they won three out of
five or six years the Super Bowl. One of the
linemen that was all pro and he was a funny guy,
(20:24):
and he attended our church, and I asked him about
the joy of winning the super Bowl, and he just
got in his ring and he's like, you know, it
didn't last as long as I thought. I said, really.
He said, yeah, you know, you set your whole life
goal for this, then you win it. And he threw
back his head and left. He was a real funny
guy anyway, and he said they do it every year.
(20:44):
In other words, if I'm placing my whole life and
happiness on winning this and I did, then next year
it's a whole new contest, and I don't know if
I will or not, so maybe I won't be happy
very long.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
So we all have to learn that.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Lesson though, for ourselves, that the pursuit of things as
success doesn't result in happiness. And then, as I was
going to say, the opposite that Jesus taught surprised me.
In the Beatitudes, the opposite of happiness is not unhappiness.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
The opposite of happiness is worry.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Because in that message, the second half of his message,
after he gives us eight ways to be really happy,
he just attacks worry. That's why I've got this little
poppy pin on my shirt.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Here.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
We put it on the front of our book because
the translators changed it in about the fifteen hundreds to
a lily, but it was actually the word for poppy,
because that's a flower that grows all over the northern
hills of Israel, and Jesus probably just pointed down at
one that was growing. There were growing everywhere when I
(22:01):
was sitting on that hill and got the impetus to
write this book. And Jesus said, consider the poppies. They
don't work hard, they don't dress themselves. They're planted and
rooted in ground that they have no guarantee that it's
going to rain tomorrow. But they're beautiful and they're waving
in the breeze. And he made the analogy they are
(22:25):
happy because they're worry free.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
They're just dependent.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
He said, Solomon, our greatest king, was never dressed like
one of them. Look at them. They're filled with joy,
they're bright in color, and they're not worrying. So the
other half of the message of happiness is the learning
the absence of worry and worry at the same time,
(23:00):
they don't fit.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Or scaring. Listen, not refocus, ready in watching this online
and you can get a copy of this book, like
I said, is on Amazon available. Real Happy, She's a
surprising path to genuine joy. And everything he's saying ties
back to my earlier pitch about focusing on the word
genuine because when you think about genuine, first thing I
(23:24):
feel is what's really real and what's just kind of
noise out there. And when you think about some places
in the Bible and talks about you know, God knows
the plans for you. He's not guessing the plans. He's
saying he knows the plans. So that kicks out worry
out the door. Supposedly we're human nature, so we're going
(23:46):
worry no matter what. But he kind of does take
care of those aspects of I already have my plans
for you. You don't really have to worry about a
whole lot except for maybe follow my lead. Maybe because
when we try to our own path, it seems to
take us to hard knocks of life. So my last
thing I want to say before I pass it to
(24:08):
Jeffrey is the other thing that's interesting when you look
at the Bible. I'm an amateur, I'm not a pastor,
but looking through a lens of someone who's trying to
learn about it and trying to understand it better. The
only way you actually get better is if you get involved.
(24:29):
Like you can't just feel happy and say happy things
and have happy thoughts. You have to have to be
involved at some point, and that takes you outside your
comfort zone. So that's basically I'm trying to pitch to you,
doctor Jeffrey, is when you think about being active, how
(24:51):
much does that play and whole weight to the whole
process of being happy because anybody can have a happy thought.
How you start changing. You don't mean to.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Say, yeah, you know you're connecting that, you're connecting to
dot that it's it's it's like really in fact, it's
it's how Jesus ends that sermon on the Mount. He
talks about you know, there's two men building a house,
and one builds his house on sand and it collapses
because of a storm, and the other one builds his
house on a rock and the same storm comes along
(25:25):
and his house is fine. He just says, the people
that take my words and just talk about them are
people that build their house on sand. It's not going
to do you any good. Storm is going to come
along and because you're not actively following and engaging them
in your life doing them. But if you're a wise person,
(25:46):
you take what I'm saying and you act on it.
You do something about it, and as it as it
relates to you know, I like to the principles of
real happy, of the beatitudes and the behaviors that we
take on. I think you know, Jesus gives like three
(26:06):
action items that a person can gage that they can
engage in. On the same sermon, right after he talks
about the happiness, he says, you can, you know, be
generous and give. That's one way you can make room
is by taking some of the extra stuff you have
in your life and sharing it with someone else. He
talks about fasting, But you can Another way is you
(26:29):
can abstain from something instead of just consuming everything media, TV, entertainment, whatever.
Pull back and create margin in your life by abstaining
from something, by creating some abstinence in your life. And
then the third thing he says has to do with
our times. It's prayer creating margin or time in your
(26:52):
life to have a conversation with God or to let
God have a conversation with you. It creates space for
the happiness and the joy of Heaven to flood into
your heart. But if you're so busy pursuing this, chasing that,
trying to accomplish, accomplish, this, trying to possess that, if
(27:13):
you're so busy with all of that, you won't have
margin in your life to experience the happiness that God
wants to fill you with. And Mike said it so well,
you know, it's like we're trying to put Saint Augustine said,
you know, we have this God sized hole inside of us,
(27:33):
and we feel empty, and so we start cramming everything
from material to you know, accomplishments, achievements, education, whatever it is.
And you get the degree, and then you're like, well,
I need another one, I need another one. It's never enough.
It's constant, it's with everything, and at some point you
(27:55):
have to stop and just go, Okay, these things don't
fit in this hole in my heart. I am made
in the image of God. In fact, there's this Jewish
idea that when it says that we are made in
the image of God, it's like an imprint, Like if
you took your hand and you pushed it into the
sand and it creates a space right that we are
this imprint of God and the only thing that can
(28:17):
fit in that is God. That we have this kind
of this space for God to feel. And so you
have to find the things that get you there, and
you have to act on it. And I think when
a person does that, they find themselves behaving or responding
their way into new ways of thinking, into new ways
(28:40):
of experience that you can't have. You have to have
an experience of it by the things in your life,
by your behaviors that open you up to an understanding.
That's what I'm trying to say. And so yes, absolutely
it is not just we sit around and we talk
about it, but it's an actual stepping forward, responding in
(29:05):
obedience to what to not call that Christ is calling
us to.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And Pastor hayes On kind of jumped on that is
that you think about renewing of your mind. Bible talks
about somewhere y'all know the address better I do, but
he also talks about knack of farming to the world.
But best question, and I think your mind, how I
would like to say our mind.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
It's not in the scripture.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
It should be, but you can't, it said that you
can't feel your way into an action, but you can
act your way into a feeling.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
And there's a whole lot of people sitting around and listen.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I don't mean this statement I'm about to make to
be harsh or to be judgmental about anybody I have
taken in my life before. I have taken antidepressant medication
when I needed it. And I understand that maybe fifty
percent of America takes some form of something trying to
(30:06):
make sure that their metal capacity is where they would
like it to be. But the bottom line is those
experts that are in that field, and I am not
one that is an expert on the brain and understanding
the mind and how that works, will tell you. They'll
be the first to tell you that, you know, we
can medicate and we can help, but most of the
(30:30):
people that we treat, there is a common thread that
is often there, and it is that their life has
spiraled in and in and in until they are the
middle of the whole thing.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
So your thoughts become how you're doing. It's like that funny.
This is probably a dad joke. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
For some reason, I find it funnier than everybody else
but this guy that was real narcissistic.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
He was sitting with his friend in a restaurant over.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Coffee and he talked about himself NonStop for two hours,
and then finally he said, listen, I have taken so
much time talking about me. Let's change the subject. What
do you think about me? So somehow our lives get
(31:28):
so entwined with us. And what Jesus was saying is
kick some walls down and get out there and get
involved a little bit with somebody else and their situation,
and you'll be shocked how much joy you can get
out of that. This is very practical, but I literally
(31:50):
tell people that I'm counseling because most of the people
I know have more clothes in their closet than they
can wear. And they probably even have a storage place
rented for two hundred dollars a month to put some
more stuff that they can't put in their closet. And
I say to them, listen, why don't you go home
and go through your closet and be really generous. Don't
(32:12):
think about I'm going to get rid of the junk
or the stuff that's out of style. Be really generous
and take half of the clothes in your closet, half
of the shoes and give them away. Go give them
to a local ministry or goodwill that's doing things for
people that have nothing. And they are shocked at how
(32:33):
happy they feel with that act of physically getting rid
of some stuff that they really don't need because we
attach meaning to it that it doesn't deserve. You can
fill your closet up until you have no room, and
then you go rent a storage room and then you
fill that up.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
My contention is, if you've.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Got a storage building that you have visited in three years,
you don't need the stuff in the storage building, give
it away.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
So I think what we've come down to is happiness
is a verb. It's an action word.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
It shows up, it bubbles up out of your heart
and you can't help but just show it and give
it away, and it is infectuous.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Try it with a smile.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
You would be shocked how many people respond, and it's
their second response.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Their first response is to look at you weird, like
what do you want?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
And then almost instantly it's followed by a nice smile back.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
And that's something that doesn't cost you a thing.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
I smiled at somebody the other day and they looked
at me kind of almost a defensive, dirty look, and
then in one second they smiled back at me and said,
nice smile.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Thanks. I was in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Here while back, and I went in to my wife
and I were walking around in Georgetown and we went
in a antique shop and there were two elderly ladies
behind the counter, and I said, good morning, how are
you doing? Gave him a nice smile, and one of
them said, you must not be from here? Are you
from Texas? And I said, I happened to be from Texas.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
How did you know?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
I thought she picked up my accent. She said, no,
you said hi and smiled. We don't do that around here.
So everybody wants to be happy, but not everybody's practicing
a good way to do that.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
So that's what we're trying to do. Man, Just spread
the joy.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Once again. Listen. I'll be focus reading and watching us
a line and get the book copy of the book
that we've been discussing about. The whole show, Real Happy Jesus,
Surprising Path twos and you enjoy. Last thing has to
Doctor Jeffrey Garner is also in the Bible. You know
(35:08):
that there's so many different characters and stories. And what's
interesting is that every character has its flaws, has its battles,
has its ups and downs. But you can make a
point that this principle of real happy is until we
(35:29):
surrender certain things, then we probably truly will never find
that happiness.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Yeah, in fact, you know, really a great All the
four gospels have a different motif for focus on what
it looked like to follow Jesus, and the one that
you're hitting on right now is stated over and over
in Mark. Every time somebody comes to Jesus. In the
Gospel of Mark, they leave something behind. Every time. There's
(35:58):
the nets, there's the the money left at the table
with Matthew, with Levi.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
There's the.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Blind man blind man Bartimaeus, who Jesus heals him and
he gets up, and it says, and he left his
cloak behind. And the cloak was was the what they
would catch the money and that people would give. So
he leaves the container that he would beg for money,
and he leaves that behind. And then the very end
of the book you have the young man running through
the garden without any clothes on. It's just like this,
(36:29):
you know, when Jesus goes to the cross. It's this
moment of letting go of everything, right, And I think
you're touching on a point that is that's really important.
That's really important because when we recognize what we're getting
in return, we have to let go. We let go
of something in order to open ourself up for something greater. Right,
(36:51):
there's something greater that's being offered to us. But if
I keep holding onto my toothpick for dear life, like
this is my whole life. My life depends on this toothpick.
And God's trying to offer me a golden fork, and
I'm like, but man, you have no idea. This wooden
toothpick has been with me through thick and thin. And
so there is that idea of letting go, of letting
(37:13):
go of something in order to be open to receive
something else. And one of the stories that we open
up with in the book Real Happy is it's kind
of the setting was for me was in twenty fourteen,
the two thousand and ten the San Francisco Giants were
(37:34):
playing in the World Series and I had I was
sitting at the park waiting, listening to the game, waiting
for my son who was playing had football practice and
we hit a home run, and you know, I jump
out of my car and I'm like so excited because
we hit this home run and we're going to win
(37:54):
the World Series, right, So I jump out of my
car and I start running around my car just who
you know, just jumping up and down and having a
moment like. And there was this homeless guy that's sitting
under a tree right watching this, watching this crazy guy
running around a Volkswagen Jetta, like you know, And so
(38:17):
he gets up and kind of ambles over there, and
and he starts kind of running around the car with me.
But I wasn't really thinking of it, you know, I
just was like, yeah, he runs around the car with me,
and we stop, and then he high fives me and
I high five him, and and then I turn around
and we're done kind of with the whole celebration. I
turn around and go over to the car to get
back in the car, and and as I open up
(38:38):
the door to get in the car, he taps me
on the shoulder, and so I turn around. He goes,
he goes, hey, why are we so happy?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And I was like, and he hit me.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
You know, this guy doesn't even know why I'm happy,
but he sees me happy and he wants to be
happy too, so he jumps in to my little party
that I'm having just because we all yearn. We all
yearn and we all long for happiness so much that
will celebrate. But then that's not enough, right, It's not
(39:15):
enough to just celebrate with someone else in a meaningless way.
We want to understand the meaning of happiness. And I
think that's what Jesus is doing that if a person
is willing to give up whatever and start walking down
this path, they're going to get the meaning behind the
(39:37):
joy that Jesus is offered, because that's what we want.
Why is it such good news that you're given to me?
Why are we so happy and have so much joy?
And I think the journey lets that unfold in a
deeply meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Last time, I'll it with passion. My case is soonewa washing.
I listen to this as incentives for them. Real happiness is.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Real happiness is understanding that you are deeply loved just
like you are. You don't have to perform anything, you
don't have to achieve anything, you don't have to do
anything to be impressive to God. And our example is
that when Jesus says the Son of God was being
baptized in the Jordan River, he was thirty years old.
(40:28):
He hadn't even started his ministry. He hadn't healed one person,
he hadn't preached one sermon. He had accomplished nothing but
maybe being a good son to Joseph and learning some
carpentry skills. But the Bible says that when he came
up out of the water, baptism being an act of
obedience and submission. When he came up out of the water,
(40:49):
the heaven's open and the Father was heard to say,
this is my dearly beloved son, in whom I am
so pleased. And if we don't understand that we are
unbelievably cherished and loved by God without accomplishing any of
(41:10):
the world's success marks. It's not how many benchmarks you
check off in your life that makes you happy. It
is that before you were ever formed in your mother's womb,
God bathed you in his love and his happiness. And
here's the victory that I found in researching this book
(41:31):
and change my life. Because I wasn't real happy, I
was put on happy. My happiness was I wasn't fake,
but I was going from one high to the next.
If I accomplish this, if I do this, if I
build this bigger, if I meet this person, if I
accomplish that, if I earn that, and that is in
(41:54):
my early forties, that burnt me out. That will burn
you out. I heard something crash and it was on fire,
and I looked.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
Around and it was me. Because you can only go
so long.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
And that's what millions are doing right now, trying to
do enough to earn what is already theirs. And it's
as simple as that. And real happiness is just that.
And you know what, we are sometimes often stubborn, you know.
I read one time in an old Scottish hunting lodge
(42:32):
that had been used for great world leaders to meet
and solve problems.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
They had a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Trunk of a tree had been carved out and was
mounted over this massive fireplace. And the author that had
written this that I was reading said that he was
sitting there in the evening, a couple of them, smoking
(43:00):
dog laying at his feet asleep, had had a beautiful meal,
great friends around, but things were quieting down, and he
looked up at the mantle of this fireplace, and across
the front of this massive wood mantle was carved the
words in Old English, would you choose.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
To be right or be reconciled?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
And he said, I thought about that and it changed
my life because so many times we fight to be right,
to look right, to wear the right thing, to have
the right job, to earn the right girlfriend, and meanwhile
we're not reconciled to anything in our lives. It's all
in chaos, and we're constantly striving to climb a mountain
(43:50):
that when we get to the top of it, we
won't be any happier than we were at the bottom
of it.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Because it's a spiritual issue.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
It's not an accomplished issue, and there is real happiness
available and it's.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
Right under our nose. And it's almost like that.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
One of the Beatitudes literally says, happy are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
Now.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Mourn there doesn't always mean just like you would cry
over the loss of a love one at a funeral.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
It just means it's the word sad.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
You want you're sad, you want to be happy, then
make room for my comfort, because I'll comfort you to
such a level you cannot stay sad. So do you
want to be sad or do you want to be comforted? Well,
I choose to be comforted. And it's so comforting to
(44:46):
me to hear from my father. I love you just
like you are, Mike, long way from perfect, but I'm
going to love you through the whole journey. And I
love you right now. And if you don't accompl it's
another thing. I won't love you anymore or less. And
John the Beloved and by the way, doctor Jeff should
(45:10):
be talking right here because his PhD is actually in
the study of John the Beloved and his writings, and
that's one of the revelations of John is that he
writes the Book of John. And I learned this from you, Jeff.
He writes the Book of John to teach us that
(45:30):
he's not the beloved. We are the beloved. It's not
John the beloved, it's us the beloved. That John is
writing to us about how to be that.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
So, yeah, I've heard that before in that frame where
you said, I think that's good because I think the
way you broke it down to with Jesus later in life,
and it wasn't his degrees and his massive following and
(46:12):
what he was able to accomplish from the scene. It
was the moment when God said, this is my son
who I am. Will please and if we can marin Nate,
if you will on that see, then we can see
(46:34):
that we too can be in that position where he says,
I'm pleased with you. I'm not pleased with your following,
I'm not pleased with your platform. He says something that
last thing I'm gonna do is give it to Jeffreyl fast.
But before we do that is he says something that
really hit home and I think be related to anyone
(46:55):
who watched this and listeners, and that is being don't
do this show? Been blessed to do this Since twenty seventeen,
I probably interviewed people I never even imagine that I'll
be able to even talk to, let alone just made
a connection with. But it's just like the reference point
(47:17):
with the cowboys who had a ring in the championship trophy.
Once that passes by, you're like, now what, because you
built the height of what it could feel like. But
then when that moment passed, you just find out that
these are normal people who just breathe oxygen. So what
(47:40):
they have millions of dollars. So what some of my
billions of dollars. But the point is it, so what?
Because yes, they have accomplished a lot, but that doesn't
define the true meaning of life. So in the Bible
talks about what does a profit a man? To gain
the whole world, but to lose it. So I think
(48:02):
about that just by some of the points you made,
because we will spend most of our lives trying to
prove ourselves to others. But the question is for what though,
And with that outlet, doctor Jeffrey has last words on
the book and what he helps people take out from
(48:25):
everything I'll do.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yeah, I you know, Mike and I have talked about
this a lot, like what we hope for the book. Yeah,
more than anything is just that the message that God
is happy in delights in your happiness and your joy,
and God is willing to do everything God can do
(48:48):
to bring that about in your life. It's just up
to you to receive it and to put yourself in
a position to let God love you and to let
God's joy and happiness come into your life. And I
think you know, for both Mike and our greatest joy
now that we have the joy is to see others
embrace that and become messengers of that beautiful good news,
(49:11):
become messengers of joy, messengers of happiness to their world,
their neighborhood, their friends, and their family. I think that
would be it. And maybe to that end, you know,
if I can, I would just say I would love
to just take fifteen seconds here and give people an
(49:31):
opportunity to experience it right now. Like it's not something
that you have to run off and accomplish somewhere, but
in this moment, if you just stop right now and
took a deep, deep, deep, deep breath, created space in
your lungs, created space, and just kind of let all
the worry that Mike was talking about, all the anxieties
(49:52):
and stresses, let all of that just rush out, and
for one moment, recognize the richness that is present with
you in breath. That God is near you, God is
with you. There is enough in this moment, in this minute,
in this hour to take care of this moment, this minute,
(50:12):
this hour. And if you'll put a little smile on
your face, even in the midst of sorrow, even in
the midst of setback and disappointment, if you'll smile because
God is with you in this moment, and you're not abandoned,
you're not alone, and there is enough of God's presence
to get you through this, to move you forward to
(50:35):
what your ultimate calling and greatest design of God is
for you to become what you're meant to be. There's
enoughing that just to breathe that in, smile and just
let God love you. The image that I have in
my mind is what Mike was talking about, a moment
ago of Jesus standing in the waters. And I love
the way that Luke says it. It says and when
(50:57):
the people were getting baptized, Jesus got baptis too. It's
almost like he follows them into the water.
Speaker 5 (51:04):
You know, It's like.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
But when he's in the water, he is fully available
for that moment to shine on him and to receive it.
And I would just say, let God smile on you,
Let God love you, and receive the joy that He
has for you. And as for the book, get the
book and read about all the different places. Because happiness
(51:27):
comes in a spectrum, you know, it's and that's what
we talk about. There's a full spectrum of happiness, of
God's happiness that you can have in those eight paths
that are kind of laid out for us, in those
eight steps that are laid out in real happy.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Well once again the Army Focused radio and watching this
online talking to our guest doctor Jeffrey Garner and also
pastor in my case, so both you all want to
say thanks for what you're doing for the community, and
like always, thank you for your time.
Speaker 5 (51:57):
Well, it's been a joy to be on with you today.
A great job.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
I love your spirit, your heart for doing this and
twenty seventeen, you've been at this a decade, very soon,
and I'm grateful for that. I was thinking about it
as you gave us a moment to mention the book,
and I appreciate that it is on Amazon and everywhere
you want to get a book. But something that we're
proud of just recently because I enjoy audible books myself
(52:24):
and I listened to them. Jeff and I recorded this
on audible in our own voice. The parts that we wrote,
we recite, and we did it where it's designed for
receiving and for rest. It's a great book to listen
to as you relax in the evening or go to sleep,
and folks can download that too. And everything they do
(52:47):
in the way of purchasing this book, And it also
has a workbook that's downloadable for it that goes with
the book.
Speaker 5 (52:55):
So we've designed it.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
People are doing book clubs with it, studies and so forth,
So just avail yourself of it, and it helps us
push this rock further up the mountain, because our heart
is really to see everybody filled with the kind of
happiness and joy that we found. So thank you so
much for your time and for having us on as guests.
(53:18):
You've done a great job.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Appreciate Yeah, I have a little
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