Well, good morning church. It’s great to have you here. Are you excited to be here? Yeah. Hey, are you excited to be here?

Excited, man. This is awesome. This is a great turnout. Hey, uh,

You had a safe drive driving in No issues.

Uh, I mean, it, we don’t, okay. I’m someone from Georgia. We can get to that, but we don’t know what snow looks like. Okay. So this is awesome. Like, it is great to see all the snow, but yeah. Driving in it, bro. No, I, I was, we were going like four. So the person you were honking at, like, get your butt moving, that was us. Like Uhuh.

I said, Hey, drive, like you’re from the south. No one else will, but you should just to be safe. No. So we’re glad you’re here. Hey, something you probably didn’t know, so we have a ton in common. Did you know that myself and David have combined for three All American Awards? Did you know that? <laugh>? So how many do you have? I

Got three.

Three. I’ve math checks out.

Perfect math.

We also have combined for two SEC, defensive Player of the Year awards, right? Yep. We gotta cover the SEC. So that’s a really, I would be a talent if I won one of those, but I’m fired up to have you here. I know you’re fired up to be here. And, uh, just a great time. Last night I will say we were eating a little dinner, started snowing. Dave and his wife were like, oh my gosh, snow. I was like, yeah, beautiful snow. It’s

Here.

Beautiful. It’s here. So loving it. But so much. I want to cover, I know we don’t have a ton of time, but just, just jump in. Um, you love to, to do this thing and to talk about Jesus. So let’s just start there. Uh, talk about how you came to know Jesus as your savior.

Well, I, I didn’t grow up probably like a lot of y’all. I, I never stepped foot in a church. Um, wasn’t something that was important to me, wasn’t something that was important to my parents. Mama and daddy are awesome. They’re great. I have a great mama and daddy, but we played sports and, and church wasn’t a big part of what we did. So my neighbor across the street, he was like, Hey man, we’re doing this lock in at the church. Do you want to come? I was like, sounds creepy. No. And he was like, you get to stay up all night and play sports in. I was like, absolutely. Like, what dude doesn’t want to do play sports and stay up all night? And, and now I did not know what I was gonna get. I did not know I was gonna hear about Jesus and hear about faith.

Um, so that was the first seat I had planted in my life. And then, uh, I had a teacher named Mark Watson and he was my physics teacher. Oddly enough, I went to a public school, and so you don’t share your faith, you know, in a public school. But Mark Watson had a Jesus sticker on his computer and he played praise and worship music all the time. So I was like, this dude’s a Jesus freak. Like that’s, that’s what I knew him as. And um, man, he was so calm and cool and I could not rattle the dude, man, like he was so legit and so easygoing. So, um, I have a gift. I I’m very annoying. Um, my wife is here, you can ask her. My kids will support that. And I usually get under people’s skin really well. And that dude was unflappable. And so for English, for outside reading, we had to pick 200 pages of a book to read.

And I was like, I told my, my, my lady was an English teacher. I was like, I wanna do the Bible. She was like, Nope. I was like, what do you mean? She was like, I can’t, I I don’t know anything about the Bible. I’m not gonna sit down with you. I was like, Mr. Watson can. And, um, Mr. Watson, dude, that dude took me through, through the Bible and he, he, he sat down with me and he was like, this is Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. And I was like, don’t know anything about that. Didn’t know about the different viewpoints, didn’t know about Jesus, and started to take me through his life. And I’m like, wait a minute. Like all of this is written for one person, like this, this, this whole book is about one person. And I’m like, wait a minute. You look at all the leaders and the dictators and the, the, all these big time people in history. Like, listen, it ain’t like it is nowadays, right? Like you can probably go on Wikipedia and figure out my favorite color, okay? But back in the day you couldn’t do that with emperors and all those people. You didn’t have all that information. You just documented what was relevant and what you wanted to pass down. And I’m like, this book. And then I started to read about the prophecies and I started to read about Jesus’ life and it grabbed a hold of me, man. And it changed the whole direction of my life.

I love that. And it’s been a ripple effect because the reason you’re willing to start played in a cha in a, uh, all-star game yesterday, which he gave up to be here with us. And, um, over and over, every time I hear him speak, it’s a goal to make Jesus cool, to make it a big deal. And I love how that impact, um, from Mr. Watson carried over that, hey, he was a cool guy, but football was a big part of your life. When did you realize you could play football? Like it, it was something you had a shot at

This, this is, this is all you parents out there that are sports fans. This is important to know. I was four and I knew I was the real deal. Okay? So I know some of y’all parents know that already too. So my brother was six and he’s, he, so he was two years older than me. I was four and I was on the sidelines and I was tackling everything in sight. Now it definitely got weird when I tackled the cheerleaders and I got in trouble, but like I was hitting everybody I knew, like football was in my veins, man. Like I, and I would’ve told you I was made to play football. Like I was just, I was big, I was physical. Like I just had energy. I love to work, I love things that are hard. And um, that’s when my passions and, and listen from that age on from six years old, I told anybody that would listen, like I’m gonna play in the NFL and I got a ton of pats on the head, like, that’s so cute.

You know, like, so does everybody else everywhere in the country. And um, what I’ve told people throughout, throughout time and throughout my journey and stuff is I’m, listen, don’t let people tell you what you can and can’t do. Because what I’ve learned is I serve a big God that can make things happen. And I thought I was made to play football and I thought that was my path. And, but that didn’t come without this like ebbs and flows and ups and downs. I wasn’t a highly recruited kid coming outta high school. Um, I switched positions at Georgia, you said, you know, we had three all Americans together. I was a three time all American. I switched positions three times at Georgia, so before I found my home. And so just learning in, in the game and, and, and the game has brought me so much and brought, taken me to so many places I never thought I would’ve gone, but, but I would’ve told you at a young age that I was gonna be a football player, just like 65 other million kids in the world. Sure,

Yeah. And you do go to Georgia. We had Coach Rick here last

Sunday stud, isn’t he? It

Means a lot to you, doesn’t

He? He’s a stud. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, coach Rick to me, so I, I came in with Coach Rick at his first class at the University of Georgia. So I become a Christian my senior year of high school. Um, I don’t, I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know what a godly man looks like. My daddy’s an awesome daddy, but he didn’t go to church, by the way. My daddy and my mama and my brother now in church every Sunday with us, which is one of the coolest things ever in the household. But, um, you ain’t lying. Especially getting my brother there is is amazing. ’cause his story and his background has, has been tough with drugs and jail and we’ve, we’ve been through a lot. Um, but like, so I didn’t know what that looked like, but I, I go to Georgia and I’m like, okay, wait a minute.

This is, this is what it looks like. This is the real deal. And the way he leaned into us and the way he taught us bigger lessons than just, than just sports because we know football is a vehicle, right? Like football is a vehicle to teach, you know, flag football for the girls basketball, those are all vehicles to teach our kids amazing things. And so I was learning those lessons, but when I got to Georgia and I got plugged into FCA and I started to memorize scripture and, and, and I think people are like, what? I don’t know the, I don’t know the direction of my life. Like, I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where God wants me to move. Everybody’s probably had that feeling in their life. Like I don’t know where to go. Well it’s amazing. What I’ve learned really quickly is when I opened up that Bible, God spoke to me like, you open up the word of God and God’s gonna open up your ears.

And I think a lot of times, so once I got to school and I started realizing like this is a playbook. Like just like I had a playbook for, for football in every situation and everything that comes in into my life. Like this is the reason and this is the way to respond. Like once I understood that, it was amazing. Speaking of playbook, by the way, I got a Peyton Manning story for y’all real quick. My first sack in, uh, in the NFL was against Peyton Manning. Okay? Not with the Broncos. So it’s all good. Um, I I I, this is, this is, this is true by the way. So I went from defensive end in college to linebacker in the NFL. There’s a lot to learn. We’re talking about playbook. This is what got my small brain going. I’m a DD, y’all will get this quick all. So, so I’m learning this playbook and, and you play cover two versus certain formations, cover three versus other formations. And I’m lined up, dialed in two by two. I know exactly what coverage I’m playing. I’m playing cover two. That guy goes in motion right before the snap. And I was like, what crap. Like, I, I got no clue what I, I blitz hit Peyton. He pops up and he goes, you weren’t supposed to do that, were you <laugh>?

I was like, that’s not fair. Like, you’re not supposed to know better than I’m doing what I’m doing than me. Like the absolute smartest player I’ve ever played against played against, you know, uh, Brady and Fav and those guy, that dude was a human computer. That bed is so big and it’s full of knowledge. Okay? <laugh>,

That’s why he played

Defense, right? <laugh>. See, defense is beautiful. That’s right. See, y’all don’t understand this, but defense is sea ball. Get ball. So that’s where you put all the dumb people like where’s the ball over there? Run. Okay, I got it. Like, that’s the beauty of defense, the smarter guy. Definitely. They they go on the offensive side. That’s right.

So, so you do, he does. Uh, if, if you don’t know David’s story drafted by the Bengals in the first round, just kinda want to piece some things together. What did it feel like to see that dream from that 4, 5, 6 years old come when you say, Hey, I’ve made it to the NFL.

It was awesome. And, and it was incredible. And, and the dream was so long. Now the dream was never the Bengals to be clear, okay? Naturally. So full disclosure, you know, the Bengals that I grew up following, and a lot of y’all grew up following, had the bags over their heads and the fans weren’t very excited about their team, okay? So they give you a, a phone for the draft sprint phone, and I had a hat. So every team that went on the clock, I put the hat on and if they didn’t pick me, I threw it down the steps and it kind of stunk because the Texans actually traded back up. So I ran down the steps, put the hat on, and they didn’t pick me just to throw it back down the steps again. But the only time I looked at my phone and I said, please don’t ring was the 17th pick at the Cincinnati Bengals 5 1 3 area code.

If I don’t pick up, I’m not dependable. They won’t draft these, this should be one gonna answer his phone on draft day, right? Coach Lewis is like, Hey, we’re thinking about taking you with the 17th pick. Um, hold on. We’re getting trade offers like trade, trade, trade trade, trade trade, please. Um, so it, it was a dream come true. Um, Cincinnati big, you know, best day ever. Um, but no, we went to Cincinnati. Me and my wife loved Cincinnati. Like loved ci. It was an awesome place and it was really, really cool. But, you know, it was a town that did a lot of losing. And so I think it was, I wasn’t as excited at the start, but once I got there, I realized we were gonna change things.

And if you know the story, uh, career doesn’t go as long as you planned, I think. We’ll, we’ll,

That’s an understatement. We’ll

Tie to that, uh, neck injury, you have to retire. And, and to me, I, I think it’s such a cool piece as I pointed out to you yesterday that I’d love for you just expound on a little bit because you make it to the pinnacle, the NFL, that’s, that’s the, that’s the goal. And then bam, it’s, it’s gone and, and what’s next? And many of us, I think, uh, hanging out with the, the football players from valor and, and our girls flag team and some of our, those guys know you from your college game day moments, the pinnacle, there is no show bigger when you’re talking college football. So you rebound to that and then one day, uh, you’re, you’re graciously let go, right? That’s, that’s what happens.

Let go. Isn’t that so nice? Let go. You got fired. Yeah, <laugh>, you basically got fired. Hey, my mama, my mama is so frustrating with this. Everything she hears, she’s like, every time I say I got fired, she’s like, you gotta let go. I said, mama, they told me to go away and not come back. So you can spend that however you want. Um, but no man, like you reach that point and you reach that success and it’s awesome. Um, but what I found out really, really quickly is one hit bam and I hit Reuben Jones as hard as I could. And it’s the first time you get stingers every time you, you hit in the NFL. I know it. Listen, it’s a crazy game, but it’s a physical game. You hit, you get these stingers that shoot pain down your arms. It sounds awful, but it’s not that bad and you kinda get used to it.

Um, so I got, I got one of those when I hit ’em and, and it went down. And uh, this time it was different because I couldn’t move my arms. And it’s like when you fall asleep on the, on the pillow, if y’all have fallen asleep on your stomach and you wake up and you are flipping out, like trying to move that thing as fast as you can, um, to wake up, but it, but it wasn’t working. And uh, they take you NFL the the, the, the, the hospital was right there. The, the MRI machine right underneath and they take me right underneath and they’re like, they come out an hour later and they’re like, Hey man, you, you fractured your, your C six and C seven. And I’m like, cool, that’s a couple weeks, right? And we’re back at it. Remember, defense sea ball, get ball dumb.

Um, it’s like I, I’ll be back in a couple weeks. And they’re like, that means you broke your neck. I was like, Ooh, okay, can we stick to fractured C six and C seven? ’cause that sounds a heck of a lot better than a broken neck. But no, I mean, I, I remember getting in the ambulance with my wife and, and we both got tears coming down our eyes. Um, ’cause you knew, I mean, I kind of knew that there was a good chance that I would never put the uniform on again. But let me fast forward a little bit and tell you why that day, right there was one of the best days of my life because the Bible says, be still and know that I am God. I didn’t do that. Like, if I had extra time, I was do, I was running, I was, I was lifting, I was playing, I was doing anything I could.

I was distracted, right? Like I think a lot of us, man, the busyness, we wear busyness as a badge of honor. It’s not a badge of honor. And I definitely did. I I came in the house, what did I do? Busy day, all day. I turned the TV on. Why more noise, right? Like that’s ’cause that’s what we like, we like chaos. And so for the first time God really slowed me down and man did I learn a lot and man, did I learn who was in my life for the right reasons. Um, speaking of, I just got married, my wife, lemme tell you something, you talk about getting your dream come true. You know, you married NFL first round draft pick, you’re going to pursue an NFL, uh, you know, NFL career you got, you’re making a lot of money. All this stuff is great.

Guess what? Now she’s my nurse. She didn’t sign up for that. I mean, first year of marriage, she’s cleaning my halo. You know, I’ve always been an angel. I finally got the halo to go with it. So they, you know, they drill the, they drill the halo into your skull, you know, right here and um, and here in the back. So I got scars, but I had, I had to literally be still and she had to take care of me. And you know what I learned about the friends in my life who was in my, in my life for the right reasons. You know, I learned, I just learned. So I’m, I’m a better dad because of that. And I think all of us need to understand, man, if you’re not going through a storm right now, it’s coming. Everybody who’s lived long enough in this room, like you, you know that.

And, and if you’re leaving one, awesome, another one’s coming, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s the trials in life that are gonna happen. And, and God will sustain us and God will meet us because God is for us. And there are some things in life. God’s gonna take us around. And just like, I think potholes down, driving down the road and here there’s ice obviously a little different, but there’s, there’s ice patches, there’s potholes, there’s some things God’s gonna take us around. He, he’s gonna, he’s gonna allow us to go around. But there’s some things that there’s only he can take us through. For us to truly understand my neck was truly, I had to understand it. I had to learn to be still, I had to learn to listen to God. I had to learn these lessons that make me a better dad, a better husband, a better employee, a better friend, a way better friend. So that’s why I say that’s still one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Well, what I think is just so cool is often from the outsiders, we view the peaks in the moments. And often though, those peaks are the result of a valley journey. And certainly that’s kind of the natural rhythm of your life, as we talked about last night, and how easy it is to say God, where, where are, how is this good you? What, what did you realize about the goodness of God as your life has kind of done done this?

But, but here’s the thing too. So if we know that God is for us and we know if God works all things for good, what, what would happen if some of y’all in here that maybe have a marriage on the rocks? What would happen if you took divorce off the table? What would happen if some of y’all are going through a tough time at work? What, what would happen if you took like, I’m gonna quit off the table and we fought like heck and we fought. Like what if, what if we prayed like it depended on God, but worked like it depended on us. And, and I think that’s, that’s, that’s what you learn. Like you absolutely learn like God is forming in these situations, but, and, and I gotta do what? I gotta do my part, but I know that all these things are working for his glory and all these things are teaching and all these moments are, are teaching.

So I, I think it’s, I think it’s fun. I think it’s f like when, when our household and my wife will probably laughing back there right now, like when something bad happens, good, like good like my my son this year, I’ll be honest, full disclosure, JV basketball didn’t go the way we wanted it to go and it didn’t go the way we thought it would go. And we’re a parent, like, you know how awesome it is? Like we, we can, we can try to pray our kids through obstacles and we can try to parent our kids around obstacles or we can pray that our kids have resilience when they face an obstacle, right? Like, isn’t that better? Isn’t isn’t that a different prayer to God? Like, ’cause God’s gonna answer prayers in a, in a bunch of different ways, right? It’s gonna be yes, no or later, right?

And I think we’re so, we’re so, we’re so good. And this is for all of us in here, including me by the way. I ain’t, I ain’t renouncing me in any of this by the way. I’m still messing things up daily. Um, we are so willing to take all of our burdens and all of our, all of our shame and some and our guilt and we have our moments where we are able to come and leave that at the feet of Jesus. You know what we do next though? We come back and pick it up guilty. Like I come back and get it. I I can, I can do it. I got this. But how? But are we willing to leave it? Are we leaving to sit in it? Are we, are we, are we willing to pray like God instead of like, instead of me not having situations that in my kids that come in my life, like forge me different, you know, create me different, you know, help me to handle adversity like you would handle adversity.

And so I think we gotta use those things, right man. Like those things are all so good for us and, and the development and the things that we need to learn and the places where we need to go. ’cause I’m a firm believer like you’re gonna take tests in life, right? Just like in school, you’re gonna take tests, y’all are all gonna have tests and sometimes you’re gonna stink it up, okay? And sometimes when you fail that test and you lose your temper and you didn’t act the way God acted, you know what I think? I think you’re gonna have another opportunity, <laugh>, you’re gonna have another opportunity to pass that test. And, and I do believe that God, when we pass those tests, man, like I do believe he brings us on to different tests and we can get through things because I’m a judgmental. Okay? Can you say that in church you just did so Yes you can.

I don’t know. I

I <laugh> we don’t do that around here.

They said maybe,

Maybe Okay. Um, but like, it’s something that I have to pray consistently. I I, I was, I’ll drive down the road and I’ll see somebody in a car and I’ll, I’ll think a thought and I’m like, really? Like, who are you man? Or, or, or I, I’m a real, I’m really good at this by the way. You can ask my wife. She’s back there. Like, I’m really good at like, hey, you need to do this, you need to do that. And telling people what they need to do and thinking I got the situation figured out right away when I need to just shut up and listen like right and get myself outta the equation. Like I gotta pray for those things. Like I have to, I have to consistently pray. And it’s amazing how God has those tests. Like, like that for me. It’s amazing how he’s taken those things away when I continue to bring ’em to him with my language. Growing up I thought my name was the f-bomb. Okay? Like, mama called me that a lot. Like that was a normal part of our language was was curse words. Like we’ve done a good job and that’s, that’s gone now. Like that’s Adam, like God will take those things that we really need to work on if we’ll give them to him and if, we’ll, we’ll pray like it depends on him, but work like it depends on us.

So, um, you just mentioned your, your kids so much. That’s a good word. I’m just curious. So I grew up with a dad who played in the NFL. Your kids are growing up with a dad who played in the NFL. I’m curious, what is something that you do as far as how you encourage your kids and lead your kids? That is probably the complete opposite of what everyone thinks you do.

Um, we, we try to promote fun. Um, we, we try to, I I try to ask my kids after events, like I’m like, listen, like did you, we don’t, I don’t wanna talk about home runs. I don’t wanna talk about three pointers. I don’t wanna talk about like the success of scoring and stuff. Like I’m, we’re always like, did you have a lot of fun? Did you play as hard as you can? And most importantly, were you a great teammate? Like, ’cause that’s what you control. But, but I can tell you one thing that me and my wife have messed up in the past. Like we got going in sports and youth league sports is crazy. Okay? It’s nuts. Um, let me just, let me just start with this professional athlete. We’ve gone over this first round pick, didn’t have a personal trainer, okay? Didn’t have a personal coach, didn’t play on travel ball teams, didn’t have anything extra.

You know what I had, I had the ability to play ’cause God touched me. Okay? So if we’re trying to work our way into something and you think it’s the team they’re on and you think it’s the amount of work that they put in, it’s not like you have the ability or you don’t and that’s a god-given thing. So all of us dads that have a tendency to be a little pushy in a little in your face, like again, what we are affirming in them, they’re going to adopt and, and what we are building in them. So for example, travel ball is travel ball nuts here just a little bit, okay? Travel balls. I live in Georgia, okay? In the south, like it’s nuts. It’s all over the place. There’s a, there’s a big percentage of our church and our people that we know that Ms. Church every Sunday.

And, and they go to, they go to travel ball, okay? I’m not saying like, I’m not saying that sport isn’t important and sport doesn’t bring great things. It does. And we talked about that already. But if we consistently Ms. Church on Sunday and we got our kids at at travel ball, what are we telling our kids? You know what you’re telling your kids sports more important than God? Oh, that’s not what I said. That’s not what I tell them. That’s what you show them because we can talk about whatever you want about what you tell your kids. Your biggest witness for Christ is not your memorization of scripture. It’s not like not being able to quote, you know, John three 16, everybody knows, uh, not being able to quote different bible verses your biggest impact on your kids and your legacy and everybody you’re around is the way you live your life.

A hundred percent that says more about your God than your words do. And it is so important. So how are we living our life? Like, how are we showing them what’s important? Because they’re gonna hang their cleats up mine really quickly in the NFL. They’re gonna hang their, their shorts, they’re gonna, they hang their shorts up, they’re gonna hang, I guess you can always wear shorts, but anyways, they’re, they’re gonna hang their, their, uh, basketball shoes up. They’re gonna hang their baseball cleats up. Like all that’s gonna go away. And so we’ve got, we’ve gotta be very strategic in the way we parent and it can’t be about success. And by the way, like it’s amazing to me watching these like parents coach and go crazy and go nuts when, like how do kids learn by screwing it up, by messing it up? But then they get, you can’t do this, you can’t do that.

And we’re yelling at ’em. And you know, what I found is you paralyze ’em. Like we gotta take away the fear of failure. Like no matter what you do, I love you if you drop 50 or if you drop zero, if you miss 50 shots, I love you. Like I love you no matter what. So let’s not make those car, car ride homes. Dads, let’s not make ’em all coaching sessions, okay? Like, oh, you should have done this, you should have done that. You ain’t gonna change anything. Okay, newsflash, and, and last thing, and I’ll give it back to you. This is, this is really annoying to me and this, if I step on some toes, I don’t care. I’m leaving. Okay? I’m going home to Georgia <laugh>. Um,

My kid wants it really bad, Bronson, but my kid wants this. Like I we’re doing all this because my kid wants this. Fantastic. Let me ask you a question, dad. Mostly dads by the way. Um, dad, mom, lemme ask you a question. If they wanted to be a professional video gamer, you gonna let ’em play video games all day long? Nope. They wanna be, okay, let’s be a professional eater. The next Joey Chestnut, go crush donuts all day long. Just go in your room and pound like, it is our job to create boundaries. It is our job to disassociate sport and church like to make church like our, we want church to be our next place. Okay, we got school, they gotta go to school. We, we’ve got our house. Like we want church to be our next place. Like that’s the place where we’re learning, we’re growing or thriving.

And lemme tell you something, man, like it has been a blessing to us in our lives because we’ve done it wrong. And and my wife can tell you she’s here. Like, we almost lost our marriage because we didn’t do it. Like I was almost divorced and gone. Like we almost lost our marriage completely because we wanted to go have fun. We wanted to go play sports all the time, and we kept stepping away from church and the word of God. And now we’ve made sure that God is first, and yes, God is first, our spouse is next spouse, not kids. Kids are next. And we’ve, we’ve, we’ve had a lot of success in our marriage has really taken off since we’ve changed those priorities and changed who we’ve hung out with.

Yeah. And, and you do practice that every time I hear you speak somewhere in that conversation, you work in your small group, what they mean to you. Just talk maybe as we close and, and then we’ll we’ll hit one more thing, but just the role of being able to find a church and find people who are fighting for those same things, what that means to you in the man.

It, it’s everything dude. It’s, it’s, again, church is awesome and, and these rows are amazing, but when you get in circles and, and you get with people and you’re doing life and you’re messing things up with them and they’re teaching you like, hey, we did, we do this and we do this as parents, like we’re just growing off of each other and men getting together and talking about problems like we gotta share, listen, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, okay? That’s whether you want like it or not. So you’re becoming who you spend time with. So you hang out with negative people, you’ll become more negative. But you, you hang out with positive people, you hang out with people that pour into you man that love you, that will hold you accountable and I mean hold you accountable.

But what will call you to the carpet? I got one back there. My wife, like, she will call me to the carpet a lot. Okay? Think you need to say that, eh? Probably not. Okay. I mean, but just those people in small group and, and we, we just had a, we had a big, we had a big, we we had a big small group with with, we had a, we have a lady in our small group, man. She, she sat in the middle of our group every single day and 40 years old and she passed away four months ago and it rocked us. But you wanna talk about like what it looks like and what the church looks like? Man, it was incredible. I mean, our friends showing up to their house, our friends showing up, doing their Christmas or Christmas decorations, our friends showing up being, uh, everything they could like just, and, and her dad was there and her dad had another tragedy, you know, losing another kid and they’ve had some dealt a bunch of hands and like you people just keep showing up.

I say what’s wrong with y’all people? And like, we ain’t going nowhere, dad. And we’re still showing up for each other and it’s different, man. It hits different and going through something like that with, with your small group and getting through the other side, man, I can call any of those people in our group and we can do whatever we want anytime. Like, and I know they got my back. I know they’re praying for me, my brother, as I told you about my brother a little bit with drugs and you know, been arrested a bunch of times, you know, my brother comes to church, you know, three weeks ago for the first time. By the way, that’s one of the first times ever that my mom, my dad and my brother have been in church together. Like that just doesn’t happen. Amen. It, it, it hasn’t happened in our household.

One of my buddies in my small group, Brad, he walks up to my brother and gives him a big old hug and tells him how much he cares about him. And we’ve been praying for you for years. And my brother’s in tears because let me, and let me, let me leave you with this. Like, people that are hurting, people that are going through hard things, people that are struggling with drugs, with alcohol, with living their life. If they can’t step in these walls and be accepted, where the heck are they gonna go if we can’t love on them and we can’t show them something different? What do you want ’em to do man? Like this is what we’re designed for. And, and that works in small groups, man, that works with each other, that works in this building that works outside of these walls with all the things about living your life a certain way.

But like out of all this stuff in the Bible, if you, if we, if we boil it down to Jesus’s words, is love God and love one another and we gotta do more of that. And now that doesn’t mean, you know, it doesn’t mean that we have to accept everything about somebody ’cause we’re not, and we’re not gonna accept certain things that are against the God’s word. We’re not going to like, that’s, that’s God’s word. That is his infallible word that we take every part of it and every part of it is true. But we are called to love regardless of what they’re in because I’m in sin too. And the same grace that I accept every day from here, I gotta extend out, right? I can’t go. Yes, thank you. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you, thank you. Nah, I’m not gonna forgive them. It don’t work like that. That’s, we have to offer that same forgiveness to, to others around us. And small group has been the best, uh, thing for us because we’ve been able to share those burdens and get into each other’s lives and just, it’s been, it’s been unbelievable.

And I would say, I think so often that’s such an easier part for our wives to do, uh, women and and our wives in general kind of crave community. And often for us guys like, hey, that’s, I I’m not going to a place to share my feelings. Um, but I think when you hear the impact of just how God moves in places like that, I need accountability. Dave needs accountability. You need accountability. And the, the only reason we can come into a space like this and hear a story like this is because we have a God who forgives and redeems and restores. And so I hope that today, if you are looking for a place like that, hey, we have community here. Um, we would love to pray with you back at Trailhead as soon as this time is over. As soon as we wrap up, we would love to pray with you.

If you would just say, man, there is no way this redemptive story of growing up in a home. Like we know it’s a lot easier to grow up in a home that knows Jesus, but our God can do anything and he can put anything back together and he can redeem and he can restore and whatever brought you into this place today or whatever caused you to tune in online today, he can touch your situation right now. But as David said, Hey, you gotta call out to his name and, um, you, you gotta follow him on podcasts. We, we will probably touch on this in the next service of just, um, the power of prayer, uh, in your life and cry, crying out to God. What would you close the most important thing you do to keep walking with God each day?

I I think it’s building holy habits and that, that is, it’s been so important and it’s really amped up for me since I got let go. Um, you know, not too long ago, I, I started getting in a, in a normal schedule and I started every morning getting up and getting in the hot tub and praying and listening to God for 20 minutes. And I, I want y’all, I want to tell y’all this and and I wanna be fully dis, fully disclosed this. Um, first of all, there’s nothing weird about the hot tub or anything, so chill out. Um, um, but no, like, I set my timer when I started. I set my timer for 20 minutes. I was like, I’m gonna go in the hot tub and I’m gonna listen to God for 20 minutes and I’m gonna pray, wrap my phone in a towel.

’cause a DD boy will be, um, I lasted six minutes and I turned and I was like, surely the alarm’s wrong. I got ripped, ripped my phone out. I’m like, holy cow, it’s been six minutes. Like, it’s, it’s hard prayer’s. Awkward, man. Like, it’s different. It’s not something that’s normal. But, but I’ll tell you this, it’s just like anything else. You don’t have a relationship in your life. If you don’t communicate, that relationship doesn’t exist anymore. Just to be clear, Hey, we’re boyfriend girlfriend, but we’re gonna talk every couple weeks. She gone, okay, newsflash, he gone. That ain’t gonna work, right? So developing those habits and, and then I learned like to, for my system of prayer and how it worked for me, because you get in the rut, right? The same prayer, the same thing. And I, I developed the three Rs and I’ll be, I’ll be quick because I already got a negative time down here, which means you’re talking too much,

You’re about to be let go <laugh>, it’s

Again. And so it’s, it’s, it’s reflect. So every time I pray, the first thing I think is reflect. So when I landed from the plane, thank you Jesus, like safe travel, reflect on my day. What, what happened in my day? What can I share with God? The wins, the losses that went on. My second R is repent. Okay, what do I need to give to God? What, what do I need to say that I’m sorry for? Because again, I told you I’m a judgmental butt hole. So there’s plenty of things that I have to, I’m working on in my life. And then my third R is repurpose. Like, God, repurpose these things for your glory. Repurpose these things so I can use all of what you’ve given me, all of my talents, all of these failures. Because to me it’s not like I’m gonna mess up still, you’re gonna mess up still, you’re gonna mess up still to me.

Like what does our response look like? Can you make the next right move, right? Like that’s the biggest deal to me. So those three Rs, if, if you struggle with prayer, you’re not alone. The if you, if you, if your mind wanders in prayer, you’re not alone. If you think about crazy things during prayer, you’re not alone, okay? Just letting you know. But if you can develop a system or use a system like that, I think it’ll get your mind focused a little bit more. And, uh, that’s, that’s been a huge blessing to my prayer life.

Amen. You’ve been blessed by David this morning, for sure. Let go to the Lord in prayer and then we’ll close. Father, thank you for this morning. God, thank you just for how you’re using David’s testimony. Thank you just for how you brought teams here. You brought guests here, you brought neighbors here, coworkers here. Father, I pray that everything that we did and said brought glory and honor to you, thank you that you are a God who redeems and restores Lord, that we look at it and we say, I can’t let go of that. I can’t walk away from that past. I can’t walk away from that shame. But you don’t just remove it, you separate it as far as possible. And so, father, I pray we would lean into that this morning. God, thank you for each life is here and I pray you would just continue to a mighty work in this space as we seek to see this community rerouted to eternity with your son Jesus. It’s in your name we pray. Amen.