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Speaker 1: Life Audio.

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Speaker 2: You are listening to The Becket Cook Show with your host,

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Speaker 2: Beckett Cook. For more information about Beckett and his ministry,

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Speaker 2: visit his website at Beckettcook dot com. To help support

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Speaker 2: the podcast, visit patreon dot com slash the Becket Cook Show.

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Speaker 2: Please consider subscribing to the podcast and leaving a five

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Speaker 2: star rating.

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Speaker 3: Hey guys, welcome to the show. Happy New Year. I

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Speaker 3: have a special guest today, Joshdiker. Josh lived as a

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Speaker 3: gay man for a while and then he had a

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Speaker 3: radical encounter with Jesus and then started attending a gay

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Speaker 3: affirming progressive church in Hollywood, and soon after he was

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Speaker 3: after about a year, realized that it was a false church,

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Speaker 3: Praise God. And then he ended up finding my church.

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Speaker 3: And so I'm excited to hear his story. It's amazing.

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Speaker 3: But first award from our sponsor. Please welcome Josh Dyker.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

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Speaker 3: So so good to have you on. So let's start

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Speaker 3: at the beginning. You grew up in kind of a

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Speaker 3: secular environment. Your parents were your parents Christians.

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Speaker 4: I went to church when I was a little kid.

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Speaker 4: My mom took me to church, and so there was

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Speaker 4: that exposure to church. My mom grew up in church.

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Speaker 4: I think she felt it was important that I go

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Speaker 4: to church. But I think she has a complicated story

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Speaker 4: or kind of experience with church. But my context was

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Speaker 4: largely secular. There was a lot of divorce. They divorced

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Speaker 4: when I was really young, and so the exposure I

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Speaker 4: got to Christianity, to church was it was kind of

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Speaker 4: a mixed bag. I'll tell you that my dad, when

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Speaker 4: he was in his early twenties, he had a whole

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Speaker 4: other family before me. He was married, he had two kids,

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Speaker 4: and he left that family and he ended up with

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Speaker 4: my mom. So I have a half brother and a

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Speaker 4: half sister that are twenty years older than me, over

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Speaker 4: twenty years older than me, and my sister became am

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Speaker 4: born Green Christian when she was a teenager. So she

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Speaker 4: was an influence in my life as a strong Christian

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Speaker 4: woman and still is. But I would say, you know,

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Speaker 4: most of the context of my growing up was very secular.

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Speaker 4: You know, I grew up in the eighties and nineties.

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Speaker 4: I was raised as an only child, so you know,

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Speaker 4: I watched a lot of TV. I was alone by myself.

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Speaker 4: You know, I was by myself most of the time,

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Speaker 4: and I just didn't have a strong, you know, kind

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Speaker 4: of Christian influence really in most of my life.

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Speaker 3: And so, and how did TV shape you? Because I

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Speaker 3: remember when I was a kid, a kid that TV.

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Speaker 3: It was a sitcom. It was a terrible sitcom called

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Speaker 3: Facts of Life. I don't have even heard of that,

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Speaker 3: but yeah, I remember watching it as a kid, and

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Speaker 3: my mother like she kind of passed by in the

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Speaker 3: living room and she saw me watching it, and she said,

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Speaker 3: I do what you learn the facts of Life from TV? So?

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Speaker 3: How did how did TV shows?

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Speaker 5: Like?

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Speaker 3: What TV shows were you watching?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I mean it's funny that you say that, because TV

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Speaker 4: is so formative, especially as a kid, and I had

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Speaker 4: so little supervision.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why.

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Speaker 4: I think back now and I think, gosh, how do

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Speaker 4: how do my parents let me watch what I watched?

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Speaker 4: We had cable? It was the eighties, so I watched

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Speaker 4: all kinds of stuff I shouldn't be watching, you know,

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Speaker 4: horror movies I was really into. And I remember a

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Speaker 4: phase of like seven eight nine being into that kind

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Speaker 4: of stuff. But you know, all the sitcoms me for me,

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Speaker 4: it was like Growing Pains. Do you remember Family Ties?

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Speaker 4: Growing Pains?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? So we're dating ourselves. But you know, I don't.

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Speaker 4: It's easy to look back now and see how much

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Speaker 4: it shapes you.

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Speaker 6: Know.

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Speaker 4: It tells you this is how you know who you are,

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Speaker 4: this is what to value, this is how to look

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Speaker 4: at the worlds. And it just shapes you in these

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Speaker 4: profound ways. But it seems so inoculate, innocuous, right, you know.

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Speaker 4: But yeah, so I just I watched all that stuff.

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Speaker 4: I remember watching a movie with River Phoenix when I

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Speaker 4: was a kid, and he was smoking, and I thought, oh,

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Speaker 4: I just thought that was I was like eleven, and

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Speaker 4: I just thought that was the coolest thing. I wanted

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Speaker 4: to I couldn't wait to smoke a cigarette, you know

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Speaker 4: that kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: Most chips are poisoned. They have artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, additives,

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Speaker 3: and seed oils which are so toxic. My favorite chips

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Speaker 3: in the world are massive chips. They have three simple ingredients,

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Speaker 3: organic corn, grass fed beef, tallow and sea salt. That's it.

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Speaker 3: And they come in amazing flavors. They have blue corn,

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Speaker 3: they have white corn. They have cabanaro, which is the

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Speaker 3: kind of spicy, yummy one. And this new one I

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Speaker 3: haven't tried this yet, but it's Truro Massa Chips, which

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Speaker 3: I can't wait to get into later tonight. And then

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Speaker 3: this is my favorite, the lime flavor. These are so good.

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Speaker 3: The chips are so healthy and they're crunchy, they're they're

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Speaker 3: good for you. They're delicious.

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Speaker 5: So go to Marsha Chips dot com slash becket and

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Speaker 5: you get twenty five percent off your first order. That's

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Speaker 5: Massa Chips dot com slash becket. This is real delicious food,

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Speaker 5: so good, I'm gonna eat the rest of this bag.

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Speaker 3: I think. The funny thing about no pun intended. The

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Speaker 3: funny thing about sitcoms is they are the jokes are

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Speaker 3: literally they're set up to It's like shows like Friends

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Speaker 3: or Will and Grace or those kinds of sitcoms. Those

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Speaker 3: shows are literally set up two constantly cut down. The

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Speaker 3: characters just cut down each other. That's the that's the

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Speaker 3: whole of the show. So everyone is like the butt

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Speaker 3: of the joke, and we're supposed to like think that's

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Speaker 3: like a healthy kind of way of life is to

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Speaker 3: like you know, diminish somebody else or cut somebody else

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Speaker 3: down like that. It was. It was such a it's

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Speaker 3: such a bizarre phenomenon, and it only could come out

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Speaker 3: of Hollywood.

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Speaker 7: Right, I know it's true, Okay, And so what happened

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Speaker 7: in your I think when you went through puberty or whatever,

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Speaker 7: what happened, like you you realize you were.

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Speaker 3: Saying sex attracted. How how did you feel about all that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I mean I must have been what eleven, twelve thirteen

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Speaker 4: kind of in that range, and my attractions to other

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Speaker 4: guys was really strong, Like I remember feeling really swept

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Speaker 4: away in it. I had such lust in my heart,

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Speaker 4: you know, as a little kid.

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Speaker 1: I just I just had this.

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Speaker 4: I think, you know, it's puberty, right, So all these

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Speaker 4: hormones are going and all these things and things are

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Speaker 4: happening emotionally and mentally and physiologically. And I had a

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Speaker 4: very kind of tumultuous childhood with marriages and divorces and

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Speaker 4: remarriages and kind of shuffling back and forth between parents,

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Speaker 4: and so I think it was a perfect kind of

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Speaker 4: environment for me to be very susceptible to being kind

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Speaker 4: of swept away by my desires.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 4: And I you know, I would have these crushes on

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Speaker 4: guys at school, and I would have this kind of

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Speaker 4: rich fantasy life which I developed by you know, being

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Speaker 4: by myself and watching a lot of TV, and so

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Speaker 4: that helped kind of create a fertile ground for that anyway.

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Speaker 4: And I was also kind of an unhappy adolescent. So

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Speaker 4: the thing was that those feelings were so strong that

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Speaker 4: they didn't I didn't really have space to deny them.

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Speaker 1: I think that I've.

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Speaker 4: I've heard a lot of people share who have had

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Speaker 4: same sex attraction that when they start to realize this,

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Speaker 4: or they hit puberty or a certain age where they're

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Speaker 4: kind of having this kind of awareness of those sort

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Speaker 4: of attractions, that it's there's almost an ambiguity about it,

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Speaker 4: like is this happening?

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Speaker 1: Is this not? I kind of like this person, but

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure. And there was none of that for me.

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Speaker 4: It was very clear that my attractions and my sexual

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Speaker 4: attractions were oriented towards towards guys.

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Speaker 3: And how did you feel about that? I mean, did

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Speaker 3: you feel like this is strange and it's it's I

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Speaker 3: don't want to do this, I don't want to be

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Speaker 3: in part a part of this? Or did you how

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Speaker 3: did I mean, how did you feel about it?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I you know, it was what the nineties, late late eighties,

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Speaker 4: early nineties, So there was that kind of cultural background.

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Speaker 4: It wasn't affirmed in the way it is now. But

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Speaker 4: I also grew up in a pretty progressive household. My

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Speaker 4: parents are very liberal.

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Speaker 6: I I I didn't feel there was some fear and

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Speaker 6: some anxiety, but I didn't feel a sort of a

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Speaker 6: weight of this is wrong or I mean, I didn't

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Speaker 6: tell anybody.

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Speaker 4: So there was that, But and obviously obviously I didn't

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Speaker 4: want to be bullied or an outcast at school. That

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Speaker 4: already kind of happened. But I don't remember feeling particularly

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Speaker 4: like that it was something that I shouldn't move towards,

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Speaker 4: or that it was something that there was even an

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Speaker 4: option for me to make a choice around. It just

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Speaker 4: seemed like this inevitable thing, and I kind of walked

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Speaker 4: towards it.

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Speaker 3: You know, we'll be right back after this short break.

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Speaker 3: And so when you entered into high school, you say

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Speaker 3: that you were struggling emotionally and mentally in high school

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Speaker 3: and that you started, you know, dabbling with drugs, in

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Speaker 3: drugs and alcohol as a teenager. Why was that? Were

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Speaker 3: you just kind of covering the pain of a tumultuous childhood,

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Speaker 3: Like what was going on?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? I think that was part of it, for sure.

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Speaker 4: I think, I'm sure a part of it is dealing

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Speaker 4: with these issues around sexuality and identity and not doing

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Speaker 4: a very good job of that, not having a lot

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Speaker 4: of resources or being very equipped to handle that. I

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Speaker 4: think part of is my disposition. I would sort of

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Speaker 4: an anxious kid, kind of an unhappy kid. So I

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Speaker 4: think there was a combination of factors that led to that.

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Speaker 4: I came out, as they say, told my parents that

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Speaker 4: I was attracted to guys. I came out as gay

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Speaker 4: when I was young. I mean I was like fifteen

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Speaker 4: or sixteen, and I really thought that that was I

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Speaker 4: remember I was thinking about this that I remember thinking

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Speaker 4: that was going to be the answer, you know, that

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Speaker 4: the problem was that I had these desires and I

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Speaker 4: wasn't able to express them right, and that if I

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Speaker 4: was able to kind of be my authentic self and

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Speaker 4: come out, that that that would resolve all those kind

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Speaker 4: of that internal kind of angst.

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Speaker 1: And it just didn't. It didn't at all. You know.

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Speaker 4: I thought that kind of finding my people and coming

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Speaker 4: out and doing all this would make me you know,

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Speaker 4: that's kind of the story we're told, right, that would

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Speaker 4: make me okay. And I just continued with, you know,

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Speaker 4: the ruggling with the drugs and the alcohol and the

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Speaker 4: depression and all that kind of stuff just continued.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there was that whole kind of push I was

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Speaker 3: like ten fifteen years ago from the LGBTQ community. There

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Speaker 3: were these advertisements where I think the tagline was it

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Speaker 3: gets better, right. I remember, No, it doesn't, it actually

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Speaker 3: gets worse, right, That's true from the gay world. And

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Speaker 3: so it got your drugs and alcohol got so bad

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Speaker 3: that you actually went to rehab in Rhode Island when

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Speaker 3: you were nineteen. So how did that even happen? Like,

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Speaker 3: how did you even accept doing that or want.

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Speaker 1: To do that?

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Speaker 4: Well, I think I was kind of forced into doing that.

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Speaker 4: I was I just graduated high school. I'd had a

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Speaker 4: couple years of really struggling with drinking, were smoking weed,

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Speaker 4: We're doing all these other drugs. So whatever I could

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Speaker 4: get when I was in high school kind of running

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Speaker 4: with the wrong crowd, you know that type of thing.

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Speaker 4: And I yeah, actually it was Actually I was living

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Speaker 4: in Rhode Island, That's basically where I grew up, and

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Speaker 4: I got sent to a rehab in LA And you'll

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Speaker 4: get a kick out of this it was. It was

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Speaker 4: a it was a rehab for gay and lesbian people. Specifically.

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Speaker 4: What was it called the.

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Speaker 3: Probably probably the Geffen Center for Rehab. Like yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: has like a bunch of gay establishments in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 3: does he? Yeah, like that, you know, in the Gay

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Speaker 3: Lesbian Center, like he has, he has a bunch of

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Speaker 3: he contributes a bunch to that stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, So I I was nineteen and I got

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Speaker 4: kind of shipped out to l A to go to

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Speaker 4: this this rehab, and part of it was this sort

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Speaker 4: of residential kind of in treatment and then the second

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Speaker 4: half of yours sort of in a sober living. It's

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Speaker 4: like a halfway house, so you live there, but you

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Speaker 4: can kind of come and go and they you know,

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Speaker 4: you get a job and all that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 4: You're sort of transitioned back into society. So, you know,

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Speaker 4: I lived out here for a couple of years. But

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Speaker 4: what's funny is, first of all, I relapsed several times,

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Speaker 4: so it didn't you know, sobriety didn't take. But I

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Speaker 4: that's when I started, you know, going out and having sex.

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Speaker 4: That was when I really started to just I guess

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Speaker 4: dive in to.

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Speaker 1: This whole.

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Speaker 4: Thing of pursuing sex as a way to find comfort

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Speaker 4: and validation and escape and whatever else that it was

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Speaker 4: going to that I thought it was going to do

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Speaker 4: for me.

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Speaker 3: And how long did that go on in La?

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Speaker 1: Well, I lived in la for a couple of years,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I was, what.

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Speaker 4: Twenty I've lived out here for a couple of years,

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Speaker 4: twenty almost twenty one, and you know, I wasn't really

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Speaker 4: doing much of anything, and I thought, I need to

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Speaker 4: go to school.

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Speaker 1: I want to go back to the East Coasts. So

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Speaker 1: I went.

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Speaker 4: I wound up getting myself to Boston and I went

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Speaker 4: to college and I went to school there. I did

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Speaker 4: not finish, but I did get me to Boston and

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Speaker 4: I lived there for a few years. So I spent

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Speaker 4: kind of a good chunk of my mid twenties, early

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Speaker 4: to mid twenties in Boston. And it was the same

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Speaker 4: thing there. You know, I was in my twenties. I

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Speaker 4: was very promiscuous, and I worked, I went out, I

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Speaker 4: you know sometimes, you know, I went through these kind

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Speaker 4: of binges of sort of partying or whatever, and that's

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Speaker 4: just what my life looked like.

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Speaker 1: It was a normal life to me. I thought it

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Speaker 1: were you going to make my way.

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Speaker 3: Were you in like, were you ever in a serious

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Speaker 3: relationship or was it always just kind of hookups.

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Speaker 4: I'd never been in a serious relationship. It was always hookups,

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Speaker 4: and I didn't want a serious relationship. That wasn't I know,

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Speaker 4: that's the desire that a lot of people have, even

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Speaker 4: a lot of people that identify as LGBTQ. And but

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Speaker 4: that just for me, what gave me kind of satisfaction

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Speaker 4: was the promiscuous lifestyle was kind of the chase of that,

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Speaker 4: the high of that. It really did have a hold

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Speaker 4: on me. I did become a slave to that. And

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Speaker 4: so that's kind of what I was just caught up in.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and so and then you slowly but surely started

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Speaker 3: to kind of did this happen in Boston where you

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Speaker 3: started to kind of wrestle with the meaning of life,

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Speaker 3: like what is the purpose of my life? I mean

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Speaker 3: that happened to me when I was you know, it

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Speaker 3: happened to me like when I was forty I think,

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Speaker 3: I mean it started earlier, but it really came to

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Speaker 3: a head when I was forty two or no, forty one.

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Speaker 3: But so, what what was that all about? How did

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Speaker 3: that begin? And what did that feel like.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I actually you and I have a kind

303
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Speaker 4: of a similar path there.

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Speaker 1: So I was in Boston in my late twenties.

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Speaker 4: I think I was twenty seven, and I came back

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Speaker 4: decided to move back to LA. Boston wasn't working. I

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Speaker 4: was still wrestling with drugs and alcohol. I really couldn't

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Speaker 4: get my life together. I came out to La to

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Speaker 4: sort of get a fresh start. I went to rehab

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Speaker 4: yet again. This time it sort of took a little

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Speaker 4: bit more. I was able to sort of be sober,

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Speaker 4: and but everything else was the same. You know, I

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Speaker 4: was as promiscuous as ever.

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Speaker 1: You know. The thing is, you know, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how if.

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Speaker 4: This is universal for people that have experienced with drugs

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Speaker 4: and alcohol and then get into kind of recovery world.

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Speaker 1: But there's a sort of an under I don't know

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Speaker 1: how would I put this.

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Speaker 4: There's an idea in the recovery world that as long

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Speaker 4: as I'm sober, if I'm not getting high and not drinking,

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Speaker 4: that's that's the whole point.

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Speaker 1: That's the end game.

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Speaker 4: Any other kind of behavior that I need to that

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Speaker 4: I do to kind of manage my life is okay.

326
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Speaker 4: So maybe I shop too much or maybe I overread

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Speaker 4: and that's not great. We can address that, but at

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Speaker 4: least you're you're not you're not getting high, you're not drinking.

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Speaker 4: And so I think I let that become an excuse

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Speaker 4: for me to be very promiscuous and kind of seek

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Speaker 4: out sex as a way to cope with life. And yeah,

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Speaker 4: I mean I I I move to LA, I got

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Speaker 4: a job, I worked, I did get into a couple

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Speaker 4: of relationships.

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Speaker 1: At that point, I was in my thirties.

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Speaker 4: You know, I thought that's what, you know, maybe would

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Speaker 4: bring me some happiness and some contentment. And just like you,

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Speaker 4: I know, I know we're very similar in this part

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Speaker 4: of our stories. I got to a point in my

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Speaker 4: life where I felt like it should be enough, you know,

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Speaker 4: like my life wasn't fabulous, but I had more than

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Speaker 4: I thought that I would. You know, I had a

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Speaker 4: decent professional life. I had some success there. I had

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Speaker 4: you know at a time, I had a boyfriend, I

345
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Speaker 4: had a nice place to live, I had a good car,

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Speaker 4: I had you know, I kind of had the things

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Speaker 4: and it just wasn't it wasn't enough, And I, like you,

348
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Speaker 4: wrestled with that for you know, I think a good

349
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Speaker 4: two or three years of sort of like, what if

350
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Speaker 4: this isn't enough?

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Speaker 1: What's enough? You know, if this isn't when you were

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Speaker 1: meaning what does.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so when you were wrestling with that, did you

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Speaker 3: ever consider God or was that not even on the

355
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Speaker 3: table for you? Well?

356
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Speaker 4: I think, like a lot of people, a lot of

357
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Speaker 4: my sort of secular coworkers or neighbors, or I had

358
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Speaker 4: kind of a hodge podge mostly sort of New agey

359
00:20:03,359 --> 00:20:05,919
Speaker 4: view of God. You know, God is a you know,

360
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Speaker 4: God is a loving force, and you know, the universe

361
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:11,639
Speaker 4: does this or the universe does that? You know. I

362
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Speaker 4: just sort of like, yeah, right, people say it all

363
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:18,120
Speaker 4: the time every movie you watch. I think the universe

364
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:20,479
Speaker 4: wants me to do X, Y and Z. The universe

365
00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:22,280
Speaker 4: is telling me. I'm like, really, because the universe is

366
00:20:22,320 --> 00:20:27,040
Speaker 4: just a bunch of stars and empty space. But okay.

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Speaker 3: I had a friend. I had a friend who's who's

368
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Speaker 3: this is a long time ago. I had a friend

369
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Speaker 3: whose boyfriend got in a motorcycle accident, and my friend

370
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Speaker 3: was visiting him at the hospital and he said to him,

371
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:46,720
Speaker 3: the universe is telling you to slow down. I think

372
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Speaker 3: of that all the time, Like, the universe is telling

373
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Speaker 3: you but anyway, go ahead.

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Speaker 1: That's good.

375
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So that's kind that was That was what

376
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Speaker 4: I adopted, right, That's what I inherit the spirit of

377
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:03,880
Speaker 4: the you know, that's the spirit in the of the air.

378
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Speaker 1: Right, that kind of hodgepodge.

379
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Speaker 4: I mean, I you know, I was really never int astrology,

380
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:10,399
Speaker 4: but I was kind of like whatever I mean, I

381
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 4: think I went to go see a psychic a couple

382
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Speaker 4: of times in my life.

383
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Speaker 1: I was just sort of open to that kind of

384
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Speaker 1: whole vibe.

385
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Speaker 4: And God is love, which basically means he just affirms

386
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Speaker 4: whatever I do and wants me to be happy and

387
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Speaker 4: that kind of thing. So that was sort of my view,

388
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Speaker 4: and it's it's not enough. And I reached a point

389
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Speaker 4: probably thirty eight or thirty nine, where I I thought,

390
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Speaker 4: my life has no meaning, like there's no purpose to it.

391
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Speaker 4: And it wasn't even just this idea that my life

392
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Speaker 4: didn't have meaning or purpose, but life the way that

393
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 4: I understood it didn't have meaning or purpose at all

394
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Speaker 4: for like for anybody, you know, like what was where

395
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Speaker 4: was this all going? It was it was very kind

396
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:58,600
Speaker 4: of Ecclesiastes, right, like where, you know, what's what's.

397
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Speaker 1: The point of this?

398
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Speaker 4: Like I'm going to die, and then everyone I've ever

399
00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 4: known is going to die, and then everyone they've ever

400
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:04,600
Speaker 4: known is going to die, and then the Sun's going

401
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:07,120
Speaker 4: to burn out and the universe is going to go cold,

402
00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:08,840
Speaker 4: and what's the point of any of this? And I

403
00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:13,360
Speaker 4: remember having this deep, this deep, unsettled kind of pit

404
00:22:13,800 --> 00:22:17,359
Speaker 4: of like, even if I got a better version of

405
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:19,719
Speaker 4: my own life, even if I made more money or

406
00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:22,679
Speaker 4: maybe got a family, or I took this path or

407
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 4: I took that path, I started to understand deep in

408
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:30,440
Speaker 4: my core that it was that it still wouldn't add

409
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:33,159
Speaker 4: up into anything, and it still wouldn't be rooted in

410
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 4: anything real. And I didn't know what to do with

411
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 4: that right away, but I can see now that that

412
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 4: was one of the ways the Lord started to lay

413
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Speaker 4: the foundation for me.

414
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Speaker 3: Yeah, just kind of like the same thing with me

415
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:51,159
Speaker 3: that happened in Paris six months It was like I

416
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 3: had that moment of like, WHOA, I feel completely empty,

417
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Speaker 3: And it was the weirdest, scariest feeling I've like I've

418
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 3: ever had. It was so strange. But as you said,

419
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 3: the Lord was preparing me to come to him six

420
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Speaker 3: months later. So speaking of that, so then what happened

421
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:18,639
Speaker 3: when you were alone in your apartment and what happened

422
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 3: with that? Tell us about that story.

423
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, I all these years later, it's it's still it's

424
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:31,680
Speaker 4: still so it's still so amazing to me and hard

425
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 4: to articulate or process. But I was I was alone

426
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 4: in my apartment. It was a random week night. I

427
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 4: wasn't doing anything in particular. And the best I can

428
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 4: describe it is, did you have life at the time. No,

429
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 4: I was just I was single, living on my own,

430
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:54,960
Speaker 4: you know. I think it was around forty, well I was.

431
00:23:55,040 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 4: I was forty. I turned forty and the veil, I

432
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 4: think the veil was lifted somehow. There I was alone,

433
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,479
Speaker 4: and I just had the shift. This this this thing happened.

434
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 4: It's came over me, this light and this thing, this

435
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,399
Speaker 4: inner vision that was also sort of an outer vision.

436
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:16,959
Speaker 4: It's like how to Paul describes it?

437
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 1: Like is it?

438
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 4: And I can't articulate everything that happened. But one of

439
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 4: the things that I experienced was it was Jesus right.

440
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 4: I fell to my knees and I had this experience

441
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:34,959
Speaker 4: with Jesus, which I wasn't a Christian, you know, at

442
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 4: the time. I had a very low opinion of Christians.

443
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 4: I really did not like Christians. They were enemies in

444
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 4: my mind, backwards bumpkins, zealots, just the worst.

445
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 3: People, and especially the Evangelicals.

446
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 4: Especially the Evangelicals exactly, and I just I really loathed them,

447
00:24:55,800 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 4: I really did. And I was very political, because that's

448
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 4: the religion that you need if you don't have anything

449
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 4: else to fill that God.

450
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 3: God is the state, which is political, and so you

451
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 3: that's that's your God politics.

452
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 4: Right, I mean I was the most typical, you know,

453
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 4: gay guy living in Los Angeles, progressive, political, promiscuous, you know, totally.

454
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: Right.

455
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 4: And look, I know that's not everybody's experience, but it's

456
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 4: a lot of people's experience, and it was mine. And

457
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 4: I had this experience with And so I'm in on

458
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 4: my loan in my apartment and it's Jesus and I

459
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 4: fall on my knees and I'm sobbing and I experienced

460
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 4: the reality of my I don't know, it's this conviction,

461
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 4: this conviction and grace. Like I saw my need for him,

462
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 4: I saw my sin and my shame and my guilt.

463
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 4: But it didn't crush me because in equal measure and

464
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 4: more measure, I experienced his grace simultaneously. I mean, that's

465
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 4: what was happening to me. That's what I and I

466
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 4: was sobbing, and I knew it was Jesus. I mean,

467
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 4: there was this moment with the Holy Spirit. He lit

468
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 4: the flame, and I did not know what to do

469
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 4: with this. Like the next day, I'm in I called

470
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:19,959
Speaker 4: my sister, who's, like, I said, a very strong Christian

471
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 4: moment and she loves the Lord, very godly woman, and

472
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 4: I told her, I told friends, I mean it sounded

473
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,640
Speaker 4: so insane. I didn't know what to do with it,

474
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 4: you know.

475
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:36,159
Speaker 3: But what was it did? Was there something like the

476
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:39,679
Speaker 3: moments before that where you encounter Jesus. Was there something

477
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:41,880
Speaker 3: that led up to that or was it just out

478
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 3: of the blue? Yeah, reading the Bible? Had you been

479
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 3: like was there anything that you were doing? No?

480
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: I hadn't been reading the Bible. I hadn't been you know.

481
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 4: I think I've been wrestling with those questions. But other

482
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 4: than that, there was no. I wasn't reading the Bible,

483
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 4: had gone to church. I hadn't been talking about those

484
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,199
Speaker 4: type of spiritual matters with friends. It's just it's just

485
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:11,679
Speaker 4: this thing happened to me, and it just put me

486
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 4: on a different trajectory. And what's funny is I think,

487
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 4: you know, if we were gonna if this was going

488
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 4: to be a Hollywood film the next day, I would

489
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 4: have gotten up and like I like, my whole life

490
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:26,919
Speaker 4: would have looked different, very very quickly. But you know,

491
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 4: sometimes the Lord works differently with different people. For me,

492
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 4: it was the flame. The spark of the flame was

493
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 4: lit and I was put on a different path. And

494
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 4: what happened in the subsequent weeks and months was I

495
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 4: did go to church, and I did start reading the

496
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 4: Bible and all this kind of stuff. But it did

497
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:44,920
Speaker 4: there was a little bit of that. You know, it

498
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 4: took a chunk of time for me to start moving

499
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 4: that direction.

500
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 3: And so how did you end up at what was

501
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 3: Hollywood United Methodists, which is a game for me? How

502
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 3: did you even decide what church to go to?

503
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's that's a good question. Well, I had

504
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 4: a co worker, so kind of paralleled all this happening.

505
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 4: I had a co worker. And the God is so

506
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 4: awesome because the way this worked is this guy he

507
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 4: worked in a completely different department we had, we had

508
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 4: no reason to interact, but he ended up sitting near

509
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 4: me totally different guy, just this really cool Mexican dude,

510
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 4: totally different than me. And I don't even remember how

511
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 4: we got to kind of kind of talking and becoming friends.

512
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 4: But he was a Christian, a strong Christian, and I

513
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 4: started having these conversations with him, and I told him

514
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 4: about my experience and I started asking questions and we

515
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 4: would talk all the time. He actually brought me to

516
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 4: his church. It was the first time I went to church,

517
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 4: and I was ready for it because of that experience,

518
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 4: I think. And I didn't really connect with his church,

519
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 4: but it sort of opened the door for me, and

520
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 4: I thought, Okay, I'm going to go to church.

521
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 1: You know that I want to go to church. I

522
00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: want to seek this. I want to seek him.

523
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 4: I don't I didn't you know how we apprehend before

524
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 4: we comprehend. It was that kind of thing. I sensed

525
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 4: a direction I was being pulled in, but I didn't know.

526
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 4: I didn't know the first thing about anything. And I

527
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 4: don't remember how I found this church. I don't know

528
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 4: if it was a friend of a friend that recommended it,

529
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 4: or if I had driven past it. It was a

530
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 4: big old cathedral, right, you've seen it? Yeah, I think

531
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 4: probably and maybe that's the.

532
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 3: One on the island is a big ribbon on.

533
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: It, Okay, exactly someone, Yeah.

534
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 4: That is like the original gay church. Yeah, it is

535
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 4: the original gay church. So maybe that I just thought

536
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 4: that's what church was. It's a big old cathedral. But

537
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 4: somehow I wounded. I wound up there and I was

538
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 4: so hungry for the Lord, like he had he the spirit.

539
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 4: He lit something in me and I started going to

540
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 4: this church. And at first I was like really into it,

541
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 4: you know, I mean I was so excited to be

542
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 4: around other believers, and I knew that it was affirming,

543
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 4: like the associate pastor was a lesbian, like they had

544
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 4: a big rainbow flag outside. But I didn't it. I

545
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 4: hadn't even got to the point where that I was

546
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 4: even that even register like I was. I didn't even

547
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 4: know what to do with being gay and being a Christian,

548
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 4: Like I hadn't even sorted through all this.

549
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 1: I mean, this is so early on. Yeah, so that's

550
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: how I wound up there.

551
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 3: And how long did you stay there?

552
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: Well? I was there, I guess a little over a

553
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: year or so.

554
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 4: I wanted to be around other Christians and I dove

555
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 4: wrote write in you know, I wanted to know what

556
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 4: it meant to follow Jesus, and so I started, you know,

557
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 4: interacting with people at church. I started serving there, and

558
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 4: in parallel to that, I started to I don't know

559
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 4: how I stumbled across it, but I stumbled across like

560
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 4: the Bible Project. And then I started watching a lot

561
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 4: of sermons. And I started watching like John Piper and

562
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 4: like Arc Sproul and like Tim you know what I mean,

563
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 4: a Matt Chandler and like all of these guys. And

564
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 4: I would go home and I will watch like three

565
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 4: sermons a night. I mean, I'm telling you about it. Yeah,

566
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 4: I just and I would I would read the Bible.

567
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 4: I started reading books. I started reading A. C. S.

568
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 4: Lewis and Mere Christianity.

569
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 3: How did those sermons compare to the sermons you were hearing.

570
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 4: At Well, that's the that's the thing, Like they are

571
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 4: preaching the gospel right, and I'm reading Scripture. I would

572
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 4: read at night. I remember I would cry because I

573
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 4: would read this and this wasn't some weird ancient foreign

574
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 4: book that had no relevance to me. I would read

575
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 4: these words and it was like it was speaking to me.

576
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 4: He was speaking to me. And there was this illumination

577
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 4: I didn't even understand. And that was the same thing

578
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 4: happened to me when I first started reading the Bible.

579
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 3: I mean I would I was just end up weeping

580
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 3: because I was like, I can't believe this is true

581
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 3: and and I can't believe I'm a part of this

582
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,719
Speaker 3: whole redemption story, Like this is insane. I mean it

583
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 3: was the same exactly experience.

584
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh totally, Like I mean talk about the scales

585
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 4: falling from my eyes. I thought it was like if

586
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 4: you told me there were aliens living among us. I

587
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:13,719
Speaker 4: was like, this is it's true. Like I knew that

588
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 4: Jesus was true. I knew that what Christianity was saying

589
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 4: about the world and about me and about you and

590
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 4: about where this whole thing is going was real and true.

591
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 4: And I would look around me. I would go to work.

592
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 4: I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I'm like,

593
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 4: how am I supposed to sit at my desk when,

594
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 4: as you put it, I've met the king of the universe? Like,

595
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 4: what am I supposed to do? I mean, my whole

596
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 4: world was turned upside down and I was so on fire.

597
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 4: And I would go to this church and I noticed

598
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 4: that people weren't on fire like that. They didn't talk

599
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 4: about sermons and books they were reading. That was the

600
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 4: very first thing I noticed. There was a difference. It

601
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 4: was like a social club, but people weren't talking about

602
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 4: what's the Lord doing in their lives and how he's

603
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 4: moving and how he's opening up new new understandings for

604
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 4: them or whatever it was.

605
00:32:57,480 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: There was just none of that fire. There was no

606
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: fear of the Lord, none of that.

607
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 4: And there were, you know, fifteen minutes sermons on five

608
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 4: ways to be more grateful compared to and I've watching

609
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 4: like John Piper, Yeah.

610
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I was. That is amazing. I've told this

611
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 3: story before, but when I first got say, well, actually no,

612
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 3: this was like a year after I got saved, a

613
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 3: good friend of mine started coming to my church. He

614
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 3: was my best friend, and he started coming to my

615
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 3: church and he came for about every Sunday for about

616
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 3: three months to reality La and then he suddenly disappeared.

617
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 3: And I found out later that he started going to

618
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 3: All Souls Church, which is a gay church in Pasadena. Okay,

619
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 3: So I was like, what on earth do they even

620
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 3: say at these churches? And so I listened to a

621
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 3: few of their sermons, and it was like what you said,

622
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 3: it was just like absolute nonsense, Like it was just

623
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 3: it was like the flowers in the beauty of the

624
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 3: universe and this, and it was like, what, like this

625
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with the gospel. Finally, somebody created

626
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 3: a healthy version of Gatorade, and it happens to be

627
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 3: Josh who works on this show. And it's called Sport Drink.

628
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 3: Comes in two flavors, no yellow, five lemon, lime and orange.

629
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 3: You glad it's not chemicals and this is the cleanest

630
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,959
Speaker 3: electrolyte drink available on the market. I promise you. There's

631
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 3: no chemicals, no fake ingredients. It's everything you need, nothing

632
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 3: you don't. And it comes in these cans, these steel cans,

633
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,839
Speaker 3: and you just take a scoop of the powder, put

634
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 3: it in your water at home, mix it up and

635
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 3: you have your sports drink for the day. And the

636
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 3: steel can is more recyclable than plastic, and there's no

637
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 3: microplastic exposure. Gatorade uses high fruit doose corn syrup, which

638
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 3: is terrible for you, terrible. I can't express how terrible

639
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 3: it is. And neurotoxic dyes. They use these artificial dyes

640
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 3: in their drinks, which why would you want that in

641
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 3: your body? It's terrible for you. So go to sport

642
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 3: Dash Drink dot com. That's sport drink dot com. And

643
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 3: when you go to the checkout, put in the code

644
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 3: Becket and you'll get ten percent off. That's sport Dash

645
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 3: Drink dot Com. And you're gonna love it, and your

646
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 3: body is gonna love it too. How did you extricate

647
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 3: yourself from this port? How did you finally just realize

648
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:49,959
Speaker 3: that you needed to leave?

649
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:52,879
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's so funny. It's the same

650
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 4: thing you're saying. It's the same thing you're saying. I

651
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 4: think I was I was reading scripture and I was

652
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 4: listening to the word being preached, and then I was

653
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,840
Speaker 4: going to this church, and the difference was so stark,

654
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 4: you know, Like I was reading in John and he

655
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 4: talks about you know, he talks about you'll be baptized

656
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 4: in the spirit and truth, and it was the truth.

657
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 4: He said, his Jesus says, my word is true. You know,

658
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:24,880
Speaker 4: he is the truth. And I wanted to know the

659
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 4: truth and what I was hearing at these progress and

660
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 4: I went to some other I mean, in the circle,

661
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 4: I kind of got exposed to a lot of progressive

662
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 4: ideology and progressive Christianity, which is not even it's not Christianity.

663
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the whole of the religion.

664
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 4: But you're right, it's very Yeah, it's very it's very

665
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:46,320
Speaker 4: influenced by New Age and all this kind of stuff.

666
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 4: And it was like a hodgepodge of you could just

667
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 4: believe whatever you want. So if everything is true, then

668
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 4: nothing is true. There was nothing to grab hold of. Yeah,

669
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 4: But what really changed, what really came to a head

670
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 4: as I decided to I needed to understand what it

671
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 4: was going to look like for me to walk with

672
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 4: the Lord and having this having same sex attraction. And

673
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 4: I had sort of tabled that for a while. All

674
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 4: I knew when I first got saved was I put

675
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 4: it together enough that I wasn't married. I was like, well,

676
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 4: I'm not married, and I think that Christians don't have

677
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 4: sex outside of marriage, so I'm just gonna not do that.

678
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:23,840
Speaker 2: You know.

679
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 4: That was as much as I could put together. But

680
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 4: I knew I needed it, and the Lord was so

681
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 4: gracious with me the way he ordered things. Sometimes he

682
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 4: orders he orders like his conviction of sin and his

683
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 4: revelation in different ways than I would have or what

684
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 4: I want for somebody. But the way he ordered it

685
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 4: for me was very gracious. And so after a few months,

686
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 4: I said, I need to figure this out, and I

687
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 4: started to do a really deep dive and I read

688
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 4: all I read a bunch of books and videos and

689
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 4: all this kind of stuff I could about, you know,

690
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,479
Speaker 4: that this issue of does scripture does scripture affirm same

691
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 4: sex relationships or not? And I read, you know, the

692
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 4: Matthew vines and all that kind of stuff right on

693
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 4: the affirming side. And then I read, you know, a

694
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 4: Preston sprinkle and a bunch of other stuff on on.

695
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 4: I mean, there's not really a side. But what blew

696
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 4: me away Beckett was that it wasn't even close the

697
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:19,800
Speaker 4: arguments for like the affirming side, that oh, the scriptures

698
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 4: just we just got it wrong. Whoops, you just have

699
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 4: to kind of look at it this way. And then

700
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:26,720
Speaker 4: none of that was true. It was a big misunderstanding.

701
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 4: The arguments were so weak. It didn't it wasn't even

702
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 4: I thought it was going to be this big rustle

703
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 4: for me to figure out, like what's the truth. It

704
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 4: was so clear, I mean, just read the scripture. It's

705
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 4: so clear and so I was wrestling with this and

706
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 4: I came to land. I landed at that point, and

707
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 4: I remember asking the pastor at this church. I said,

708
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 4: you know, I'm trying to figure this out or what

709
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:50,359
Speaker 4: if this looks like? And what what what do I

710
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 4: do with with the reality of sex? And and and

711
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 4: am I supposed to have sex with other people? And

712
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 4: you know what does that look like? And she said, oh,

713
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 4: Jesus isn't really that worried about it. As long as

714
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 4: you don't hurt anybody else, you can kind of have

715
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 4: sex with whoever you want. And I thought, that's the

716
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 4: same answer the world gives. How can the exact how

717
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 4: can Jesus, who's totally upside down be giving the exact

718
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 4: same answer that any average secular atheist on the street

719
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 4: would give me about sexual ethics. It just and that

720
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:32,720
Speaker 4: was it. That was a straw that but I just knew,

721
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 4: I just knew. I was like, I got I have

722
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 4: to get out of here.

723
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 3: Wow. And by the way, you mentioned Preston Sprinkle, I

724
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 3: just want to clarify for my audience that do not

725
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 3: buy Preston Sprinkle books. That whole revoice side B stuff

726
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 3: is from the pit of hell, and so please do

727
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 3: not because I know a lot of churches are buying

728
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 3: into this and they're having their congregants or their leaders

729
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 3: read Preston Sprinkle books. So please avoid all of that.

730
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,879
Speaker 3: I've I've done a whole episode. Well link it below.

731
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 3: I did an episode with Rosario Butterfield and christ Oh yes,

732
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 3: she's great. Yeah, on side sideb Christianity and that whole mess.

733
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 3: It's just a total mess. It's not biblical. It's the

734
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:19,240
Speaker 3: spirit of the age.

735
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: Anyway.

736
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 3: I just had to say that before before.

737
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 4: We do, and and I'll just I'll just add that,

738
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 4: you know, I read a lot of different opinions and

739
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 4: or our perspectives, i should say, and all sorts of

740
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 4: and it was it was helpful for me to go through.

741
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 4: And I did read some stuff that's heretical, right, I

742
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:37,399
Speaker 4: mean one of the first books I read was Love

743
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 4: Wins by Rob Bell for gonna sakes. I mean, it's there,

744
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 4: so you know, I was on her journey to figure

745
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 4: out what's true. And there's a lot of unhelpful, let's say,

746
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 4: and also untrue information out there. Rosera Boda Field, she

747
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 4: was so helpful for me and working through some of

748
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 4: this you know her stuff, and there's a lot of

749
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 4: great voices out there. But I I I want to

750
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 4: I want to kind of affirm what you're saying is

751
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 4: that you have to use discernment on who you listen

752
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 4: to and how you take those things.

753
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 3: So, yeah, and so what happens next? How did you

754
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 3: find a real church? How did you?

755
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:19,760
Speaker 2: Yeah?

756
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: Reality and reality la? Okay, Well it's really funny.

757
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 4: So I told you that when I first got saved,

758
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 4: I was like, I didn't know what to do with myself.

759
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: It was such a drastic thing that had happened to me.

760
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 4: It felt it was so transformational that I think I

761
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 4: felt like I needed to respond in some kind of

762
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 4: dramatic or drastic way. I didn't know how to process

763
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 4: what was going on. And one of the things I

764
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 4: started doing was I started looking into missions, like I

765
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 4: need to go on a mission.

766
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 1: I need to go to Africa. Oh.

767
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 4: And I started looking into like Christian communities, Christian intentional communities,

768
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 4: or kind of commans where Christians lived together. And I

769
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 4: found a while I started corresponding. Mostly I was going

770
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:03,400
Speaker 4: to go live on a farm in Georgia, you know

771
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 4: what I mean, with a bunch of Christians, and I

772
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 4: just didn't know. But one of them was in San

773
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 4: Francisco and I went to visit them and they were

774
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 4: very cool. It's a very cool church. Not you know

775
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 4: that that wasn't the path that I needed to take.

776
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,320
Speaker 4: But I remember hearing about Reality SF and I remember

777
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 4: looking at their website and thinking, this is like a

778
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 4: really cool church when I was up in San Francisco.

779
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 4: And so when I was looking for a new church,

780
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 4: I think the Lord the Holy Spirit brought this to

781
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 4: my mind and I just thought, maybe there's a Reality.

782
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 4: I didn't know anything, I didn't know how to find

783
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 4: a church. So I literally just thought, maybe there's a

784
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 4: Reality in LA and I just googled it and it

785
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 4: was the first thing that came up, and I just

786
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 4: went back next Sunday and I went and.

787
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:42,800
Speaker 1: I knew that was my church.

788
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 3: What year was it was my church?

789
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen?

790
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:53,320
Speaker 3: Oh wow, so pretty recently. I mean yeah, relatively recently.

791
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 3: And so and then you so you immediately just felt

792
00:42:57,600 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 3: like this is where I need to be.

793
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh mm hmmm. Yeah.

794
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 4: And what I love about and I think what's important

795
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 4: for any church is I was hungering to know. I

796
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 4: wanted to be disciples, right. I wanted to know what

797
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 4: does it look like for me to follow the Lord

798
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 4: in my day to day life? What does it really

799
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 4: mean in every aspect and all of life to look

800
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 4: to look to him to trust him?

801
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 1: And I've and you know, I.

802
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,400
Speaker 4: Had to continue to do that with I think anyone

803
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 4: who experiences on matt desires, which is going to be

804
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 4: all of us, is going to have to continue to

805
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 4: press into trusting him that what he says is true

806
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 4: and good. And that was the space that I could

807
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 4: really you know, or a church that I could really

808
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 4: do that in.

809
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 3: And so uh and so what what did your did

810
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 3: you tell your parents all of this? Do they are

811
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 3: they aware what happened when they found out that you

812
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 3: were just, yeah, a real Christian?

813
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: You know?

814
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really funny that you asked that, because it

815
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 4: was awkward. I think I think, I, I know, I

816
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 4: know your story too, and that you've had similar experiences that.

817
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 4: When I went and I started to tell friends and

818
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 4: family that I was a Christian and some of the

819
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 4: implications of that about how I was going to be

820
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 4: living my life, I got kind of the gamut of response.

821
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 4: A lot of people were very how do I say

822
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 4: graciously that very yeah, I mean they just weren't. It was,

823
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 4: it was I got very negative responses. I mean I

824
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 4: remember telling an old friend of mine. He said, he

825
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 4: just he just I think that's abhorrent that this Christian,

826
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 4: you know, the whole thing around the gay thing, the

827
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 4: way his understanding of how he just thought it was,

828
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:48,800
Speaker 4: he couldn't wrap his head around it. I mean, he

829
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 4: thought he felt the way I felt before I became

830
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:56,240
Speaker 4: a believer. I had this Facebook post for from about

831
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 4: six months before I became a Christian. I get to

832
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 4: it was it was on my my sister's Facebook page

833
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,840
Speaker 4: and she had written something or something about her faith.

834
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,280
Speaker 4: And I wrote this whole thing about how your religion

835
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 4: is sick and it causes people that you know, you know,

836
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 4: lose their lives and it's it's twisted and this whole thing,

837
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, I hated Christians. And it's so

838
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 4: funny because you know, here I am following the Lord.

839
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean so I understood it.

840
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:31,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, only God can do that. Only God can turn

841
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 3: you know, Saul of Tarsus and you know, and from

842
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 3: a from a murdering a guy who's affirming murdering Christians

843
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 3: to one of the most prominent, you know, apostles of

844
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 3: all time, and we wrote most of the New Testament.

845
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 3: I mean, God can turn people around like that, and

846
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 3: it's just it's the same thing with me. I mean,

847
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 3: it's like it was such an unexpected thing in my

848
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 3: life that God just God just kind of like, you know,

849
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 3: he's looking around La and he's like, you're going to

850
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,359
Speaker 3: be in my kingdom now, and you know You're no

851
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 3: longer going to live that life. Like I'm plucking you

852
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 3: out of that darkness into my light. And it's like, whoa,

853
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 3: Like it's just that a supernatural, amazing experience.

854
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. But to answer your question, yeah, when I mean, yeah,

855
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: it is.

856
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 4: And so I can understand why people had a hard

857
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 4: time processing that. I mean I kind of joked, I

858
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 4: used to joke that it was I had a harder time.

859
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:36,840
Speaker 4: I was more nervous and had a harder time telling

860
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:38,759
Speaker 4: my mom that I was a Christian than I did

861
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 4: telling her that I was gay when I was fifteen

862
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 4: or sixteen, because you know, she's had a lot of

863
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 4: church hurt and she has a lot of she you know,

864
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 4: and I think we come to the table with a

865
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 4: lot of assumptions about what Christians are, and we since

866
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 4: over the past few years we've had we have such

867
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 4: a great relationship and the Lord is doing such awesome

868
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 4: things in her life and she's i think, be exploring

869
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,919
Speaker 4: what it means what Christianity is, and so it's really

870
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 4: opened up a door for my family. I've seen the

871
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 4: I've seen the Lord just do amazing things in her

872
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 4: life and my life. But it was through him calling

873
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 4: me to his family that those things started, you know.

874
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's been cool.

875
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 3: That's good. Praise God. I just want to go back

876
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 3: to because about just the idea of your friends, you're

877
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 3: just having negative reactions. And Jesus said, you know, I

878
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 3: do not think that I've come to bring peace to

879
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 3: the earth. I have not come to bring peace but

880
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 3: a sword. But I've come to set a man against

881
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 3: his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter in

882
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 3: law against her mother in law. A person's and a

883
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 3: person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever

884
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:53,400
Speaker 3: loves father or mother more than me is not worthy

885
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 3: of me. And whoever loves son daughter more than me,

886
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 3: or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.

887
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 3: And whoever does not take his cross, take up his

888
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 3: cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever

889
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 3: finds his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life

890
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:10,959
Speaker 3: for my sake will find it. So it's like God

891
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 3: does that, you know, when he he caused in your

892
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 3: life and my life, he caused once we became born again,

893
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 3: Like he caused this division in our lives, you know,

894
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 3: and especially with all my friends. I mean, there was

895
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 3: just like I bear, I don't even speak to I

896
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:32,760
Speaker 3: think ninety nine percent of those friends like anymore because

897
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:36,720
Speaker 3: it caused such a deep division, you know that sword

898
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 3: just witch and so yeah, so tell us, now what

899
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 3: are you what are you doing? Because you left La?

900
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 3: Why did you leave La?

901
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 4: And yeah, I left La recently just to spend a

902
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 4: couple of months. I decided to uh to move to

903
00:48:55,960 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 4: North Carolina, of all places. I I got a new job,

904
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:02,239
Speaker 4: you know, I got laid off from my own job,

905
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 4: did the whole job search thing, got a job that

906
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 4: allowed me to work anywhere in the country. One of

907
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 4: my closest friends also moving here, and we decided, like,

908
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 4: let's do this adventure together. I think, you know, La

909
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 4: is great. It's like anywhere it's there's pros, there's cons

910
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 4: there's stuff that's really good, there's stuff that's not good,

911
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,319
Speaker 4: and it can be a hard place to live, you know,

912
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:29,319
Speaker 4: financially and otherwise. So I felt like I did a

913
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 4: lot of praying, a lot of discerning, and I felt

914
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 4: like God was opening up an opportunity and a door

915
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 4: for me to to kind of have a shift in

916
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 4: my life. So it's been hard to leave church, to

917
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 4: leave reality, you know, and to start the process of

918
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:47,879
Speaker 4: brooding myself in a new church. But the thing that

919
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:51,840
Speaker 4: you know, that I kind of held onto this whole

920
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 4: process is just that He is with me, you know.

921
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 4: He says, do not be dismayed. I am your God.

922
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,759
Speaker 4: You know, I will strengthen you, I will help you.

923
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 4: I will hold you by my righteous right hand. He

924
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,480
Speaker 4: tells me, you know, he tells us that that wherever

925
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 4: we go, he's he's with us.

926
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's been it's been an adventure.

927
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 3: But and so, and are you liking North Carolina?

928
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: Yeah?

929
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:21,879
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's an adjustment. Again, it's early days.

930
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 4: It's only been a couple of months.

931
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 3: You miss the weather in La right now, it's like

932
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 3: seventy degrees and gorgeous out.

933
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, totally. Yeah, Yeah, it's a different lifestyle. But

934
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 4: I have to say, you know, I want to to

935
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 4: share that as part of my walk with the Lord.

936
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 4: I think, you know, I love what you just I

937
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 4: love what you read, and it reminds me of how

938
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 4: I think it is. In Matthew nineteen, Jesus talks about

939
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 4: you know, he says, you know, if you will leave

940
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 4: anyone who leaves you know, brothers and sisters, lands and

941
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 4: brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers to follow me

942
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:57,359
Speaker 4: for the kingdom's sake. And he talks about that, and

943
00:50:57,520 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 4: you know, he tells us that there's going to be

944
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 4: relational sacrifice, and he tells.

945
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:02,359
Speaker 1: Us that.

946
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 4: We will need to say no to some deep longings

947
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,960
Speaker 4: and desires and then that's universal, that's not you know,

948
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 4: these people over here have to say no, and these

949
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 4: people over here are good to go. I mean, everybody

950
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 4: across the board who's going to follow Jesus is going

951
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 4: to have to trust him and learn to say no

952
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:29,880
Speaker 4: to some unmet desires and even good desires. And so

953
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 4: that's kind of been that's just been my walk with

954
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 4: him for the last you know, seven years, is continuing,

955
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 4: like all of us that follow him, to trust him,

956
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 4: to to to go to him with my fears and

957
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:45,919
Speaker 4: my laments and my desires and trust that he'll meet

958
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:49,280
Speaker 4: them because he knows me, because he's the good shepherd.

959
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:53,640
Speaker 3: A man to that well, Josh, we're going to leave

960
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 3: it there. Thank you so much for coming on and

961
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 3: sharing your story. I appreciate it.

962
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 4: Thank you, Beckett, it's been a blessing. And thank you

963
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:02,399
Speaker 4: for all the ways that you build up the church

964
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:03,840
Speaker 4: through this. It's really encouraging.

965
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Beckett

966
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:15,320
Speaker 2: Cook Show. Your support makes this content possible. All episodes

967
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 2: of The Beckett Cook Show are also available on YouTube.

968
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 2: For more information about Beckett and his ministry, visit his

969
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:25,800
Speaker 2: website at Becketcook dot com.

970
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:27,880
Speaker 3: Thank you to the team at Life Audio for their

971
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:30,879
Speaker 3: partnership with us. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,

972
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:35,000
Speaker 3: you will find more faith centered podcasts about prayer, Bible study, parenting,

973
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:35,399
Speaker 3: and more.