Why Pray If God Already Knows? | Trusting God Through Fear
FULL TRANSCRIPT
00:01
He's just a regular guy with a cool job that God loves for some reason. Welcome to The Steve Marston Show, a daily journey in learning how to live more like Jesus, conversations with those that God is working through, and dad jokes. It's the most unique show you'll hear today. Now, here's Steve. All right, welcome in. The Steve Marston Show is underway. Thank you, thank you for being a part, especially those of you that are listening on radio.
00:30
We're here every single day, Monday through Friday at 3 PM on 99.5 The Word in Little Rock, as well as AM 630 The Word in San Antonio, which as we all know is... That's right. And we are glad that you are part of us. The rest of you may be listening online on your own schedule. Heck, you may be listening to this a month after we aired it on radio.
00:58
whatever your story is, thanks for being a part. And I wanted to start today by talking about something that I thought was a very interesting discussion last night at church. If you've listened to the program for any length of time, you probably know that me and my wife are in charge of a college ministry at our church on Wednesday nights. And it's such a full circle thing for us because 30 years ago, we were the young adults sitting at the table.
01:26
going over these Bible studies and now we're leading it. It's just been fun for us to be able to be a part of this and to be able to see these young adults open up the Scripture and see what's there and kind of wrestle with it and kind of try to figure out what it means and then how to apply it to their lives. And we do what I call an interactive devotional, which means I'll open up the Bible and we'll read a passage and I'll just stop.
01:56
and ask them, okay, what do you see? What's the scripture saying here? And have them throw out their ideas, and then that starts a conversation, and questions arise from it. And we've been in the book of Mark, and we got to chapter 10 at the very end of it. Now, this is where Jesus is on his way from Galilee going south toward Judea, ultimately to get to Jerusalem, where he will be crucified. So the most
02:25
important and biggest event in human history is about to take place. It's on the horizon. And if it was me, I'm thinking that's all that would be on my mind, but not so with Jesus. He kind of makes a little detour and goes to Jericho because he has a divine appointment with a guy. And we read the story of this man Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is a blind man who
02:53
In that day and age, he was a beggar. There was no government programs to help him. He had to beg for his existence and be totally dependent on others for his food, for his shelter, for everything. And of course, with the hangups and stuff people had back then, they didn't think a blind man could do anything, so he was not even able to have any kind of job. So that's the scene. Jesus is walking by. A huge crowd is gathered around him.
03:24
course the buzz is in the air that he's in town Bartimaeus says Jesus son of David it starts crying out hey come here look at me and people are telling him hey to be quiet leave him alone don't do that but he starts crying out the more and finally Jesus stops and turns to him and asks him this question he says what would you want me to do for you which on the surface seems kind of odd because obviously
03:53
Bartimaeus would want to have his sight. I mean, right? That's what Jesus ought to do. Just go ahead and heal him because he has a disability that most people do not have. So he needs to quote unquote be made normal and be made whole and that's the whole deal. And Jesus shouldn't even ask the question. He should just do it, right? But no, he asked the question. And we wrestled with that saying, why would he ask that question? Why would he not just go ahead and heal the man?
04:22
And I think, and again, this can sound a little harsh and maybe a little cold, but stay with me on this. I think one of the reasons why Jesus asked Bartimaeus, what can I do for you? What do you want me to do for you? Is because Jesus doesn't see his disability the way that we would. I mean, it's been a struggle his whole life for sure. It's been a very
04:52
hard hand to be able to deal with his entire life, because again, he's not treated as an equal by anyone. And yet Jesus looks past that. It says, well, what can I do for you? Of course, Bartimaeus says, I want my sight. And he gets his sight because his faith has made him whole. But the question still remains, why would Jesus ask that? Well, I think in part because Jesus...
05:22
isn't as concerned with our physical health as he is our spiritual health. Now I know, I can't imagine what Bartimaeus went through. I can't imagine what maybe some of you are going through. You may have had a disability your entire life, and your life has probably been a million times harder because of it than my life ever will be. I grant you that. However, I think Jesus looks at
05:52
the entire picture. He sees the 60, 70, 80, maybe even 90 or 100 years that will live on this earth as just a drop in the bucket compared to eternity. He would rather you come to eternity maybe quote unquote disabled versus being a fully abled body going straight to hell. I think that's a huge part of this.
06:19
And that doesn't seem fair, it doesn't seem right. And I know this from personal experience because my wife has two deaf and blind uncles. They have at one point in their lives had vision, but as their disease progressed and as they got older, their vision faded and now they can't see at all. They've never been able to hear. And I think of how difficult that must be.
06:48
and how they have lived with this literally their entire lives. One of them is about 80 years old now, the other is in his early 60s. It's been a long time for them to deal with and have that in their lives. Yet they have never let it hinder them or slow them down, or they've never let that keep them from Jesus either, which has been a huge blessing as well. But at some point in eternity,
07:18
they're going to be able to see, they're going to be able to hear, and maybe you are in that same kind of situation. Maybe you've struggled with it your entire life and you wonder why Jesus does that. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe because He wants you to be dependent on Him and He knows that you can handle it maybe more than someone maybe like myself or others can handle it.
07:47
It's just a perspective, just an idea, but I do think it has some merit. Jesus is so much concerned with our spiritual health more so than our physical health. And at some point, all of these deficiencies that we look at are going to be corrected and they're going to be given over and it's going to be as if they never happened once we get to eternity. That's what the promise is. That's what the hope is.
08:17
So anyway, that's just what we talked about last night. I thought it was kind of interesting and wanted to share it with you. Hey, by the way, we have got our website is completely updated and we are really thrilled about that. If you want to check it out, we would love for you to Steve Marston show.com is where you can go to see everything that we've got there. We've got our full episodes. We also have our conversations that we have every day.
08:44
Those are separated out into video segments of their own. And the cool thing about it is this is not just a radio show slash podcast website. No, this is becoming a library for not only believers, but even unbelievers to find some hope and find some encouragement. This has been our prayer all along. And because of the computer nerds, as I lovingly call them, they are
09:14
Opening up the doors for a lot of people to find us on Google on YouTube when people do searches for Christian type topics they're being pointed toward us we're showing up on Google and we're showing up on YouTube and It is just an amazing thing to kind of behold that we're going to be able to impact people Through this little radio show it's going to be again so much bigger than just us
09:41
but we would love for you to check it out. There's some fun stuff on there as well. Just kick the tires a little bit, click around, see what you think. It's SteveMarsdenShow.com.
09:54
The Steve Marston Show continues. The Christian radio show slash podcast that really matters. On Thursdays we like to do a thing called Christian Explain Yourself because there are, especially on our radio audience, research shows us that there's about 30 % of you that are just listening as a safe space. You wouldn't even say you go to church or that you have any kind of relationship with God really at all.
10:24
but yet you kind of listen to kind of see what it's all about. So first of all, thank you for doing that and I'm glad that you're here. But there's also some of us as believers that go to church and sometimes we speak in this kind of coded Christianese kind of thing where you may hear a term or some kind of Bible teaching discussed and you kind of nod your head and smile and have no clue what's going on or what's being really talked about.
10:53
So that's why we do this little feature as a service. So Christian, explain yourself today. We're going to tackle this little topic here of why should we pray if God already knows everything? Because that's what the Bible teaches, right? That God is omniscient. He is everywhere all the time, and He's absolutely in control of the entire universe. In fact, there's not a single star in the
11:23
most distant galaxy that burns out that he doesn't know about. There's not a little bitty speck of amoeba that's on planet Earth that passes away that God doesn't know about. That's what the Bible teaches. So if that's true, then logically you would think, well, why prayer? Because prayer is, after all, us coming to God telling Him what we need, right? So He's already
11:53
there. He already knows it all, so why even bring it up to him? And again, I can understand the logic in that progression, and I think there are a couple of answers to why we should pray. Well, first and foremost, Jesus set the example for us. I mean, here is the literal Son of God that came to earth, and He felt the need to commune with God.
12:23
his father as much as anything else, and he made that a priority in his life. We read in Scripture time and time again where Jesus would get up at a crazy hour, a lonely hour is what it would say, and he would go off by himself and he would pray. Now, what in the world would God the Son need to pray to God the Father about? I don't know. I can't answer that question because
12:53
Obviously, Jesus is God, but He's also a human, so He still has human needs and human struggles that are going on, so maybe that's part of it. But you know, there was never a time up until Jesus went to earth that He and God the Holy Spirit and God the Father weren't communing together, so maybe that's part of it. Maybe it was a part of just getting back that fellowship.
13:23
I'm not sure exactly why Jesus would have to pray, but He did, and because He felt it's important, we ought to feel that it's important. But the question still arises, well, why? If God knows what we're going to ask for, why should we bring it to Him? And I think the answer is a couple of reasons. Because...
13:50
When we vocalize that and we actually bring it to him in faith, knowing that he's there listening and that he does care about us, it grows us. It develops that trust muscle. I really like to think of it like that because think about your muscles. If you use your muscles all the time, they're going to be strong. And if you do things...
14:16
to continue to make them strong, it's going to just build and build and build. But if you let it go, the opposite is true. If you are just completely stagnant and don't do anything, your muscles are going to do what they call atrophy. They're going to just get soft. And I think that that's a strength and a prayer is almost like a muscle, where we are able to go to God and we're able to
14:45
pour out our hearts, praise Him for the good stuff, give Him the anger and the bitterness and the bad stuff, and be able to lift up others as a way of communicating with Him, but also knowing that as we pray and we bring those things to Him, that He is listening, and when we see God working in these areas, it's not a...
15:14
thing for us to say, oh, well that's such a wonderful little coincidence that happened. No, we can look at it as what it is, God moving and answering prayers. And the more that we see God answer prayers and move in our lives in the specific situations that we lift up to Him, all of a sudden our faith continues to grow and it becomes a cycle. So now we bring more things to Him and the more we do that,
15:43
the more we see and work and the closer our relationship becomes. And that's really, I think, the ultimate bottom line on it. It's all about the closeness that we have with God. Prayer does that because our nature is to drift. Our nature is not to be as close to God as humanly possible. No, our nature is the exact opposite. I always like to use this
16:13
thought of like when you're in like the ocean, you know, and you put your stuff out on the beach, you go in, you play in the water, and then a few minutes later you look up and it's like, where's my stuff? My stuff is gone. And then you look down to maybe your right and you see, oh, no, there's my stuff over there. What happened? You drifted. You didn't even realize it, but you did. And the current just kind of slowly swept you away.
16:43
and you weren't even cognizant of it. I think that's our lives as human beings. We're not cognizant of drifting, but it happens. And the only way to keep us from drifting, or at least maybe the major way, is for us to stay anchored to God through prayer. That is such a key. So yes, does he know everything already before we bring it to him? Of course he does.
17:12
but it still is incredibly beneficial to us. Alright, I gotta let you know about our free PDF that's available at our website, stevemarschdonshow.com. Head over there, get this free PDF. It is Five Tips for Bible Study. It will really help you out. It's just strategies that I've come up with or that I haven't come up with. I've just kind of tailored to my own use, and I think they'll really help you to open the Word and get the most out of your time in God's Word just by...
17:41
using these strategies. So go get your free PDF, Five Tips for Bible Study, at SteveBarstonShow.com.
17:54
The Steve Marston Show continues. Would really love for you to check out our all new website. It is completely revamped and it is a library on everything we talk about here from grief and hope and encouragement and discipleship and living more like Jesus. It is all there for you. SteveMarstonShow.com. And again, it's totally revamped. We would love for you to check it out, kick the tires, click around a little bit and join us online there.
18:23
We want to welcome in our special guest today. She's got a brand new book out and I'm so thankful that she's here not only to talk about the book, but that she's feeling better because we were going to have her scheduled last week and she just came down with this unruly kind of mouth and throat issues and we just had to postpone it. I'm so glad you're feeling better. Welcome back, Dana House. How are you? Hey Steve, I'm glad to be feeling a little bit better and being able to be with you today.
18:52
I am too. I am too. So let's talk a little bit about you becoming an author. Now you do have a new book that's out right now called I Missed You While You Were Sleeping. And we'll get to that here in just a minute. But let's first talk a little bit about how you became an author, because this is your second book. It's primarily designed for kids. And how did you decide, well, you know, I think I could be a children's author. Well, you know, it's really neat when I look back on I've always loved art.
19:22
and writing. And when I look back on the things that I did as a child, I was creating books and I would take the packaging tape from our grocery store. We ran a grocery store as a child and I would cover my construction paper with this packaging tape and make it look like the cover and then the end of a book. And then I'd fill it with pages and I would write stories. So I believe there was a part of me, even as a child that had this, this dream in her heart.
19:52
And when I was in college at Harding University, I actually wrote what I called a poem. Jesus had a little lamb after work one night. I was a waitress at Colton's and I was in college and in about three hours I came home and I had this download that I felt like God had spoken to me and said, had you not left the pastor to walk with me the way that you did, you wouldn't know me the way that you know me now. And
20:18
I went home and I wrote every word of that in just a few hours. And I held onto it for the last 20 plus years when I actually found a publisher that I believed in and trusted with Spirit Media Publishing. And last year in February, I was able to publish my first book and I sold almost 2000 copies in this first year, which is pretty amazing.
20:44
for a first book, it definitely felt like it was a gift from God, and it's been a gift for others because it really does talk about our life with the Good Shepherd, and it's the good and the bad. It's all things together, but knowing that we've never been left alone. And this message really does bleed over into my second story for sure. Well, yeah, let's get into your second story because it's called, I Missed You While You Were Sleeping, and it's available now on all the different platforms.
21:14
and we'll be linking to it in our show notes of the podcast when we we upload everything to reflect today's content. So let's talk about it because it's not just a story. This is is real life for you. It is it is. So when I was 38, I gave birth to my only biological child and he was sent home as the healthiest baby born all night. But what we did not know is he had fatal
21:44
heart conditions and he had a bypass, basically a bridge that he used because he had no use of his aorta and he had other issues as well but that was the serious part of it. And after birth until about day 21, that bypass that you use in utero begins to dry up and at day 21, I already had him to the hospital a couple different times or to the clinic.
22:13
for weight loss, funny movements when he fed, him not eating well, losing weight, things like that, but nobody seemed concerned. And on day 21, I took him to the clinic again because he was retracting, his eyes were rolling, just things had worsened. And the reason being is that that vessel was continuing to dry up each day. And so on that day, they didn't really see a problem.
22:43
And I asked him to check again and so they they decided to go ahead and send me to Cersei to have x-rays just to be sure everything was OK. And within about 15 minutes of us leaving the hospital, they called and they said get to Arkansas Children's Hospital. His heart is enlarged. We're not sure what the problem is, but you need to get there immediately and we pulled into the parking lot there at Children's and for the first time he went translucent white and the staff will tell you in ER.
23:12
They remembered months later how pale he was when we walked in the door. just believe we were there right on time. And they were able to give him a medication that would keep him through the night and prepare them for surgery the next morning. So he had multiple heart surgeries during that time. We spent three months in Arkansas Children's and then they flew us by jet to Texas Children's in Houston where we had some bowel surgeries and
23:41
He ended up with a blood infection and blood clots and all the things that come with long hospital stays. And our hospital stay was 161 days. And this book is what that's all about. And it's, missed you while you were sleeping because during our time there, he had all of these different surgeries and he was under sedation many times. And I would stand beside his bedside and even though physically I was beside him, I missed him.
24:09
because I wanted to see him smile. I wanted to see him with his personality and he just was lying there basically lifeless. And so it was exciting the moments that he would wake up and look up and smile at us. I would watch the milestones that he should be doing during that time and the things that I was waiting on. And there was one particular time that said, baby will begin smiling at you.
24:39
And I thought, he's not smiling at me because he's asleep. And it was so beautiful after that surgery when he woke up and he looked up at me and he smiled. And that particular situation is in the book specifically. And so when we got home and as I watched him grow and time passes and you think, I need him to wake up, like he's been asleep eight hours, he's growing and I'm missing these moments. I want him to wake up and look at me and smile.
25:08
And so I continued that same message of telling him, you know, I'd kiss him in the morning and say, I missed you while you were sleeping. And, and that all began as I missed him while he was sleeping beside his bedside. So as the story goes on, it builds through all the special things about him. He was actually a word that was, was given to me by a stranger. That's a neat part of our story too. It is in this book.
25:38
of me praying if we would have a child and a stranger walking up to me that day to tell me my mom's on the way and how he became a promise for me. And the beautiful part about that is while we were standing in the emergency room and he was screaming, know, needles are going in, tubes are going in, you've got your three week old baby lying in the middle of this bed that's been cuddled.
26:07
for three solid weeks. And I just, I stood there and I remembered the word that God had given me just a couple of days before that He would be my gift and not to allow any minute to be stolen from me of stress or fear because I couldn't get these days back. And it was, I mean, that was like two days before I was standing there in the ER. And so that word came back to me, He is your gift. Don't lose a minute.
26:35
to fear or stress because you'll never get it back. And so that helped us walk into this six month trial battle, keeping our joy and our peace because whether I have three months or I had 30 years, I wanted every minute that I had. And I knew I couldn't lose one of those minutes. And so we just every day tried to find the joy and the blessing.
27:03
for what we were given that day. And thankfully when we got, I was writing a Facebook post one night because we kept up with his whole story, which will one day be a devotional too, coming out hopefully sooner than later from our hospital, Safer Parents. But there was one time I wrote a post and I said I was thinking about what I had missed. You know, all the pictures that momma's take in the beginning of the baby's life and the
27:33
taking the stroller rides and going to church for the first time, all of those things that they do. And I was thinking about what I had missed and I felt like God said to me, you haven't missed anything. You lived it differently. And, and I took that on because our life was so blessed. We met so many wonderful people. We learned a lot of lessons and our, our hospital time became a mission for us. so,
28:03
while we lived it differently, I didn't miss anything with him. And I'm so glad that I didn't let fear steal those moments because now, once we got out, I can look back and go, I found the beauty in every day. I didn't miss a moment of worrying that whole time that I was there. And now I don't feel like I missed any of that time with him. So there were a lot of lessons that we learned.
28:32
and that's what the story goes from that beginning that he was my promise to the troubled times, to him being a victorious one, to him being a growing one at this point, and it just builds throughout our whole story. It is an amazing story. Dana House is our guest here. She's got a brand new book chronicling all of this, and it's a children's book called I Missed You While You Were Sleeping. And I want to go back to something you talked about at the very first
29:01
where you talked about your child, you knew something innately was wrong and you kept hearing from doctors, well, we can't really find anything. And then all of a sudden it's like, you've got to get to the hospital now. goes from, your world goes from, you know, right side up to completely turned upside down and shaking. And so walk us through that day. What was that day like when you finally first realized that you're
29:31
intuitions were correct. There is something wrong with my baby to now we've got it. We've got an emergency on our hands and we've got to get to the hospital. Yeah. Uh, so as a, I taught child development parenting in high school at the time, very well, very aware of, of issues with babies at birth and things like that. And, so even during pregnancy, was reading everything, making sure I was watching for everything. And
30:00
And every time you take another test and you think, passed that one, we're doing good. And then at birth, the strange thing about his birth, he did not console after birth. And so they came and took him from me for a minute. And then I said, we want to look at something. And they brought him back and they said, everything is fine. And I'll always wonder what that was because whatever that something was, I bet was something. And I'll never know what it was.
30:30
But they brought him back and said, everything is just fine. And so again, okay, we're good. Everything's great. And then like I said, they said, healthiest baby born all night. And so you have this expectation that we made it, you know, all those things that I had wondered and watched, we made it. And so when we got home and I just kept watching, like I said, this part of his breathing, the way his throat moves, the way his head begins to bob.
30:59
The night before I went to the doctor, my husband, he looked over me, it's like 10 30. I'm still holding him cause I don't, I wouldn't lay him down. And he said, you've got to get some sleep. What are you doing? And I said, I'm Googling. What are you Googling? And I said, every baby that's breathing like him is an ICU with hoses and tubes. And he said, go back to the doctor in the morning and just make yourself feel better.
31:28
And I said, I am, I'm going this morning. And so I went back and like I said, at first glance, they said, I see what you're saying, but I think everything is fine. And so I laid him out a different way and I said, look at him when he's, when he's like this, like it's changing, his retracting is changing. And that's when they sent us for the x-rays. And honestly, I'm really not one to worry too much. And so even though I was seeing all these things, I didn't feel like
31:57
I don't know. guess I didn't feel like it was going to be anything that serious. You know, I think you don't just really expect something like that. And so when they called and said his heart was enlarged and we don't know why I get to children's immediately, um, you know, at that one moment I had to go back to, I'm going to trust the Lord that everything is going to be okay. And I'm not going to fall apart because I didn't know what I was going to have to face at that point when, when I got there and um,
32:27
And so you come in and you find out you need heart surgery and it's coming at you quickly. And I just held on to, like I said, that word that he was gonna be my gift and to not let fear steal anything from me. And so I just, every time I felt that pressure, I would just go back to that word to calm myself, to trust that.
32:53
that whatever happens in this situation, God is with me and He's going to take care of me. I may not know what the outcome looks like, but I do know that He is with me and He will take care of me. It is such an amazing story of the way God just worked through all of this situation. And again, like you say, He's right there with you through every step of the way, even when it just seemed like everything was totally out of control. He was there. The book is called, I Missed You While You Were Sleeping. It's out now by Dana House. We'll link to it.
33:23
on our show page and let you get a chance to get a copy of it it's out now. And again, it's kind of a children's book, but really this story is for everybody. You ought to get a copy just for yourself, even if you aren't buying for a child. This is really good. And we just got about 30 seconds left or so here in our time together, but tell us about your son right now, where he's at quickly.
33:48
He's doing great. He has no restrictions. We did last year find out about a heart condition that he started medication for that he takes morning and evening that we're looking at an ablation in the future, but he is happy, healthy, loves going to VBS. We went to 13 of them this summer. Oh my goodness. He is a beautiful gift from the Lord to us and to everyone around him. And he reminds us
34:16
about the gift of life every day, but he's doing wonderful and growing. He's a big, big active boy now. Man, I so love hearing that. This story is just so good and I want you to get your hands on a copy of the brand new book called While You Were Sleeping by Dana House. Again, we will link to it on our show notes page and you can get it wherever books are sold. And again, it's for children written, I guess, as a children's book, but it's good for adults as well. So check it out.
34:45
Dana House, thanks so much for your time. Thank you, Steve.
34:54
you
34:57
The Steve Marston show is back. Discipleship has never been more fun. It's an honor to be with you again today and it's time to check out some of the stories you may have missed. And especially for those of you that are Dallas Cowboys fans, I know all of you in San Antonio are, lot of you are here in Little Rock as well. I count myself among those. I mean, I go back to the early 1980s. Danny White was my quarterback.
35:26
And I have gone through all the lows of the last part of the Landry years, the super highs of the Jimmy and Jerry era. And then the last 30 years of, boy that sticks right there in your throat of futility. But one of the bright spots was Tony Romo as quarterback. I really thought the Cowboys could do a Superbowl with him. Didn't work out that way, but you know, he was arrested not terribly long ago, back last month.
35:56
Well, he's released a statement and I thought it was really good. Romo was arrested after authorities suspected him of driving while intoxicated. He had red glassy eyes. The police officer said, as well as an odor of intoxicating alcoholic beverage was coming from his vehicle. And Romo released this statement after, uh, everything has kind of gone down in the last month or so. He said football has shaped.
36:22
nearly every meaningful part of my life. I played for more than 20 years, including 14 in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys. After my retirement, CBS gave me the profound honor of staying close to the game through broadcasting. And he went on to say, playing taught me the power of relationships, the strength of a team and the toughness to face failure head on with honesty, resilience, and the determination to do better. And this is one of those moments when I'm leaning on football.
36:51
are on everything that football taught me rather. He said, this morning, I have faced a recent personal failure by pleading no contest to a civil offense for OWI in Wisconsin. And then he says, I completely own this. I have taught my three young sons that when you fall short, you stand up and you take full responsibility that this is an important first step. said the harder and more important step is examining the path that brought you here and making the changes.
37:21
necessary to move forward. He said that path requires honesty and he says none of this is an excuse. These are my failures and I take responsibility for them. Well, bravo Tony Romo. I think that's amazing that he is owning all of this and not trying to make excuses. Time will tell. I hope he does get the help that he needs to get control of these demons of addiction and able to return to CBS because I think that's his ultimate goal is to be back.
37:51
with the NFL broadcasting teams. So let's just keep a good thought, keep prayers for Tony Ramos. Good stuff. Let's see, another story you may have missed. This one is bizarre. A mentally not well person went to a church in Pennsylvania wielding a samurai sword. I know it almost, if it wasn't so serious, it would sound like a Saturday Night Live sketch, right? But a man named Peter Wanzia,
38:21
was charged with the misdemeanor account of carrying a prohibitive offensive weapon making terroristic threats, simple assault by a physical menace and disorderly conduct at this church last weekend. Now, that sounds like it would have been amazingly disruptive and would have caused a lot of problems. However, listen to what the church posted on their social media accounts. It was Apocaddo Lake Bible Church was the name of it and
38:51
They didn't make any mention of this guy and what happened. Instead, they were celebrating on social media that five people were baptized that day. So what the devil, I guess, tried to mean for bad turned out to be good. says the man is being held in a correctional facility and bail is set for like $25,000. But can you imagine? I mean...
39:16
Honestly, know, gun, those type weapons are very, very scary. But a man wielding a samurai sword? Yeah, I I can't even hardly fathom it. Okay, and this story is one you may have missed as well. And it sounds pretty serious on the surface, but we got to take into context who it's coming from. And I'll get into that. The headline is really clickbait, especially for those of us who love Christian music and have been around some of these people.
39:45
that make up the bands and singers. Mercy Me, one of the most awarded and decorated Christian music bands ever, has been receiving about $17 million from child sponsorship organizations. Now, if you've ever been to one of these Christian concerts, you'll know that at the middle of it, they'll stop and they'll break down and they'll have somebody come on stage and ask for...
40:13
the audience to sponsor children. Well, that's a part of the package of this sponsorship. These wonderful organizations buy into these tours in order to be able to have the opportunity to speak to the audience about what they do and have people participate in it. And apparently MercyMe has received more than $17 million over the last few years promoting this.
40:42
Now that in and of itself is not a big deal. don't think because again, it's part of the tour. It's not like they're taking kickbacks from these organizations. This is, this is the organization saying, Hey, we want to be in front of your audience and them paying for it. But it was brought, this has been brought by a guy named Wes Campbell, who owns the title to the newsboys. And this guy's kind of proven himself.
41:09
at least in my opinion, to be a little bit of a snake. He hasn't done a lot of ethical things. It doesn't seem like, but anyway, he's filed suit against MercyMe and it gets down to him thinking that MercyMe is trying to sabotage him and his company when MercyMe says what we really did was just chose not to renew our contract with this guy. So anyway, MercyMe's lawyers have put out a motion to dismiss on this and hopefully that will, that will...
41:39
be seen at some point, but right now it's still in the litigation process. And that's the thing that's really kind of so sad about all of this. Look, as someone who worked really closely for about 10 or 11 years in Christian music, I got to meet a ton of artists. And all the artists, every single one of them, I can say, and I met them all without a single second of
42:08
reservation, I can say, are the real deal. They really want to make music that glorifies God and they are all about worship and they're all about helping others being led to Christ. However, that's not the case for the entire industry. There is a lot of shady stuff that goes on sometimes in the Christian music industry, kind of behind the scenes. And again, that's not to throw shade at anybody, but that's just kind of the truth. There's bad apples in every kind of business.
42:38
Christian music is not unaffected by that. So anyway, hopefully all this works out for Mercy Me and they can continue on. But again, it doesn't look like much, but you never know. All right, back with more in a minute.
42:56
Here at the Steve Marston Show, we're serious about faith, but we love a good dad joke too. The dad joke of the day comes to us from the home office in Gravel Ridge, Arkansas. And it may take you just a second to get this one, but it really is pretty clever. Did you hear about the guy who invented the knock knock joke? Yeah, he won the No Bell Prize.
43:25
It takes just a second on that one, right? The Nobel Prize... Ah, see? Yeah, you got it, right? The Steve Varsity Show continues. Discipleship has never been more fun. I want to tell you again about our YouTube page. It's all completely updated and we would love for you to check it out. We kind of stripped it down to the studs and have rebuilt everything there. We've got tons of videos and things that I think you're really going to find.
43:52
Number one, edifying and encouraging for you, but also for others in your life. So we would love for you to share the videos, to like and subscribe to the channel. In fact, we've had a lot of people do that recently. So please, if you haven't, go and like and subscribe because not only will you get the notifications whenever we upload stuff, which is on the daily and multiple things a day, but you'll also be able to help us
44:20
expand the audience and be able to make the show available for more people. So YouTube likes subscribers, so if you would do that, it would be a big solid for us. Steve Marston Show is the name of the YouTube page. Just go there next time you're hanging out on YouTube. All right, let's get to Faith Between Your Ears. It's our verse for the week. We started back on Monday with this verse, and we have been going over it every single day and trying to learn it, trying to memorize it.
44:49
and not allowing the excuses of, I can't memorize things, I'm too old, I'm too... No, no. Put all of that out of your thinking because you can and you should because I really feel like knowing God's Word brings us closer to Him. We always on this program want to talk about going deep and having that intimate, full relationship that's available for us in Christ, right? We always want that.
45:19
Well, this is an amazing way, and maybe one of the only ways to be able to do that is by knowing His Word and having it right there in between our ears. So the verse is Micah 6-8, and it's such a powerful verse to me, and it says, He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." That's our...
45:47
Faith Between Your Ears verse, it's Micah 6-8. So if you haven't got it memorized already, write it out longhand, maybe take it on a piece of paper and say it over and over and over again until you've got it. Whatever it takes, let's do it and let's have God's Word not only in our heart, but right there in between our ears as well. Every day we like to leave you with a call to action, your next step. Well, I think especially after our conversation,
46:17
with Dana House earlier, your next step is pretty simple, and that is when you feel something maybe is off, go get a second opinion. Go get counseling with someone else. Ask someone, is this really good? Is this really right? Am I on the right path here? It's so important. God won't leave us as orphans. He puts those people in our lives for real situations just like that. So that's your next step.
46:47
All right, we're out of time. Back on the radio at three o'clock tomorrow. Everything else at Steve Marston show.com. Adios.
