Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Learning to Live After Loss [Featuring Granger Smith]

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Sometimes life puts us in situations where there seems to be no hope and no way out. That's where Granger Smith found himself after the death of his 3-year-old son. He struggled to process his pain and guilt, feeling responsible for what happened. As life grew darker and more hopeless, God intervened. Watch this episode to discover how the Lord helped this country singer and his family find healing, peace, joy, and purpose amid their great loss and grief.More Information:Like a River: https://grangersmith.com/pages/books Up Toward the Light: https://grangersmith.com/pages/up-toward-the-light Granger Smith Podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFiiulATGt9ZdXv6a8uz7cP1UHf5YC2sl&si=UGwwK54-aFE9B9d4 __ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

And in that moment, I knew the answer. I knew the answer to how to bring order to all of the chaos and everything that was falling apart. I knew how to do that. I knew where the piece was. And that was going to be in a 9mm Glock that I kept in the drawer of the back of my bus for protection. And I remember grabbing it. And I hadn't lost my mind. I mean, I was having a panic attack, but I hadn't lost my mind because I could still go back to it now as I tell the story.

But I grabbed the gun. I thought a thought that my brain didn't generate. It's easier to say it that way than saying I heard a voice. But I heard a voice. I believe it either way. I heard a voice. And the voice said this. Very comforting.

Said, this is the way to peace. This is the way to rest. Just squeeze. Welcome to culture and Christianity. We're trying to understand how to lit our faith be a reality in the midst of our culture and not just sit in our churches and survive sermons and sing some of our favorite church music. We want to be living examples of our faith. And we've got a guest today. I'm really excited about Granger Smith. Welcome. Hey, it's good to be welcome. We are

honored to have you in Nashville. I've got a feeling you're pretty much at home in Nashville, but we'll get to that. I'm going to read the intro they gave me just so I don't mess this up. After 24 years touring is an award-winning platinum-selling country music singer-songwriter. You chose to leave the music business to pursue a future in ministry. It's the punchline you want to hear. The like a river summer tour in 2023 marked your last as you move full throttle towards your faith. Honoring your late sun river, your first book, Like a River, finding the faith and strength to move forward after loss and heartache.

Compeled by the call to ministry, you intend to serve your local church under the teaching, counsel, and leadership of your pastor and elders while you continue to work on your theological education. That sounds like a life story I want to know more about. Yeah. So this is Nashville, country music capital, I guess, unless you're from Austin and then you're going to claim that lives in Texas. I do not. I wouldn't dare say that.

They do have a lot of music in Austin, but, you know, I'm a country music guy. I always have been, it lives in Nashville. Well, why don't we start by, let's start with the music side and tell our listeners about that career, because you had a remarkable music career. That's not easy. Well, thank you. It's been part of my life since I was 14, learned how to play the guitar. It started because I liked a girl, and she liked another guy who played guitar. And I thought, well, I'm going to learn the guitar and try to get the edge. And the irony in that is that I loved the guitar so much when I learned how to play it that the girl didn't matter anymore.

Wow. And I fell in love with writing and singing and playing. but you did find a girl. It just later. Yeah, it took many years later. Yeah, I did. I know the rest of the story, so it was going to be okay. So tell us a little, I mean, you did the albums, touring, you did the whole nine yards, right?

Yeah, I did. I did. I'm sorry. We had several. We had, you know, I moved to Nashville when I was late teens and wrote for a company, a publishing company here called EMI. and then about 2004, I decided to go back and start the band because there wasn't a lot of opportunities for an unsigned original artist in Nashville. I was doing Broadway.

I was doing Monday, Wednesday, Friday at Tutsis down in Lower Broadway. And I was just really craving what would it be like to have my own band and to play all these songs that I've written here in Nashville. And so I did that in 2004. and really, you know, started over. Went back to Texas A&M, graduated there, and started over with the band, and loved the grind of it, loved throwing guitars in a trailer and pulling it behind a 15-passioned-a-van and beating up Texas and Oklahoma as much as we could and just loved that.

And then we started finding underground success through that circuit. I got it. Well, you had a platinum-sylving album, So you weren't just a garage band that was playing. A few years later, we did sign a record deal back in Nashville, and then we had the national radio success after that. So that was in 2014. So 10 years after I moved back to Texas with the Underground Circuit signed the national deal.

So you were an overnight success. You just worked overnight for 10 years. That's right. That's exactly right. I get that. I mean, that's how I know ministry. You know, when we came here, we had a tent and fewer than 30 people. And there's never been like one of those dramatic things where 12,000 people showed up overnight and the church morphed.

It's just been year after year, a little bit at a time. And people roll in and go, wow, this just happened. And I'm like, yeah, it sure did. So I get that. And you can probably say the same as me. I loved those days. I loved the journey is the best part. Yeah, yeah.

I cleaned the bathrooms and cleaned the church and mowed the grass and painted the sanctuary. the first three times you got painted, and I'm sure you... That's right. You drove the van and loaded the trailer. I did. Yeah, I loved it. So I think without... If you don't have that love, I don't think the rest of it makes... Isn't as valuable.

It doesn't. I used to tell people they would ask for advice in starting if they're going to get into the music business, and I would say, what is your backup plan? In case it doesn't work out, in case you don't... Because you're not successful, what's the backup plan? But that was always a trick question. Because the only answer is,

No, I would do this anyway. I would do this on the street corner for tips. Absolutely. That's the only answer. I think some of them, I'm going to wander a minute, but I think some of the reality shows, you know, you want to be a star or whatever the, where you're going to go from being a completely unknown

to being with a contract and a record deal. And I think we do people a disservice. Because the journey is where there's so much of the joy in it. I mean, I like the success. I'm not complaining. But, yeah, you've got to learn that. It seems like to build those muscles. Yeah, and we'll see in the future how those, that experiment of the social media success and the reality show.

We'll see how that ends up panning out when the success starts going off. And do you love it still? Would be the question. But you're in ministry. Now we're talking about, I'm going to come back to your story, but this is fun. I don't get this opportunity much. I think there's a disservice. I think big churches have a place and a value in the culture

because of some things that have happened in some other places. We don't have to unpack all of that. But if there's a thing I don't like about it, I think it causes young people to imagine this is what effective ministry looks like. And when I started, this wasn't even an imagination. You know, the biggest church in our community had about 500 people, and I thought that was a huge church.

And I started this because I wanted to help people get to know God and he was real in my life and I wanted other people to know he was real and I think it's just like music if you don't start with that in your heart and so it concerns me sometimes the young people go,

I sat with a young man and he said, oh, I want one of these and I said, I didn't know what he meant. I thought maybe he meant the table we were sitting at and, you know, he meant the church and I'm like, well, that line forms 30 years back this way, I can help you. But I know the same thing is true in music, so.

Absolutely. There's a lot of parallels, and it's crazy how the Lord was preparing me in so many ways through so many factors that I never would have known then that he was preparing me for this moment and moments to follow. But there are a lot of parallels with building a music career and building a church. Yeah, we'll have to unpack that on another show. Another show. The casual listener won't believe it, but I promise there's Charlie Daniels is a good friend

and before he went to heaven and quit on us. I'm going to complain when I see him. No grit at all. But, I mean, he started as a guitarist doing studio sets in Nashville. Yeah. The Lord took him from there. Then life happens. It happens to all of us.

And sometimes it seems to be more disruptive than others. But you lost your son, River, which you talk about openly in your book. And if you're not familiar with the book, you need to be. It's like a river. you just need to have Kleenex when you read it. This is a book you can read together with somebody else because the talking points all the way through it are helpful. But you had a tragedy.

And it really brought change that I'm sure. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, well, you look back in our lives and you could see those catalysts. This is the Luzin River, was the biggest catalyst. It was the thing that, it was the hinge that really opened everything.

That was June 4th, 2019. River was your son, excuse me. I'm sorry, yes. River was my three-year-old son, youngest. We had, at the time, we had a five-year-old and a seven-year-old son and daughter. And River was our caboose. Now, what makes my story a little bit different, and I think about this now, as I hear other people's testimony, I think about this.

June 4th, 2019, that was the day we lost him. My life wasn't falling apart. I wasn't in some kind of terrible addiction or searching for some kind of deeper meaning of life. Life was actually good. I was happy. Idealic. Really? I mean, you described it.

It's idyllic. Yeah. The Lord spoke to you something about that. Yeah. Yeah, that day I felt in my spirit enjoy this moment because it won't last forever. And that was a day. It was a beautiful evening in Texas. We were, you know, the grass was green under my bare feet and the sky was blue and big white clouds.

And the kids were running around. The boys were playing water gun fight and I was doing gymnastics with my daughter, London. And Amber was in the house getting everybody ready for bed. and I was heading out to Nashville the next morning for the CMT Music Awards with my publicist, who's here. Life has taken a crazy turn for all of us. But that was the idealic life I was living. And right in that moment, right after I had that thought, the next thought was, it's quiet.

Where's River? Which is what you think when you have a three-year-old. I actually have a three-year-old now at home. And I think, you know, I could understand that sentiment. I just thought he's never quiet and it was quiet. And I looked back over my shoulder and right there behind me in our inner locked, gated pool was his little body face down in that pool. A sight that just couldn't understand, I still can't, as I try to tell the story, I can't, I can't reconcile something that just doesn't make any sense. since seeing him floating in that water.

You know, I thought how long has he been in there? When did I see him last? It was maybe two minutes ago. I just saw him right here with water guns. How did he get in there? As I'm running, I'm thinking these things that crashed into the water and grabbed him. And I thought, I knew that when I flipped him over, he was going to be coughing and crying and scared and choking.

But he wasn't. He was lifeless and cold and silent and his eyes were open and he was, skin was blue. And it was, it was beyond horrifying. What I saw as I drug him out to the side of the pool and started CPR the best that I possibly knew how. My daughter was there with me. She's 13 now and will forever. have that bond together.

But I told her to go get your mama in the house. You know, I didn't have my phone on me. And so Amber came out and called 911, and we started together taking turns doing CPR. But that was a chain of events. That was the beginning of a chain of events that would forever change my life and the course of it in a very dramatic way.

Wow. In the book, you talk a little bit about going to the hospital and the kids stay home. Yeah. With the anticipation, you'll come home with the river. And that's because when the EMTs arrived, which we lived out in the country in that house, and it took him a while to get there. But when they did, they were able to get his heartbeat back. And so I thought, we dodged a bullet. It's going to be a long journey for him to get healthy again. but he's alive, you know. So we all went at first to the hospital, and then we had some friends and family come,

and they kind of took our kids and went back home, and we spent 70 hours, 72 hours or so in the hospital, only to realize that he was not going to make it, although his heart was beating and his organs were working, his brain was gone. It was too long without oxygen. And so they came in and told us he's not going to make it. So disappointment came in layers.

Mayers, many layers. Which is really, really true. One of the things that was impactful for me was your honesty. I'm a pastor, so I talk to groups of people. I write books. It's not easy to be honest. It makes you vulnerable. And I thought you're kind of.

or is candor in the book is what's such a gift to the people. Because it wasn't an easy follow-up to that. You talked about going into a dark pit, and I mean, it was a difficult time. Can you take us a little further in that journey? Yeah, the idealistic life that I had before June 4th, 2019, began to crumble. And I've thought much about that journey, the journey down. after June 4th. And I can't talk about that journey down without first explaining that I always thought

I was a Christian, grew up in a Christian home, faithful parents, always in church on Sunday. I could articulate the gospel. I could tell you, Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and I'm forgiven. And it's nothing that I could do to earn my ticket to heaven. And I could have articulated that pretty, you know, like I just did. You'd memorize the flashcards. I memorized the flashcards. I could have taken you probably through the Gospels and shown you some key points.

Although it ended there. I didn't know much about any Paul's letters or anything. It ended at the end, you know, probably at the end of Luke. But I don't think I quite understood. And there's a reason John comes later, and that comes later in my story. But there's a reason I say that because Jesus says, I say these things to you so that in me you'll have peace. Let not your hearts be troubled.

He says these things in many different ways, many different times. And my peace was fleeing from me. I had no peace. I was losing everything. and about six months after we lost RIV. My life consisted of trying to play music, trying to hold my family together, trying to keep everything that I had built for so long,

trying to keep it all together. And although there were times, and Amber and I went to therapy and the kids went to therapy, there were times when it felt good, And I felt like I had made some progress. The problem behind everything I'm saying right now was I, I, I was doing, I was trying, I was keeping. And one night in December in Boise, Idaho, on the back of my tour bus, after some shows

that we had put together, the band and I that felt very normal, started to feel like, we've made progress. We've had really tough times, but we've come together and we feel good. One night that came crumbling down for me, it was actually a night that I had a few drinks with the band and crew. And to celebrate a really good weekend of concerts and then realized that I had given up alcohol since we lost River. Not that I was ever a heavy drinker, but I had given up alcohol so that I could keep my brain sharp. and keep remembering the things that the therapist had taught us. And when I realized I had a few drinks, I panicked that maybe I'll lose everything that I have built in my brain and all the shielding of what I call the slideshow.

And the slideshow is it was like walking in a movie theater and there's all the different rooms of the different movies playing. and you go and you peek in one room and it's river in the pool. And you go out and it's the doctor walking in saying that there's no chance for survival. And then it's another room is the funeral playing. And I see my son Lincoln's hand on his brother's coffin. And then another room is the ambulance is screaming down our little country road. And they're all out of order and nothing makes sense. And my brain is trying to put all of these nonsensical things into order.

all of this chaos can't find order. And so my brain is trying to find, to make sense of it. And it would attack me in the middle of a conversation with someone. The slideshow would hit. In the middle of the night, it would hit. In the middle of the stage, in the middle of a song, it would hit me. And so this night in Boise, I thought, I can't stop the slideshow anymore. I can't do it.

And in that moment, I knew the answer. I knew the answer to how to bring order to all of the, of the chaos and everything that was falling apart, I knew how to do that. I knew where the piece was and that was going to be in a nine millimeter Glock that I kept in the drawer of the back of my bus for protection. And I remember grabbing it. And I hadn't lost my mind. I was having a panic attack, but I hadn't lost my mind because I could still go back to it now as I tell the story. but I grabbed the gun and I put it up to my face and I remember this is where it gets strange. And so I try to, I try my hardest to say, to explain something that's hard to explain,

but I thought a thought that my brain didn't generate. It's easier to say it that way than saying I heard a voice. But I heard a voice. I heard a voice. And the voice said this. Very comforting, said, this is the way to peace. This is the way to rest.

Just squeeze. If you don't believe evil has a voice, you're naive. Because if all of us tell the truth, we've heard the voice of evil. I have. And the reason we call it evil, it doesn't play fair. It comes at the most vulnerable moments in our lives.

when we stand at those forks in the road and it comes to give us permission for something that will bring destruction. I mean, in your case, it was a Glock and our other, I mean, it's different. It's different. But it knows us. And it knows where, it's why it's evil.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I interrupted, but I couldn't help. No, you're exactly right. Just hearing, just thinking about that, gives me goosebumps down my arms and to think about all the years of me underestimating that. And that's worth the moment because you're churched. Good family.

You got all the markers. You haven't declared yourself a pet. You're not Willie and Whalen on full binge mode where they haven't been sober enough in weeks. You know, you're doing it the right way with all the right words and the right language. And yet God is peripheral. And now you're in a crisis and a peripheral God doesn't help. and the voice of evil is more familiar than the voice of God. Yes.

But it's not going to stay that way. That's a good quote. But it's not going to stay that way. That's the redemptive story. Yeah. So I interrupted you. You're on the back of the bus and you got a voice. Yeah.

No, you're exactly right. And these are things I like to tell this story because these are things all of us should think about. That peripheral God. Yeah. Where is he? And we can get to this in a minute, but you could examine your life now and just easily see the fruits or the rotten fruit of this peripheral God. But by His grace, by God's grace alone, in that moment, I realized in layers I'm not alone.

There is an enemy here. Something is here with me and has been watching me and is now talking. to me. And I have no defense against it. I am backed into a corner. I'm surrounded, outnumbered, and this overwhelming thought of this enemy started crushing me. And as kind of a knee-jerk reaction, I just yelled out right there in the bus. The only thing I knew from all the old liturgy of my mama, Jesus, please, save me. Jesus, save me. Not all. And let me say, I don't even know if I meant that. I don't know if I meant it.

But that voice, that enemy's voice stopped. And just as importantly, I stopped having that panic attack enough to drop that gun. And I fell down to the floor right there and cried and kept saying that, Jesus, please, save me just to make sure that. that he heard me. But it was after that, that next morning I woke up and tried to really unpack what happened. And the overwhelming thought of what happened was, I have underestimated the enemy. And way more than that, I've underestimated who Jesus is.

In fact, who is he? Who is he? Not just a name that I've known from prayer at dinner. not just the name that the pastor talks about on Sunday. Who is he that is able now to come into, to defeat this, the worst of panic attacks and the worst of moments? And what's crazy is what happened after that, the days, the weeks, the months that followed after that, I became much less involved in my own grief and the loss of river and my own recovery through it and more obsessed with who is Jesus and what happened to me that night on the bus.

That's another long story, but it culminated three months later. And that took me to the book of John, where I said my gospel understanding ended in Luke. I kind of say that facetiously, but I was listening to a... If somebody's listening, there's four gospels at the beginning of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are really synoptic... They're the same. They're very similar. But John tells the story from a completely different vantage point.

So you're getting rid to know Jesus from a different perspective. So I had been listening to sermons endlessly on my phone on YouTube. And I was trying to find out maybe there's something I've missed. Because something happened on that bus that's way bigger than anything I've ever heard or thought about. So I was listening to try to learn, fill in the blanks here. you know, fill in the gaps here. And one day, I was doing just that again. It was March 1st, 2020. And so 11 days until COVID for anyone that's counting. I was in my truck, driving one morning, and I was listening to yet another sermon, and the pastor was speaking out of the book of John,

and he's preaching out of John 14. And he reaches this moment. And he's speaking, he's reading. The disciple asked Jesus, Lord, why is it that you manifest yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he'll keep my word. And my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. And there was something in those words that I was lit on fire. Everything culminated in that moment. in a moment of understanding. It's just a bomb went off in my head,

and everything became clear. The past was clear. My future purpose was clear. I began crying. And the best way I could understand what happened in this new birth was that I suddenly was made aware that Jesus loves me. And he did love me before, and he'll love me after.

And he's saying, in some kind of reverse psychology that you could tell the people that I love because those are the people to keep my word. And I knew in that moment, I didn't keep his word. In fact, I didn't even know all of his word. And then it became clear to me,

I've got to read my Bible. I can't even remember the last time I had opened it. I had read devotionals. I had listened to, you know, and I'd gone occasionally to listen to a sermon when I wasn't flying home from a tour on a Sunday. I didn't read my Bible. that didn't make any sense to me before that day.

And I got home and I told my wife, I said, Amber, we got to read our Bibles. We got to stop this devotional stuff. This is the salad. But we got to eat steak. We haven't been eating steak because, and in my mind, I'm thinking, I want to keep his word. Not because I'm earning anything, but because he says he loves me. And he says that the people that I love keep my word. And so in this reverse psychology, I said, we're going to start.

She said, where do you want to start? And I said, I think Matthew 1's a good place. He said, keep my word. And that's when he's born. So let's start Matthew 1. So I read through Matthew. And then we went through Mark together. And I just kept going.

I couldn't stop COVID hits, shuts down touring. All I'm doing is home reading. Get to the end of Revelation. And I think, well, Jesus said that Moses and the prophets were talking about him. So now I got to go to Genesis and then read through that. And it just became this. The more I read, the more I knew. who he was as he's revealed himself

and then who I was in light of who he says he is and who he says I am in light of him and everything begin changing and everything became clear. So what's your wife's a lot of change in you from touring

playing music to coming home to saying honey we got to read the Bible. Yeah. I bet your wife thought you'd heard a voice. You know, by God's grace, she just kept tracking with me. Wow. At any point, she could have been like, you're getting crazy.

This grief thing has really messed you up. But she was like, okay, let's read. And things, and the Lord started working in her the same way. That's remarkable. I want to go back. You quoted Jesus a few minutes ago when he said, my peace, I give to you. Yeah. Yeah.

And you were talking about pronouns. It was all about I. Yeah. But Jesus said, my peace. He gave us his peace. And I think, I read that for a long time, and I thought, It meant, you know, the traditional definition of peace is the absence of conflict. But Jesus' life was filled with conflict.

Yeah. I mean, many of the places he went, he was hated, rejected, accused, ultimately betrayed, crucified. I mean, more than one time they tried to kill him before they finally did kill him. So it wasn't like there was no conflict in his life. So he didn't say he was giving us an absence of conflict or hardship or difficulty because he had all of those. but he never panicked. He had this calm assurance of God's abiding presence. Whether he's in a boat and the fishermen think they're going to drown and they wake up the carpenter

and the carpenter speaks to the wind and the waves, or Pilate says, don't you know I could kill you? And he says, well, you don't have any authority unless my dad gave it to you. So now I think my peace I give to you, because there's people listening that think, well, if Jesus loved me, I wouldn't have a tragedy. Or my heart wouldn't be broken. or my family wouldn't be rearranged. If God loves us, how can these things happen?

The Bible doesn't tell us that we get a journey free of conflict or opposition. Evil exists in the world. And rather than blame God for all the challenges, I bet we acknowledge evil exists. And that Jesus gave us his peace. When I read your story, I kept hearing that. Yeah, you're right.

My peace, I give to you because I watched him lead you. you through this journey. But it didn't even, you know, if I'm writing the story, I want you to have that revelation the day after the funeral with River. Right. You know, I don't like the interlude where you got to work it out and struggle and what you all did, and you hung in there. And now you've got a three-year-old again.

I do. Make a noise at home. You know, once again, the Lord, in his kind of, He gave us the gift of Maverick, our now youngest son, who he came into this world. And this is just the world he came into, you know. This is the family that this is the way it was always supposed to be for him. But we weren't going, we weren't planning on another child. River was always going to be the last one if that was our plan, you know.

And so I live in a world now that's so interesting. boggling that Maverick, whom I love, exist because River, whom I love, doesn't. And so if I want River back, I'd give... That exists with you. We're speaking in earthly terms. We're speaking in worldly terms. I'm split there. Speaking today. No, that's a good hair to split. For people listening, there's a big difference there. It's a big difference, and it's important to say that. But in this world today, I get one of the other. And that's crazy. And the peace thing, we can could have another podcast just on the peace thing. Because Jesus says, in this world, you'll have tribulation. And you mentioned the disciples in the boat waking up the carpenter. This is what's

crazy if you think about that. They're terrified of the storm. And they say, Lord, wake up. Do you not know we're all going to die in this storm? They're terrified. So he says peace, be still. The wind and the waves calm. And then you think, oh, that's such a nice story. They were more terrified then. Who is this? What kind of power is this? This guy just woke up and told the wind to stop and it stopped. Then they were terrified. So in any other stories, you and I would have written the story, you would have said then they were, then they, their hearts were given peace when they saw the blue sky. So let's go back a minute. to the season in our lives when we are generic Christians.

We go to church, we have polite faith, peripheral faith. See, I don't think we want to know a Jesus that can speak to the wind and the waves. That's exactly right. Because we're hiding too much of our lives. That's exactly right. And if we imagined he had that kind of power, it would be more than convicting. So we prefer to form this polite little theology where God's happy with us if we have a little Christian parade once in a while. Yeah.

And life changes when you make room for a God that created the heavens and the earth. And they can make you out of the dust and put you back in it. When you come face to face with that God, the whole equation changes. And now I don't just go to church. I mean, church is, yeah, I work in church, but I do this because there is a God, not because I needed a day job. So put me in the story of the disciples in the boat. And you said, you wish that. or if you had written it, I get the peace right after river dies.

Yes. Yes. And that's the storm going away. And then what happens was the Lord takes me six more months to rock bottom. And then he speaks to this enemy in the back of the tour bus and stops it. Suddenly, my fear of this enemy becomes nothing. And now I look to him and go, who is this that stops even the voice in my head? fear him rather. Then my obsession turns to him.

And that's where the true healing was. The true healing for the disciples, just like me, wasn't when the storm stopped. It was when they saw the one who could stop the storm. So that's how you would answer. Why six more months of agony, granted? You lost your son? Now why go through all this? So I could look to him, the one who could stop even a voice in my head.

So tell us about now. Yeah. Because you're not on a tour bus. So then what happens? So I think I got to tell everybody about this. I need to tell everyone. I need to use my musical platform. I need to go and use meet and greets and use interviews and use the stage and talk about it.

And I'm doing this. And sometimes it's effective and sometimes it's not. Sometimes I wish I just had more time to talk about the gospel. but through it all, I'm realizing something. I'm promoting myself. No matter if I speak the gospel, sing a gospel song on the stage, it's still in my little world all about me. And so I started thinking, I should leave the record label

because this country radio thing is where it's really going wrong. That's where I'm really promoting myself. So I was wrestling with that for a good amount of time, talking with people around me who all said, that's a ridiculous idea. You have a perfectly good career. It's amazing that the Lord saved you. But use that platform that he's given you. Use the talent he's given you and just tell the world about him.

You could be his megaphone as if he needs it, you know, as if he needs me to give him more glory. So I let go of the record label. And it just kept wearing on me. I'm still touring. I'm still, my name's still on the billboard. and I'm still promoting, promoting. And I realized, I wonder if this is a sin for me.

I wonder if this is cultivating some kind of pride that's actually hurting me. I thought, well, the Bible says that I could test it. Let me test it so that I could discern the will of God. Romans 12. So I walk up on the stage one day. I remember the specific concert. And I thought, those people in the front row not standing up. what's wrong with them? I thought, oh, that's a bad thought. A few minutes go by, I look,

last time we came to this city, it was full in the back, and now I see there's this big spot in the back. What's wrong with this town? Oh, that's a bad thought. And I realized, I'm in sin. I have to eradicate all of this. And if the Lord, if the Lord rebuilds it, so be it. But right now, I need to surrender all of it. So then I came to the same council and I said, hey, I think I'm going to give up touring. And they're like, that's a bad idea. You keep coming up with these bad ideas. But I did.

I scheduled a final tour. That took about eight months, played the last concert, and woke up that next morning with peace. And I just thought, okay, Lord, I am now a completely moldable lump of clay. I'm ready for the hand of my maker. And that leads me to today. Okay, I want to come back and ask a couple questions because we've got people listening. I'm a little further down the road than you.

Yeah. That's a nice way of me saying I'm old. But I don't think music career is wicked or evil or ungodly. No. I think God was inviting you to something else. And you're my, if I were going to tell your story for you, and I'll let you correct the record. God was inviting you to something, and there's a tug of war in us with that, all of us. all of us.

Yeah. There is in my life until today. When I sense God inviting me to something, I don't just typically go, oh, yes. I'm going, no, I'm busy. I don't want to do that. And you live with that. There's no peace. Yeah.

And so I don't want the message to be, you can't be in music and honor the Lord because some people do. I was on my way to medical school. And I couldn't get peace. and I mean I kept saying that's that's not God I rebuke you you you know I'm going to be a godly doctor and help people and be generous with my money and what I really want to do was be in control and I finally said okay Lord I'll do whatever you want me to do

and I hated public speaking so I never imagined ministry I just thought I'd go well I went and applied to law school I thought well I can go be a Christian lawyer then and I couldn't get any peace about that And so I hear your story. I hear God inviting you to him. And I don't think we know the end of it yet. No. You're in school.

You're pulling together your training. Yeah. Yeah, in seminary, about halfway through an MDiv. And it's just trying to take the next step, the next step. And something I've learned is that in my personality, I always, I've just always liked to go to the tip of the spear. And so when I decided that I feel a call to ministry, I was like, okay, well, here we go, tip of the spear.

You know, what's that going to be? What kind of, you know, parish church? What kind of mission organization? What kind of, you know, revival campaign do I want to find? I'm looking and I'm traveling the world, you know, going to all these countries and meeting with people and traveling with different organizations, all to find.

that tip of the spirit I was looking for is the local church. And everything I've seen, I'm convinced of this. And I'm convinced the Bible tells us this as well. And so I thought, okay, and everything I was looking for, it was always in the church, something that I have neglected for decades in the music business where I was traveling or touring and not able to make it on a Sunday morning. And so as I started gathering with my family and,

sitting under teaching. You said it a little bit earlier in a way that sometimes we could sit under preaching and we're not working to listen. Right. But as you prepare a message on Sundays, we should hope that people are preparing themselves to work, to listen, to hear it. And that's what you asked for as a pastor. Like, I'm going to deliver something to you.

Would you please try to listen? listen and not be passive in you're listening. So I started doing that. And the more and more I got involved and the more I saw what the local church should be doing in a community for the people, it should be the, that should be the place where people are disciples. That should be the place where people are counseled and where people mourn with them and celebrate with them and cry with them and laugh with them and go to the hospital with them and and send them off to the Lord and and bring new babies and it's that this is the it's always been the local church has been what carries out the great commission and so this is the world I'm living in now just seeing the joy

of what it is to be part of a local church so out of what seemed like a tragedy God brought a breakthrough. Yeah. Is that fair? That's fair. I think that's understating it, but it's... Yeah. Yeah.

It's your story. I don't want to preach it. Yeah, it's understanding it. The Lord crushed me to rebuild me. Yeah. And it wasn't about me. Yeah, say it differently. I think the devil crushed you and the Lord rebuilt you.

As long as you say it that way, understanding that the death. The devil never had power over him, over God. Right. And so as long as we keep power where it is, yes, the devil crush me. But our world is this tension between good and evil. And God hasn't banished it from us yet. He will. We have the promise of that day and the descriptions of that day.

But in the interim, we live with this tension between good and evil. And being a Christ follower, being born again, being filled with the spirit, All the merit badges you want to string on to that experience still doesn't remove us from the arena of conflict. That's why the Bible says we're in this wrestling match against principalities and powers. Alveda King was here this weekend, and there's some parallels.

Her uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, we all know, was assassinated, but her father was murdered a year later. Her grandmother was shot while playing the organ in church. unbelievable pain in a person's life. She was a teenager when her father was drowned, 17. But out of that, the impact of the civil rights movement was probably cemented. More than if Dr. King had preached a thousand more messages or led a thousand more marches. We had a breakthrough as a nation.

And God, I mean, listening to you tell your story, and I mean, I've read a bit of it, but it's not the same. And you're describing this breakthrough that comes from a true. tragedy. And yes, I believe God's fingerprints are all over it. But for those of you that are listening to us, our lives are in this arena where good and evil are all in play. And we can't stop. We can't be passive. You can't go sit in church on your good intentions and say, preacher, you should awaken me. I'm like, no, God expects us to be engaged. And even when God, you know, he doesn't always answer my prayers in the way I want him to. Yeah. But you didn't even No, if you had had a lottery ticket that said the next three things you pray for would be answered,

you'd have messed it up. You'd want to 10 more platinum albums and a bigger bus. I'd messed it up. And we should say, and we have to say, that that tension, good and evil, that the interim we live in, everything you just said, that all culminates at the cross. Yeah. Because there's two truths we know at the cross. that man sinned, man murdered the son of God, man put Jesus on the cross, and man is left accountable for that horrific sin. The other truth is, God planned it, and God crushed his son to take on the sins of the world in his body so that we could be forgiven. And we handle those two truths. Those are the major, two major truths.

If you don't believe, if you believe that man sent Jesus to the cross and God didn't have anything to do with it and man is the only one to blame and then God said, well, I guess I'll do something with this. And I guess it's good. Oh, how about redemption? How about atonement? We'll do that. Then you wouldn't be Christian to say that. You also wouldn't be Christian to say, God did it. And man's not responsible for the death of Jesus.

God planned all this. You also wouldn't be Christian. both of those truths, just as we hold the truth in my life and in all of our lives, in the smallest version of it, to go, River died because of the fallen world, because of sin, because of the fallen world, because we live in a world that is yet to be redeemed. And yet, God knew it. God was there.

And God pulled us through it because of it. Those are the two truths. very difficult to reconcile our lives. But there is peace and understanding, knowing that he has a plan and it is good. Absolutely. We always try to, I want the people to listen to have a, what can we do peace, to whatever the conversation. So I'm sure there's people listening that are having to overcome disappointments and worse. What would you say to them today?

Something I haven't mentioned that I should. Okay. Remember I told you March 1st, I thought, I got to read Matthew. I got to go home. I got to read. I did that this morning in the airport on the way to Nashville. I have not skipped since that day. Wow.

And I will not. Man cannot live on bread alone from every word that comes from the mouth of God. I wouldn't skip a meal unless I was fasting or something. I wouldn't do that. My body needs nourishment from food, but it needs it more from the Word of God. So first and foremost, beyond. If I was going to tell anybody anything, I'd say, pick up the, knock the dust off of your Bible, pick it up to a good starting point like John or Matthew or Genesis or Romans 1, pick a spot

and move forward in it. I see too many people that have an app on their phone that gives them a verse and they read and go, that's my daily reading. And I say, that's great. I'm so glad you have that app. And that's fantastic that you get salad. But if you don't start eating steak, you're going to be malnourished and everything else will start falling apart after that. So pick up that word of God and start reading through it and then show up on Sunday and sing through it and listen to your pastor, preach through it, and then wrestle with it and discuss it and listen to it and go back every morning and seek first the kingdom of heaven through His Word. And if you don't know where to begin, I like your prayer. Jesus help me.

Please, Jesus, open my, I don't know what this means. I can't understand this Bible thing. I don't even know if it's meant to be read, but Lord, will you open my eyes to your truth? That's a good way to start. Absolutely. Well, if you listen to our podcast or you listen to any other things we do in the ministry, you know, we've started this year inviting people to read the Gospels with us. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, first four books of the New Testament, 10, 15,000. minutes a day. It's about a 60-day project. And I want to extend that invitation to you today.

But not just to you. I want to ask you to invite somebody to do it with you. You know, if you want to lose five pounds, you've got a statistically higher probability if you invite somebody to do it with you. And if you're going to read the Gospels, I'm inviting you to do it with me, but you go recruit somebody. You can get the daily portions off our app or our website. You can do it on your own, but we'll do it together. We'll talk about it from time to time when we're doing the podcast. It will build the momentum into your year and bring the blessing of God in ways beyond any other single thing I would know to extend you. And we didn't work this out. I didn't give you a bribe to come in and tell the people to read their Bible. No, it's just true.

But that's the way we have started our year together. You've got another book. I want to be sure that people know about this. This one's really precious. Can you tell them the story? It's called Up Up Toward the Light. Yeah, that's a little piece of like a river was something that I had been thinking. about in terms of grief. And so this book, up toward the light, is for kids for starting the conversation about grief. So the book, the scenario is a boy that loses his grandpa. That's something that boys would go through. It is. But it could be used for anything. And it's a conversation starter for a child that lost a grandparent or lost a loved one. Or a loved one. friend and you want to start the conversation. You read this book together with the child. And I think

it has, I think you can close the book at the end and begin a good conversation about the loss. I'll put it that way. Very good. So it's a child's book, help parents to process loss with kids. But it's more than that. I read it. Makes you smile. Where can they find it? Where do they get both your books? Anyplace books are sold for both of those. Yeah. Yeah. So we don't have bookstores anymore very much. We got Amazon these days. But we got all kinds of digital outlets. Well, Granger, I can't wait to watch what God, I want to watch this story unfold.

I hope you'll come back. Me too. Me too. I want to hear more of this. It's exciting to me. Anytime I meet someone who is saying yes to the Lord, and I guess that's where I want to end, you know, whatever's going on in your life, good, bad. You may be celebrating selling platinum.

And you may be in a tragic place. but if we will ask Jesus to help us, I've been doing this a while, and I can tell you he is faithful. I complain about his timing a lot, but you can trust him. God wouldn't be God if I could manipulate him. And the nature of the relationship is I serve him,

and I choose to do it gladly, and that would be my invitation to you today. Don't dictate to God what he's going to make of your life. Tell him you'll follow him, and he will make a story out of the messes that we make. That's been my experience. You didn't make the mess, but God brought out of that tragedy something that's going to be spectacular.

And I'm glad I get to watch that journey and to know it a bit on a personal level, and he'll do it in your life as well. That is culture and Christianity. Church isn't a denomination or a particular building or a translation of the Bible. Church is the people of faith doing community and facing life.

together, that's transformational. If you don't have a community of believers, you need that. It changes everything. Alone, none of us will make it. Jesus didn't do it alone. He had a community around him. So culture and Christianity, it'll change our world.

It's changed ours, and it'll change those listening. Granger, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you, brother. Keep telling the truth. Amen. Thank you. As we begin a new year, we have new opportunities unfolding before us to grow in our faith and make a difference for the kingdom of God.

and it has never been more vital for us to lead with our faith at our kitchen tables, our workplaces, and our communities. Join us as we read through the Bible cover cover. Making a commitment to read your Bible daily will significantly transform your spiritual life. As you read, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the character of God and a greater awareness of what he's doing in the earth. We want to support and equip you to stand firmly in truth so you can boldly lead with your faith. You can download the app or go to the website.

site at wchurch.org for more information. Let's make an intentional effort to seek the Lord and invite the Holy Spirit to work in our lives as we read the Word of God together this year. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.