The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Paul Young Joined Nate Kibler Live On “The White Mountain Ministries Show”

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Paul Young, Author of The Shack, joined Nate Kibler live on The White Mountain Ministries Show! The White Mountain Ministries Show airs live Tuesday from 2:30 pm – 3:15 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The White Mountain Ministries Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Thank you. Welcome to the White Mountain Ministry Show. I am your host, Nate Kibler. I thank you for watching, for listening, for praying, and for being a part of what the Lord is going to do through this show today. Hey, this ain't church, y'all. It is all about the kingdom of God. I'm very excited for this show. We have author William Paul Young of The Shack,

who is going to be our Kingdom Connection and guest today. He's joining us live from Oregon, and we're going to be bringing him on in just a minute. But just a few things I want to discuss first. I want to, first of all, just thank, as always, our partnership and sponsor with Melanie Morris and Opening Doors Real Estate. I know that this has been an exciting week for Melanie. For those in the area that know that she has a new brokerage up there at the corner of Route 29 with the Green and Albemarle border next to the Dunkin' Donuts, and they just got their sign up this week. It's a really awesome, beautiful sign with Opening doors, real estate. So we love you, Melanie. Guys, we thank you for watching today. Please share the show and comment, but most importantly,

share it. That's how people are watching the show from all over the world. But towards the end of the show, probably for the last five or 10 minutes, we are going to field questions from the audience for Paul. So we will pick a couple questions if you guys have some good ones. And so we're excited for that. And so I woke up this morning and the Lord gave me a little word about numbers. And I'm not talking about the book of numbers, but I'm talking about numbers like one, two, three, four, five numbers. And it's really interesting because I am somebody who is always in the natural, really been obsessed with numbers. I it's really interesting because I am somebody who has always in the natural really been obsessed with numbers. I was a sports guy. Everything was about statistics.

And my mind just thinks in numbers. And of course, numbers are important in the kingdom of God. I could talk about that for hours. And even 222 is coming up next week on the calendar. But in the kingdom, numbers matter different than they do in the world. And what I see in the church so often and some of the things that God has taught me because of my love for numbers, when I first started walking in the kingdom of God, when I started seeing miracles and healings and signs and wonders, I used to want to count because that's what made sense to me. That's how my mind worked. I would count and count. And it's like, it started to become almost a game of how many I could see in the Lord. You know, he's always about our heart

posture. And he took me to a place really quickly. One time when I was, um, you know, in, in, in quiet time with him, he said, Nathan, you're seeing, or he said that, uh, the, the people that you're seeing healed are, are, are not your trophies. He said, those are people that I love. And so from that point, I always stopped. I stopped counting and salvations and all these things. And so I think that it's important. I want to encourage people because, you know, many times we in the online ministries, we focus so much on likes and shares and followers. And we think that because we have a high number that that means we're some kind of anointed, important minister. And that may be true, but it definitely should not be what validates a minister or a ministry.

And even the same thing in the church, we've became so obsessed with numbers when we think about the number of people in the seats. We think about the number of salvations every week. We think about the number of money that gets put in the basket. And those are the things that we've put way too much emphasis on. And even myself in the last couple of weeks, I started thinking things about the number of people that are watching or maybe not watching the show. And the Lord just reminded me, Nathan, success in the kingdom, success for this show in the ministry is not dependent on the number of people that are watching the show. So I just want to say that to encourage some people today, because sometimes we put unnecessary

pressure on ourselves. And yeah, so bless you guys. And it's really cool that through the show, even like last week, the people that are being connected, the ministries that are actually being catapulted through even being part of the White Mountain ministry. So last week we had Namitha on from live from India, and we found out that another mutual friend, a minister, also happens to live in the same hometown as India as Namitha, so they are now going to get connected. So it's just the beauty of the kingdom and relationships and connecting people. So that's just a little word that I had for today, and now we are going to introduce the main Kingdom Connection and guest for the show, Mr. Paul Young. So Judah, let me know when we can see Paul live. All right, you are live, sir. Hello, Paul.

Thank you. Honored to be here. Very honored to be here. So appreciate the reach out. Yes. Thank you so much for being with us. And you are our kingdom connection for the day. And I always like to talk about how I know someone or how I met someone. And today's the first day, of course, we've talked on email, but the first day that we've actually talked in person together. And we were connected by a good mutual friend, Lisa Perna. And I know we have both been guests on Lisa's show and she was actually ministering in Virginia and stayed with us, our family, a couple of months back. And we were just talking about shows and she said, and you don't know this yet, but she said, William Paul Young would be a great

guest for your show. And this is just the honest truth. I said, who's that? Exactly. I love it. And she said, he's the author of The Shack. I said, okay, well, I know we own The Shack. I had not read it up to that point, but we owned it. We owned the movie. My wife had read the book. And then I said, just felt it on my heart. That's how I operate. The Lord put it on my heart to have you on the show. So we thank you, Lisa, for the connection. Absolutely. So Paul, we're going to, you know, what I love about you, I just want to say this for everybody watching, you were incredible to work with leading up to the show. And, you know, just very kind and easy to work

with. So thank you for that. We did have to make a little pivot because as you guys know, our show normally airs on Tuesdays, but we had the biggest snowstorm we've had in three years. So now we're airing on Thursday. So thank you, Paul. But Paul told us that nothing was off limits today. I said, be careful what you say, because I have been known to ask tough questions over time, but I know that Paul can handle it. So we're going to go back. We, of course, will talk about the shack at some point, Paul, but going back, you told me before the show started that you grew up in, you know, as a, you know, child of missionaries in other countries. So can you maybe just talk about your childhood a little bit? I don't know what you want to share, but,

you know, I don't know much about it. I've been told that, you know, you should just let Paul share it. I understand that maybe you had a challenging childhood. So whatever it is, it's on your heart that you would like to get rolling there. Ah, thanks. I'm born Canadian, but I was a year old. My parents moved to the highlands of New Guinea, West Papua now. And we were pioneer missionaries, first into a tribe that had never seen white people before. And so being one year old, I just considered myself part of the tribe. You know, the tribal language was really my first language. And when Wycliffe came in to translate to writing the tribal dialect, I was their informant at five years old. And so it was wonderful. It was amazing. Some of it was pretty scary. But

my challenges were that at five years old is when the sexual abuse started. And it started both in tribal dialect, I mean, in the tribe culture. And then when I was sent to boarding school at six in the boarding school, it and uh and so that was a big challenge my dad um basically had walked into the arms of jesus right out of logging hunting trapping on the west coast of british columbia and uh he comes from a background and family that was very challenged in terms of some of the abuse and it's a wild crazy stories. But, but, um, you know, back in the day, he just, he just wanted to be a pioneer missionary and, uh, but he didn't know how to be a dad. His dad had broken him before I ever showed up. And then his dad before him, I've got an aunt, my dad's oldest sister, who just turned 104, and she's a historian

writer. So I've got a big book over here like this about the family history. So I know a lot about it. So those were the, well, there was a third big challenge, and that was going to boarding school. Boarding school was not a safe place, and especially because of the abuse that took place there. But it was also a massive change in culture for me. And that's when I first recognized cognitively that I wasn't brown. I was white. I was one of those people. And we had a Donnie name for white people, Moongat, which meant a ghost person because universally ghosts are white. And so all of a sudden I didn't know who I was, lost my family, lost my color, lost my tribe, lost my identity. And, you know, I could, I found out that you could exchange your body for some approval and affection.

And that's six years old. I mean, I remember looking at our firstborn, Chad, and he's standing at six. He had just turned six. And I was looking at him, and he had a leg up on the fireplace mantle. And I'm looking at him, and I'm thinking, he's six years old. He's like six years old. How can, how can anybody send away a six year old? And, um, and I, you know, my parents were busy doing the mission work stuff and, and, uh, I was, I was in the world of the Donnie. They raised me. They, that was my

world. So your parents were gone, essentially. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, they were. And sometimes you have this crazy way of looking at the story of Abraham and Isaac. And that means you're all on the altar. And that includes your kids, especially if you're in the mission side of things. And so kids become the sacrificial lambs for the sake of the kingdom of God. And it's wrong. It's like, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, we came back to Canada. I was about 10 years old. My dad became an itinerant preacher, 13 schools before I graduated high school, complete mess. But I thought lying becomes a survival skill. I'd already had started with my own dad. So, um, went, I didn't know what else to do. Uh, worked a lot of jobs, ended up at Bible school

where my parents had gone. Um, my junior year, the year I was the president of the junior class and one of the top students in the school and paying my own way, I ended up with no scholarships. And when my friends asked the administration why there were no scholarships, they said, this is my denomination, right? It's a denominational school. They said, we've determined he's not a good investment for the denomination. And they were right. And they were right. You were too outside the box or what? Yeah, part of that was and and you know, I had, I still had a lot of damage to still work through, ended up going to a school in Portland, Oregon, ended up attending a church,

where I met Kim, actually worked on staff for two and a half years. Only time I've ever worked for a church, but met Kim. A whole series of circumstances, we end up getting married and we have six kids. When Matthew is about six years, no, when Matthew is born, about eight months old, Kim catches me in a three-month affair with one of her best friends, and my world just falls completely apart. And I had to make a choice, you know. Suicide had always been a companion, but now it was either take my life or find a way to change. And that started, I, you know, I look back on so many miraculous things that happened during that period of time. You know, thank God I married Kim, because she is a fiery fury. I mean, in some sense, I call her the wrath of God, which I now see as a positive thing, not a negative thing at all. It's the fiery fury of God's love that

wants to destroy out of love's kind. And so 11 years, 11 years it took Kim and I to fully heal. And for me to start, I basically dismantled everything that I thought I believed and started from scratch. And I had a lot of education. Turns out I'm pretty smart and pretty creative. And that was not a help growing up, just empowered my ability to hide. And at the end of the 11th year, was the year I turned 50, 2005. And I finally realized I was one of the healthiest people that I knew. No secrets, no addictions, same person in every situation. Joy was a constant companion. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to be a child. And finally healthy enough. And I wrote a story for my kids for Christmas. That's

all. And the 50th year, right? And got it done for Christmasmas gave each of my kids a copy of the shack that i photocopied at office depot in gresham oregon and i got a i got a deal at 15 copies because they had a sale going on and uh and the extras i gave to my friends and went back to work and my friends started giving it away to their friends so that started a whole chain reaction that ended up in this, what, monster of a thing that are really amazing. I just, I mean, there's no way that you can really adequately get your arms around it. I tell people that the shack is proof that God can still speak through Balaam's ass. So that's sort of the overview. Since then, I've written other books, the Shaq movie. We're looking at a whole bunch of things that are on the table, but I don't need any of them. I don't need the Shaq. All the things that mattered to me

were in place before I wrote it. I don't need it for identity All the things that mattered to me were in place before I wrote it. I don't need it for identity or worth or value or significance or security or meaning or purpose or destiny or community or love. I already had that by the time that I wrote it, and I'm so grateful for that. So my world is about relationships and responding to the person and the event that is actually in front of me and living inside the grace of each moment. That's it. That's that simple. So I have a couple of follow-ups from what you just shared. And I just want to thank you for your vulnerability. And clearly you have shared that before, but I did not, was not aware of that. So that was like, whoa, hit me for a minute, but just, just thank you for just sharing your past and mistakes that you've made and how God,

of course, has grace and mercy and forgiveness. And, and you know, he still loved you through it, didn't he? Yeah, absolutely. Never left. I wanted to ask you about fathers because clearly, you know, you said you had some it sounds like some generational things in the family of not the best fathers but from this the brief time i've talked to you even leading up to the call and you know you you did this as a gift for your children clearly it seems like you're a a good father and love your children very much so how um how did that generational not being a good father, how did that break? Oh, my gosh.

And I know now that my dad took a big step away from his history so that I could take a bigger step away from mine. And I made lots of mistakes. And my kids would tell you. I've got a great relationship with my kids, all six of them. But, man, I made mistakes. But a lot of it had to, you know, I didn't trust God as a father. I liked Jesus and loved Jesus, but God as a father was just too ambivalent, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes, you know, killing people and children and all that

kind of stuff in the way that I grew up in a very evangelical, fundamentalist, conservative frame of reference. And so we were always trying to justify the God who was genocidal, you know, that would go in and tell people to kill people and kill animals and kill babies and all of that, and trying to make that make sense with the revelation of God in Jesus. And it didn't. And so, you know, you had two gods, basically, and who knew who the Holy Spirit was? Because we weren't any kind of on the thread of the charismatic Pentecostal side at all. I grew up Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and I had no idea who the Holy Spirit was ever in church my whole life. I never had a clue.

We had it worse. We had a holy ghost. And so, you know, a holy ghost. So then, you know, so the theology was all screwed up. And then on top of that, we had piece of shit theology as far as what it meant to be a human being. You know, you're totally depraved. You have a sin nature, all that kind of stuff. And inside that frame of reference, there was no hope, you know, no hope for my addictions. I was just going to crash and burn anyway. Just give me enough time and I'll fail. I'll fail the rigors of the law, you know, and the requirements. And so it was always about, when they said missing the mark, and you ask, what's the mark? It was perfection

of behavior. It was all behavioral. And that's not what hamartia means at all. The word for sin is not, well, it is missing the mark, but it has not to do with behavior at all. Behavior comes from what you believe about the truth of who you are. As a person thinks in their heart about who they are, so becomes the way, so becomes the behavior. Behavior follows what you believe about who you are. And if you believe you're a piece of garbage, guess what? You're going to act like one. You're going to treat people like one. You're going to let people treat you like one because you think everybody's a piece of garbage. And that's different than beginning to realize that we have always been in union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that you cannot exist as a human being unless that union is there.

That's early church. That's Athanasius. That's origin. Their point was, if you could ever separate yourself, that is actually separate yourself from God, you would instantly lapse into non-being. And so this idea that we are in union and made in the image and likeness of God changed everything for me. Suddenly, it destroyed my addictions because my addiction to porn started at 12 years old, and I hated it. I hated myself. I hated the addiction, and I tried to break it. I tried to use self-control as a weapon against something that was an internal struggle. And self-control is not, I mean, self-discipline, sorry. I tried to use self-discipline. And self-discipline is not a fruit of the spirit. Self-control is.

Self-control comes from the inside out, not from the outside in. Self-discipline, I mean, some people are better at it than others. And for those of us who have been severely damaged, we just don't have it. We just don't have enough to make it through a very long stretch of time before we just crash and burn. But when I began to understand, and this happened after, and trying to deal with the adultery and everything else, that I am made in the image of God in union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So the reality of everything is inside. We are the temple of holies of God. The kingdom of God is in us. Like Paul says, when I was set apart from my mother's womb and God was pleased to reveal himself in me,

and now I preach him in the Gentiles. And so the reality of the kingdom being in me, in my union, changed everything because I was no longer a piece of crap. I'm made in the image and dwelt by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I am by nature pure of heart. I am by nature self-controlled. I am by nature patient. Nobody prays for patience in the New Testament. It's not like something that God gives you. It is who you are if your eyes are opened up to the reality of who you are. Otherwise, you're going to get lost in a war between yourself and yourself. I mean, it's just like, all right, I'm a piece of garbage, but Jesus has become my Savior. And, you know, we have this

crazy mentality that our sin is powerful enough to separate ourselves from God. You know, that God can't look on sin. Jesus became sin for us. How is that even possible? Yeah. You have to have two gods. You have to have God, the father who needs a sacrifice. So if you're saying that we've never been separated from the Father, so why are you saying that Jesus came to die on the cross? Oh, because our lostness has to deal with the issue of death. We brought death into the world. And all of creation is created in Christ, right? 1 John 1.

Not anything that has come into being has come into being apart from him. Or Colossians 1, 16 and 17, everything that was created was created in him, and nothing that was created has come into being apart from him. So those are fundamental realities. I mean, is God omnipresent or not? If God is omnipresent, how can he not dwell in you? And not just a piece of God. It's not like God is sitting somewhere and his rays of influence are going out everywhere. This is a God who is fully present everywhere. And so there's a difference. Now, let me make this clear. When we're talking the word separation, we mean like the big word is ontological separation, like you are actually separated. So you're here and God is somewhere else. That's what we talk about separation.

Now, you can be alienated. You can turn your face away. You can deny it. You can believe that that union does not exist. But you cannot separate yourself. Nothing can separate you from the love of God, including not any created thing. Are you a created thing? Yeah, you are. You cannot separate yourself from the love of God. Now, you can alienate it. You can deny it. You can act like it doesn't exist, whatever. But you cannot remove the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from union with you. So when you talk about the nature of being born, did you say that you believe that it should be in our nature to be patient, right? That it is. Yeah, both because of our youth and being made in the image.

When you talked about in your, uh, through your, you know, stepping, stepping out of, uh, bad habits and sin and all that, when you started to, to, uh, realize who you were created to be, did you, I'm just trying to see what, uh, make sure I can make sense of what you're saying. So do you not believe that we have to be born again in Christ? Born from above? Every, you know, the born again and the, how do you do that, right? And the way I grew up, it was, you say, the sinner's prayer, which is, by the way, only 200 years old. It was started by the revivalists. No, I'm definitely with you do that, right? And the way I grew up, it was you say the sinner's prayer, which is, by the way, only 200 years old. It was started by the revivalists.

No, I'm definitely with you on that. Yeah, yeah. So when John talks about being born from above and that conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, he is talking about something very real. And let me say this, when you pray the sinner's prayer, which didn't exist, but when you pray it, something real happens. It may not be the movement from outside to inside, like a lot of my evangelical heritage would say, but it is definitely the opening of the eyes to see something that did not exist before. But that kind of experience goes on and on and on. The question between Jesus and Nicodemus is, Nicodemus, you cannot born yourself

physically. You can't do that. You cannot born yourself spiritually. But if your eyes are open, you would know that this is the truth, right? Unless you're born from above, this is not going to make any sense. But our idea of what happens in the new birth or being born from above, again, is not now you are outside, you were outside before, and now you're inside. It is the work of the Holy Spirit inside to open your eyes up to the reality of which you are a part. And that is very different. So you disagree with being when we get born into this world, we're born into Adam. Of course we are.

But Adam is in Christ, and Christ is in Adam. Yes. He's the second Adam in whom the first Adam is assumed. So all of creation is in Christ. All of humanity is in Adam, but Adam is in Christ. And so, yeah, I know. So if we, let's go back to the word hamartia, the word for sin. It is missing the mark, but hamartia is a denial of origin. It's not a denial of behavior. Meros is the root word, and it means form or origin or being, and it's a denial of who you are. That leads to the activities that are sinful, right?

If you don't know that you are patient by nature, guess what? You're going to act impatiently. Or if you don't know that you are pure of heart, you're going to have all kinds of problems because you're going to act as a person thinks in their heart, so they are, right? I guess I see my little girls, and I never had to teach them how to have a temper tantrum or manipulate

or any of those things. It was part of, even though they're beautiful and innocent, as far as being part of a fallen world, I believe that they still need to be born again. Sure. But is born again. Sure. But is born again an experience? Or is... When I say born again, I mean give your heart to Jesus. Sure.

Sure. I have no problem with that. So how to go on back to, I guess, the original question. So what was that like for you then when you just said said uh I mean because because clearly let me ask this did you because so much of the shack is based around a man who had an encounter with God correct so did you ever have that moment of an encounter with the living God that just completely transformed you? I've never had an encounter that completely transformed all of me. That is so that I suddenly did not look at people with envy, for example.

I've had multiple encounters where elements of my life were exposed, and God has dealt with them. But it's been incremental, it's been relational, it's been face-to-face, it's been, you know, my journey has been one of slow, painful, incremental maturing and movement. So no, I've never had an experience of God that transformed everything. I've never met anybody that has. Well, you know what?

You're about to meet someone who has. Because that's my story. Oh, so you have no lust? You don't shade the truth? No, no, no. I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm saying that I had many years like yourself

where I was in addiction and partying and drinking and drugs and gambling and pornography and strip clubs and made a lot of choices that, that, that I should not have made. And, you know, I was, I was dying inside and I was ready to leave my family for no good reason other than the fact that I was being tormented. As you would say, I had, I had no idea who, even though I was a believer, I had no idea who I was. I had no idea or understanding of the spiritual battle. And as you see now, we have these three beautiful little triplet girls, but that did not come easy. It was a long process for us. And we went to a, all I can say is that

leading up to the night that we went to get prayer to have, we went to get prayer to have, um, we went to get prayer to have a child. We were told that there was a man who prays for people all over the world. He sees signs and wonders and miracles. And would you guys be willing to have prayer for a child? And we said, well, we believe in God. And I had never necessarily heard anything like that, but I believe that God was a miracle worker. And so, um, anyways, I ended up in a room full of strangers that I had never met in a home church, ended up sharing kind of what I'm sharing right now. And I got vulnerable and the man who was in the room, he looked at me and he said, well, you're being tormented, son. He said, it's time for it to go. And he took my hand. And that's

when I was introduced to the Holy spirit. And I instantly started crying and trembling. My wife will tell you, she thought I was going to die. I started convulsing. I was screaming at the top of my lungs for 30 to 40 seconds. And, and, and, uh, all I could tell you is that all the darkness was leaving. And when I could breathe again, I had no idea what had happened, but I just knew I was free from all of it. And so, you know, I'm not sitting here saying that, um, I'm not one that still has the ability to sin or, or have bad thoughts or any of those things, but God literally gave me a new heart. And from that day forward, all those things that I just described to you, that has never been a part of my life again.

Okay. How do you express what happened to you with others who don't have that experience when they've asked God into their lives? I mean, how do you talk to them? What have they done wrong? Ask the question again. So when you're around folks, and I don't doubt anything that you've just said. I don't. When people have had experience with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but they didn't have this immediate transformative event that you have. Are they doing something wrong? Absolutely not. So why is yours different than theirs? Look, you know, God, as you know, I mean, so much of the shack was tearing down religious

strongholds and not putting God in a box. I mean, what happened to me is not something that I would have ever expected. It's not something that I had really ever heard of. I didn't even know that that was possible. And what happened that night, I mean, it was humanly possible. A man took my hand and said, Jesus, and Jesus showed up. But what God did show me, and of course, for many of us, it doesn't happen that way. And I know that that is not a normal experience.

But what I will say is that what God showed me that night is, of course, he showed me that even though all the wrong I was doing, he still loved me. He had forgiveness. He had grace. He had mercy. And he was going to give me a fresh start on my life. And two days later, you know, I gave my life to him. My wife, growing up in an atheist family, even being in the room, the power of God, she gave her life to the Lord and everything started new for us. And what he started showing me was that similar to what you're saying, but I believe when I got born again, he made his home in me and he showed me that what was beautiful, it's like he did that through a man. And the first thing the Holy Spirit spoke to me that night, he said, Nathan, you're going to do this too. And I said, teach me.

And then the Holy Spirit became my teacher. And I was shown also in the scriptures that the Holy Spirit is the ultimate teacher. He will teach you all things. So the way that I, you know, we're all created different and unique in the way that we, the way that we share the gospel. And for me, it's, he showed me that night that when I pray for people, my voice is his voice. My touch is his touch. My breath is his breath. And, and, and many times thousands of people over the years, when, when I have prayed for them, you know, it's like, we can tell them about the Bible or we can show them the Bible. I know that the living God, he lives in me.

Absolutely. And instead of telling you about him, I will introduce you to him. So many times it might not be as radical as what happened to me, but they will be healed. They will cry. They will. God will give them visions or pictures. They're touched by him. And oftentimes he shows them in that moment, like, love, because he is love.

He shows them that he sees them, that they have destiny and purpose and value for their life. And that's more how I minister. But I would never, guilt, shame, condemnation, none of those things come from God. So I would never make someone feel guilty that they have not had that encounter. But I know that it's possible. Oh, good. I'm like, there is nothing that you have just said that I disagree with. Nothing.

I love it. I love to hear your story. Mine was a slow burn. And that's more normal. It's more usual. Yeah, I don't know if I would say normal. Normal might not be the right word. But look, you're somebody who wants to knock down religion. I mean, there are things in your book, I took to the shack and, you know, there were voices or things

that tried to keep him from the shack. Like that's what happened to me the night I got delivered. Like there was so many things that tried to keep me out of that room, but God got me there. So that was beautiful. Seeing snow turn to spring. I've seen that so many times with people that I've prayed for, where I've prayed, God has touched them, the light would actually, you know, the sun is brighter, the grass is greener, beautiful. Crying when meeting God, the night I was delivered, I cried for two days. I hadn't cried in 20 years when God came in, radically delivered, cried for two days. God, we'll talk about this more, God is spirit, not male or female, which that is, I think, probably something that was very controversial for you. But anyways, God gives us a choice. You talked about choices a

lot. He always gives us a choice, the importance of fathers. And then only God can set us free, but freedom can never be forced. He doesn't force himself. God never left Jesus at the cross. Jesus was fully God, fully man, all beautiful things. And I'm going to, I'm sharing this because I want to ask you a question. The waterfall. I know a man that was once set free by God. And I don't know if this was your intention, but when Mac went and saw his daughter, I think is when he saw his daughter in heaven and the waterfall the waterfall the waterfall he's at the cave with sophia the wisdom god yeah so i know a man that had his encounter

with god where his wife was radically changed and he had a waterfall rushing over him so these are things that i've seen and hear god do and then the beautiful thing when uh mac was uh went to visit where you know saw that glimpse of heaven with the daughter, his daughter in the field, and she was playing with the other children in heaven. Is that correct? Yeah. I mean, yes. He's looking into the reality that we don't normally see. Right.

Exactly. right exactly so we had a someone on the show last week who she visits heavenly realms often has had numerous encounters with with jesus and so it made me think because when i hear those stories like that it's like wow i've never experienced something like that but i do remember one time where i had a dream and i believed i was in heaven and there was like this underground like almost like a mine, and there was flowers around it, it was dark, and as soon as I opened the door, everything was light, and there was children playing in a field, and that was like the one glimpse that I believe I got of heaven, and the Lord showed me this, the same, he reminded me of this the same day that I

went and read this in your book, so I know that the Lord is speaking to you. So my question for you for all these things, is this taught from you by the Holy Spirit? Was this something that you read in books and realized that what we were learning in church was not accurate? Like how did these things come to you? All the above, you know? So I am not a person who is like physically translated to other places. I don't, you know, I've had some very remarkable dreams. No doubt about it.

Incredibly important for my life. But I'm a normal person. Like, I do not go to other realms. I do not any of that stuff. I just don't. And I don't have a problem with the fact that other people do. It's like I've never heard God speak audibly. But I know people who've heard God speak audibly.

Why couldn't God speak audibly? Of course God can speak audibly. But for me, in my history, it was in the middle of all the damage and all the losses and all the little showing up of love from one person or another at the moment that it mattered the most. It was all the little notes, like the president of the college that I talked about, she would slip me notes, the president's wife, and she would slip me notes. She was a missionary. Her and her husband had been missionaries in the Philippines, so she had a real heart for missionary kids because they tend to be pretty screwed up. And so just little notes. I had a woman who was a professor in Greek who had been a missionary in South America, and she would say, maybe you want to read this.

So it came from all different directions. And I look back and I can see the through thread of the kindness of God in a broken boy's world. And over time, one of the biggest things that I look back with significance, as bad as it was, as horrible a choice as it was, was the adultery. It really shattered all my illusions about trying to scramble to perform in order to look good in front of the world, in front of the church world or whoever. It just destroyed that. And I had to make a decision whether I'm going to start from scratch. I went, looked in the yellow pages, found a therapist, went out of the yellow pages,

turned out to be the perfect person for me. And we're in a city of a million people. He had already intersected my family, and he didn't know it, and I didn't know it until we worked on something, and he began to realize that, yeah, he'd been involved with some of my family up in Canada. And, you know, little incremental things like that, you look back and go like, man, when we look at the tapestry that God is creating, we're mostly looking at the back,

which is full of knots, full of, you know, brown string. And once in a while, God just flips it a little so that you can see that it's really this beautiful masterpiece of the face of Jesus. And so I've come from a totally different direction. And I've struggled with issues with the church because it just didn't make any sense. And I go back to assumptions. We make assumptions. And in a world of assumptions, if you don't know what they are, you ask questions and then you get labeled a rebel or all these kinds of things. And when I wrote this for my kids, when I wrote The Shack, my only desire was to save them 20 years or 30 years of fighting against stuff that they didn't need to. And so the impact was significant for them. Different times, different issues, different parts of the book.

But yeah, so did the Holy Spirit teach me? Well, yes, but not in the way that the Holy Spirit has taught you. Did people, did books? Yeah, I read a lot of books. The little cassette tapes that showed up and that were really speaking the same kind of reality. A lot of times I saw things that I couldn't live, but I saw them. I just didn't know how to get from where I was to where that was. And they were attractive. They were beautiful. They were wonderful. They kept me moving forward. But my life was so broken that there was a lot of work that needed to be done.

So how did God show you, I love you, Paul? Well, I've mentioned a whole bunch of them. But like the moment of intimacy with you and God, like where has he showed you? Because I mean, so many of the things that you wrote in the book is just so beautiful about the heart of the Father. So where did God show Paul, I love you, Paul? Over and over and over, over and over.

And looking back, I can see it the way that I didn't see it when it was happening. Whether it was, again, he was showing me that he loved me through the kindness of someone. He was showing me that he loved me through a piece of art. He was showing me through some rock and roll song that just would blast me. And, you know, it was everywhere, constantly. And I didn't have eyes to see it. It doesn't mean that God would stop doing it. God doesn't care about whether we notice or not. God has no ego-centered reality. We're dealing with love and relationship at the core of everything.

So, you know, it's almost like where was there not God speaking and expressing love to me? Where was there not? And it just grows and continues. And it's just as you grow older, hopefully, your eyes become more open to seeing what's actually right in front of you and what's around you. And your life becomes one of gratitude. It's like if we try to understand God with our mind, that can be very challenging. But once you start to understand him in your heart, then he makes so much more sense in our minds. And I will say this thing about what you said about my relationship with God, that's the

beautiful thing is every single one of us has a unique, intimate, beautiful relationship. And my relationship with him is not going to look like Paul. It's not going to look like your wife or my wife or Judah. It's going to be unique. And that's the beautiful thing about all relationships. And that's the beauty of actually loving someone. In the book, I've got that love is just the skin of knowing, right? It's not love that actually grows. It's knowing that grows. And then love just expands around that knowing. You know, if you have a little baby on the way, you don't know that baby, but you love that baby just because that baby is on the way. But then the baby is born. And as

that baby grows, it's like your love continues to grow and grow and grow. Another baby, all of a sudden, they bring in the capacity for love in the sense that you get to know a unique human being. So what you're saying is absolutely and beautifully right. It's something you also said about love, about God being love in the book that I thought was amazing and beautiful that I'm not sure I'd heard it exactly this way, but it was really good. It says, God is love. For God to be love, he must have something to love. Yeah.

Yeah. That's one of the reasons that I love the Trinity, right? Because if God has ever been alone, that God cannot by nature love, because love always requires an other. And so it's like, yes, God's relational because God's always been in relationship. God has never been alone. You know, God has never struggled with loneliness. Those are things that we brought to the table, and we've never been alone. We just don't know it. We just can't see it. So here's a question because I, back in 2016, wrote a book. I guess it technically got published in 2017 and it was a Christian book. This was

before I had my encounter with God. So I was a believer, but I was very novice, let's say. And there's many things that the Lord has taught me now where I go back and look at that book and I'm like, oh my goodness, I wrote that things in that book. And I was just off. And so I told myself for a while, I was like, I'm not going to ever write another book because I'm always going to be growing and learning. And there's always going to be something I'm going to miss. And, you know, I've already had to go back on that because I was like, I'm not going to ever write another book because I'm always going to be growing and learning. And there's always going to be something I'm going to miss. And, you know, I've already had to go back on that because I've actually, I'm almost complete right now with my second book. But it's more of a testimony book. It's not really theologically based. But so I have

a question. You have, it's been, I believe, what, 17 or 18 years since you wrote The Shack. Yeah, a little over. With your relationship with God growing over the last 17 years, and you might not even be able to answer this question if you don't want to, but do you look at The Shack and say that there are things that you missed? Very few. The things that I look back at, I could have said better. There's a couple mistakes, but they're things that nobody would think about. They wouldn't even see it if they didn't see

through my eyes. But overall, it's a story. And so it's like a parable. It's true without having to be real. And there's a truth to story that is, like you said, that is bigger than theology. You know, beauty is bigger than theology, and relationship is bigger than theology. So, yeah, I mean, I've had the shack gone through by friends of mine who are incredible, gifted, intelligent theologians. And it holds up. It holds up very, very well. I've built on it, and there's depth to it now. I'm working on the sequel for the Shack and just finished the first draft. It's a more mature book because it's more trying to work in an incarnational way the realities of our experience into the real life of our lives. So it's one thing to have a great experience with God and all that Mac has. It's another thing to go back to his world and have that real experience translated at the kitchen sink or at taking out the garbage or at somebody driving in front of you and flipping you off or, you know, almost getting you in an accident.

You're exactly right. It's a very good point because I could have personally had the encounter with God that I had and never told anyone about it. Yeah. But what are you going to do with that encounter to be a light for the kingdom of God? Yeah. And how does it translate into caring for your enemy? Yes. Or wanting the flourishing of the other, you know, or just loving well or being kind, right? How does it translate? He lives in us, we should look like him, right? Yeah. Yeah. And not as if he were at a distance and a model right it's indwelling

expressing outward in our participation god doesn't use us god will never use us that's abuse language and uh this is a god who partners yes it's about participation. I prefer the word partner. Yeah, it's always an invitation to participate. God, this is Acts 17, right? This is not a God who can be served by human hands as if he needed anything. God doesn't need our ministry. God doesn't need our prayers or our praise.

Anything that God would need would be greater than God. And so this is a God who loves to participate like our children. We love our children. We love to include our children in participation. And this is part of the beauty of what we glimpse in being a mother or father in the way that we love our child. We scratch the surface of the kind of love that God has for us in the way that we love our children or that we love our friend. And it overwhelms me, the beauty and the kindness and the gentleness of this love, and yet the absolute commitment that God has to destroy everything in us that is not of love's kind. The purifying fire, right? Yep. Yep. It absolutely is the purifying fire. So we have, you know, I don't know if this number is accurate, but the number that I saw was

the shack sold 25 million copies. Yeah. Is that about right? That's about right. I started the show. It is not about numbers, but I'm just saying I'm impressed with that. That's a pretty good number. It's, it is so silly. The whole thing is just like, how, how could this ever happen? I mean, so clearly if you have 25 million people to read your book, you know, there's going to be some controversy, 125 million people probably have read that book. Wow. And, uh, and it's, and it continues to do its thing. It's I'm like in the cheap seats going like, thank you, Holy spirit, we will have more, please. And it's crazy. Well, I'm not sure if I touched on this yet on the show or not,

but I did not read your book for the first time until last week. I know. Which I think is great. We had it in our house. This is how God works in my life. We talk about relationship with God. I called my wife when I found out you were coming on the show. I knew she had read the book. I'm like, Ann, where's, where is the shack? Because we had built a new house last year and I thought it was still in the boxes. And she's like, oh goodness, I don't know. I was like, well, we'll just buy another one. And then I heard the Holy Spirit. The Lord said, look at your night table. And I'm talking about my night table directly next to my bed. And he highlighted a book that was five books down and I pulled it out and it was the shack and I started reading it. So clearly he wanted to read me to read the book. And I will tell you that, you know, like Lisa Perna, amazing woman of God. She said that when

she read your book, like it kept, you know, took her from a normal Christian to start somebody to start walking in the kingdom of God and your book impacted me as well. I just want to tell you that, but you know, clearly, you know, there's controversies in the book. I just want to tell you that. But clearly, you know, there's controversies in the book. I just want to talk about a couple of things and just see where you go on it. Black woman. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. No, because here's the deal. Just so you know, I'm completely on board with you with this because God came to Moses in a burning bush, and you actually made it clear on one of those pages, Mac, I'm not male or female and I can come to you any way I want. That's essentially what you said, right? Yeah. So talk

about that because that people get so worked up about God being man or woman or white or black, like talk about that. Yeah. I tell people, you know, I could have had God come through the door as a big mother hen because God the Father is talked about as a mother hen and so is Jesus. But I don't think it would have done the same thing, right? I have friends, women who've been trafficked, and when they first begin to go to a safe place in their internal world and meet with Jesus, with God. God comes to them often as a black Labrador retriever. And it's because that dog is safe in ways that women and men are not for them. They've been betrayed by women. They've been abused by men. And God

knows that. That's why in the the book near the end of the book god comes in a male figure right an indigenous tribal person right yeah and and we're talking about metaphor here you know um metaphor my people have a hard time with they they don't understand metaphor and it's or a simile when jesus says i am the bread of life he's not you say your people have a hard time with that yeah yeah well my people had a hard time with god being represented as a as a big black woman so who are your people are you allowed to say yeah evangelical fundamentalists uh do you grow up baptist uh christian missionary alliance okay which are with big missions and i i got a lot from my heritage i i don't want to disparage

everything some of the theology was really twisted and it took me a long time to undo but um you know they talked about the trinity They didn't know how to understand the Trinity, and you really can't. It's a mystery if you try to deal with it intellectually. What I did, and I didn't realize I was doing this, I didn't write a book about the Trinity, but I showed the love that exists within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the lights went on. And that's so true about parables or whatever, and art. Or you watch somebody, you watch a parent who really loves their child well, or somebody who makes an act of kindness to a stranger. Or, you know, something happens inside that that resonates

with that and uh and so when i just i showed i showed the love and and they didn't have to understand how the trinity works you know they didn't have to understand the perichoresis and all of that. They could see it, and it clicked with them because it's relational, and it's loving, and it's kind, and it's funny, and it's humorous, and it's musical, and it's got all of these ripples in the ways that God would create a universe out of that love. Just try to make it in a simple term as well, because like you said, it's not the easiest thing to explain. We were talking before the show about our triplets, and you asked me if they're all different.

Well, yeah, this is my unique perspective on the Trinity, because when I look at my little girls, they are all completely unique, but when they come together, it's like they're one. It's fascinating to watch. Yeah. Yeah. And we know that we don't have three gods. We've got three persons in one essence. So you never can have the father and the son separated. You can never have, or you end up with at least two gods then. You can't have a different character and nature of God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, or God the Son as distinct from the character and nature of others. You can't. Jesus said, to see me is to

see my Father. Yes, I and the Father are one. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And yet, we don't look through, often we don't look theologically through the lens of Jesus and the incarnation. We go back and look through the lens of some Baal or Marduk kind of God that they were trying to get out of but hadn't successfully gotten out of in our Old Testament. And so that's why there are writers like Paul the Apostle that disagree with Moses. They're saying, look, Moses or Jesus, you've heard it said, an eye for an eye. I say to you, right? That wasn't sufficient. Paul would say, you know, he quotes Moses, but he doesn't. Moses says, cursed by God is every man who hangs upon a tree. Paul says, cursed. Now, Paul's no slouch when it comes to Hebrew, but he doesn't put the by God part on there because it's wrong. It's not cursed by God.

It wasn't God who cursed Jesus because that's a reference to the cross. We did. That's right out of Isaiah 53. We cursed him. We believed he was a stricken by God. That's how we thought about it. And it's saying we were wrong. And so there are, you know, I would recommend if anybody right now is thinking like, oh my gosh, he is, how do I read scripture? Bradley Jerzak has a book called A More Christlike Word. It's fantastic. And it's really helpful. Baxter Kruger has a book called Across All Worlds, and I would recommend those to help grasp some of the things that we've been talking about.

I'm going to ask, so time flies when you're having fun. I'm going to ask you two more questions. I think these are going to be, we'll see where we go with it, okay? Okay, fire away. All right, so clearly when I read the book, and I'm with you, you did not believe that God caused or wanted in any way, shape, or form Missy to be raped and killed. Not at all.

I absolutely do not believe that God is the author of evil. He's not the thief. He's the giver of life. Absolutely. And then, so I go to page 224, and God asked, I guess it was God that asked this question, or he made a statement,

but I guess it was phrased as a question, to Mac, could I have prevented what happened to Missy? The answer is yes. So is that your way of saying that God allowed it? I would love to hear more on that. Yeah, great question. That's a really good question.

When you deal with the problem of evil and the why questions, you're not going to have an intellectually plausible or acceptable answer because we're dealing with a mystery. Why does God, who is good, not act to prevent children from being raped and molested, abused, right? That's the question. Face it in your own life. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so is God incapable? I'm saying God chooses. I have no idea why. I know the character of God is good. It has to do with our personal agency, and God will not violate our ability to choose. I know that's part of it, that God submits to us. The cross is the clearest evidence that love submits by nature. So in that passage, I'm tapping into both the mystery and the idea of, yeah, God allows these things. And why and how? I don't know. I don't know.

I remember once somebody in my life came to me, and they were someone who had been molested as a young child. And, of course, we know that God is omnipresent. We know that he lives in us. People, when they go back many times for inner healing, they can find Jesus in the room. But this young woman said to me, she said, if I believe that God allowed me to be molested in the sense that he was in the room

and could have done something and he chose not to, how could I ever have intimacy with him? It's a great question. And I am actually in agreeance in the sense of, we know that there's evil in this world. Now, could God come in sovereignly? I don't like to use the term that his hands are tied because he's God. But the way that he created things in the kingdom, sometimes there's maybe people have answers better than I do on this. But I want to read this scripture. Luke 10, 19. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents, scorpions, and over all the power of the

enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. We have been given all authority, power, and dominion. And so I look at these things and it's like, as somebody, I told you, I told you you might learn some things about me today too, as an intercessor, somebody who prays, somebody who operates in the power of the Holy Spirit. I have known a real life, the man who prayed for me when I told you that I was, the Lord set me free. I had that encounter with God. He was in Mexico and he was ministering at a Hispanic church. And there was a young girl who was kidnapped by the Mexican cartel as somebody, a friend that went to that church. And I know this might sound crazy when I say it, but I'm going to say it. He called upon the Lord to send warring

angels to rescue that girl. They called back the next day and one of those kidnappers for whatever reason decided to let that child go with no ransom or anything. So it doesn't mean I know all the answers either to that question, but I know that God has given us dominion and power and authority on the earth. And so many believers, we don't know how to use it. And it's incredibly important. Yeah. Let me, let me just dig up a poem from a friend of mine and his name is David Tenson and the perspective is similar to like the book Night which is about Auschwitz and so one of these things that we have to keep in mind is that of God's presence with us in every situation that we find ourselves.

That a lot of our idea of control, that God is in control, is like the control of, like a dictator, rather than the presence of God in us. And so let me just, let me see if I can find this quickly. There's another piece of this too, and I wanted to mention this, and that is... Keep going, sorry. I'm listening. I just have something going on with my feed at the moment, but you're good. Keep talking. No problem at all. I'm going to go back to this, find it by doing this control. Here we go.

No, can't dig it up fast enough. You're fine. Yeah. But in the book Night by Eli Visal. I would like to see him. He was in Auschwitz. And some men were walking by these either three men who were hanging by the gallows or were hanging on a fence. And he says, I heard one of the men say, where is God? And another one said, didn't you see he was hanging on that fence? And it's the recognition that in all of our situations, the presence of God is there, as you were talking about in terms of the inner healing stuff. And I've changed my why questions in my life to a what now, because I can't find answers to the why questions. But if I go what now, that brings me back to this moment and to something, what now?

Now what do I do in the face of this? What do I do? What now? And that is a question that I have in this constant interaction relationship I have with Jesus. What now? What's the next right step? Because what I can't do is take the why question and start to accuse the goodness of God. Right. That's right. We can't talk out of both sides of our mouth. And if we say he's good, he's got to be good all the time. That's right. We can't talk out of both sides of our mouth. And if we say he's good,

he's got to be good all the time. All the time. And at least as good as we can figure out our sense of good, God is way better than the best we can think of in terms of goodness. And yet we live in a broken world. We live in a world where people have choice. And they act out of their own brokenness and the breaking that they experienced and, and you know, broken people, break people and all of that. So we're, so we're basically out of time. We got a few minutes, but so I'm not going to be able to go to the guests. It doesn't look like, but I had one other question. All right. This is? This is kind of a deep question,

but I'm trying to see because I could not see from the book necessarily where you were on it. But just talking this through and seeing some other parts of the book, the man, what was it, the ladybug killer, right? Is that what it was called? Yeah. Ladybug killer.

The man who raped and murdered that little girl. If that man did not repent, did not give his heart to God, did not give his heart to Jesus, if this is a real-life situation, somebody who was raping and murdering little girls with no repentance, not giving their heart to the Lord, do you think we're going to see him in heaven? I'm not a universalist by any means. I'm not. I don't believe that our ability to choose ends at the moment of death.

Interesting. Otherwise, I've got a problem with God. If that's true, why didn't God take away our ability to choose in the first place and cause all this damage? It would have saved us a whole lot of pain. And so I know that there are ages of judgment that the scriptures talk about that are post-mortem. I don't believe in eternal conscious torment. I think that's not just ludicrous, it's diabolical. I think that's a horrid presentation, that God keeps people alive just so that they can burn. I'm just not there. But I also believe that God is a consuming fire, and that everybody has to be dealt with for everything. Everything that is not of love's kind

has got to be burned away by the love of God. I know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And when it talks about that kind of thing is you're talking about creases. That's the word that is used in the Greek, krisis. Krisis has three basic families of the word for judgment. Two of them are restorative, and one is vengeance and retribution. The two that are restorative are always the words that are used for God's action. The one that's vengeful is only used for how people treat each other. So you enter the crisis. And what that means to be burned away, have that, is that a possibility? Yes, I believe in that. And I believe in ultimate redemption, because that's in the scripture, where everything is reconciled, where every knee bows,

every tongue confesses. How that all happens, don't know. I just know it's there. And so it's too simple a question in a sense to just say, do you think you'll see him in heaven? I have no idea. I hope so. I hope so. And if it takes a long time to restore a person, you know, what do you do with insanity? Is that the reason? If somebody's insane, is that the reason that they end up separated eternally from God or lapse into non-being or whatever?

Because we had a facility of mind to be able to make the kind of choices that we do, and we grew up in the kind of environment that we did, and therefore had the opportunity to see things the way others did not at all, does that give us a reason to pronounce eternal judgment on someone? I don't think so. But I don't know how the love of God and the fact that you cannot separate yourself from the love of God. And that means the guy who kills and rapes and Missy. It's that extension of love and that presence of love has got to be eternally there. If eternal conscious torment is a created thing, then it is created in order to love. If it is a non-created thing, then it is the very being of God who is the only non-created.

But I don't believe in eternal conscious torment. I grew up inside that world. Well, I know the fire and brimstone message has certainly ran a lot of people away from God, and I always have believed it's not the wrath of God, but it's the goodness of God that leads man to repentance. But ultimately, it comes back, I believe, what we've talked about a lot, and you talked a lot about in your book, is choice. He loves us so much that He doesn't force himself on us,

and he gives us a choice if we want to give our heart to him or not. But he won't leave us. He will never forsake or leave us. That's right. And so, you know, at what point does the presence of love begin to break down our resistance to love? Well, bless you, brother. It's been a good talk. I appreciate you answering some of the hard questions and taking it like a champ. And we've been blessed by having you on. I will want to say that you guys check out paulyoungpodcast.com and And you're on there a couple times a week, you said, right?

Yeah, it's very easy. It's 15 to 20, sometimes 25 minutes, twice a week. And it has no theme. It has no sponsors. It has no, it's just sort of an un-podcast. So you're welcome to come at any point. We're about a year into it and really love it. And I get to do it with one of my boys. He does the technical stuff and that's worth enough

if nobody even listened to it. So absolutely. Well, I can see you love your children. So bless you for that brother. Hey, so, you know, as you've probably seen through the show, I told you I'm a, I'm a man of prayer and we pray a lot on this show. Is there anything that I can pray for you? Do you have anything going on in your body, any pain, any sickness, anything that I can pray for? Yeah. Right now we're trying to figure out why I've got so much joint and muscle pain. And I just started an elimination diet to see what kind of foods are are whacking with me and i've also about to reach year four of left frontal lobe focal point epilepsy and so i have seizures yeah so i'll take prayer about that stuff well let's pray that and i think you know this but you know that

god does not want uh paul young sick or in pain know that. Amen. I know that he's good all the time. I know he loves me. Yeah. So I'm just going to pray. Okay. So yeah, father, I just thank you for Paul. I thank you that you love him as your son. And right now in Jesus name, Holy spirit, Paul, I just speak Holy spirit fire from the top of your head to the soul of your feet and Holy spirit. I just thank you for touching Paul or for showing him that you see him, that you love him, that you're with him, that you never will leave him as he knows God. And I just thank you, Holy Spirit, for filling him with your peace, for filling him with your euphoria, with joy and love and laughter and wholeness as only you can, Lord. And I speak to all the symptoms, to any infirmities, to anything that's not of the kingdom

of God to come out to come off right now in the name of Jesus it can never touch you again I speak to every muscle and joint and tendon and ligament in your body that any arthritis any sickness any pain any swelling or inflammation go and I speak to whatever is causing the epilepsy to go right now in the name of Jesus and that all of your words and every neurological function is completely restored. And I just thank you for this man, Father. And I just thank you for all the lives that have been impacted and touched through him

and that many more will as well, Lord. So I just thank you for touching Paul and loving him and filling him with your heart and your power, God, in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. It's such a great honor to be prayed for. You'll have to keep me posted, all right?

Okay. So bless you. Thank you guys for watching. Thank you for sharing the show. And our guest next week will be Nicole Kuhl. She's coming from Richmond. It's going to be an exciting show. So I speak life and love over your minds and healing over your bodies in the name of Jesus.

And bless you and have a good week. Hang on just a second, Paul. No worries. Thank you.