With The Perrys - From Rikers to Righteous: A Conversation with Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Philip Anthony Mitchell feels that he was radically brought into the Kingdom. Born in Queens, NY to Trinidadian parents, Philip found a sense of community and belonging in the streets, despite his mother and father starting a Christian ministry in the basement of their home. Now the lead pastor of 2819 Church in Atlanta, Philip sits down with the Perrys for a conversation on the urban context and darkness of his childhood, how he was changed by prison, the idea of "calling," and the deep reverence and affection he now has for the Lord. He feels like he’s gotten a second chance at life, on the backside of a lot of pain and discipline, and he shares more of his story in this episode.  Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!  Check out 2819 Church online (www.2819church.org) or on Instagram (www.instagram.com/2819church)  Follow Philip: https://www.instagram.com/philipamitchell/   Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, St. Names. How are you? I hope you blessed. I hope you woke, all the things. We, we, I don't even really want to do none of the lollygagging. Because we got Philip Anthony Mitchell. What's up, bro? On the couch. I'm on the famous couch. Yeah, yeah.

With the Perry's. Dressed in all black. Man, that boy staying all black. Stay like he's going to rob somebody. He just, he's just robbing the, the forces of darkness. No, I told, I think I told you. I said, I said, I said, you're scary.

Like, even on July 4. I don't know. I was just like, I think on the Zoom call about X, I was just like, I could see if Phil wasn't filled with the spirit how intimidating he might be. But at the same time, I feel like because we've had time to get to know you and be with you, I've seen this kind of, it's not like the hypostatic union, you know, you have like one person with two natures, but you're a person who. who you're both intense and direct and assertive,

but also very tender and emotive. You know what I'm saying? And I think a lot of people may not see that side of you. And so they don't know how to. Yeah, they don't see you walking around playing real, like, real soft music on your phone. Always, always. Always.

The prayer instrumentals. Yeah, I love the prayer instrumentals. That man, I mean, he texts, I think you texted me and Megan one time at like 5 a.m. This prayer instrument, weeping and crying for you. I said, I feel so secure. This man woke up at 4.15 to enter the scene for us. It's hilarious.

But anywho. No, man, it's been a joy, man. Me and you, man, we locked in, you know what I'm saying? We've had a lot of time, you know what I'm saying, to spend with one another. We had fun in London, fun in Miami. And just getting to know you, man, it's been a real, real, real joy. It's kind of feel like the end of a podcast, but I just felt led to say it now. It's been, it's been dope.

So I think we just want to create a space for others to get to know you. You know what I'm saying? I think God is really doing a great move with, you know, 2019 church. We see, you know, him just, his hand is on it. So many young people are flocking there because they want truth. You give truth in a very unconventional. Some might say like really straightforward way, but it's biblically sound teaching

but it ain't sugar-coded, right? And so I think sometimes people might just, it's real easy for people to just see what they see on social media and put you in a box. Yeah. Right? And we all deal with that, you know what I'm saying?

And so, yeah, just who are you? You know what I'm saying? Let people know where you came from, what you were about. Can I ask a more specific question? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a very broad question. I guess I'm curious to know

when you were growing up, were you raised in a Christian home? If so, what was it that you also, like, what was the idea of Christianity that you originally had that might actually be different than the one you're living? Yeah, well, first, you know, it's honored to be on the couch. And I appreciate the observations. Y'all have made in the kind words. So I'm from Queens, New York. My parents are actually from Trinidad.

So I was the first person of my family born in the United States. Y'all was eating bacon shark. Yeah, all that. Praise God. All that, right? And my mother was a believer. My father was not when they first came to the country. My mother actually led my father to the Lord.

And they started a ministry in our basement. So in a sense, I was raised in a Christian home, but because they're from the islands, they had an expression of the faith that was very foreign to me. It didn't look like what we would call church in the United States. States now, if that makes sense. And so my parents were believers. I would hear my parents praying. I would see them reading the scriptures. They had a devotion to God, but it was very foreign to me. I tell this all the time. I would, in the middle of the night, sit on the top of the stairs, and I would hear my parents in the basement. My mother had this old wooden cross, and she would

be banging that wooden cross, and I would hear her calling my name before the Lord. And they taught me Psalm 23. So I knew that when I was in the street. But the environment I was raising outside of my home, that urban context was so strong. It had a greater strength, a greater grip of my life than my parents. So I'm raising this, this strange dichotomy between these Christian parents and trying to teach me the faith at home. But I'm heavy in the street. I mean, I'm selling crack cocaine at the age of 12. And I'm finding in the street what I'm not finding at home. I'm finding this sense of like community and this type of belonging in the street that was lacking at home. My sister and I, we wasn't closer.

We're fighting all the time. And so, and so, yes, there is faith in my home. There is the mention of God in my home. There is scripture reading in the home. But the life I'm experiencing outside of the home is much stronger. So I'm pulled into a life of darkness from a very tender age. So that's the wrestle I'm having growing up. And then because I'm dealing with insecurities, I'm feeling like a man out.

but they're in them streets. You know, I'm feeling accepted in the streets. I'm feeling loved in the streets. I'm seeing honor in the streets. And so the streets just had a stronger hole on me than my parents. But, you know, that all adage, you know, train up a child in the way they'll go. Those scenes, my mother sold me, my father sold to me in prayer. I mean, they took root when I was 24.

Yeah. But that took years before that happened. What kind of child was Philip Anthony Mitchell before the streets? I was very shy. I was very to myself. I did not talk a lot. I was very introverted. I spent a lot of time in my room alone.

I'm an artist, so I draw. I have a lot of pictures. I would just draw pictures. I would stare at the ceiling. I would dream. I would, I was just very to myself. Very introverted, very close. I spent a lot of time behind my door.

That's the little Philip Anthony Mitchell. But by the time I'm 12, I'm in the street, that child, if we could call a 12-year-old child, that child is selling crack cocaine at 12. That child is dropping packages off. That child is handling guns. That child is up and down, Hollis Ave and Jamaica Ave. That child now has been stripped of that childhood. And that child now is promiscuous.

You know, you and I talked about this before. I mean, it was, I used to be ashamed about this, but you know, I was, I was molested by a family member when I was 10 years old. You know what I'm saying? So that already stripped me of any sense of purity. So by the time I'm 12, I'm already, I'm already active, I'm already in the street. And so my childhood is taking, that's taken at the age of 10. And by the time I'm 12, I'm almost like a man of sorts. So you have this, this kid who's an introvert at home who the parents think is this good boy and he's loving and my mother's around.

around these Christian friends and my parents are saying, y'all need to watch him. We think he's far away from God. We think he's shrain. My parents are blowing him off like, nah, he's a good little kid. He's a good boy. They have no knowledge of what I'm doing outside. So in their eyes, I'm this shy little kid

who's being raised in a Christian home, but there's a whole other world I'm living outside of my house. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Growing up, I know for me having like a similar background, you know, you know, I, you know, I didn't feel like I had any place in the church because I felt like, you know, the church didn't accept people like me.

You know, so growing up, like, I'm, you know, I don't even want to get to, like, your conversion story yet, but I just want to know, like, did you feel, like, because the streets had such a hold on you and the streets, like, even though the streets, you know, is problematic. It does give you a sense of belonging. 100%. And, like, so did you ever struggle with that growing up? Like, feeling like this church isn't a place from me.

That's a real thing that I struggle with, right? So it's like my parents have this ministry in the basement and they drag me down there on Sunday mornings, right? But I'm sitting in the back and I'm watching and I don't understand anything. I don't understand what they're preaching about. I don't understand the songs that they're singing. I don't understand why we hear. So for me, everything is against my will.

And so I have no concept for what's really happening. I know that it's not that I'm an atheist. I believe that maybe some sort of God exists. But for me, I'm angry just being down there. I don't want to spend my Sundays down there based on my parents' ministry. And obviously, in my adult life, I would look back on that and be thankful for what they were deposited. But it was rough for me watching my parents try to do ministry for 10 years and not understanding anything. Oh, I know that feeling.

Yeah, I was just so confused. I didn't understand the gospel. I didn't know who Jesus was. I didn't understand. For me, honestly, God and the name. name, there were just names in a book. They were not, they were not, he was not a being that existed. I was so confused.

Yeah. Growing up, man. Here's my curiosity around that. I remember talking to Preston about how, why does it seem to be a thing that you have parents who are seemingly conservative, religious, godly, but then they have these kids. It's just out here. And I remember you told me that you feel like it's a discipleship gap. That's cool.

they preached at them, but they didn't necessarily disciple them into what they were preaching. And so I'm wondering, were there times where they would apply what you were doing to you so you can even process who is God, who is Jesus? How does he relate to me? You know what having those conversations. Yeah, I think what pressing cites, I think is facts, right? I think that there is a discipleship gap between a lot of Christian parents and their children. I think they assume that as long as they're going to church, my children are being disciple. I think discipleship starts at home.

I think when we think about children's church and children's ministry, those things are supplemental, but it's our responsibility to disciple. I think my parents did the best they could as immigrants dealing with an American kid in the hood. They see me drifting, and I think they did the best that they could. I mean, they baptized me when I was 12. At the same time, I'm selling cocaine for the first time. My parents take me to a beach and baptize. me. That's crazy. They dress me in a white linen, you know, and so they put me to fast when

I'm like 14 for a week, you know, so they're trying to do all the things, like you would say. They're trying to do all the things, but that poor outside is much stronger. And at the same time, they set like, like my father, my father was a great man, but he did not talk, right? So we didn't have an intimate relationship. He didn't communicate. He was an introvert, but he said a great example for me. My father, I saw him love my mother deeply. I saw my father work multiple jobs. I seen my father build a business from scratch. I seen my father hustle.

I seen my father, you know, he was always dressed well, always smell good, you know, kept a haircut, all of that. So I think I learned things from them vicariously. But in terms of that hardcore, like discipleship, like, I think they did the best that they could. You know, I just think the grip of the streets was too strong all my life. And it's crazy because it's like when I'm out there, I feel bad for one of I'm doing to some degree.

Like, when I, when I robbed people at gunpoint, I would, I would come back for moments like that. Like, man, I shouldn't have done that. When I, when I was fighting or stealing dudes hats and stuff like that on corners, I'm like, man, I shouldn't have done that. So I think there was a moral code that's functioning on the inside. Yeah. But it's not strong enough to keep me from doing what I'm doing.

Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But it wasn't strong enough to keep me from doing what I'm doing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I understand that Russell, you know what I'm saying? Because, like, for me, I didn't have parents necessarily.

My mom would take me to church. Like, when I did something wrong, you go to church. It was like it was a punishment. So I started associating church with punishment. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, like the typical things, Easter, Christmas. You know what I'm saying? But my grandmother, she and she's the one who wouldn't party, like,

godly principles for me or whatever. And so when I did bad things, I would just think about, oh, my grandma, think about this. You know what I said? So I can, I can relate to that. Like I, I, I, when I hear you, when I hear you give such unadulterated truth on a stage, I wonder do people even understand your background. Like, because I think for me, like, if I, if I was an unbeliever, came from the streets. Yeah. And I hear you speak so authoritatively. I would think, man, this dude grew up in church. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? This dude, you know what I'm saying? But like, I think.

You would think that? Well, I wouldn't think that. No, no, no, not grew up in church, but like, Well, yeah, because I think everybody who who wasn't about the fluff, you know what I'm saying, like, came up in, in, like, godly stuff. You know what I'm saying? I guess for me, listening, watching you, because I was about to say Philip, like, yeah, here, I would, I would automatically assume that he didn't grow up in church. Really? Yeah, because there's this, this rawness and this authenticity that churchy people. I can see that. Like I felt like there's no pretension. And I think I think a lot of people that grew up in church,

they're always trying to prove something. Like the voice changes and, you know, it's really parabolic and philosophical. But it's like, he's like, no, like he's slapping the Bible. You know what I'm saying? Like there's something about it. And to me, that's the beautiful thing. I think of how God redeems or who he chooses to redeem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's like he doesn't snap. Like he uses. the environment that people were raised in to bring it. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, he's using all that Philip is. So, so, so. Sorry, I feel like preaching.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would, I would have known that you from the, I would have known that you was from the streets. Uh-huh. But I do think like, because I, because, because you did grow up around Christians. Yeah. Yeah. Like, only my home.

Only your home. You know what I'm saying? And so like, like, you, I think that you're so rich in like biblical knowledge. And, you know what I'm saying? And, you know what I'm saying? And, and truth telling. Yeah.

But at the same time, you could tell like you from the block. Yeah, which is what I love, like the combination. And you two? Yeah, we're kind of in the same thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think some of that for me, right, is I have a deep fear of the Lord. Like, I'm afraid of the Lord, right? And that's two full. So some of that is what I have learned of him through the scriptures,

through the word. But some of that too is through failure, right? Like there's a story in my past that I want to tell one day and I want to be able to first tell my children that story. And once I tell them that story, I would then share it with the world. But you have heard me say, I feel like my whole life is a second chance. I've been severely disciplined by God when I was a young believer. When I was two years into the faith, I really heard God in a very significant way.

And I didn't know that God was serious about His Word. I didn't know He was serious about the word holiness. And I felt God's discipline. And I think, when I think about God's discipline, there is a type of discipline in which he inflicts you for things you have done. But there's a type of discipline where he just withdraws from you too and give you all of what you want. I have been on the receiving end of God's discipline. And it made me realize that he is serious about his word. He is serious about holiness.

And so for me, my whole life, everything, marriage, kids, ministry, church, all of it. For me, it's a second chance and it's a second chance on the backside of pain and discipline. And so my seriousness in the pulpit is born out of an encounter I had in Israel. But it's first born out of a fear I have for God, a deep reverence I have for the scriptures. And for me, I think about, and I don't know why I'm wired this way, but I think about eternity a lot. And because I think about eternity a lot, it's like, Like, I am growing more disconnected from the things of this life. I see a lot of stuff is just vanity, right?

So for me, like preaching, you know this, y'all are familiar with this text. There's a passage in the scripture where Paul is admonishing the church. And he's saying those of us who preach like us three, who communicate God's word, we should do that as if we are speaking on behalf of God himself. So if I'm speaking on behalf of God himself, I don't see God as a clown. Yeah. I don't see him as a joke. I don't see him as acting foolish if he was in a pulpit. I don't see his word like that.

So if I'm speaking on behalf of him, I think God is serious about his word. He's serious about his statutes. He's serious about the things he's given us. So why do we not take on that tone? Sadly, I don't even think my tone should be that much of an anomaly. I think my tone should be the norm. You know what I'm saying? Like, I've heard people say like, man, when we're,

We hear you. We like the fact that you cool with the Perrys. And then like, our relationship is like, y'all all sound alike. And it's like it's such a breath of fresh air. But why is it a brush of fresh air? Yeah. It shouldn't be a breath of fresh air. It should be like everywhere we go.

This is where we hear. Not the norm. Right. This is what we hear. So my seriousness, I don't even think I'm special. I just think I like Isaiah. I've had a theophany. I've had a revelation of who God is.

I'm not special. I just see him for who he is. Does that make sense? And I think people don't see that preaching is not just in the content, but even in my affect. Come on. In the how. And so like if I'm teaching a text, how I teach it might authenticate the teaching. Right.

So how, like I feel like even me being a seminary, when you listen to people navigate a text, like it's boring to me that tells me that it bores you. It's not that interesting to you. It's just, it's just a book. It's just literature. It's not actually living. It's not actually a sword. And so I think our cadence and I think our approach to the Bible also authenticate what we think about the Bible.

Yeah. I think that's powerful. And because like I've been, I've been criticized with being like too animated and too aggressive and all this other stuff. I feel what I'm preaching very deeply. For sure. You can tell. You're like the bad man of preaching. I feel it all.

He said the bad. She said the bad man. I just like making Philip laugh. I don't laugh enough. But I feel what I'm preaching very deeply. And for me, like, it doesn't begin on the pulpit, right? It's like when I'm studying and I'm alone with that text, I'll be in that text and I'm digging through that text.

And it's myself. It's the Holy Spirit. It's my, and it's all of my stuff. And man, there's times I be in that text. This is true. This is true. No cap, right? Man, that thing would hit me so hard in my private time.

I got to push away from my desk. Man, I'll fall on the floor and I'll ball my eyes out in tears because of how the Lord is dealing with me with that text. That text would eat me up during the week. I mean, I'm been sitting with that text in prayer. That text has been sitting in the basement of my soul. I've been praying over that text and shedding tears on that text and studying. And I feel that thing deeply.

Like for me, I feel it. So by the time I get on a platform, man, that's the overflow of whatever feeling. And you can see it. You can see it, man. And your passion when you teach, it's refreshing. Yeah. To see, you know, a pastor who's not only excited about the Word of God himself, but excited to, like, make other people excited about the Word of God

and make other people, like, learn about the Word of God, but also what I hear consistent in your presence. preaching, it's like a plea. Yeah. Like a plea for people, right? And the Bible tells us that's one way we contend with the faith. It's not just argumentation. Yeah.

There's also a deep plea for the people of God to want to know the Lord. Like, like, I beg you, like, like, trust in this God that, that has proven themselves to me. And I hear that plea. And I think that, I think that people need to hear that plea. Oh. You know what I'm saying? Not just critiques or, you know what I mean? but like I think you do a really good job of calling out foolishness,

but also begging people to give the lore a shot in a way that they haven't. And I think that's what I think beautiful about your preaching. I think that's, I think that too is like, that's like part of my lane, right? I feel like, I feel like something happens to the proclaimers of the gospel when we understand more specifically our assignment, right? Like, like I was telling, I was telling your husband when we was in Miami, somebody like, I was when I was in, I was out the country somewhere and some dude, was using an AI app and asking the app questions about restaurants.

I didn't know that existed. So he downloaded the app on my phone. And I was like, and I remember I told you that, I was like, who's Preston Perry? Like, Preston Perry is a Christian apologist. And it's like, you have a lane. People know you to be a Christian apologist and evangelist or defender of the faith. And people here at J.HP, she has a lane. People know her to be scholarly, a teacher in the faith.

I feel like I know my lane now. I feel like I knew my lane since 2018. I didn't tattoo the whole thing to my left arm. Like, Marlene is, it's almost, I used to, I used to tell people, stop calling me this. People keep calling me John the Baptist. You're a modern day John the bat. I'm like, stop calling me that. Don't call me that because I didn't like the way he died.

You know what I'm saying? Stop calling me that. All my hair chopped off. Put on a platter. I didn't like the way he died. Not to mention like, you know, to be like, my mom had a dream of my death. You know what I'm saying? That I was decapitated.

Like, I got hands laid on me by. like some Islamic organization, they took my head off. My mother had a dream. So my mother's always trying to tell me, you know, son, be careful about the things you're saying, all this other stuff. And so when people started calling me John the Baptist, I'm thinking about my mother's dream

and I'm thinking about people. And I say, stop calling me that. I don't want to be associated with that. But the truth is, I feel that type of calling is what God gave me. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to be an expositor of the text. I'm going to be faithful and have fidelity to the text, but I do feel like part of my call is pleading with the people of God and with the atheists.

I can't, tag, I'm getting emotional right now. Go ahead and cry. No, yo. This is the safe space. I feel like that is part of my lane, bro. You know what I'm saying? I feel like that is my lane. So it hurts me to see what's happening in the body.

It hurts me to see the condition of the. the American church. I feel like God gave me a call to awaken as many people as possible. And sometimes, you know, to awaken people, you got to do like what Jude said. You know, you got to snatch some people from the fires of hell and others.

You got to deal with them gently. But I feel like I have found my lane. My lane was made clear to me December 2018 and I'm going to run that lane until the Jesus calls me home. To my Lord calls me home, I got to run that lane. If it's not, even if it's not, like see if it's not popular, if it don't put me on stages, if it don't put me at conferences and all this other stuff,

I want to run that lane. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I think you probably have experienced this. We've talked through this, how before you're in Christ, there seems to be,

I don't want to call it a talent, but like God can kind of give you a way of navigating the world that when you're filled with his spirit, it like animates that. So, for example, I grew up very good with words, read a lot of books, it was fantastic essays, all the stuff, did not know that when the Lord filled me,

that that would make me a good communicator, a preacher, all the things. Were there times in your life, like this same energy, did you have preacher energy just not for the things of God? You know, that's a great question. And so, yes, right? And so I'm an introvert until I get to high school. I'm a big introvert until I get to high school. By the time I get to high school, like I become a boss in a sense.

I'm running with dudes who are like ruthless. And then what starts coming out of me is natural leadership. First things, we be in rooms and we're trying to figure out stuff. And I'm rising to the occasion with ideas. So there's natural leadership in me. I'm leading people around me. I become loud. I become aggressive.

People listen to things that I'm saying. So then I carry that into school. I carry that into college. notice that I'm excellent when it comes to oral presentations in school. I'm excellent when it comes to writing reports and essays. So I realize I have this love affair with words. I'm good with words. I can I can write well. I can speak well. I excel at these things in school. I excel at these things in college. Like I'm doing oral presentations in college and oral presentations in high school and oral presentations in the streets and in circles and on street corners. And I'm

excelling at that. You know what I'm saying? Like yeah, I'm excited. I'm selling at that. And so, but so in hindsight, when I look back on it, I feel like what God did is he didn't change my nature. He just redeemed it. Yeah. You see? Hello. He didn't, he didn't, hello. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't change my nature. He redeemed my nature. So he took that leadership skill and he used that. He took that loud mouth. He used that. He took that ability to write. He used that. And so he just redeemed my nature in a sense. That's good. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, I've seen that in my life.

How did jail or prison change you? Man, so for me, I was kind of like in and out of jail until about the age of 17. My last time sitting in a prison cell, I turned 18 in Rikers Island prison. I'm facing a trial. My mother gets a good attorney. I beat that trial. And for me, I don't even feel like jail had an effect on me when I was young. I feel like it was just part of street ethics.

It's just part of street life. Yeah, yeah. You know, you end the street, you playing with guns, you in fights, you in and out of prison. Like, it's almost like, it's like part of the narrative of being in the street. It's not to after I'm saved, I look back on some of them times,

I sat behind bars and I thought to myself, like, that's not even the worst thing that could happen to a person that's sitting behind the prison cells. Like, I think what's worse than being physically incarcerated is being mentally incarcerated. and being spiritually incarcerated. I think there are people in prison that's more free than Christians sitting in jazz

on Sunday morning. There are people behind bars who are really saved. They really love Jesus. They know that word. I mean, they have an intimate relationship with Christ and they're probably more free than people sitting in church on Sunday morning

who are bound by idolatry and all manner of things that got them in prison on the inside. You know what I'm saying? I mean, think about even some of the people, Paul's imprisonments. I mean, the man is writing epistles from prison.

Yeah, I'm happy about it. Yeah, I mean, the epistle we tag with the line of joy. He writes that from prison. He writes Ephesians from prison. I mean, he's writing epistles from prison.

He's just as free. And so prison didn't, like, being in and out of jail didn't really affect me that much growing up because it's just, to me, it's just part of the culture. It's when I look back on there and realize, like, man,

like the worst part is not being behind bars is being behind bars in your mind. And the heart is why we need Christ to set us free. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. That's good. About maybe six to ten months before I became a Christian, there were distinct moments that felt like the Lord is after me. Yep.

Like he's chasing my heart. He's chasing my affections. Like he's slowly summoning me before the summons. Yeah. Yeah. What did it look like for God? Like what, like leading up to your conversion? What did it look like for God to start drawing you?

That's powerful, right? So I want to first mention something about Paul, and then I want to come back to that, right? So you remember, we remember when Paul is on his way to Damascus and he is knocked down to the floor and he hears the Lord speaking to him in a language he understands. And he says, you know, Saul, Saul is hard for you to kick against the goats, right and we know that soil is converted you know that word gold is a very important word in the text

because a goat is a stick with a sharp blunt object on the end and they use it to poke oxen when they're stubborn so if an oxen doesn't want to move they would use that goad to keep poking that oxen so the oxen could finally move so when the law said to him saul is hard for you to kick against the goads that has given us insight that the law was probably tapping saul a couple times before he actually got a hold of him on that road. It's hard for you to keep fighting against my tap on your soul. You're fighting against the kick of his goals. The same thing happened in my life, right?

I remember being in college and a stranger walking up to me on my campus. I was at North Carolina Central University. Shout out all the Eagles. Shout out all the HBCUs. I'm on my campus first semester. This strange, she walked up on me, man. She got a head rapping. I was like, she looked crazy, right?

She walks right up on me in the middle of the yard. And she was like, you know who God is? Like, no, he's calling you. And she walks off. I'm like, yo, this female's strange. But D-Raehry like, yo, she's strange, yo. But that tapped me, right? Oh, wow.

The very next year in college, man, I have to use the bathroom. Like, I got to, can I just, we can just keep her all right? Yeah, I got to do this number two, right? So, you know, you don't want to go to the bathroom with everybody in there. Right. So I go to the back of the campus to a, like, a remote bathroom in the back of the campus, right? And I'm thinking it's not going to be nobody in this bathroom. And I go in there, I go in the store, I do what I got to do.

Bro, the bathroom is small. It's no bigger than where we are. I come out of that bathroom. There's a man standing at the sink. And, uh... He's hurt your son. Bro, yo, he startled me, right? He startled me.

And I walk over to the sink to wash my hands. And I'm so afraid. I don't even look at him. And he starts talking to me. God is calling you. God is calling you. And as I'm looking at, I don't see no reflection of him in the mirror. I'm like just completely froze.

And he said, God is calling you. He turns and he walks out the bathroom. I'm stunned. I walk out the bathroom. I can't find this man. I run out to the campus. I can't find this man. He was wearing a uniform.

I'm like, yo, what color the cops wear in dorm, North Carolina? You know, the cops wear, they wear burgundy and blah, blah, blah, blah. I just saw a cop. He was wearing this color as well. The cops don't wear that kind of color. And I don't know if I was visiting. visited by angel.

There might be angels amongst you. You know, the scripture says we got to be careful how we treat strangers because sometimes we entertain angels unaware. All I knew that this man was not wearing the color uniform as the police on campus and he had no reflection in the mirror. Right. But he did tell me God is calling you. So I had those gold moments where God was making himself alive to me.

He was making us unknown. But it wasn't until he ran me down at 24. And that's beautiful. What would have been the reason to resist it? Fear, fear of God, thinking like, I had this thought in my mind. Like, Christianity is boring. It is prison. Oh, my God.

I had to give up. I'm having too much sex. I have to stop having sex. I have to stop smoking weed. You know, I'm not going to be able to run in the clubs. Like, I'm thinking the life I have to give up, I don't want to exchange that life for Christianity that I see is boring. Like so church to me is boring. Preaches a whack.

I don't want to be in church on Sunday morning. So I'm thinking all that is so whack to me. I don't want to give up my sin for what I saw was just religious and boring. So it's fear of God completely. Yeah. And unwillingness to sacrifice the life that I was living. But you messed with Islam for a second, right? I did.

So what about Islam allowed, like, because you got to give up stuff with them too? One of the time. I'm asking, Jackie. I'm sorry. No, I'm letting you ask all the questions because we've literally talked about me and feelings. literally talked about all this. Yeah, no. So right before, it was, it was maybe a couple months before I was really saved.

I had met a dude who was in the nation. And at this point, you know, I think I'm dealing, I'm suicidal at this point. And we could talk about that. I'm feeling suicide. I'm feeling empty. So now I'm just searching for meaning. Okay. I have, yo, I'm pushing a Q45 infinity, right?

Like in Durham, North Carolina. I got, like, my joint is dope, right? Like around the time with Nas is like, yo, if I can rule the world and everything and it, you know, like, sky's the limit. I'll push a Q4. That's my first car. Right, right, right. So. Oh, that was your first car.

That was your first car. A Q45? Because I saw it on in the little rap videos. Oh, so I was like, yeah. It got told out there. You know, shut out. So I got the, I got the, look, this is true story. I got a Q45.

I got money. I got a nice apartment. I got a dope girlfriend at the time, which was Lena who ended up to become my wife. So I got all the trappings of what we would call worldly success of sorts. But I'm mad empty on the inside now for the first time I'm searching for meaning. Like what is life? Like what am I supposed to be doing? Yeah.

I get caught up with this Islamic dude. I get to end up in the nation. You know, now we, you know, he's supposed to be like my leader, my whatever he called himself. And so now he's coming to the house. We're praying five times a day. I stopped eating pork. You know, I'm going with him to these gatherings. And I'm doing that for a season, right?

But it's like, can we be real, like, can we be, let's start some trouble. Right. And I'm doing all this stuff. And I'm like, this feels really empty to me. And I'm like, Allah, like, like, how am I going to know when he's pleased? It's kind of like the way we were taught is like, you got to keep doing all of these things to please Allah. And I'm like, well, I start asking myself, well, when is he going to be pleased? You know, I feel always like I'm falling short of Allah.

Like what, like, I don't even feel connected to him. I don't feel him personally. He's the name in the Quran. And we'd be praying five times a day to the east. And I'm not eating pork. And I'm not eating pork. And I love pork for rice and chicken wings. Like, like, this is really whack to me at some point, time.

Because it's, it's religious duty, but it's empty. There is no, there is no, it's only like mental assent, but there is nothing, there's nothing in my heart. And it feels so empty. I start to question what we do. doing. And I just start pushing back against my leader and asking them questions he can't answer. And one day I just got frustrated. They said, bro, I'm going to this Chinese restaurant up on the corner. I'm about to get me some pork for rice and chicken wings. And I'm done with you and I'm done with

this. And that's what happened. But then a couple months later, the Lord would, he would save me. You know what I'm saying? Do you talk about that the moment the Lord saved you out to like it's a very powerful? Yeah, man. So after I'm done with that Islamic dude, I continue to descend in. in emptiness, I'm suicidal for the first time. I'm sitting in my apartment alone. I got a shotgun on my lap, but I don't got the courage to pull the trigger, right? So I got a fifth of Hennessy in my cupboard.

I pull that fifth of Hennessy. I'm drinking that Henney trying to get myself drunk enough to pull this trick. At this point, I just, I'm not thinking about tomorrow. The pain of each day and the depression I'm dealing with with so great. I'm thinking to alleviate myself from this depression. It'll be easier for myself to just kill myself. And for me, I thought death was like sleeping that if I just kill myself, everything is terminated.

So by the time I actually get drunk enough to pull that trigger, I raised that barrel to my chin. And I had locks back in those days, right? And there was this Christian girl who used to twist my locks. She was a believer. And I thought she was whack because she would say stuff like, well, I was like, what are you going to do when you finish twist my lock?

I'm going to go home and get in my word. I said, get in your what? Get in my word. I'm like, you whack. Like, that's boring. She comes to visit my house that night just out of the blue. My door's unlocked. So I'm sitting there with the barrel to my chin.

And she walks through the door. She see, I turn left. I can see this right now. I turn left. I see her come through the door. I got tears in my eyes. The Hennessy bottle's empty. She walks over to me.

She sits down. She takes my hand. She doesn't say anything. I will learn later about the ministry of presence. Sometimes you don't always have to have the answers. She said nothing to me at all. And just her presence talked me off that ledge, right? So I escaped that moment.

It will be like a couple weeks later, or a couple months later, I'm sorry. Lena and I had just got an apartment together, like a couple months later. Lena gets into a car crash. Now, Lena is a believer when I meet her, but my hold on her is like I pull her away from her community. She's not properly disciple. So she's a Christian, but she's like almost like backsliding and messing with this dude. Lena gets into an accident. She comes home.

She's so thankful she didn't get injured in an accident. She puts on gospel music. It's my first time I've ever heard gospel music. And Lena's back there listening to some CCY and some something. And she has her hand raised. She's praising God. She's pacing the room back and forth, praising God. She's in tears.

And I'm staring at her. And for the first time in my mind, I am, whatever that is right there, I want that. And I turn to my right and I crawl into our bathroom on my hands and knees. And now I start shouting at God. If you are real, you would reveal yourself to me. If you are real, you would, and I'm shouting him. This is my last string. And God revealed himself to me in that bathroom.

That's beautiful. My tears of sorrow and suicide and emptiness turn to take. tears of joy. For the first time, I feel alive on the inside. And when I come out that bathroom, I knew something had happened to me because I go back into our bedroom that night. I have sex with Lena that night. She gets pregnant that night. Well, I could tell that story now because, yeah, for Malachi, I could tell that story now. Malachi gets conceived that night. But for the first time, I feel guilty about sin. For the first time, I feel like this is wrong. This doesn't feel right. It was the very first time I had knowledge of sin. I had an awareness that sin was in me.

So I slept on the couch for six months until Lena and I got married. And that's how I came into the faith. That's beautiful. And so for me, I almost feel like God came and got me for himself. No preacher, no all to call, no sinners prayer, you know, whatever that is, no, no, none of the pixie dust. I feel like God personally came. for me. That's beautiful. Personally. And, and when I think about all of my excopades, when I think about shootouts I've been in, I talk about this alive. When I think about the bullet that grazed my right air, when I think about my man who was drunk right night, we got a trunk full of guns. We headed to a shootout. He drives off a cliff drunk. When I said, when I think about all the times, I could have

died and been eternally lost, but God came and got me that day in the bathroom and think all that time, his grace kept me alive. There is this now, this deep, affection I have for God like we call him Savior but I feel that deeply like you came and got me for yourself

and so there is this for me there was this there was this deep turn towards him where it can't be game playing for me does that make sense it makes sense

yeah so I feel like I was radically brought into the kingdom and that stays with me to this day man that's dope from there before we transition

I would like you to kind of build on that, even like what you preach Sunday about calling. Like, because I can imagine people are listening, hearing this, watching this. And it's like, how do I know God is calling me? What does it mean for him to summon me? Like, how do I have that? You know what I'm saying?

Like, how do you discern that? I think, first things, I think that there is a, there is a pseudo type of calling. There is a blue pill. There is an Americanized version of calling that I think is sensationalized and romanticized and almost ethereal of sorts that I think a lot of American Christians latch hold to. And so they think calling. They automatically think about lights and platforms and all this stuff. But I think there is a biblical calling is when there is a sense in your heart that God is wooing you to himself.

We feel that in our rebellion. We feel that when we far away. We feel that tugging on our soul. I think there's people who can testify. They can feel that tugging. They can sense that God is moving, although they may be rejecting. And I think we have to give God credit for that.

I think there are too many believers who are so, for lack of a better terms, they are so narcissistic and full of themselves to think that their salvation was a work of themselves. when no one comes to the Father, except the Lord draws them. So I think when we think calling, can I go a little bit deeper for just a second

without preaching? Let's do it. We want you to preach. Right. I think almost the majority of the time in the New Testament, where the word calling or where we think purpose

is a reference in the New Testament, we automatically see that as we think calling in America. We think a platform. We think an assignment. We think all that. But the majority of the time, the word calling is actually mentioned

in the New Testament. in this proper context, it has to do what salvation has to do with God, wooing a human being to himself. We take calling and we automatically attach that to what I would call assignments, right? Like me being a pastor is an assignment, right? But the majority of the time the New Testament is speaking of calling, if you study that properly, it speaks of God wooing a human being to himself. Calling us to himself.

Yes. So the call first is to himself, not to a platform, not to a state, not to a title, not to an office, calling us to himself. And I think there are those of us who knew that God wooed us to himself. We can sense that moment when something transformed in our heart, whether it was gradual or for me it was instantaneous. We know because now there is an awareness of sin. I think if there is no awareness of sin,

if there is no awareness that this is wrong, I'm not sure if you've been called. I'm not sure if you've been converted into Christianity. I think you have, you have Christian. Christian lingo and Christian behavior, but you have not been converted, you have not been born again. But I think the beautiful thing is, does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense.

It makes a lot of sense. I think the beautiful thing, what you just say, because I think your salvation story, it kind of reminds you a lot of miles and a lot of my friends who got saved, like my friend, Chucky, I mean, when you was talking, I was thinking about him, because it was both gradual and it was instant. Yeah.

Right? Like, I feel like it was instant when you get your life's going in the bathroom. But at the same time, it was like, the Lord was like slowly but surely like knocking at the door of your heart. Can't me with that gold in that bathroom? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So like I think I think that's another way in which we can know that God is calling us. When don't think that the people that have come in your life is by accident.

Right. 100% divine sovereignty and is God's divine providence who are sinning people. And that's just that that is a pursuit. That is willing. You know what I'm saying? He often uses people to carry out his will to draw. those whom he called to himself. And I have that.

And it's just beautiful. And I'm thinking about what's so powerful about what you're saying. And this is what also too bothers me about the American context in terms of church. How do you reason in your mind that a holy being would call an unworthy sinner to himself? Fill you with Him spirit, zip you up with His righteousness, and you take that for granted. I think we don't even think about the lengths God goes through to call a person to himself. And then we would say we save the call and then act a fool on the backside of that. It's like we don't even think about the depths of what we are born into.

I mean, the depravity of human beings. And when you think that there is an elect that God calls to himself, how are you among that elect? How are you among that redeemed? How are you among the chosen, the peculiar ones? and not feel this deep sense of indebtedness to the one that called you, not feel this deep love, this deep connection. So then I question many people who say they're called.

I question people who say, I think in America it's too easy for people to call themselves Christian. Everybody calls himself a Christian, right? So it gives the church a bad rap. But man, there is something distinct about those who have been called. It's almost like you've been burned by a type of fire

where you know something happened to you. And then how do you reconcile in your mind, that a holy God would do that and then not respond to with anything less than what Isaiah did. Here am I. Yeah. Send me.

Like anything less than that to me is unacceptable if you really been called. If you understand the depths of what salvation, if you understand the depths of salvation and passing from death to life and what you escaped in that, how do you not respond to him with a life of gratitude and complete surrender?

Yeah. That is crazy to me. That's good. That's what I love. My favorite person in the Bible, other than Jesus, is the Apostle Paul. Yeah. Because I think that he has encouraged me, but also equally challenged me, you know, because the Apostle Paul, he was a real G, but he was just so.

He was a real G, right? He was a real G, right? But he was so grateful. And I think one of the reasons why he was grateful is because what God called him from. You know what I'm saying? But also, too, like, he was able to endure because he was able to endure because he was able to endure because he lived out of his place of gratefulness and his perspective was different.

Like when he's resting in prison and he's writing Timothy and, you know, we just talked about that like how he seemed like he was happy in jail. I don't think he was necessarily happy, but his perspective, he's like, no, I know what I was created for. He saw the bigger picture. Right?

He literally says, I'm bound in chains as a criminal, but the gospel is not bound. Yeah. Gospel is not changed. Therefore, I endure all things. for the sake of the elect for the elect, yeah. Right, that they might obtain salvation through Jesus Christ with eternal glory.

And I'm like, man, what if we all had that perspective? You know, and I just think, like, also for the sake of those who are watching and listen, I think we should also add that, like, our salvation story is very similar. Jackie, I know about you, like, God came and got you for himself. But what's crazy is God saved us all in our room. In our room, right? All of us. You saved us all alone.

You saved me and my own. You saved me in my home. Not a manned. Right. Right. Alone, right? But I also think for people who are watching, listen, we shouldn't discount those who maybe were raised in church and maybe we're

still far away from God. And God got a whole of them while they were still being religious. Right. So I think we shouldn't discount that too. I think that too is very important. But I think Paul understood what God saved him from. I mean, he was religious. He's persecuting Christians.

And now his eyes open, right? So I think for me, I think it's less of just God save me from a life of debauching sin. but you took the time to come and actually get me. Yeah. How do I not respond to that? That's good. With a life of sacrifice and obedience. You know what I'm saying?

You get your paw on. Yeah, I'm getting my pole on. This is weighty for me just because even last night I was having a conversation with somebody about how I was listening to this sermon by Tim Keller on Jonah. Tim is obese. Crazy. Yeah. And he was basically talking to how like Jonah was, he knew doctrine, he knew truth.

He knew all the stuff. but like that fish moment was a moment for him to remember that he didn't deserve anything. Yeah. And I've been processing how much of the way I handle suffering reveals what I actually think about grace. 100%. Let me explain. Like I think there's, I think I've been in a awkward, hard season where there's this perspective that I'm trying to fight against where God is mad at me. And I think feeling like he's mad at me is because.

if I have a low, it's going to sound complicated, but follow me. If I have a view of righteousness that says, if I just do all the things, you will love me, you will accept me, you will delight in me. If I'm just faithful with my husband, if I just read the Bible, if I just pray enough, so that when stuff is hard, it must mean that all the things aren't good enough. But here's the gag, they've never been good enough. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

And so it's like, I have to remember you, We're saved by grace. You are loved because of grace. You are kept because of grace. And so the suffering cannot allow you to lose your mind and have you think that this whole thing, this whole thing is grace. Yeah, you know, so, my bad,

I was gonna say what's so powerful about that. Yeah, I remember on Sunday when I was walking through the first three verses in Jude, there was a section in the message when I was talking about when God talks by he calls you the beloved. right and and without a and i kind of i kind of just pivot for a second to what paul wrote to the church in rome that that you know god demonstrates his love for us that while we're yet sin us christ died for us right

and i'm trying to remind our brothers and sisters that if we don't attach love to what christ did on the cross then it could be behavior it can be performance it can be materialism so when we feel like our performance is not good he may not love me or if things are not working outright he may not love me or if I don't have all the things I pray for you or if I'm suffering, he may not. That's why I think it's so important for us to be careful to attach God's love to what he said, what he did for us on the cross so that when we, when we, when we, because I feel like when we attach it to, I struggle with the same thing. Can I just be 100%? I struggle with the same thing sometimes. It's almost like I struggle with, and it's an insecurity, right? Struggle with

sometimes like Lord, am I, am I doing good enough? You know, I want the Lord to feel proud of me as a son. I want the Lord to say, my son, I'm proud of you. Am I preaching right? Am I loving Lina right? Am I disciple in my kid? It's almost like performance and wanting to, it's almost like not having that from a father. You're searching for that affirmation in that performance. You know what I'm saying? And that's why I got to keep trying to remind myself of what he did on the cross as a symbol of love. So when I feel like my performance is not good enough, that doesn't rob me of his perfect love. Does that make sense? What's crazy? What's crazy is I struggle, I've struggled with the same thing, you know, and I remember.

So we all struggle with this. Yes. So we need deliverance, right? Because I think it's because we all struggle with shame. Shame, yeah. You feel like my will my, I have to do X, Y, Z for my parents' attention and love. And so I think we, I can't speak for y'all. But I just, I just feel like there's this, you're having to get out of the way you are nurtured to see that God is a different parent.

Yeah. He's not like them. Like, he just loves you because he loves you. What's crazy is, I don't think I've ever told this story on the podcast, but, you know, when I was deep in my evangelism video days, I would go out and speak to different religions in this community in Atlanta, I was talking to this one guy who was a part of like this, like a sect of Hebrew Israelites. I never posted this video.

The video was never posted it because it was too short. But all while I was talking to him about Ephesians 2.8 that were saved by grace through faith, that it's not about works, these any man can boast that scripture or whatever, I felt conflicted. The whole time I felt conflicted. Why is that? And I couldn't figure out why.

When I left, I was driving back home and I felt like the Lord was like, because even though you know that, you don't live that. You don't live like you're saved by grace through faith. You don't, you, you often live like you're trying to prove yourself.

Performance base. You're trying to prove that you're, like, like, you're worth, my salvation when I've already given it to you. Yeah, that's powerful. I already gave it to you. Yeah. And so like, for me, I think that that just challenged me to be empathetic to other

religions out there who are like, no, I need to prove that I'm worth God saving me. Jesus. That's how I was when I was in the nation. Right. Because even we as Christians, we theoretically know it, but we don't internally believe it. One hundred percent. You know what I'm saying? And we struggle with that.

And we struggle with that. And I think that we have to just believe and know, like, that Christ's death was sufficient for us. But I think some of that struggle, too, is parental, right? I think there's a lot of believers who was not raised in a home that was affirming apart from performance. And where there wasn't heard that you were loved apart from performance. And it only seemed like you were loved or affirmed connected to performance.

And I think this is important, right? Because, for example, the unknown right of Hebrews in chapter 12 is making this parallel between earthly fathers and the heavenly father. And the parallel he was making between discipline and love. The powerful thing about that text is that is giving us insight to the fact that when we are properly parented, we should leave our home with some sense of what God the father would be like if we're properly parented. But if a parent did the best they could, but they didn't show a type of love or affirmation

that was disconnected from performance or we didn't understand discipline was love and all these things. Then when we come into relationship with the father, there's a lot about his fatherhood. We don't understand. For some of us, we have father. We think absent. We think abandoned. We think rejected. We don't understand love for who we are apart from performance. We have was not affirmed apart from performance. That's why I think it's so powerful in Matthew chapter three. When Jesus is being baptized, the father is speaking from heaven. This is my beloved son who I'm well pleased. So he affirms him before he does anything. anything before a sermon, before a miracle, before anything, he's being affirmed.

And I think if more of us as parents would do that for our children, we could hopefully create future believers who does not see the Lord as someone I must perform for to earn his love. But this was given to you. So my righteousness and my holiness and my life is not lived out of trying to get something from him, but is lived from a place that I've already obtained that righteousness from Christ. I've already obtained that love. And it's a hard thing.

It is a hard thing to remind yourself of when you're just faced with the reality of your depravity all the time. It is, bro. But you know what I'm processing even in this moment because this is ministering to me is I think that's why in Ephesians, I think that's why Paul says, I'm praying that you would have the strength to comprehend. That's good. How deep, how wide his love is for you. That's good. This is a spiritual experience that goes beyond even your ability. to understand it.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's, because I feel like in Ephesians 3, he said somewhere, like it's like, yeah, it's, I think we should know it, but there's also a knowing.

A knowing. That the spirit has to produce. But I think we have to lean into him to do it. To experience. Does that make, like to experience? No, it makes perfect sense. And I think if I could be one

of a percent transfer, I think I'm still learning. Yeah. For me, right? I'm 20 years in a faith and still, still learning that that prayer that poor period I feel like that prayer is still

working in me I'm still fully trying to learn the love of because I still condemn myself for stuff that I feel like the Lord is like why you're beating yourself up you know what I'm saying? There's this I remember this one time I remember this one time when my wife and I was living in Ohio right watch yeah Malachi Malachi was little he was like five or six

I came home and the dude took a crayon he like marked up the whole wall I came home and told Jackie this. Right. Marked up the whole wall. In an apartment. In an apartment. So now, now, Lina and I, we, this is very, this is very profound.

This changed my life. Lina and I, we broke. We out there at Bible College on a scholarship. And obviously, we got to pay back this deposit. So I'm like, I came home. We remember those days. And I'm like, I'm like, Malachi, why are you writing on this wall? Like, you know, because we got to get our money back.

And I told him, you can't be doing this. And he has like soap, diswashy soap, and he's trying to wipe it off. And I'm telling him, don't worry about it. So I discipline him with my words, and then I leave, right? And it's like 10 o'clock at night. I hear whimpering in the bathroom. I get up, I go downstairs.

I go into the bathroom, and I see Malachi balled up in a fetal position by the toilet, and he's crying. Now, the sunlight, the moonlight is shining in. And, you know, Malachi looks just, just like me. He got better hair than me. He got that from his mother.

Right? And everybody in my crib got their hair is dope except for mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. He got that. And so when I see his face, I said to him, I said, Malikar, what are you doing here? He said, he said, Daddy, I was riding on the wall. I said, but I forgave you for that, like, early in the day.

Why are you still here? He said, because I was riding on the wall. And in that moment, I felt this deep sorrow in my heart. not because he was riding on the wall. I felt this deep sorrow on my heart because he just couldn't forgive himself and just rest in my love for him to move on with the rest of his day.

So he's trapped in this moment, trying to figure out, does my daddy still love me here? Am I good enough for him? And what hurt me more was not the thing that he did. What hurt me more was that he could not just accept the love and forgiveness that I gave him and just move on with the rest of his day. Now, I'm thinking to myself,

if me as a human father felt broken, for him because he could not just accept my love and forgiveness. How much more does I have my father feel bruised when his children can't just freely accept that love deep in their heart and forgiveness? I'm more wounded that you still condemning yourself. Wow. Boy, I love you. You riding on the wall didn't strip you of my love.

I forgave you. Yeah. I still love you. Forgive yourself. Move on. And I never forgot that because he looked just like me and it's almost like the Lord was saying, see, this is exactly what you do. You're trying to earn my love.

I gave it to you freely. You beat yourself up all the time. You struggle to forgive yourself and you keep yourself bound in your mind in seasons and things and places that I've already moved on from. And what hurt me more is not the thing that you did. What hurt me more is that you won't move on.

That thing rock me. Yeah. And I'm still processing that, right? You see that, see I'm talking about it? I'm still processing that. And every time I find myself in these kind of emotive thoughts from like, does God love me? Am I doing right? I get a flashback of Malachi in that bathroom. I know as a human being, I cannot love him more than God loves me.

So if I can feel that in my heart, man, it makes me think, man, what does God feel in this heart? It's good. It was us, man. That thing rocked me. Pray and cry. Well, we're going to pause because we're going to have a part two because, you know, why not? And so see y'all next week.

Peace. Bye. With the Perry's is produced by The Perrys with support from Amanda Reed and Channing McBride video recording and audio production by Matthew Baxter and Xavier Fairley edited by the team at Tread Lively artwork by hop and music by swoop

thank you for listening now go with God