From the Archives: Greg Laurie on Influences, Hardships, and Humor

Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here. You're listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast and my objective is to deliver, hopefully, compelling practical insights in faith, culture, and current events from a biblical perspective. To find out more about our ministry, just go to our website, harvest.org. So thanks for joining me for this podcast.

All right, thank you. And I have the privilege of overseeing the Communications Department at Harvest. I love Harvest.

I've been at Harvest since the early 80s. And tonight we have a special night. We have a night of vision. We have a night of perspective. We have a night of insight. A night of amazement.

Are you ready for it? And we have Pastor Greg coming out. We're going to talk to him. Pastor Greg has been my pastor for 35 years. And so just a faithful guy. And he is just a great man of wisdom. He's a great man of insight and our leader. And he is funny. And I'm inspired by Greg. He inspired me with my haircut. So I'm inspired by that. I'm inspired by his humor. As a matter of fact, Greg, if he likes you, he mocks you.

So don't be offended by that. So if you're walking out of the bathroom and he somehow attaches toilet paper to your shoe as you're walking along, that means he loves you. Or if he says, hey, I'll give you $10 to go do this and you'll make a fool of yourself, for my amazement, he'll never really pay you for that.

But it's fun. So let's invite Pastor Greg up. Come on up, Pastor Greg. All right. This would have been a great moment to come out with toilet paper attached to my foot. I would have thought of it.

I would have done it. All right. I've got some questions for you. But before I do, I want to kind of kind of overview the fact that the Lord has used you in such an amazing way.

There's a trajectory he's put you on, kind of like, I don't know, a rocket ship that has been launched into the world and into our lives. You came to the Lord on your high school campus under Lonnie Frisbee, and the Lord launched you into the faith. And then you ended up at Calvary Costa Mesa during the Jesus People Movement, the Jesus People Revolution, really, under Chuck Smith. And you soaked in and soaked in and soaked in. And he adapted his hairline as well.

That's right. And you became an evangelist. You shared what you learned, and the Lord gifted you with the ability to share the gospel with others.

And they responded, and you actually were used with many of the early bands in the Jesus People Movement, right, where you went out with them and you preached the gospel and took opportunity. And people came to the Lord. And so the Lord launched you as an evangelist. And then you heard about a little Bible study in Riverside that nobody wanted to go to. And he sent you out there, and it exploded. And the Lord launched you as a pastor. And now there are three campuses, main campuses, Riverside, OC, Maui, three satellite campuses, 15,000 people, amazing.

And the Lord launched you into the Ministry of Harvest Crusades. And we've had 5,700,000 people in attendance since it began. And the numbers on the website say professions of faith are 472,000 professions of faith. Amazing. And we recognize those aren't all Christians. Those are beginnings.

And so the Lord used you to help people start in their faith. You know, you're doing great. I'm just going to leave. Okay, there you go.

No, it's great. Please continue. So the Lord just has launched you and launched you and launched you. And personally, the Lord launched you into my life. In 1981, you gave me a challenging message.

It was lot in the compromised life. And I was living a compromised life, my girlfriend at the time and I, and we responded to Christ, we turned our life around, we got married, and we've been under your ministry ever since. So it's amazing what the Lord has done.

And I want to start by saying thank you for your faithfulness and thank you for the way that the Lord has used you for all of those years. So, amazing. Amazing.

Thank you. So, and you're a husband. Yes. And you're a grandfather and father. Yes. You're an author. Yes.

Yes. So my first question is, what does that look like from your perspective? Oh my. Well, you know, the last thing I ever planned on becoming was a preacher. First of all, I never planned on becoming a Christian. But of course, the Lord had different ideas and I'm so glad.

His plans are so much better than mine. I came to Christ. I've shared that story before. But, you know, I found myself out talking about my faith immediately.

And that was not the normal thing for me. But I had something to talk about. And like most people, I had a fear of public speaking. I think when you read polls, it's like, number one fear is public speaking.

Number two is death, which I've always found amazing. It's like, I'd rather die than speak publicly. I didn't want to speak publicly. But, you know, when the Lord started opening up doors for me, like to do little Bible studies and speak to groups of people and soon pastoring the church, I wanted to speak publicly only because now I had something to say.

That's the difference. It's not about public speaking. It's about having something to say. And when you have something to say, and we all have that something, the gospel, well, that's worth overcoming your fears for and overcoming your timidity and all that.

And as Paul said to Timothy, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. So that sort of started me into speaking publicly. And initially, I thought God was calling me to be an evangelist because I love doing that.

I traveled with the bands, as you said. And when we started our church, I was sort of thinking this was something I was doing to hand off to someone else. And it began to grow.

I'm 19 years old. And I realize it's turning into a church. That was not my intention to start a church. I wasn't planting a church. I was teaching at a Bible study of young people. We were all in our 20s. But as it continued to grow, people are calling me Pastor Greg. I'm like looking, is there another Greg here?

I mean, that can't be me. But it began to occur to me. I began to realize that I'm called to be a pastor. Then I kind of thought a lot about that.

How does this work? Am I a pastor who's an evangelist? Or am I an evangelist who's a pastor?

And I just came to the conclusion, I'm both. And I'm called to do both. But my primary calling is to be a pastor. And now in the last 27 years, the doors have opened for us to go around the country and around the world in these harvest events and do my evangelism, which I love.

But I always look forward to coming home. In those early years, who was most influential in helping you to establish the habits that you needed and to be the pastor that you didn't know how to be? I mean, you just barely knew how to be a Christian at that point, right?

So how did that work? You know, one thing I would say, Paul, is as a young person, when I became a Christian at 17 and was attending church, I hung around a lot of older people. I made it a point to befriend older people who could help me. And in the early days, hanging out at Calvary Chapel, I'd hang around Pastor Chuck. And there was another pastor there named Pastor Romain. And he used to be a sergeant in the Marine Corps.

And, you know, he had this tough exterior, but he had this heart of gold. And I spent a lot of time hanging out with him. And people who are 10 years, 15 years older than me, because I thought, why hang around young people all the time? What do they know? I don't know if they know any more than I know.

But older folks, they've lived life. And I wanted to learn how to be a strong Christian and how to grow and mature in my faith. And so I would say the most influential people in my life, as far as pastoring goes, it would be Pastor Chuck Smith.

You know, he gave me sort of the template. And I first learned my theological grid from him and philosophical grid. And then the most influential person in my life in evangelism was Billy Graham.

So they were like my two fathers of sorts, you know, that I emulated and learned from. And I just had such, you know, such a privilege to be with Billy in the last years of his public ministry. It's like I went to the finest evangelistic university on earth.

And it wasn't a school. It was hanging around with Billy Graham. And being on his board for the last 20 years and then having Billy ask me to help him with his sermons toward the end of his ministry, I would sort of find current illustrations and things. I spent a lot of time with Billy.

And I talked to him. How did you get access to him? I mean, was it somebody who knew what you did and knew who he was and put you guys together?

It was through his son, Franklin. Franklin and I became friends. And our crusade ministry was beginning and Billy became aware of it. And so I was invited to meet him and I met him and spent some time with him. And then I was asked to be on the board. And then once I was on the board of directors, I had a lot more access. And then when he asked me to help him with sermon prep, I had even more access. So, you know, it was just such a time of learning because some things are caught and some things are taught.

So sometimes you can learn by listening and other times you learn by observing. And so I watched him on the stage, you know, speaking. I saw him before.

I saw him after, saw him in the afternoon. And so I learned a lot about how to do what we're doing today. And I couldn't have been in a better place to learn. I didn't know I was being prepared to do this on the scale.

We're doing it, but I was. And so, you know, it's weird in life because things often don't make sense. You see, how does this work in the grand scheme of things? But then as time passes, one of the few advantages of getting older, there's a lot of disadvantages, too. But one of the few advantages is you're able to look back and see God's hand was on you the whole time and he was guiding you toward a certain course.

I mean, a certain goal. And I can see that looking back now from even my childhood, which I wouldn't wish on anyone. But even that prepared me because I can empathize. Empathize. Empathize. Empathize. Right.

Thank you. I can't speak. I'm a public speaker.

How did that happen? You should train people to do that. But, you know, I could connect with people because I had a sense of it. And I've never forgotten where I came from.

And so I think even that helped to prepare me for what God had and has in store. And, you know, it's taught, it's caught, but it's also a lot of work. And I'm amazed that you're always on. You're always focused.

You're always working on it. As a matter of fact, I don't know when you sleep. I'll get an email from you or a text from you late at night.

And then my phone goes off at four thirty and you're on the East Coast, which makes it worse. And I'm like, my wife's, who is that texting? I'm sure it's Greg with an idea. He's got great ideas at this time in the morning. Do you see it like that, though? Oh, yes, of course I do.

Because that sounded sarcastic to me. You said, and he has great ideas. No, he has great ideas at this time in the morning. No idea is great when you're woken up at four in the morning, right? They're always great ideas.

No, they aren't. My wife would not agree. You're all, it's like, when do you sleep? I sleep.

I go to bed around ten thirty or so, wake up around five or five thirty. I don't need a lot of sleep. Now, I shouldn't admit this, but I've learned the art of taking naps. I don't take a lot of naps and they're not long naps. But honestly, I can put my feet up on my desk, close my eyes and sleep for maybe eight minutes.

And then that just kind of opens up all the, you know, channels. You know, my point is, you're always thinking about the ministry. It's not like I clock in and I clock out. It's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle that you're focused on. And I wouldn't do all that if I didn't love it. It's still my passion. And I love seeing God work and I'm always looking for new and creative ways to be even more effective.

I don't feel like we should live in the past or rest on our laurels. We're thankful for what God has done, but there's so much still to do. And so I want to take advantage of those opportunities that God has given me. Right. And more people need the Lord.

They do. And that number's growing. There's a hunger for what we have and we always need to realize that. And we get in our little space where we start to think, oh, everyone knows about the Lord. Or everyone's heard the gospel. When I heard the gospel for the first time, I thought I knew the gospel. I didn't until it was explained to me biblically and I'm like, well, that's different than what the world taught me. I don't think most Americans have heard the gospel.

And some would disagree. Well, they've heard preaching. They've heard the word gospel. Do they really understand what the gospel is? And they've heard a stereotype of the gospel.

Or an exaggeration or distortion of the gospel. So I feel a responsibility to give a clear, concise, understandable, yet very biblical presentation of the gospel. And it seems simple when I share it and that's my intent but I'm very careful about what I say, what I don't say. And I have a responsibility to deliver this message and I want to do it accurately, lovingly, hopefully in a way that people can totally understand it. So if they reject the gospel, it's not because they haven't understood it. It's because they've chosen to reject the message I'm presenting.

I think sometimes people present the gospel or reject the gospel because they don't understand the gospel. And we did it in a weird way or something like that. Right. And you have talked about the art of simplicity and the art of not using our Christian vocabulary but a vocabulary that people understand. What do I mean when I say this?

And it's so easy for us to find ourselves using this terminology, this insider language that no one understands but us. True. So I want to ask you some broad overview questions, just context questions. What is the best decision you've ever made in your life? Well, clearly, accepting Christ.

And number two, marrying Kathy. No question. Amen. All right. In that order.

All right. My wife would get mad if I reversed that order, by the way. And she would hopefully say the same, you know, because there's no question that I could not do what I do without Kathy by my side. I mean, she. Well, we're just we're like one person. You know, I sometimes joke between us.

We have one complete brain. It's amazing how I'll forget who was the name of that person. She'll remember and then she'll forget something. I'll remember. And, you know, we've been together so long. But and I love her more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.

Right. So that's but she she'll also tell me the truth. You know, and so I can say, what did you think about this or that? And she will give me an honest, sometimes a little too honest, but very straightforward response. And I need that.

You know, I need people to tell me things like that. So that was my second best decision. Well, I've seen you guys mutually third hiring you for sure. OK, absolutely. Absolutely. But a very distant third. That was actually in my notes. Let me check that off now. OK. Most influential person.

We kind of hit that already as far as. Well, let me add a few more names to that list. He clearly Chuck Smith, Billy Graham, just people that I never met, but I was influenced by their writings. You know, C.H.

Spurgeon, of course, D.L. Moody, great evangelist from years gone by. Alan Redpath, who was sort of one of those voices from the past who I met in the later years of his ministry. Wonderful British preacher, teacher. Fantastic.

G. Campbell Morgan. These are all. Now, he came to harvest at one. Yes. Yes.

Yes, he did. And he was a wonderful guy who also had a great sense of humor, which I appreciated about him, but a great preacher and teacher. And then a lot of friends I've just gotten to know over the years. You know, it's just so wonderful to have friends that are preachers as well.

People like, you know, Skip Heitzig and Raul Reese and Jack Graham and James Merritt. And, you know, we hang out. We have fun together.

But also, they're great guys to call and get feedback from. And we help one another. And there's a much broader circle than that.

But I appreciate all these people. Most embarrassing moment. There's so many. In the pulpit.

Okay, I would say. Most embarrassing public moment. Public moment.

I would say there's quite a few, actually. The one when I was speaking at an event and I'd just given an evangelistic message. And I was done. And I said, let's pee. Instead of let's pray, I said, let's pee.

I've never prayed so fast in my life. So that was bad. And thankfully, no one took me up on that. Another time I was talking about the prophet Amos and. I know where you went with that.

I know where you went. I walked with God. And I quoted from Amos 3, 3.

And I said, the prophet Anus? Probably my first blooper that people still remember to this day. Everyone says they were there when I did it.

They can't all have been there. But when I was speaking on Ephesians 6, this is one of the first times I preached. And instead of saying the fiery darts of the wicked one, I said the diary farts of the wicked one. So those are all embarrassing moments. And you know, when you say this, you know, what do you do?

You just kind of keep going. I have one. You want to hear it? Okay, yeah. Is this one of your embarrassing moments? One mine, yeah. I was at a funeral.

Yes. And I was wrapping it up. There's a great passage in Revelation. I turned to it. And it's about, you know, the dead in Christ rising. And I was looking for that passage. And I got to the passage in front of it.

And started the reading with, and the keys to the bottomless pit. Okay. Perfect. It wasn't a good moment. It wasn't a good moment. Yeah, one time I was speaking. And I actually said, and Jeezy said. So it's like, I'd say, it's my nickname, Jeezy. I mean, how do you mess up the name of Jesus?

I did that. A little more serious. Yeah. The hardest moment in your life. Well, there's no doubt.

It was when Christopher died. And I've told this story before. But, you know, a moment like that just never leaves you. Because, you know, someone who was so part of your life is suddenly gone. And it was so hard. Even today, it's been eight years.

It's still very hard for me. People are maybe surprised to know that. But I don't think any parent who's lost a child is surprised to know that.

I think someone, you know, maybe they knew Christopher. Yeah, but they miss him. But they've moved on. But, you know, like a part of me was taken from me. And that was, and I've had hard moments. In fact, very hard moments up to that point. But it eclipsed, by far, any pain or hardship I'd faced up to that point. It was like I went to the bottom of the bottom. To the point of where I questioned if I could survive it. It was so bad. And it gave me a new compassion for parents who've lost children. You know, I knew it was hard.

But I never even had a remote sense of how hard. And so that was the hardest moment. But God was there. And if somehow my faith did not work at that time. Guaranteed I would have given up preaching. But, of course, it did.

And he was there. And got me through it and gets me through it. You know, you don't ever get over the loss of a child. But you get through it day by day. At first you get through it hour by hour.

Then maybe, you know, week by week or month by month. But still it's something that I think about every day I think about it. And I miss him.

I look forward to the day when I'll see him again. And it affected me in many ways in my life. And I think there's some actually, some things that happened in my life that were very good things. And I've said to someone, I wish I could have all the good things that came out of that. And Christopher.

And then it would be perfect. You know, if I could have him. And what are the good things? Well, first of all, I think I kind of had something happen internally where I had like a sense of, okay, I faced the worst thing imaginable.

How bad can anything else be? So I started taking huge risks of faith that I would not have normally taken because I was more cautious. And I think as you get older you become more conservative and more careful. And, you know, it's often said, you know, youth is wasted on the young, right? But one of the traits of youth is kids will try stuff.

You know, my grandson Christopher, he'll just jump off a tree. Don't do that, you know. But even in ministry when you're young, let's try this, let's try that. As you get older and maybe you've had some success. Well, let's not jeopardize this. Let's not risk anything, you know. But I found myself, let's try this, let's try that. You know, let's see what the Lord does.

And God's been faithful in many ways. It's certainly given me a greater compassion for others who've lost children but just lost loved ones in general. I never wanted to be that guy who had a ministry to people who were grieving. But I am that guy. And not the only guy, but I'm one that helps. And you know, when people who've lost loved ones, especially children come to me, I always take time for them and wanna help them. And I know that I don't have any magic words for them but they know and I know we're in a club, we know, you know. And I just try to find the right words to share in the moment.

And there's a lot of other things I would add. My faith grew stronger. Faith grows in the garden of adversity.

It grows through difficulty. And my faith grew, my trust in God grew. Our marriage got stronger. We came closer together.

It didn't drive us apart. And so, you know, there's good things that have come because God promises to work all things together for good. But that doesn't mean he makes bad things good.

Bad things are still bad. And I'll always look at that event on July 24th, 2008 as a tragedy in my life. But I'll also look at it as the moment when God came through for me and something that affects me to this day. I'll look at that moment remembering three words that you said on the Sunday following his death. You said, I still believe. You came to our congregation in that place and it was such an inspiration for us.

And not only did you say it then, you've demonstrated it since then. You know, I think we're in a campus that wouldn't maybe be here unless you were saying, let's try something. I'll just say it wouldn't be. This church would not exist because we faced a lot of obstacles doing this, believe it or not, that I won't go into. But it wasn't easy. But we believe this is what the Lord wanted. And you know, Paul, Christopher Work, you were over the graphics department.

Christopher was the lead designer. You spent a lot of time with him. He was just, he was so much fun. You know, just a force of life.

His two daughters are reflections of different aspects of his personality, Stella and Lucy. And you know, just such a joy and just such, you know, always getting in as a little boy, getting into trouble. And he was just, he was something.

But you know what that's like. But no, this church is a result of that because in a way, it started in his front room. He started a little Bible study. And that kind of inspired me to, we should do a church here. And so here we are.

So he plays a part in this church. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. And kind of like this, let's do this thing.

That almost came as a result of that. And I don't understand that in a way, but I've talked to other people who have lost love once and an event like that happens that's so traumatic, you sort of reevaluate your life. Like what am I doing? Where am I going? And for me, it just became, okay, I don't know how many years I have left. My son went to heaven when he was 33. And I am now 63. So I'm looking at my life at how many, do I have 20 years?

10 years, I don't know, but I want to make it count. And so I am kind of on a mission, marching forward, not knowing exactly what's gonna happen, but knowing what I'm called to do. And so it gave me sort of a renewed energy and passion to do what we do. Well then, amen. Amen.

We're in the Harvest Refresh right now. By the way, today's National Coffee Day. Oh, good. So I also drink coffee, but not a lot of it, but I have coffee every morning, sometimes in the afternoon. Okay, rapid fire questions, favorite food. Favorite food, oh my. Well, usually I would just say bad, then followed by all the foods I like. I like hamburgers, I like Mexican food, I like Italian food, I like sushi.

But kind of in that order, I mean I love pizza, love hamburgers, I'm always drawn to the wrong foods. My wife would say, I'm gonna get a nice salad. To me, nice salad? That's what, salad is like practice for real food. You know, that's how I see something.

Yeah, everything's working, I can order actual food now. But I am attracted to the wrong foods, I have to admit. Favorite color? Oh, definitely blue, yes, blue.

Alright, okay. How many of you love blue? Yeah, blue. I'm followed by green, green's second favorite. And I love blue and green together, great color combination. Why, you told me why once, you remember? No. You said, I love blue and green because God used so much of it.

That's true, he did. I mean, think about it. Yeah, everywhere you look. Those are God's favorite colors, I think. Favorite song? Favorite song, oh my, there's so many. I mean, I have lots of favorite songs. And I don't know why, but I have so many songs in my brain, lyrics of songs going back to my earliest childhood to the present day, rock songs, pop songs, stupid commercial songs, I wish I didn't know still. Of course, tons of praise songs, hymns are mixed in there as well. It would be really hard for me to identify one single song.

It would probably be, I just can't think of one right, there's so many, there's so many, I can't pick one. You love art, fine arts, who's your favorite artist? Well, I'm, you know, there's a lot of people I admire their art, and I mean, I'm a cartoonist, so it's kind of, I use the term, art, artist loosely. Though cartoonists are artists, sort of, but it's a different kind of art, you know? But, and there's cartoonists I love, like Charles Schulz, who I used to correspond with as a kid. He's the originator of Peanuts, and he was very gracious, and wrote me letters, and encouraged me. But probably of people who we consider more of a fine artist, Vincent van Gogh, you know, I went to his museum when we were in Holland a number of years ago, in fact, Christopher and I went. And Christopher was kind of into van Gogh, and I went along, and wow, I love this guy, you know?

His work seems so contemporary to me, so I guess it would be him, of artists of days gone by. In ministry, you do a lot of things. What are you most passionate about, maybe favorite thing to do? You're in front of thousands, the big crusades, sharing the gospel, pretty spectacular, but you personally, what's your favorite thing to do? Eating.

Yeah. If I could find a way to eat and preach, we're there. No, that'd be gross, though, for people to watch. Okay, this might be surprising. You would think that the favorite moment would be preaching in a crusade. That isn't my favorite moment, and I'll tell you why. Because when I speak, I look at people, I hear their reaction. I like to be in a room where I can see and hear people, and when you're in a crusade setting, you can't really hear or see anybody. When I spoke at AT&T Stadium, it's like I was speaking in a giant airplane hangar, and the sound was very far away.

I couldn't see a single person, and so I just kind of look in the direction of the camera, knowing that people are looking at the screen, and I talk to the camera and think of people watching. So that's not a lot of fun, but it accomplishes something that's wonderful, which is reaching more people. But I, any day of the week, would probably rather be doing a Bible study, like we do here on Thursdays or Sunday mornings, where I'm with people that I know, people that love the word of God, that wanna hear what the word says. That's my sweet spot that I enjoy, but the rest is important, and I do that as well, but I enjoy teaching Bible studies more than I maybe enjoy evangelistic preaching. But there are times when I'm preaching evangelistic, where I'm having fun too, and I kinda get in that little spot, that sweet spot, as I said.

So it depends, but I've also learned to not attach a lot to my emotions when I preach, because there are times when, honestly, I'll feel, after a message, that went really badly, and it went better than I thought, and there have been a few times where I thought it went really well, and it wasn't as good as I thought. So I. And Kathy tells you. Yeah, that's what Kathy tells me.

I was so worthless. No, she never says that. But, so it's, I try not to, you know, be too swayed by my emotion, but I would say Bible studies. Speaking of humor, you know, and having fun, your humor is very unique, it's good. It's a little weird too. I wasn't a negative. Where did it come from?

Yeah. You know, it's funny, I've seen interviews that are done with comedians, and almost every comedian that you've ever heard came from a horrible childhood, and so it shouldn't surprise you when you read that about somebody that's funny. You develop, sometimes people develop humor as a defense mechanism. And so because of my crazy upbringing, I learned to joke about everything.

And sometimes it's almost strange, the humor, like where you can find humor in this, how would you find a joke there? But I do, and I tend to see the absurd, and that was reflected early on in my cartooning, and then, because my cartoons were like, I work for the school people, and I mocked everybody. I just was a mocker. When I was in the South a while ago, I drove by a town called Mocksville.

I thought, I should have been born in Mocksville. That's me, the mocker. So before I was a Christian, I mocked Christians, and now all of a sudden I'm one of them. Well, I'm not gonna mock them anymore, so now sometimes I mock nonbelievers, not the people themselves, the sort of ideas that nonbelievers have, and I just try to, the humor just comes out. I don't try to be funny.

Sometimes I think I'm funny when I'm not funny, usually when I'm telling a joke, but a lot of times it just kinda comes out in the moment. I suppress a lot of it. There's a lot of things that enter into my mind that I don't say, because... I've said things and you're like, you look at me and you go, I'm not even gonna go there.

I'm not gonna say it, I'm not gonna... Like five things, five things are like loaded and ready. Yeah, I just, you know, I like to have fun. You know, we're busy, we're working hard, so when I can find a moment to have a laugh, I look for those things and enjoy it. I mean, why can't you have fun doing all this? You know, when you're in ministry, you're exposed to a lot of hard things, you know, people going through hard things in their lives, sad stories, and also very happy things, you know, but you're exposed to a lot, and so I try to find humor when I can, makes it a little bit easier. I think some people just take themselves a little too seriously. I try not to take myself seriously, but I take my message very seriously, and sometimes it's good to just lighten up a little bit. Amen. Everybody, Greg Laurie here. Thanks for listening to our podcast, and to learn more about Harvest Ministries, please subscribe and consider supporting this show. Just go to harvest.org, and by the way, if you wanna find out how to come into a personal relationship with God, go to knowgod.org, that's K-N-O-W-G-O-D.org.