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. And here he is, Darryl Strawberry. Darryl, good to have you.
Good to be back with you, Pastor Greg. I think we all know about Darryl. It's funny because we were adjusting Darryl's stool. I think it's too low, Darryl. I'm looking down at you. Something's not right with this picture because you are 6'5", right? I am 6'5", but this feels pretty good. Here, let's stand up. Show them how tall you are. Stand up. See that? There you go.
I almost fell off my stool just then. Well, you know, Darryl, you had an amazing career, obviously, with the Mets, the Yankees, the Dodgers. You know, and I probably shouldn't admit this to you, but I'm not a huge sports guy, but I knew you because you were famous on the field and off the field, of course, because of all the things. And you have that unique name, which I think is the coolest name of all, Darryl Strawberry, you know? I like that name. And we were talking about you could have had other fruit names like Darryl Pear, Darryl Banana. Not as cool. Strawberry is a cool name.
Yeah, I appreciate that. I could have been Banana, you know, or something like that. I thought it was a name that was really, you know, touching. But I didn't really think about that, you know, when I was growing up early because, you know, when you had the roll call in class, they would say, Darryl Strawberry, and everybody would turn around and look. Strawberry, where did you get that name from?
So, very. You know, people think, oh, I wish I could, you know, so many young boys want to be baseball players. It's just a dream of so many young men, and you lived it, you know, you've been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, you actually wore the t-shirt.
But, you know, and the baseball card to go along with it. But this also opened a Pandora's box of all kinds of options from drugs and alcohol, you know, mingled with your fame, womanizing. And you were in a cycle, and you were going the wrong direction.
How did you get out? Well, I think through prayer, you know, from my mother praying for me. And, you know, my mother was a very faithful woman who loved the Lord. And she wasn't crazy about my career and everything. She was more concerned about my salvation. And I think that had a big part of why I'm sitting here today, because she was praying for me behind the scenes while I was living this loose life, heathen, wild life. And she was praying that God would, like, knock me off my throne and save me. So, you know, a mother is very important when you're on your knees and praying to God. God hears your prayers. You know, you need to know that.
Good word. And then, then comes the wife, you know, and I think then comes the wife, my wife, Tracy, who was an incredible woman who loved God. And she was tracking me down when I was in the midst of my addiction, using drugs and shooting dope and smoking crack. And here it is. I'm like three million dollars in debt, don't have anything.
And here it is. She's tracking me down and pulling me out of dope houses and saying, God has a plan for you. I said, why don't you and that God just leave me here and let me die? She says, you're not that lucky. So that's for any lady out there that may have someone struggling you, love, don't give up on them because you never know what God's going to do.
You know, a lot of times, well, everybody had threw me away and said, well, he's a loser, he's this and that. But, you know, Tracy saw me as something that God wanted to do inside of me and she didn't give up. And a lot of times, we give up on people and we don't really know why, but I'm grateful that, you know, we're married today 14 years.
She's incredible and I love her to death. That's a great word. A great word to you moms out there and you wives out there that may have a husband that is not walking with the Lord as he ought to. Don't give up, keep praying. They may be able to escape your presence, but they cannot escape your prayers, right?
So keep praying. So Darryl, yesterday you talked to the man, you gave an amazing message. My wife said my favorite message was Darryl's message and that included me too. What I loved about your message, it was so practical and you were talking about temptation.
So talk to everybody, not just guys, but guys and girls, all of us. How do we resist temptation? Well, I think the most important thing that I learned about temptations is you have to run. You have to not kid yourself about the temptations because they're real, you know, and you live in the flesh and you're in the flesh. But I think what happens to so many of us, we never get into that real spiritual place with God and keep our life simple.
And what I mean is stop complicating your life and go on to places you shouldn't be going to. And meeting people you shouldn't be meeting because that's how we really get in trouble. And we allow ourselves to open up the door for the enemy to come in.
I no longer open that door for the enemy. It's the word of God. If you stay in the book, all the answers are in the book. They've been there forever.
We're looking for them and searching for them on everything else, social media, news, all that's fake. The real answers are in the Bible, and I think that's where most people. You notice how most people don't run to the Bible. They'll run to everything else except the Bible. And I realize the importance of my life of being transformed was running to the Bible. When you first came to that place of knowing Christ and you fell in love with him, you ran to that book.
But all of a sudden when that poof wears off, where are you? And that's what most people lose. They lose that love, that first love that you have for Christ. And you've got to remember, he loved you first, and he's always there. He'll never leave you nor forsake you. And you've got to remember, everybody else is going to leave you or forsake you, but Christ will never leave you or forsake you.
That's right. You know, as I was listening to you, you basically just did the Del Strawberry version of Psalm 1. You know, because you said, don't hang around with ungodly people, run to the word of God.
Psalm 1 says, blessed or happy is a man that does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat in the scornful, but his delight is in the word of the Lord, and in it does he meditate day and night. So there it is in the book, just like you said. That's what people need to do. When I first met you at the White House, we were there, and I was really impressed with the way that you interacted with people. Also, you may have saved my life at the White House. So we were there for an event, and we heard a loud crowd gathering outside.
They were screaming and yelling and sending off horns and all kinds of craziness. And I'm with my wife, and she's dressed very nicely in high heels, so in her high heels she walks this fast, like that, you know. So I'm thinking, okay, we've got to leave here.
We've got to go on foot, and we have to walk through a crazy crowd. And I said, Kathy, we should leave now. So we're walking out, and who walks by but my six foot five inch friend, Darryl Strawberry. I said, Darryl, can I walk out with you?
My voice even changed just like that. She says, yeah, come on, man. So I'm walking out with Darryl, then we hooked up with some other guys, lots of good-sized guys.
I was very happy about that. So as we walk out, some guy comes up and gets in the face of one of the wives of one of the men in our group and screaming. And I looked at him, and I looked at you, you know, and I thought, you could have knocked this guy out with one punch, right? But you were humble because, you know, it was just words.
And so we just kept walking. But I thought, you know, God's changed you because probably a younger Darryl, you might have handled that a little differently. No question, you know. The baseball player in me would have handled that totally different, you know, but the man of Christ realizing that when God changes your life, it's about walking with meekness like you were talking about Moses and walking in humility.
Yeah. Even when the enemy brings his head out against you, you don't have to respond to him. But I was thinking in that moment, you know, Pastor Greg and his wife is with me. I was thinking that guy was yelling at us. I was like, don't let me take my Christian hat off right now.
Because you could be in a lot of trouble. Do you know who I'm next to? This is Pastor Greg Gloria. Do you understand? And I wasn't playing around, you know, because he's an amazing leader, man, for this country, you know. And that's what's important more than anything. You know, you're a humble guy. Now, you can't say I'm a humble guy because that kind of undoes it right there, but you really are a humble guy, Darryl, and especially with all the God, your fame and all of your success, you're very down to earth. And I think you take your fame and you use it as a great tool because yesterday after the conference was over with, a long line of people wanted books signed by Darryl, baseball signed by Darryl, bats signed by Darryl, things like that.
But Darryl will sign and stay there until the last person is there. But you took time with people. There was a young man who was especially troubled.
And tell me what you said to me earlier. I thought it was really insightful about social media. What has social media done to young people today? Well, I think young people are antisocial and their social media is driven.
I've had a chance to spend a lot of time in the school with the kids and really be able to find out what's important to them. And they told me, well, my cell phone is number one and social media is number two being liked on social media. And I saw these kids yesterday, two boys, young boys, and I could see the trouble inside of one of them. And I realized the Holy Spirit was like, give them your number so they can call you and so I can be able to talk to them. I couldn't talk to them right in that crowd there. So I just gave them my card and gave them my number and took their number and I said, when you find yourself wanting to go in the wrong direction and troubles out there, pick up the phone and call me because I want to talk to you.
I want to be able to help you. God bless you, Darryl. You know, you made a statement. Your mom prayed for you. She saw your baseball success.
She wasn't that impressed by that. Your mom's in heaven right now. I'm confident she knows about how God's using you as a minister now to encourage people, bring people to Christ.
But do you think because people remember, your mother remembered you, Tracy wouldn't let you go make your bad choices. You said it was when you started being discipled that it made the difference in your life. Explain to me what you mean when you say, when I was discipled. That means you personally have to get into action with God. Everybody wants the miracle of being what God wants them to be but they don't want to do the work. Discipleship is the work. That's where you stir up everything. That's where God gets to know you and he gets to have a relationship with you and then you'll eventually find out who you are and know how to stay in your lane through discipleship because God's going to train you up and he's going to show you who you are. The Bible talks about it how it says, my people perish because of lack of knowledge. There's no knowledge in understanding.
Nobody wants to pick up the book. Everybody wants the miracle but you got to spend that quality time with God by yourself, not with your wife, by yourself so God can show you who you are. He's created all of us for good. All we got to do is participate and when you participate, God's going to show you and he's going to show you how he's going to use you. Darryl, amazing.
You're so glad to know you as a friend, so thankful for the way the Lord is using you and I'd like to pray for you right now in your ministry so let's pray. Father, we thank you for Darryl and his testimony and how you transformed him and brought him out of a pit and are using him now to help others get out of pits, especially younger people that look up to him and he can say this is the answer. Look at Christ. Follow him.
Look at the word of God. Continue to use Darryl. Continue to use his wife Tracy for your glory and we ask you would bless now this time of giving as we invest in your kingdom. Use it for your glory as well.
We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Let's thank Darryl for being with us. Thank you, Darryl. Thank you, Pastor. Love you, man. Love you, too. Hey 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 want to find out how to come into a personal relationship with God, go to knowgod.org. That's K-N-O-W-G-O-D dot org.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-11-12 05:20:18 / 2023-11-12 05:26:41 / 6