CGR MONDAY 100223 Prof Stephen Zunes Damon Grayson

Hi, this is Pastor Greg and you're listening to Chosen Generation Radio. Get more at chosengenerationradio.com.

That's Chosen Generation Radio, where no topic is off limits and everything filtered through biblical glasses. My passion is the fight for freedom. My father fought for a World War II defending our country. Today we are no longer fighting with guns. Instead, we are fighting an ideological battle for control of our country by contributing to causes that support your constitutional rights.

I am Patriot Mobile. Sexual predators and comprehensive sex education both break down inhibitions. That's what they start with. They also gain trust with the child and then slowly start to get them towards sexual activity.

Anything goes. You are teaching children adult child sex, you're teaching transgender issues, and children are moldable and influenced by that. They said, okay, now we need you and your team to be able to explain what homosexuality is to a four-year-old student. To introduce this kind of material at that age, frankly, it's child abuse. We're going to teach our children that it's okay for any two children of any age of any sex to have sexual intercourse with each other as long as two components are present. One's using a condom and they both give consent.

Did I hear that correctly? It's not a neutral venue. There's no such thing. The schools are doing your job. They are discipling your children, but they're not discipling them in the faith of Jesus Christ. It's only the exceptional child that even survives that system. Most do not survive.

Most have not survived. They believe that children are sexual from birth and that they deserve and have the right to be sexually active and to seek sexual pleasure. And if anyone is stopping them from that, then you are judging and oppressing them. Even kindergarten now, they're wanting to teach them more and more perverse information and acts and put that into the children's minds. And once that poison is in a child's mind, it doesn't leave. They'll always remember what they learned. And it's by design, it's orchestrated.

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Naked products do not treat, reduce, cure, or prevent disease. Welcome to Chosen Generation with your host, Pastor Greg Young. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should shoe forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. And now, Chosen Generation, where no topic is off limits, and everything is filtered through biblical glasses. And now, here's your host, Pastor Greg. And welcome back to Chosen Generation Radio, where no topic is off limits, and everything filtered through biblical glasses. I'm your host, Pastor Greg. Hour number two, great to have you with me. Get more at the website, chosengenerationradio.com. Get tuned in there, and you'll watch TECN TV all day long right there on the player at the website. You can also catch us on our radio program across the country as well. All right, well, I'm very pleased to welcome my next guest.

He is a professor at the University of San Francisco, specializing in political science and Middle Eastern issues. And I want to welcome to the program Professor Steven, hang on, I had this just about two seconds ago, Professor Steven Zunes. Did I say that right, Zunes? Zunes.

Zunes. I apologize. Okay. Professor, welcome. Good to have you.

Great to be with you. We were just kind of chopping it up a little bit about San Francisco and history and things of that nature, being a guy that grew up in the Bay Area, had some background in that area. It was a fun area to grow up back in the day. Go ahead. I grew up in North Carolina. Oh, wow. I do.

I have a good time out here. What a huge difference in landscape between North Carolina and San Francisco. Although the coastal and the greenery and so forth, North Carolina has a pretty good coastline as well. Oh, yeah. I just have to get used to the fact that here, the ocean is to the west, the mountains are to the east.

So I still get my east and west mixed up sometimes because I'm just used to the... Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I have to fight that instinct.

Welcome. Let's get into, I guess, a little bit about the Menendez situation. Tell me what you've been following with regards to that and your thoughts at first blush. Well, I mean, this is like old school kind of corruption. This is not the indirect thing where people try to influence somebody through campaign contributions, which is legal. We're talking about $780,000 or $480,000 in cash found hidden in his house along with these gold bars, another 70,000 in cash in a safety deposit box, a Mercedes convertible in the garage, payments for a mortgage from these sketchy sources. I mean, this is the kind of thing that you find... This is pure tabloid-type headlines, quite extreme even by the normal corrupt standards of Washington.

I mean, this is really quite striking. I mean, he claims it was all honestly gained that even though they found the fingerprints of these shady businessmen on the cash that was found in his home, he said he just keeps it there for emergencies, to which Senator John Fetterman said, for emergencies in our house we have an extra flashlight. But it is quite significant, especially given his influence. I mean, he's a pretty powerful senator. He's head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This is where, I mean, the executive branch is primarily in charge of foreign policy, of course, but a Senate Foreign Relations Committee can have an influence. I mean, we think of some of the influential heads of Senate Foreign Relations Committee over the years, J. William Fulbright, who was willing to question not just... He was a Democrat, but he was willing to question not just Nixon but Johnson as well about Vietnam. We think of Senator Lugar, the Republican from Indiana, one of the most knowledgeable people on foreign policy.

He played a strong leadership, Frank Church. I mean, a lot of folks, these have played an important role, but Menendez, I mean, he... You could sort of see maybe a foreign government trying to get an asset, say, with a staffer of the Foreign Relations Committee. But having the gall to go for the head of the Foreign Relations Committee itself, I mean, this is pretty huge.

You're out in California. I'm curious to bring up, just as a parallel with this, what happened with Eric Swalwell on the House Intelligence side, who was clearly found to be sleeping with a Chinese spy whore madam who then infiltrated the House Intelligence Committee based on Reuters report. Reuters actually came out and said that there was a program that was being used now by the CCP that was an NSA program. And this was after it was discovered that Swalwell was engaged with this Chinese spy whore, which is absolutely factually in place, and that he introduced many of her constituents, if you will, to members in critical areas. I mean, do we just have a moral breakdown?

And is it... I mean, I know that Republicans have been guilty of things as well, but do we just plain have a moral breakdown when it comes to these kinds of issues, period? Obviously, if you're going to be dealing in foreign affairs, you got to be squeaky clean about this kind of stuff.

I mean, even the... You don't want to be seen with even the possibility of appearance of this kind of news. Swalwell's pretty interesting because he was this young guy who came out of nowhere to run against a long-term incumbent who served about 30 years. He was going to have one more term. And then there were a bunch of Democrats who were lining up.

It was a very solidly Democratic district. And he entered the sort of... He challenged the incumbent who was a... I'm blanking on his name right now.

And the thing with the... Go ahead. Pete Stark. But in California, it's an open primary. So the top two vote getters run against each other in November. Because it's such a solidly blue district, he ended up being two Democrats in November. Swalwell, this young guy against Pete Stark, and Swalwell, very smart guy, very good campaign, ended up defeating this well-respected veteran.

But he wasn't challenged by any of the more longer-term people who are kind of waiting in the wings to move in. So this guy's origins actually are a little sketchy or a little questionable. And he's very ambitious.

He decided to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, actually, in 2020. You know, he's just a congressman. And so, yeah, I'm not familiar with specific charges that you're talking about. But I've had questions about this guy, actually, from the get-go. Well, behind the backdrop of that whole, you know, incident of him, you know, being known to be sleeping with this Chinese woman who was identified as a spy for the CCP.

I didn't know that you... See, to me, that kind of stuff is like, seemed like it should be pretty common knowledge. But I understand, again, you know, that also plays into, you know, how Menendez is essentially able to... I mean, this isn't the first time Menendez has gone through this 10 years ago.

He was an entire way back in 2015. There was a... And he wasn't convicted. It was a hung jury.

So they declared a mistrial. And a lot of people, including Democrats, were upset that, despite this, he became chair of the Foreign Relations Committee again when the Democrats took back the Senate. I find it very revealing, though, that slowly, gradually, you're starting to get more and more national Democrats calling for his resignation. But initially, the only calls for his resignation came from New Jersey Democrats. We're talking about the governor and members of the state legislature and members of the House representing various districts in New Jersey.

And I think it sort of gave me the impression, at least, is that being in New Jersey, they are more familiar with this guy, and they knew these charges had to be true, and that they were quite willing to call him out. So his reputation of being pretty crooked has been really, really long-standing. And it's disappointing to see him given this free ride.

And it was not just... I mean, he did some personal favors, trying to get one of these guys to get a monopoly on the import of halal meat from Egypt, and a few little personal favors like that. But what's disturbing is that, more disturbing really, is that he really pushed the unconditional military aid to Egypt against both liberal Democrats, as well as a fair number of Republicans who are saying, hey, why are we arming this brutal dictatorship? I mean, Egypt gets more US foreign aid than any country except Ukraine and Israel, which are at least democracies. I mean, Egypt is a brutal military dictatorship. They have over 60,000 political prisoners. Some of these are Islamists, but most of them are just ordinary pro-democracy Egyptians, you know, who want to have free elections, who want to end the corruption, who want to have a free press, who want to have the things that anybody who believes in democracy, whether you lean liberal or lean conservative, I mean, you want to have these kind of basic rights. And Mubarak is putting, I'm sorry, Sisi, is putting these guys in jail. Torture is widespread. And you know, they've gunned down people in the streets, demonstrators. I mean, there was a big massacre that he ordered back in 2013. I mean, it was as bad as Tiananmen Square, and it really was. I have a friend of mine who actually was going to be at that student protest, and she fell ill, and both of her friends that attended were murdered. Yes.

Yeah. And so, yeah, so this has been, I mean, you always have debates, you know, whether how much, you know, if maybe it's in the strategic interests of the United States to support various dictators. I don't think that way myself, because it ends up backfiring, because you get a lot of people just angry at the United States. I mean, the head hijacker of 9-11 was a guy who'd been tortured under a previous US-backed dictatorship, and that's how he got radicalized and how he became so anti-American. So often when we end up supporting dictators, it ends up, you know, with blowback, you know, ends up hurting us. So I oppose supporting dictatorships, not just on moral grounds, but I think, you know, politically it's often very short-sighted. But like I say, there have been both Republicans and Democrats who've been challenging, you know, this unconditional aid, the $1.3 billion of taxpayer money to prop up this regime. And there are some headway being made, at least some of the aid was being blocked. But Menendez, you know, doing these favors for his Egyptian buddies who were helping him out here, you know, would use his power as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to get this aid through. And the one thing I'm concerned about is that, you know, everybody's talking about how corrupt Menendez is and that kind of thing.

And I can say this is good tabloid fodder. But we also want to think, do we really want to support a regime that is bribing our elected leaders? Do we really want to support a regime that creates these assets, you know, who are undermining our foreign policy for the sake of their own personal financial gain?

Okay. Well, I guess that kind of leads into, and I know we didn't have it necessarily on our agenda per se, but that really is the impetus behind the impeachment of Joe Biden, is the same kind of behavior. I mean, he clearly, he's recorded as saying, I'm going to withhold aid if you don't eliminate this particular prosecutor, who, as I understand the history and reporters that I've talked to have said, this is someone that was prosecuting corruption that directly linked back to Hunter Biden and Burisma. Actually, I'm quite willing to criticize Joe Biden, a whole number of things, but I think you're off on this one. One thing Biden was in a position of power at that point.

He was the vice president of the United States. But you know, the call, you know, was Obama and the State Department. And the thing with this prosecutor was not that he was prosecuting corruption, that he wasn't, you know, prosecuting corruption. Now the corruption of the Ukrainian government back then, especially back then, even now to some degree, but especially back then, I mean, the corruption was, was enormous and they were trying to push this guy out because he was not prosecuting corruption. I mean, there was, again, corruption coming out of the wazoo and it seems to be unrelated. Now Hunter Biden, yeah, he, like other, you know, first children, however you want to call them, has tried to take advantage in very unethical ways of his connections. I have not seen evidence of direct connections with Biden himself. If there is, obviously I would support impeachment as well.

I have not seen that. But I think the broader question that we really are looking at, we're looking at two things. One is the outright corruption that we're seeing in cases like Menendez, but also the broader question is, you know, what is our foreign policy really about? If we really say we're about freedom, which I believe that US foreign policy should be about, you know, there's something wrong with the fact that 57% of the world's dictatorships get military aid or arms transfers from the United States.

I don't disagree with you. I mean, as former military intelligence and being involved in and having followed that for many, many, many, many years, I don't disagree with you that we are supporting a number of dictators around the world and much to our chagrin, quite frankly. But who's been running the State Department for the last 50 years? You know, I mean, it is it is predominantly been influenced by one by one particular party. Well, actually, I think we were seeing the support from dictatorships, unfortunately, is a bipartisan thing.

It's a well, there's we have a unit we have a unit party problem, Professor. I think, yeah, the State Department. State Department bureaucracy is a mixed bag and they have their own kind of biases as well. Again, I've been quite critical of both Republicans and Democrats on this human rights, on the human rights issues, on the freedom issues. I mean, we see as long as we support dictators, it gives ammunition to the Putin's of the world, of the Chinese Communist Party, of others saying, hey, you're opposing us not because of human rights, because, you know, because look at all these other dictators that you support.

You're you're you're you are you're opposing us because of American imperialism and hegemony and that kind of thing. So it plays right into right into that rhetoric, you know, because I think that our strength, obviously, our military strength is important, obviously, that our intelligence strength is important. Our economic strength is poor.

That's really, really. Oh, that's really important, but also important, at least as important as our moral strength. And we we see this kind of kind of corruption, like in the Menendez case. And if we see us supporting tyrants that are against the very values that we profess to stand for, that really hurts our power, that there's not just the hard power of the military.

There's also the soft power that comes from diplomacy and again, our moral standing in the world. And I think the whole Menendez affairs is kind of underscores just how far removed we we have. We have been we've gone from these moral principles. Well, and it seems as though our our our moral compass has has dropped all the way across the board.

I agree with you. I think that that is that is the greatest issue that I think is facing us right now. And unfortunately, it's been categorized that when you talk about morality, it's only framed as a social issue.

And that is that is much to our detriment, quite frankly, it's it's it's it's far more than than than just social courtesies. It's at the very root of determining the principles upon which we make decisions. And and without those, John Adams said that our Constitution cannot stand very, very much so I, you know, I may agree on some specific manifestations of that. But I think overall, we're very much in agreement about, about what about what you're saying. And I think what's interesting is that this whole question about US support for, you know, support for dictatorships and that kind of thing, is that there's probably no single issue in American politics, foreign or domestic, where there are such a division between public opinion and US policy. I mean, we're divided on a lot of issues, whether it be abortion or immigration or economic issues or a whole number, a whole number of things. And policies obviously will change depending on political parties in power and that kind of thing. But when it comes to issues like basic human rights, democracy, you know, freedom, rule of law, I mean, that kind of that kind of good stuff. There's a broad consensus about Democrats and Republicans on the rank and file level, the grassroots level, right, that we should be more consistent with these principles in our foreign policy.

You'll find both Democratic and Republican administrations and congressional leaders of both parties, with a few exceptions, who end up rationalizing and defending these kind of supports. And again, there's no issue, I think, where there is a more where our representatives are the least representative of public opinion. I agree. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. And then we have a media that spins all the facts in such a way as to create confusion so that the people's voice is even more muffled, unfortunately. Yeah. Yes. And I really get disgusted when I'm reading a lot of mainstream media, and they will call a government moderate because they might be willing to support the US policy on certain things when they're, in fact, torturing people and throwing opponents in jail.

And if you're living in that country, there's nothing particularly moderate about these governments. I agree, sir. I agree. Professor, thanks for being with me today. I'm glad we could have a conversation. Lots of good thoughts brought forward and really appreciate you being with me. Thank you very much. Thank you. And bless you. You too, sir.

You too. Professor Steven Nunez. Zunez. Zunez. Yes.

And how do folks reach you really quickly? I'm sorry I didn't get that in. Oh, yeah, yeah. You can check my website. I haven't updated in about a year and a half, but you can see some of my articles. stevenzunez.org. S-T-E-P-H-E-N-Z-U-N-E-S. Excellent. Excellent. I appreciate you.

God bless you. Thanks for being here today. We're going to take a break.

Damon Grayson joins me on the other side. We'll be having a great conversation with him about black fatherhood right after this brief break. Hi, this is Pastor Greg, and you're listening to Chosen Generation Radio. Get more at chosengenerationradio.com.

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Pick up your Clean Slate today. You can support Chosen Generation and make a tax deductible donation by visiting www.chosengenerationradio.com. And now back to Chosen Generation with Pastor Greg. And welcome back to Chosen Generation Radio where no topic is off limits and everything is filtered through biblical glasses. Thanks so much for being here.

I know you have a choice of where you can listen each and every day and I thank you for keeping tuned here to Chosen Generation Radio. Well, I'm very pleased to welcome my next guest to the program. He is the author of When His Ways Meet Yours. When you love, you will.

When you love you, he will follow suit. And you're talking, this is Damon Grayson, by the way. Damon, welcome. Good to have you. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And this is written basically to women to help them gain a better understanding of kind of how to build up your husband, how to build up your mate, and give them a platform to succeed from, so to speak. Yes, and build themselves up as well, first and foremost. When you love you, he will follow suit.

So obviously, right? If you see yourself as having more value, then he is going to have to come into alignment with that, or that's not going to be somebody that you're going to have a relationship with. And that seems to be, I mean, it's interesting because from a biblical perspective, right? I mean, value, our own personal value, you know, is inalienable. It's what God gives us, but it seems as a culture, as a society, we no longer are tapped into that. So we don't value ourselves, we, you know, we shake our bodies, we show flesh, we do all these things, trying to get somebody else to recognize our value, as opposed to recognizing that we have an innate value that God's given us, that we don't have to do all that.

You're making this interview easy. You said it all, you're exactly correct. Why do you think we have unwound that? If what I said is accurate, if what I said holds some truth to it, why have we spilled, for lack of a better analogy, but why have we just dumped that cup out?

Why have we spilled that and filled our cup with something else? Society. Okay. Being the employers, your parents, everything is, you're supposed to do for everyone else and not yourself. Everybody is selfish. And they don't want you to be selfish and love yourself. They want you to love them. They want you to do for them. And that's how we're taught. I mean, as children, don't do that. Do what I tell you to do. And you grow with that mentality, always offering yourself instead of like the saying, it's better to give than receive.

We grow up with that mentality and we don't even give to ourselves because we're so used to giving to everybody else. So does that suggest then that all the discipline is wrong? Not all the discipline. You have to have structure and discipline. I don't want to get not so much because it's bringing back old memories, the type of discipline I used to get.

I get you. Discipline is necessary. It's just you have to have balance with it. Isn't it, you know, I mean, discipline has to have an understood purpose. And then it also has to be dealt with love, right? That's the key word, love.

That's the key word. If you're doing it out of, if you're disciplining someone out of anger, you shouldn't do it. You should do it once you're okay and free and in alignment, whether it's, you know, a punishment, a whipping or sitting down talking to somebody, it should be within love. Because if it's not in love, what's the opposite of love, hey, it's, it's, it's, it's one of the other.

It's nothing down in the middle. It's either love or hate. So yes, you should have balance with it and come from a place of love. Hate or darkness, basically, I mean, it's either it's either going to be good or evil. Right, right.

Yep. What was it for you that that you said, you know what I need, I need I need to put this down. I need I need to put this in a book. Why? Why?

What? What motivated you to write this book? I was actually in a failing marriage when I started to write the book. That was my inspiration. There's been several people throughout the years who have come to me and told me that I should write a book about my life.

It just so happened. I always I've always been a writer, whether it was writing a rap, or poetry, whatever it may be, I've been a writer. And I do have a book inside of me about my life. I just haven't been led to write that book yet.

So I said this in the last interview. When I first started to write the book, my dad called me. And he said, What are you doing? I said, I'm writing. He said, writing what I say writing a book, he said about what? And I was, I was embarrassed to tell him what it was about.

Because I had already been married twice. And I'm in the middle of a bad relationship, and I'm writing a relationship book. And when I finally told him what it was about, he said, Oh, you're the perfect person to write the book, you have the experience.

You know what you're saying? And he's the reason I finished the book, like literally, wow, that that that motivation, that inspiration, those words that he said, allowed me to finish that book. But since I was in the bad relationship, and I was at the at the time, I was going to church every Sunday, I was involved in recording the filming and the duplication of the CDs.

Every day, I would meditate, read the Bible, read the book, exercise, I was disciplined. And I think that I outgrew my wife. Because I was trying to better myself, I was in a I was in a bad place.

Spiritually, not well, emotionally put that way. Okay. Emotionally, I was in a bad place. And that's that was my inspiration to write the book.

It just so happened to be for women, it's men friendly. Because I went I was living in Puerto Rico for six months, I've been back for a couple of months, I went on the spiritual cleansing. Okay. And I read the book twice when I was there. Both times I read the book, it actually motivated me and inspired me to do better. Even though I wrote the book, it still helped me after reading the book, after I haven't read it in a while. Sure.

But if it's good for me, it'll be good for anyone, male or female. I found stuff, we were doing some cleaning up around here. And I found some stuff that I wrote like 1012 years ago, and I and I read it. And honestly, after I got done reading it, I thought, man, who wrote that?

I felt the same way every time I read the book, I feel the same way, this is some good stuff. Who come up with that idea? I'm pretty smart stuff. It's a good reminder. It's a good reminder. Once you read your own writings, it's a good reminder, I say, well, there is there is a part of this, you know, that's this journey, even even after we've accepted what Christ has done for us, even after we know the completed work of the cross, there's there's a ketchup.

Right? You know, you know, it in your mind, your spirit man has received it. But there's still, you still have to catch up to what's been done. Alright, then, in my opinion, we'll never catch up until we're off this planet. That's when we'll catch up. We'll never be perfect until we're gone. It's like you said, it's a journey.

It's a journey. You know, I feel it's appropriate to share this for for this particular segment, too. I've shared it before, folks, but but years ago, I was pastoring out in California. And I had three couples that were living together at the time. And a lot of people will be like, Oh, man, you know, the people in your church living together. But I never felt like the Lord said I needed to, you know, chastise them over that. But for Father's Day, I the Lord gave me a message to preach. And it was about how dad wants to be a hero. Yes, and and the role of the wife in helping to to support him to be who he wants to be.

And then in turn him living up to that, and being able to live up to who God has called him to be. And over the course of the next three days, all three of those couples came and said, Hey, excuse me, we want to get married. Oh, wow.

Okay. And, and never in my sermon that I say, Hey, if you're living together, you needed that. That wasn't the sermon. The sermon was, hey, if you're a man, and you want to be a dad, and you know, all these things, these are the attributes, and you can do that.

And and, you know, if you want your husband to be these things, then this is the way you can support him and encourage him rather than rather than criticizing him always and tearing him down. They received the message, obviously. They did. They did.

Yeah, they did blessing. So it's so so that so as I'm as I'm as I'm hearing you and reflecting on what's written is kind of the because you know, Amazon, sometimes they get it right. And sometimes they get it way wrong. When you're reviewing a book, but it sounds a lot like that's, that's the message of this of this book is is getting the women to start seeing the men the way that they're supposed to be seen and getting the men to step up and be who God's called them to be. It's like you read the book already. You have the message, brother is it's called the school of hard knocks and incremental tribulations. I agree.

I've been to the school of hard knocks as well. You know, you mentioned before too, and I think we should unpack that just a little bit because somebody say, Oh, well, yeah, he's been, you know, divorced or whatever. And how would he know about, you know, sometimes, I mean, everything we do is falling forward, or at least hopefully, that's what it is.

It's falling forward. And and as you have walked through these different experiences that you've had, you've had an opportunity to be able to fall forward. Talk about that a little bit. Well, um, every for the record, and I don't say this, I didn't anyway for the record, I was never divorced, always divorced the women.

Okay. Um, that doesn't make me an angel. Um, you know, however, in the relationships, I learned a lot in each relationship. At the time, I was young, so I don't think I learned a lot at the time. But throughout the years, like I've been Sullivan for several years now. I haven't been in a relationship for several years now, on purpose. I came to find myself because if I don't fix myself, I'm going to continue to attract the same type of women. I gotcha. I have to become what I desire. Yeah, period point blank. If I I can't look for a perfect woman if I'm not, you know, there's no no such thing as perfection anyway, but I can't look outside of myself for something that I want and desire if I'm not, if I haven't become that.

Sure. So I had to become that. It's just so happened that I wasn't I didn't become that while I was married. But like I said, with the last marriage, I was becoming that. And I were I met her in church.

And she was the so called perfect woman at the beginning. And then she started to change. And I started to change.

We just went through in two different directions, period, point blank. And after that, it was I mean, I lost every single thing that I owned from childhood all the way up to that point. I mean, all my kids because I already had three children before I met her. And I was a single father for a while, for a long time, actually. So I brought my children into the relationship. She brought her children into the relationship, and we had two more. And it just it just that it just didn't work. But like I said, I outgrew her. And I don't I don't regret it at all.

Because if you're not growing, you're dying. You know, I when I counsel couples that are going to get married, from from 36 years of experience, by the way, congratulations. Thank you. I remind them, you know, you're you're two whole people. He's not going to complete you, and you're not going to complete him.

And and you can't, you can't put expectations on one another, that only God can fill. And I, you know, early on, probably about, I'd say, well, we were about three, four, about four years into our marriage. We had and we ended up managing an apartment complex in Alameda, California. And she was downstairs in the office. And I was upstairs, we had two small kids. And we've been going through some challenging things. And she was saying to God, you got to fix him. And I was saying to God, you got to fix her.

And at the same time, the Holy Spirit convicted both of us and said, No, look in the mirror. Right? Because until you get this going the right way, this will never work.

You're exactly right. And I've noticed over 36 years that when we, if we're having any kind of a bumpy time, it's generally because one of us isn't doing this right. And you got to come back to that.

You got to go, okay, wait a minute, where am I here? Because until I'm right here, this isn't going to function. Expectations breeds negativity in the other person. Because the more you expect somebody else to do what you want them to do, the more pain you're going to have inside.

You have to fix yourself. You have to look deep inside, it's between you and God. And then it's between you and your mate, but it's versus between you and God and you and yourself. Then it's between you and your mate. Yeah.

That's what I think. Yeah. Well, and it's never 50-50.

Never. You're both aiming at 100%. It's like we're brothers, man.

You're saying everything that's inside of my head. We are brothers. Thank you. We are. Yes, we are.

We are brothers. 100%. That's what we're discussing is in the book. And folks, so that's why you need to get the book.

Whether you're a man or whether you're a woman, you need to get this book. I mean, when you think about the fact that in the faith world now, you know, it used to be just in the world world, but in the faith world now, the divorce rate's nearly 75%. Yeah, it is. And it shouldn't be.

It shouldn't be. We are supposed to be covenant people. Covenants don't just end, but it's because nobody's ever taught us what a covenant is.

Nobody's ever taught us about this level of responsibility. My responsibility, first and foremost, is to keep this where it's supposed to be. And whether it's my wife and I's relationship, or my five children, or my relationship with you, Damon, or Kenneth, who's the head of our network, or whoever it is, no matter what, those relationships only remain aligned so long as I'm aligned with him.

Right. And also, the mistake that I made, with the exception of my first wife, I wasn't friends. We weren't friends.

Like my last wife, we eloped. We never had a chance to become friends. And with you being married 36 years, I'm pretty sure you guys are friends now. People treat their friends better than they treat their significant other a lot. So if you're friends with your wife or your husband, the relationship will be better and it'll last longer. And it's, I mean, true friends truly love each other.

If it's only a marriage, it's not going to last. I'll tell you a secret, 36 years, I still, I love, I really love to be around her. I will, I will be exhausted.

I mean, I'm like barely can keep my eyes open. But if she's like, hey, baby, you want to watch a movie? Uh huh. Because I just like being around her. It's just being in the same room and the next morning, she'll be like, why did you let us turn that movie on? And I'm like, baby, because it gave me a chance to be around you, just because it gave me a chance to be with you and have some conversation in the movie and while it was had, pause the film and talk and go, oh, that was funny and to just, just to be with you, baby, just to be with you. That's beautiful. That's true friendship.

That's how it should be. And you know, and she will, she'll be like, we stayed up too late again. And I'm like, yeah.

And I'm thinking in my head, yeah, I could have said no and I could have gone to sleep, but I would rather hang out with her than, than go to sleep. When I grow up, I want to be just like you. Well, brother, I'll let you, I'll send you the letter when I grow up. Oh my goodness, folks, really, seriously, when his ways meet yours, this one really, this was a tongue twister for me. I don't know why, but when you love you, he will follow suit.

And, and I would say, when you love you, she will follow suit. You know, we have, I remember years ago, the Lord hit me about, you know, the whole self-help because, you know, it was all about self-help and listen, the biggest self-help you can get, honestly, is from right here, is what God has to say about who you are. And I don't care who you are, look, I get here in front of this camera and I do all the different things that I do. I'll tell you right now, my self-image could be way better and it gets attacked. And the only way that I get through it is, is to remind myself what God has to say about who I am. I agree.

That's it. You have to be reminded. You are beloved of the Lord. God loves you. No matter what situation you're in, no matter where you are in your life, God loves you regardless. And he's not going to leave you where you are, because that's the other, that's the, you know, that's where grace gets out of bounds or sin gets out of bounds.

Here's the thing. He loves you no matter what mistakes you've made, but he's not going to leave you wallowing in your mistakes. He's going to pick you up, he's going to clean you off and he's going to take you, if you'll let him, he's going to take you to where he wants you to go. You key word, if you let him, yes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink it. Nope.

No, you can't. You know, I talked just last week about three ways, Melanie Collette and I did a segment about three ways that you deal with people, sinner, those that are repentant, and those that are rebellious. When they're a sinner, they don't know any better. You love them, you share with them, and you keep loving them until they get to the place where they say, hey, I want what you've got. When they're repentant, but they keep struggling, the word says, bear you one another's burdens and restore such a one in a spirit of meekness list, you also stumble.

You should be there every single day working with that person to help them because they have a willingness, they want to be right. If they're rebellious, you reach a place where you say, look, I got to cut you off for your own sake because you have to come face to face with what rebellion is doing in destroying your life. And that's why Paul says, you turn them all, you turn their soul over to Satan so that they might be, hopefully might be saved because they've got to have a wake up call.

Sometimes you got to hit rock bottom to get that wake up call. And when they do, then you welcome them back like the prodigal son. Right. And during that time, you as a person, sometimes something my mother used to tell me, sometimes you have to love people from a distance.

That's right. And me personally, I always got attached to people. It used to hurt me to see other people hurt. And so I would try to make them do what I wanted them to do, because what in my mind, I'm doing the right thing. I'm teaching you what to do. I'm showing you, I'm giving you the route and they wouldn't take it and they used to hurt me.

Yeah. But now I have, since I've been to Puerto Rico, I have a whole lot more balance now, you know, and I love me more now too. And I used to give from a half empty cup, I was never full. You can't minister out of woundedness. When you're in a place where you are tore up, you can't effectively minister. And people say, well, you know, no, there is a place you can come to of contentment. Paul says, I have learned to be abased and I've learned to abound.

And I've learned how to be content in both. And there is a way to get to that place. And it's through Jesus Christ.

And it's 100% available to anybody who wants it. Pick up the book When His Ways Meet Yours. When you love you, He will follow suit. And I thank you, Damon, for being with me today. Damon Grayson. Thanks for being here. This was fun. Thank you, Pastor Greg. You can get the book on my website, mywordsofwisdom.com, or you can get it on Amazon. Just look up When His Ways Meet Yours or look up my name, Damon Grayson. Damon, G-R-A-Y-S-O-N. All right, we're going to sign off. I'll be back with you tomorrow here on TUCN TV, Texas Fully Loaded, coming up right after this break.