Friday, October 27th | Lightning Round Questions

Well today is Friday, October 27th. I'm Jon Galantis. And I'm Ryan Hill. You may as well be Ryan Hill, yeah. Okay, I'm Ryan Hill.

This is the new and improved Ryan Hill. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at cleaviewtodayshow.com, or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in, suggest we talk about here on the show, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at cleaviewtodayshow.com. You can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online, leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, where you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. All right, well obviously I'm not Ryan Hill. I'm David Williamson, and I just noticed that we're kind of matchy boys.

We're matchy boys. What is that about? I tell you what, let's talk about it after we read the verse of the day.

Kind of throwing off the flow of the show. Yeah, sorry, I'm not used to this. I tell you what, we could wait until Ryan's back in town if you want to.

No, no, no, the verse of the day is the first joke. I'm just joking. We can talk about the shirts if you want. We can talk about the shirts. You want to talk about the shirts?

Sure, yeah. Ryan is out with the youth. As a lot of you guys know, Ryan Hill is our student pastor here at Clearview Church, and so they're doing their fall retreat.

That's why we're matchy boys. If you're watching on the show, we've got orange shirts that say, eliminate students fall retreat 2023. We just finished music, and we just finished all that stuff. We led the worship for it. I did. I led the worship. Yeah.

I posted a TikTok about it. Really? Yeah, it was pretty fun. All right, so I led three songs, and then Ryan's gone. Now he just left out with a group of teenagers. Yeah, they are going on their way to do some mission projects, some street evangelism throughout town.

So we are holding down the fort here on the Clearview Today show, and now it is long overdue. Verse of the day. Verse of the day.

All right. 1 John 2, 5 through 6. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. There's a separation in, I think, Christian's mind between what the word says and what we do, because it's like, yeah, I know that says it in the good book, and that's pure, and it's holy, and it's all that, but I'm just a...

Listen, I'm just a good old country boy, you know what I mean? And I've got one foot in the fire and one foot in the grave and all that stuff, and it's just sin, and it's us refusing to acknowledge our own sin. Yeah, and it's really cool to read this and know that scripture will interpret scripture. So we have John saying this, but also James says the same thing. Doers of the word not only hears, don't be somebody who looks in a mirror, sees your reflection, and then just goes off and forgets all about it.

Yeah, and even Jesus said it to Peter. He's like, hey, do you love me? He's like, yeah. He's like, feed my sheep. Do the things that I've asked you to do.

Don't just follow me around and say, yes, teacher, yes, rabbi, yes, you are Lord, and then don't actually do the things that I've told you to do. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool.

Speaking of doing things and being men of action, can I say this? I don't know if you've ever watched Friends. Is it going to be hurtful? Kind of. Please don't.

Yeah, kind of. I'm on the show for one of the first, second times, I think, and I don't want to be crying on the show. You're not going to cry. I hope not. You pulled a Ross. Do you know what I mean by that? A Ross Geller? Like a turkey sandwich?

Like the Moist Maker? Like you almost killed a man over a turkey sandwich. You almost like hurt him physically. What did I do? You canceled your gym membership. Well, don't... Well, you tried to cancel your gym membership. You tried. And I would say you successfully canceled it, but you got out of paying the cancellation fee.

Like you gamed... Ross was just super unsuccessful. You extorted one of our local gyms for cash. So I didn't. You did?

I didn't extort them for cash. I don't know how it actually turned out. Tell us the whole thing. You decided to... Because we're members at the YMCA, but we're also members of other gyms, but you were like, I'm going to cancel this membership.

So here's what happened. I'm a member of the Y. Favorite gym. It's a great place. Go get your health in order. Shout out to the Henderson Family YMCA.

It's great. There are other places that are around close to town and they're open at different hours so that if I get off work late, I can go there and still work out in case I didn't make it in the morning. Well, I have gotten into a routine of going in the morning so consistently that I was like, I don't need to be paying an extra 20, 30 bucks a month. So I wanted to cancel my membership. But this place doesn't make it easy to cancel a membership. That's true. This place is like, if you want to cancel your membership, you have to go through certified mail, you have to come and talk to us in person, and you have to email the CEO on his personal email and text him on like...

It's just so many steps. Are you joking or is that for real? Well, the certified mail and the visit in person is true. That's true. Okay.

You have to go to the CEO's house and bake him a lasagna, eat it with him, he has to judge it. And if it's a seven or above, you get to start the cancellation process. Right, right. So I just didn't want to do all that. I signed a contract saying I would, but I didn't want to. So you canceled your card.

No. What'd you do? I canceled my bank account.

Oh my goodness. Not just my card. I didn't just cut that card off. I closed that entire account. The entire bank account. Yes. So you were expecting emails or messages of the gym being like, hey, you're behind on payments, but there was just never any contact.

Never any contact. So I have two accounts. One has no money. One has all of my money that I put it in.

I thought it was a good idea to have two for a reason that I'll get into another time. They kept taking it out of the one that had no money. So it would bounce back and the bank would be like, hey, this is trying to make a payment. Every month it would tell you?

Every month it would do that. And then after long enough, the bank would just be like, forget you. We're taking it out of your other account. So they take it out of my other account, into that account and pay the gym. So did you shut that account down?

No, no, no, no. So I shut the account down that the gym was taking from. So every time the gym tried to take, they would get an error on their end that said, hey, there's a glitch in our system. We can't take the money out. So they never contacted my bank anymore. So you just got around their rigorous cancellation fee by just severing that connection and then fading away.

That bank account is no more. So now what happened? What happened when we went back the other night?

I was scared. Did they bring it up at all? No. They didn't even bring it up? Never even talked about it. You went and reinstated an account with that gym. Right.

So this really is some friends level, like Ross Geller moves. I couldn't believe that you did this and got away with it. I went and reinstated the account. And all he said was, oh, it looks like the last time you tried to pay it was a glitch in the system.

That's all right. We'll just get you a new account. Unbelievable. So they started a new account. And they didn't even know they were talking to like a DB Cooper of digital trickery. I can't believe it. That's what happened.

I'm going to say this might be one of my favorite things we've ever talked about on the pod. I can't believe that you got away with it. I thought for sure, because I wasn't with you when you went and talked to him at the gym and got your account reinstated. All they said literally was, hmm, it looks like there's a glitch in our system and it's not taking money out of your account.

We'll just open you a new one. What was your reaction? Were you just like, oh, OK, yeah. I was like, yeah, cool. Do you want the regular or the deluxe package?

I was like, I'll take the deluxe. And you knew that you had hoodwinked them. You had hoodooed them, as my dad would say. Yeah. Wow. So, yeah. Well, that's what happens. Sometimes that's what you got to do. They make it really difficult to close all those accounts. So I guess you could just sever their connection to your money at the end of the day. How can I blame you for doing that? Consider myself like Aaron Brockovich.

Well, you bring in a small town to his feet and a corporation to his knees. We're going to go grab Dr. Shah in just a few minutes. Let us know some of the ways that you have circumvented gyms or other subscriptions from getting your money. Text us in 252-582-5028 or visit us online at cleaviewtodayshow.com. It is Friday. You guys know what that means. Time for lightning round questions today, lightning round questions. We're going to be asking Dr. Shah those questions. We're going to listen to a quick advertisement.

Then we're coming right back. Hey there, listeners. I'm Jon Galantis.

And I'm Ellie Galantis. And we just want to take a quick second and talk to you about Dr. Shah's and Nicole's book, 30 Days to a New Beginning, daily devotions to help you move forward. You know, this is actually the second book in the 30 Days series. And the whole point of this devotional is to help us get unstuck from the ruts of life. You know, when it comes to running the race of life, it matters how you start, but a bad start doesn't ultimately determine how you finish the race. You can have a good finish even with a bad start. And that's where this book comes in. No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck.

Instead of going out and buying some gadget or some planner, like I know I've done several times. I know that's right. 30 Days encourages you to find your fresh start in God's word. Life doesn't have a reset button, but our God is a God who does new things.

His mercies are new every day, which means every day is a new chance for you to start over. You can grab 30 Days to a New Beginning on Amazon.com. We're going to leave a link in the description box below. And if you already have the book, let us know what you think about it.

That's right. Send us a text, 252-582-5028. Share what God has done in your life through this devotional. Hey, maybe we'll even read your story on the air. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show? Let's do it.

All right. Well, welcome back to Clearview today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in and suggest we talk about, send us a text, 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. We're here in the studio with Dr. Shah today. Dr. Shah, I've got to say, loving the outfit. Well, thank you.

Thank you. Dr. Questions.

Dr. Questions today. We decided to be matchy boys ourselves. That's the thing we called it. Yeah, with the orange shirts. For the fall retreat. Yeah. Ryan's actually on the fall retreat right now.

Yeah, that's right. We have a record number of students in our Illuminate student youth group and they are in different host homes. One home had to sort of back out because of some family emergencies. And so he asked us. Oh, were y'all a host home? Yeah, we are a host home. I didn't know that. To middle school boys.

I didn't know that, bro. We have two days notice. Is it going to be upstairs or in the basement?

No, no, no. We're going to keep them upstairs. They're going to be in the living room. And Mr. Jim is going to be in the guest bedroom. Oh, yeah.

Okay. And then the boys are already playing. What is it? What is it? What's that game? What do we have?

What do we have, Nick? What is our game? Probably like Halo. Halo Call of Duty.

No, no, no, no. Like the jackpot games? Yeah, whatever it is. One of those.

Madden 2K, some one of those. Yeah. So we're getting questions, as you guys can see. Today is lightning round questions. So let's dive right in.

These are the questions that you guys have been submitting all week with that number that we give you, 252-582-5028. First one today is coming from John W. Dr. Shah, what was your first vehicle and how long did it last? First vehicle was a two-wheeler. It was like somewhere between a moped and a motorcycle. And it was, I forgot the name of that thing. It was something Suzuki. And anyways, my dad bought it for me.

I loved it. This is back in the mid 80s, late 80s. And that was my first vehicle. And it lasted a couple of years. And then he bought me another one, which was more on a motorcycle level. Wow. That was pretty cool. Did you ever tear the roads up on it or were you a pretty safe driver?

No, I was not a reckless driver, but I was fast. I could zip in and out of places. There are parts in our hometown.

And I went through them this past time when I went to see my mom and then she passed away, as many of you know. But I went down those same streets and guess what? They're still the same.

Same exact layout and everything. Now there are places where they don't want cars to go. So they have this massive iron beam in the middle of the road.

That's pretty cool. That's to make sure that only two-wheelers can go there. Only the two-wheelers can go there. And I used to zip out of there so fast. It reminds me of that scene in Spider-Man 2 where he's zipping through cars. I never did crazy things like that, but I would go right through them real fast. And I went right by them and I was like, oh, I remember this place. Wow.

That's pretty awesome. Well, speaking of firsts, what was your first Bible? This is from Frankie R. What was your first Bible? First Bible? The first Bible that I felt like I owned, actually there were two. One was my parents gave me this New Testament and Psalms. I think Proverbs 2 maybe, but New Testament and Psalms. And it was a little tiny Bible, like this big. And it had a picture of this young shepherd boy inside. And that was supposed to be David, Psalm 23. And I love, love, love that Bible. Only problem was it didn't have many pictures in it.

Really? No, no pictures. Was it a children's Bible? No, it was an adult Bible. I think it was an RSV. What is RSV? Revised Standard Version.

But anyway, so I got it and I think my parents gave it to me for my birthday or something like that. But then we had a group that's world famous called Operation Mobilization. It's a massive, used to be massive, like an evangelism or evangelistic organization started by George Verver. And he really challenged young people to follow Christ and they followed him. Many of them came out of the hippie movement and they followed Christ. And there were two big massive ships.

One was Logos, the other one was Dulos. And they used to go from port to port all over Asia. And they would stop at a port, albeit it was previously arranged and they had the permits and all that. And then they would get off the ships and they would go all over the country and share the gospel and sell books. Selling books was their main source of income. And so my dad worked closely with Operation Mobilization and we would have teams at a time come stay with us, just like the youth are staying in the host homes.

We would have the young people from all over US, Canada, Germany, England. So did you ever come home from school and there were people in your house that you didn't know? Yeah, hell yeah. That was very common. That was commonplace.

Wow. And so they would sell books. And so they would have this whole book sale set up in our church's vestibule. And I remember seeing this one Bible. It's actually here in my office.

Really? Yeah, it is in the office. And this Bible was there and it had red cover and it had kind of contemporary pictures of cities and people and whatever. And I was like, wow. So I would sit there and flip through it. And it had pictures. It had hand drawn pictures from all over biblical history, Old Testament, New Testament. And I would come there, look at it, turn it around and then put it back. I couldn't buy it.

I was like maybe 10 years old, maybe, maybe. And then I would come back every night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, look at it, open it, put it. And then after a month, the Operation Mobilization team, O.M.

team moved away to another town. And I was like, oh, well, yeah, I wanted that Bible, but oh, well. And next thing you know, from my birthday, that Bible was... They'd wrapped it up in your house? Yeah, they'd give it to me. That's pretty cool.

Wow. It's in my office. Did your dad give it to you or the missionaries? It's from dad and mom. No, my dad bought it. Oh, I got you.

Bought it from them. Wow. And my dad saw me looking at that Bible so much, or my mom saw me, or I never asked him. I should have asked him, but I didn't think of it. Or one of the guys who was manning that little book sale told my dad, he said, I think your son really likes that Bible.

Wow. And he bought it for you. He bought it for me. You got it in the office.

It's in my office. That's really awesome. Maybe at the end of the show, we'll go grab it and we'll bring it on. Yeah.

Speaking of India, the next question actually goes right into that. And I did want to kind of comment on that because I think it's a beautiful thing that, you know, in those times, I guess that would have been what, in the early, like the late seventies, early eighties, when you were a little kid, you were born in 73. So that probably what took place around 70. You're talking about the Bible incident?

When you were probably late seventies, like 70, I would have been maybe late seventies, early eighties. It's funny because before the internet, you know, you, you really, you had books and people were coming to you and selling these books and they really were kind of like priceless treasures, you know, these, these like traveling book salesmen coming and showing you the Bible. And I think there's, there's kind of a simplistic beauty to that. I think, you know, in an age now where I can pull it up on my phone and it's, it's not lost its value, but you know what I'm trying to say?

It's like so readily accessible. Like when you, when you're in like middle school and you go to the scholastic book fair and you want that one book, but then you go back next year and it's not there. I spent years searching for a military book that I got from the book fair and I can't find it anywhere. It's, I'm so mad because I wanted to read the other books in that series, but I can't find it. Shout out to Hank the cow dog scholastic book fair.

The thing is right here at Clearview, we have a resource center. That's right. You know, these things are not by accident. This is how I was raised. And so some of those things still impact me because I wanted a resource center, always wanted a bookstore at our church. And when we build our new building, that one room that at one time was sort of like a Bible study room, but nobody really used it as well. We turned that into a resource center.

It's one of our most visited rooms. Yeah. People go in there, buy books, buy magazines.

I mean, they, they, they really have a good time. Yep. There's children's books in there. There's Bibles, there's commentaries. Your books are in there for sale. Clearview worship albums in there for sale.

Lots and lots of great stuff in our resource center. Brad R, what's normal in India that's weird in America or vice versa? Oh, wow. What is normal in India that is weird in America? I'm trying to think.

Or what's something that we do here in the West that people in India would be like, that's kind of odd. I never, I never would have, uh. I don't, I don't know. It's hard for me to think because I've been here so long. Sometimes. Sometimes those things begin to blend and some things are, uh, are kind of hard to, to understand. Like, I don't know.

I don't know. I'll have to think on that one. You want to come back to that one? I would love to come back to that one. Let's come back to that one.

Maybe we'll do a Harold B. This is, this is, this is a good one. When did you know that you wanted to marry your wife?

I would say after the first month. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I knew, I knew she was the one. Wow.

That was your first, uh, your first, cause we've seen your first meeting Nicole on video. Yes. Somehow.

I don't know how you did this, but you had the foresight to know I'm going to film. Don't I always? You always here.

It's crazy. Yeah. I tell you guys, Hey, what are you doing? Looking at me. Take a picture. Record.

Put record. Can you guys, that's not something that just started. I'm always been like that.

Hey, can we set up the angle over here? I did that yesterday. I pushed a chip. Like set up the camera here.

Tell me so I can, it's not something I'm randomly doing. That's always been part and broadcast journalism helped me with that. But somehow you had the foresight to record your first, what were you doing?

Like when you walked into the grocery store and you like recorded the first time you ever met your wife? It was Walmart. It was Walmart. Okay. Yeah.

Back in Georgia, down in Georgia. And we had campus preview coming up and uh, my broadcast journalism professor told me and another guy named Andy, I forgot Andy's last name now. He was, he was, uh, the guy who shot our video for the wedding and opinion.

I think it was, I think it was Andy opinion anyways. Um, so, um, he told us to go and go around town with a camera and talk to TFC students to call false college students and asked them about college life. And so we're like, okay. Now Andy was like, Oh, this is a great way to meet girls. So I said, okay, that's exactly where his mind was.

That's where Andy's mind was. So we're, we're like zipping in and out of the aisles. He's like, wait, I'm going to hide a camera right here in the middle of this buggy and we're going to hide it with clothes and stuff. And I'm like, okay, like this is creepy, but okay, whatever. And so, so I'm like, okay, so we're walking around here and there.

And then I see Nicole and I already had seen her around campus and I'm like, Oh, that's, that's the girl that some people have been talking about at the guard shack. So I'm like, Hey, turn that on, turn the camera on. He's like, with this, this girl right here, I was like, yeah, turn it on. So he turned it on.

So I asked her some questions about what she was doing in Walmart. She had the STP oil treatment for your cars. You know, there's a little, you put in there, it's useless. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't do anything, but it's like supposed to make your cars run better. It's smooth.

It's just like smooth, like a dream. Yeah. No. So anyways, she was, she had that and then she had a cassette tape of John Michael Montgomery or maybe Travis Tripp. I can't remember who. I think it was John Michael. I was going to say no. John Michael Montgomery sounds right.

I bet it would be John Michael Montgomery. Yeah. Yeah.

That's crazy. And you've got that video in your wedding video. Our first conversation, not the first time I saw her because I saw her around campus.

First time we talked is on camera. That's awesome. Wow. Incredible. Yeah. That's pretty crazy. Well, our next question comes from Chris D and it says, what is the most valuable thing your dad ever taught you?

Uh, many, many things. He taught me the value of staying put. Don't jump from place to place.

Plant yourself in a place for the rest of your life and let that be it. That's the way he did. When he came to Basawal, he didn't bounce from place to place looking for the next best thing. He stayed in Basawal the rest of his life, 60 years of ministry. That's insane.

Yeah. One church. One church. Not just, not just 60 years of ministry, but one singular church. First and only church.

Wow. Now that's hard to find today. You know, people go from here, there, there, there until they finally settled down or they never, never settled down. But he stayed put and um, 60 some years he died as the pastor of the church.

That's advice you can build your ministry on. Yeah. I think we have time for one more. I think we have about three minutes left in the show. Uh, this one, this is crazy. We've never gotten a live question before. This one is coming in from a text message right now from a Mr. Ryan H. Isn't that wild? I wonder who that could be. Ryan H is writing into the show as though there's a live feed.

This isn't even a live show, but he wrote in. I think he's trying to, trying to bait you, Dr. Shah. He said, what's your craziest college story?

Craziest college story? I think he's trying to get you to tell the one about when you received that award. Oh, that one? I think that's the one he wants to, I think that's the one he wants to hear. I have several, but we don't, how much time do we have? We got about three minutes left. Three minutes. All right. I'll tell you one and then the other one.

So the first one is my brother and I were rooming together and it was, it's, it's right before exam weeks. And they had, they had a screaming night is what they call it, where everybody opens the windows of the dorm and they scream. It's just like getting out all their frustrations. Yeah. That's exactly what they do.

They're like getting out of their frustrations of exam anxiety and all that. Wow. He's like, he's like, we're going to do something. I was like, what?

He had these ball rockets. I said, what are we going to do with this? He said, I'm going to fire them out.

Just fire them straight out of the window and see people's reaction to it. Was this like a thing that the college had established or was this like students did it? It was just like a thing that was done.

I got you. And so sure enough, it was at nine o'clock, all of a sudden you begin to hear the girls dorm starting and then the guys open up, he's over there with them ready, lights off in our room and he lights up this ball rocket and it just comes out firing out. So people are like, what in the world? You see people screaming, scared to death.

Somebody's firing at them. I've only met him once, but that seems so unlike him. It seems so against this character. That's very like him. And so I'm like, oh my gosh. Now one thing he didn't take into account is like when the ball rocket shoots off, all that smoke goes back. So the entire room is covered with smoke. Before you know it, the RA, the resident advisor, he comes and he knocks on the door and friend is like pretending to be asleep. I'm just imagining like he's laying down trying to be asleep and there's like black like all over his face from the rocket.

It was not like that. It was just the smoke that's coming. And so the RA is standing there and he's like, what's going on? He's like, well, I'm just tired. I'm asleep. I don't know.

This is my time. He's like, really? Look at all this smoke.

Where are you doing this? I'm pretending to sleep. You're playing like you sleep too? I'm laying on the bed on my side of the room and I'm just like, oh God, we're so busted.

They didn't do anything. That's crazy. Wow. So maybe next time I can tell the other story. Yeah, that one's really good too.

We'll save that one for a special occasion. If you enjoyed today's episode and you have any future questions that you want to send in Dr. Questions here for our Friday lightning round, let us know by sending us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also visit us online at ClearviewTodayshow.com. Don't forget, you can support us financially on that same website as well.

That's ClearviewTodayshow.com every time you donate or give or contribute to the show, you are making an impact for God's kingdom. So thank you for your partnership. Dr. Shah, thank you for being here today and answering our questions. David, thanks for sending in. Absolutely, David. Thank you for being here. It was fun. I didn't know quite what to expect, but now that I've been on the side... Let's wrap it up, man.

We got this radio. All right. Later. Later.

I'm just kidding. Bye. Good night. Bye. You