All right, I got another question for you.
Oh, good. The question is, what's the toughest, hardest moment of our marriage? Um, I would say our 10 year anniversary.
Is there any good that came out of it? I mean, I feel like our lives totally changed direction because the night when I told you I had nothing left, I had no feelings for you. I felt like our marriage was a point five out of 10.
And I thought it was done and yet God, but God in his grace and his power and his sovereignty took us to a whole new place and has allowed us and our brokenness to share the truth of the gospel that Jesus can change everything. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson and I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. What's the toughest, hardest moment of our marriage? Um, I would say our 10 year anniversary. Yeah, I knew you're going to answer that exactly that because in that dark moment when we both thought it was over, God shows up and not only saves our marriage, but then says, I actually want to use that moment to help you discover your purpose is to help other marriages. And here we are to use our pain in the past right here. And so we get to interview Michael Jr, who many people would know as a comedian, but if you ever listened to him or you read his, uh, his new book, funny how life works, you discover he's more than just a funny guy.
He has purpose behind humor. So Michael Jr, welcome to Family Life Today. We're so glad to have you. Wow. Thanks so much for having me here, man, except for it was a little weird being in the middle of your conversation.
I was like, wait a second. Is it over? Wait, don't y'all know that you guys work it out? Wow. So 10 years you were done. 0.05. Wow. Yes. Yeah.
And I thought we were a 9.5. I was so clueless. And again, in that moment, I didn't know what was going to happen. And yet it's the moment just as you've shared in your book and in your comedy that God uses the setbacks to set us up for our punchline.
I mean, you've told that everywhere you go. You've even told that in our churches, we did funny how marriage works a date night for couples where you brought the funny and we brought the marriage and it was just a beautiful, beautiful night. But I love what you do in your book.
I love what you do in your life. And it's literally, I've never heard a comedian talk about how you talk about the punchline. That's your whole. Yeah. So again, tell us what the punchline means.
Cause it's about pain in your purpose or pain being your purpose, pain being your purpose. So your purpose is to bring pain to people. Wow. Wow.
That's a great name. If you're a wrestler. Yeah. So there's a lot of parallels in comedy and life. One, for example, I'll give you a fresh one in comedy. Everyone has to deal with, I've dealt with them before you have a heckler. What is a heckler? A heckler. In fact, I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, driving through Detroit, headed down to Fort Wayne to do a show one day. This was years and years ago and I'm on stage and one of the, this is probably the worst heckle I've ever received. I'm on stage doing my comedy and I get heckled by this dude in the back of the room with more twain than I can explain.
Michael Jr. I was wondering why do all black people look alike? That's what he said for real. And the whole crowd freezes.
It's like mostly white audience, they're free. They don't know what I'm gonna do. Get mad, throw a chair. They don't know what's going to happen. And so he heckles me and I don't know what I'm gonna say.
This is all happening in fractions of a second. These thoughts are going through my mind. What am I going to say? What am I going to do?
How's this going to work out? You know? And when I said these words, I didn't even think of when I said these words, I was hearing them for the first time. It was like, Michael Jr. Why don't all black people look alike? I was like, women all look alike.
You just got to cut the eye holes in your sheet a lot bigger. Boom. Listen, the place exploded in laughter. The dude who said it to me stood up on his chair and gave me a standing ovation with the rest of the room. It was an amazing moment. So there's a few things that took place in that moment. Instead of addressing pain with pain, because clearly that dude was in some pain. I just showed up with my gift.
Just like God has given us all gifts. I just took a breath and deliver what I felt like I should deliver. I responded as opposed to reacting. The other thing that happened is I just recognized it was a heckler and a heckler is part of what you have to deal with as a comedian. But in life, when you're in pursuit of your purpose, you're going to have hecklers. The hecklers are people around you who don't necessarily want you to succeed.
They're speaking negativity into what it is you're trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, more times than not, that heckler isn't even exterior. That heckler is your own communication with yourself saying you're not going to be able to do it. Your marriage is not going to last. Your parents' marriage didn't last.
So why would yours? You have to know how to address the heckler. The Bible actually says cast down every impure thought that is not from God. That's a tool in which you use to address the heckler. A greater tool would be to follow it up with God's word that says any of God's word that counter whatever the heckler just said to you. But in life, there's going to be hecklers and you have to know how to address them. If you don't have any hecklers at all, that just means you're not walking in your purpose. Because if you're walking in your purpose, I guarantee somebody, someone in some way is going to try to stop you. In fact, take that as confirmation that you're walking in the right direction. You know, it's easy to think that people that are somewhat successful and you're really successful. You're a movie star. Do you ever hear heckler voices in your head now?
Absolutely. I hear them all the time, but I know I address them immediately. How do you do that? Because I would guess almost everybody has a heckler. I would say that that can be old voices in our head. That can be Satan.
That can be old moon. So how do you deal with that? So what I do immediately, so let's say it's something like I'm hearing a voice say, nobody's going to like your book because I graduated high school reading at a fourth grade level. Now I'm writing a book. So a heckler might jump up and be like, nobody's going to read this book.
He can't even write. And I always assume it's Satan or somebody who worked for him. And then I'll follow it up with God's word and I'll say I'm more than a conqueror.
I can do all things in Christ. It's just natural. So you have to address that scenario because what has happened is you've probably let some negativity in an ear gate or eye gate somewhere. It might have been a movie you watch. It might have been some radio or something where you heard a phrase and now the enemy is using what you saw against you.
It reminds me of Romans 12 to Paul says, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And I tell you, talk about the heckler. I had that in my mind for years of like, you can't do it. You're dumb. You're ugly.
You can't do this. And I just would go there with it. It created this neurological pathway, a highway in my head that I would just normally, Oh, that's just where I go down that road and down that path. Even in my marriage, I would critique Dave in my head and I would think, Oh, if he would only do this. And when God, when I was reading that and I felt like, no Lord, I need you to transform my mind.
I need you to renew it. It's like, it's hard at first. It takes practice. So I like that you're committing scripture over it and then you're choosing to take a new pathway. And at first it can seem a little like, Oh, I've never done this. But after a while, that old highway, that old pathway has weeds on it and it's not as easy to go back to it.
But I love the practicality of of what you're saying. And also just the heckler, we all have that. So here's the, let me say the ball in the heckler again, before we literally a man, there's a couple of NFL players I spoke to about this. Right. And, uh, one of them played for a team that was going to win the super bowl, but they lost it in the very last play. You remember, uh, the Seahawks and the Patriots.
Yeah. They lost in the very, he was done. One of these got was done for two weeks, laid out on the floor of his, his house.
Didn't go nowhere for two weeks. His heckler was constantly talking and you start to believe it. If you don't say anything about it. So I challenge people all day long. You need to make sure you're dealing with that express if you're trying to do something big and insert some comedy in your life as well. That helps to let me do something. If anybody needs to laugh, if you go to Michael jr.com slash extra, you can get my comedy special, download it for free.
No charge. Watch what your entire family and enjoy it. There's so much negativity and hard stuff going on in the world. We want to get as much laughter as we can into people. So it's only for a limited time.
So go right now. I don't, yeah, that's random. And you know, one of the things that just hit me when you were talking about the hecklers and you know, I read the same thing in your book is how much scripture you just quoted from memory as you talked about it and did the same thing. And I thought so many of us, when we have hecklers, we don't know scripture. We haven't stored it away. We haven't memorized it. So we can't counteract it. We don't even know what our identity is in Christ. Cause we'd never really read it.
You're quoting flippings for 13. You're quoting, I mean, it just boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like, look at what you've stored away so that the Holy spirit can bring it up in that moment. Cause you know, I have hecklers, we all have hecklers and we did, we may take the thought captive second Corinthians 10, take that thought captive, but what do we replace it with? Yes. That's it right there.
Yes. You spoke back to the heckler, turn the whole, you know, room around and we often don't speak back and we don't know what to do with it. I, I know there's a song that's been around quite a while now, a worship song that I would play in our worship band of church. Every time I hear the line, I tear up, I'm back there in a bass playing. I don't sing. They don't let me sing, but you know, I'm playing and you know, the line that goes, I am surrounded by the arms of the father. I am surrounded by songs.
You know that it's just an identity song. I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God. And it's one of those moments where you have to say that to yourself to remind yourself the hecklers wrong.
The truth is I'm a child of God and that's my identity and I can walk out in freedom and I can even laugh at a joke because I'm free to be able to enjoy humor. That is so good. I have a good friend whose teenage daughter was really struggling with anxiety and depression. She was hearing that heckler constantly in her mind and the girl was brave enough to tell her mom what was going on in her head. And the mom just started putting scripture on her mirrors, scripture wherever she would go. And just a sticky note, you know, she was surprised her daughter didn't take it away. And pretty soon her daughter started adding the scripture to it to the point that when the mom walked into the room, the entire mirror was full of scripture. She just saw this little place for her face and that was it. And all around her face was scripture. And she said that we just discount the power of the word of God and discount how it affects our kids and our spouse and our family. Like it's powerful. I mean, Jesus did it.
That's how he got rid of the heckler, you know, and Satan tempted him in the desert. So that's big. It's good. That is so great. And I'm not going to be, I don't want to talk to you that much on this show because you always bring tears in my eyes.
Yeah. Where Dave brings tears in my eyes for different reasons. Especially when you start singing the way you did. I'm not going to sing anymore, but I mean, there's so many, so many great stories in the book. I mean, honestly, the second chapter, and again, maybe that's not one of your favorite stories, but the story in the pit about your dad.
I mean, I don't know if you want to tell us that story, but it was, I mean, there were several times, I don't want to admit this. I cried reading your book. I'm like tearing up with these powerful, I'm laughing in one moment.
I'm tearing up in the next and I'm like, wow, look at the, how God uses humor to open a heart and then truth to just drive it home. And you do that so well. So talk about that living in the pit or getting out of the pit.
Yeah. So I'm like 14 years old and I had a job at this oil change place with my dad. I worked down in the pit. I'm 14 years old. So my morning was started like six o'clock in the morning, walk to school, do football practice, go to school, catch two buses, get to the oil change place down in the pit, working on all these cars.
It was hard, hard work, but I learned a lot. And then periodically I would come up out the pit cause I was so fast. I would finish up three bays of cars before the guys up top were ever even done. So you're changing oil. Yes, I'm changing oil. Yeah.
Yeah. So I'm changing the oil and I would come up top to help the people, you know, add air to the tires, whatnot. And then we got this new assistant manager dude in, and this dude was, uh, he was raised, I'm, I'm super slow to call people racist. Like I'm really, really slow. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. So he was just, uh, challenged African-American Lee.
I don't even know if that's a real word anyway. He didn't necessarily like me. So one day I'm down in the, in the pit and I decided to come up and help everybody. And this dude says to me from across the room, it's a white dude named Mark is his name in the book. And he yells at me from across the room in front of customers, everybody else. He says, Hey junior boy, get yourself back down in the pit where you belong.
That's what he said. And I couldn't respond to him. He's older than me. He's an adult.
I'm supposed to respect him. I'm like 14 years old and I'm hurt because this isn't the first time he says something like that to me. So I take myself down into the pit and then I hear this voice that reminds me of my dad's voice. And he says, Mark, come here. And my heart starts bumbling because I know that Mark is in trouble. And the reason that voice sounds like my dad's voice is cause it was my dad's voice.
My dad was the area manager and he just happened to pop into that location I was working at at the exact time he says that to me. And I can't see exactly what's taking place because I'm in the pit. Now, if you can imagine I'm down in the pit, I have a car over the top of my head. So there's probably about eight inches of view that I have of my dad and his other guy. And they're walking off and all I can see is their boots. I can see Mark's size nine or maybe 10 and I can see my dad's black size 13 and they're both walking and Mark is following behind my dad and they get ready to talk, but I can't hear what they're saying because the engine starts up that's right over my head and I'm right by the muffler. So all I can see is about six inches of their feet and they're both toe to toe facing each other. And then at some point I see Mark's left boot leave the ground, which to me indicates that he's about to walk off and no longer listen to what my dad said. But when that foot raises up, then the right foot also raises up and both feet are hovering off the ground as my dad is communicating with him. Then he goes back to the ground.
The muffler turns off like it's a movie. I don't hear what was said, but I go back out the pit when I got to use the bathroom and Mark is suddenly the most amazing individual. He is the most helpful person I've ever met. He was like, can I help you get anything?
Is there anything? But what took place was my dad had explained to me, he said, he explained to me earlier in this story about how it's very important that I meet people where they are with regards to customers and communicating. Cause I was communicating to customers like I would communicate to my homies. He was like, you can't do that. You have to meet people where they are. But when the incident happened with Mark afterwards, he said, son, it's very important that you understand how to meet people where they are, but sometimes you got to let them know where you're from. So he literally walked me through that whole situation. And now looking back at it, when I wrote the book, I realized there's a lot of people probably right now, especially in the midst of this pandemic, you feel like you're in a pit, but you have a father who wants to take you out of that pit, who wants to protect you, who wants to make sure you're in the right place. You just have to be willing to do what it is he's called you to do, to walk in the purpose he has for you and just trust.
Sometimes it feels like it's worse at first, but as my dad says, currently, it may be worse at first, but it will get greater later. You just got to press on towards the mark. That is so good. Another one I loved and it connects to the father's sort of voice. I don't remember the guy's name that your buddy that had the nice cars that he sort of picked up from some friends.
That's a nice way to put it. My dad was the only dad in our neighborhood. Like he was the one and he used to, he would never buy me stuff. Like I mentioned, he would never just give me stuff. And my friend's parents will always just buy him stuff and give it to him. And I'm in high school and I was like, you never buy me anything.
Why don't you just buy me stuff? And he said to me, unfortunately, you're going to see what's going to happen to them one day. That's what he said. And I was like, I see what's happening to them. They're getting all the girls.
That's what's happening. They got the best clothes. They got gazelles and they got Kango hats. And I'm sitting here with this, some old, anyway. So one day when my friends rose up in a brand new car, Dwayne, it's a really nice car, really nice car. And Dwayne was the dude who always had the latest things. He was the first person in our neighborhood who had a pair of black tennis shoes. Black tennis shoes didn't exist until this dude showed up with a pair of black Reeboks.
They were so awesome. I never even heard of no black Reeboks before. So he's sitting here with these black Reeboks. I'm like, man, that is awesome. And he pulls up in a tee top Trans Am and I'm leaning over to Trans Am talking to him. And it is a brand new car. And he's like, hey man, you want to go to Kalamazoo with me? We'll pick up some girls. And I wanted to go.
This car is nice. And right before I get ready to think about getting in, I can hear my dad's voice say to me, you're going to see what's going to happen to him one day. Don't get too close to him. You better watch what you're doing. Watch your, and I hear his voice out of nowhere.
And for whatever reason, I was like, nah, man, I ain't going to go. And I had to go cut some grass instead because I had to cut the grass in the backyard, which is miserable because every time you pull the string, the thing never starts the first time. And then he pulls off burning rubber, like he all cool and stuff. And that's my boy.
And we were like best friends in high school. This dude takes off. I go cut grass.
I got to pull the string like 86 times, whatever. I finished cutting the grass. I'm sitting there and my dad comes home and he turns on the news. Like you always do. And we're sitting there and watching TV. And then there's some lady on the news reporting about an accident that took place on the one 30 month freeway. And I'm sitting here watching mad because I can't go nowhere.
I can't do anything. And they say it was a Trans Am and I'm like Trans Am. That's what my friend had. By the way, the Trans Am was stolen too, completely stolen. And I'm so now I'm kind of tuned in a little bit because it's a black and red Trans Am, just like Dwayne had. And my heart is kind of beating. Like, I know that it's probably not Dwayne.
It's probably not Dwayne. And then they showed a car wreck and they say that the car hit a pole doing over a hundred miles an hour. The driver was thrown out of the tee tops.
The car flipped four times and landed on top of the driver. And at this point, I'm like, please don't be doing, please don't be the way, please, please, please, please don't be. And then I remember the news lady saying, this is a Carol Jones or something signing off from the one 31 freeway. And my heart is just pounding, pounding, pounding because they never said a name. And then the last camera shot, I will never forget this.
The very last camera shot was on a black Reebok tennis shoe. And I was done. I knew it was him. I said to my dad, I was like, dad, it's him. Am I, we get in the car and we go to check on him.
But listen, I know, like I know, like I know, had I gotten a car with him, there's no way I was going to survive. But because for whatever reason, in that moment, I was able to hear my father's voice in the midst of some excitement and what seemed like it was going to be fun. I was able to hear my father's voice. There's people out there probably listening. There's a lot of excitement. There's a lot of fun. There's a lot of confusion.
There's pandemic talk. There's this, there's that. Can you be still for a moment and hear the father's voice before you make that choice? And if so, I think you'll have a pretty awesome story on the other side of it.
Yeah. And I think, you know, as I read that in your book and you just did it again, how you drive home the priority and the critical fact that you got to listen to the father's voice. I mean, I'm thinking there's a husband listening right now who's thinking about an affair or going to a website or signing a contract.
And he's been hearing the still small voice. Maybe it's a shout of the father saying, don't do it. You know, where this guy don't, I mean, you did not get in that car because of a, a nudge from your father's voice and saved your life.
This could save your marriage, could save your legacy. I don't know what God's saying. Just the fact you're listening to this broadcast and you're hearing a story that's God speaking and he's saying, don't do it.
Yeah. Don't get caught up in doing the math. If God says, don't do it and you don't even know why, like you can't even figure out why you wouldn't do it. Don't even try to figure out why. Like there's no, I did. First of all, I didn't even know Jesus when I was about to get in the car. I had no idea who God was.
None at all. I thought God was somebody that you bring up after somebody's needs. Like that's all I thought.
I didn't like just God bless you. So don't try to do the math on, well, if I don't do it, like God is saying, well, this will happen. This will happen. This will happen.
No, don't even do that math. Just trust and watch what takes place. Like whatever that thing is, walk away, walking away from that deal or just decide not to meet up with that person, whatever that is, listen to his voice and watch what will take place. Yeah. I'm sitting here beside, uh, my wife of 40 years because of the nudge of God telling me to walk away from a relationship with a girl I was going to marry in college. And I thought she was the one. And then God kept saying, Nope, Nope. And I kept saying, I don't care what you think.
I know better. And when I finally realized God is right, I mean, I would have never met you. We'd never be here. There wouldn't be a legacy. I wouldn't be in ministry.
I'd probably be a divorced man today, you know, with, uh, I would have copied what I saw in my own home. And again, that's how powerful God's voice is. He loves us. He has a better plan for us than we have. And it's just the fact of having the courage to say, I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to do what he calls me to do. The thing that has really struck me with both of you, with Michael, you and you, Dave, is the power of a dad's voice, the power of a father's voice. And then if you put a godly man with that, like your dad was a great man. And then if for you two men, Michael and Dave, and you put Jesus in your life, so you have the power of the Holy Spirit, it's like your super powers, you know, that's a great way to put it. You're such strong men that hear God's voice, the father's voice. And so that makes your voice in the home with your kids, with your wives in where you work. Like it's such a powerful voice.
And I think it's easy for us to feel like our voices don't really matter. Our kids are like whatever, but they really do have so much power and they have so much influence in your homes. I look at Dave and I've always been jealous. I've told him like, man, I'm jealous of the power that you have over our kids' lives. You talk and they're just like, oh, that's good, dad, where, you know, they kind of give me the eye roll thing when they were younger. Man, I just think it's important for men to hear the power that you carry. And then when you listen to God's voice on top of that, it's your superpower. It's the father speaking through some dads.
Yeah. And here, let me say this, too, in case somebody's listening, they're like, I don't know how to hear God's voice. You're hearing voices all the time.
You just don't know which one might be God. So there's three ways to know that it's God talking to you. Number one, it'll always line up with his word. Whatever that thing is, whatever you're supposed to do, it will always line up with his word.
Number two, it'll be confirmed with one or two other believers, like-minded people, not what's his name, not what's her name, some like-minded believers. And number three, you will feel a peace about it. If you've got those three things, jump and watch what God will do. Like for real, that's what I do. If I got those three things, I don't do any more math. There's no more math to do.
I just run and jump and do it. And you'll see in the book, there's some things that I've done that was really kind of out there. And looking back at it, it's because I had all of that, even though I didn't know the math on it, and I just jumped moving to New York. I moved to New York City on New Year's Eve night. I got off stage in Royal Oak, Michigan, Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle, got in my 1997 Chevy Lumina, started driving to New York City. All my possessions in my car, my car got stolen.
Everything about me was just gone all of a sudden. But God completely worked it out because I just jumped because I knew I heard his voice. Stop doing the math.
God's map is different. Yeah, and I just got to say, get Michael's book. Yeah, seriously.
Funny how life works. There's so many stories like this that have life changing truths. You got to read them. This would be a fun book to read with your family. Read it with your kids before bed.
One chapter a night. Your kids would love it. And the proceeds, I didn't mention this part, did I? All of the proceeds because there's so much stuff going on in the world, it's going to a black family in America.
Do you know who that family is? We have copies of Michael Jr.'s book, Funny How Life Works, available in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can go online at familylifetoday.com to get a copy, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the book is called Funny How Life Works, and it's about a lot more than comedy. It's about the purpose for your life and how to live out that purpose. Order it from us online at familylifetoday.com or call to order at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And again, as Michael mentioned, if you'd like to download his comedy special for free, we've got a link on our website at familylifetoday.com.
Go there, click the link and the comedy special is yours for free download. So check that out. I was on Amazon recently and was just checking out new books that are out, books on parenting, when I saw that in the top 10 books on parenting, I don't know if this is still the case, but when I looked at it, Dave and Ann Wilson's new book, No Perfect Parents, was the number one listing. I think it was like the audio book was number one, and then the hardback book was maybe number three, and the Kindle edition was somewhere in the top 10 as well. Three of the top 10 listings for new books on parenting belong to Dave and Ann, their book, No Perfect Parents. And this week we are offering that book to those of you who want to come alongside the ministry of family life and be part of what God is doing through this ministry, helping to effectively develop godly marriages and families. We think there has never been a time as critical, maybe in the history of our nation, for strengthening families than the time we're living in today. And family life today, our mission is to effectively develop godly marriages and families.
Godly marriages and families are countercultural in our day, and that's what we're all about. When you help advance the ministry of family life today, we want to say thank you by sending you Dave and Ann Wilson's new book, No Perfect Parents, either for yourself or you can give it to someone you know. All you have to do is make a donation online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY and request your copy of the book, No Perfect Parents. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now tomorrow, we're going to hear about an event that's happening next month that for a lot of guys, this is going to sound familiar because Ken Harrison's going to join us and we're going to hear about AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas and the 2021 Promise Keepers event that is happening in July.
You may want to start making plans for a little road trip with some guys. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Hope you can be with us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
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