NRB Chronicles- Benny DiChiara: His Life Changed in an Instant

So how fun always to be on the convention floor and see so many unique, amazing people that God's given a passion and has used it to build the kingdom and so I have Benny, is it pronounced D'chara? D'chara.

D'chara. Say it better. With empowered and so Benny, I'm going to let you tell our listeners a little bit about your story.

That's the best way to do it. You can hear he's got the voice for radio. So you know, it's just a beautiful thing is I'm going to be learning while they're learning. So tell me. Tell me about it, Benny.

Hey, Robert. Blessed to be with you today. Thanks for having me. Of course.

I'm here at NRB and sharing my story with a whole lot of people and that's a God thing, right? God is just opening doors. When he says to move, there's four things we should do. M-O-V-E. Just move.

People tell me all the time, they go, is it that simple? I'm like, yes, yes it is. So five and a half years ago, in October 2015, I had stayed up late to watch the news.

I was trying to make a decision. My wife came out of the bedroom at six thirty in the morning because I'd fallen asleep on a sofa. My alarm was going off on my phone. So as a man, I'm like, wow, I'm in trouble. I remember her extending the phone to me.

I have a twenty minute hole in my life that I can't recall a thing. So she tells the neurosurgeons, when I got over to the hardwood floor section of our living room and she extended the phone to me, I was completely horizontal. And so they're like, did he slip? Was he wearing socks? Was the floor wet?

Did he trip? And she's like, none of that. They said, well, how did he catch himself?

People catch themselves all the time. She says, none of that. Straight to the floor. The back of my head hit the floors and she said it sounded like a gunshot. So she said, then I did not lose consciousness, but I got on my hands and knees. I was crawling toward the recliner and she says, you need to come lie down. Well, in my previous life, I was a Navy Corpsman, which is a medic for those who don't know. And I'm laying in bed for about ten minutes. When my brain came back, you know, can I tell you when God and that was my B.C. life.

So when God brings us through experiences in our life, in the past, it is for his purpose. And that training for me came to its fruition while I was laying in the bed, going through a traumatic brain injury. And there was nausea in the room, spinning there. I told my wife, I said, this isn't right. Something's wrong.

We need to go. So we went to the hospital, MRIs, CT scans, ICU for observation. It was insane. So it was a couple of days. He released me home the first month at home. And I slept in a recliner for three months because I have to be elevated. To this day, I sleep with my head elevated. But 20 hours a day, I would sleep 20 hours a day. So my wife became a full time RN. Every three hours, meds, a little Powerade, a little ensure.

My average weight is like 198. I couldn't speak. I couldn't walk. There was a lot of doubt about if I was going to come out of it.

And if I did, would I ever be the same? And I'm up on the ceiling most of the time. It's just how God wired me. He miraculously touched my life and saved it.

Every time. I'm so in awe of that. As I was recovering in the second month of it, my wife, at that point, she could leave. I had a walker to get around the house with.

And she left. And for your listeners who know, they're going to relate to what I'm about to tell you. But Robin, as clearly as you hear my voice speaking to you, there was a male voice audible in my living room.

I'm on a recliner, right? I was frightened, but I was excited at the same time. Because I knew there could only be one voice. And he said to me, Benny, I have huge and great plans for you coming out of this thing.

So I did what any person would do. I cried like a baby until I fell asleep. And I woke up again about 11 o'clock at night.

This happened for several days. And the last day it happened, he's like, Benjamin, I'm telling you, I have huge and great plans for you coming out of this. So at this point, I'm together a little bit. And I'm like, Lord, I know what you're doing. Jeremiah 2911 is my favorite verse in the Bible. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans for a hope in the future. And I'm like, Lord, you're affirming me through my favorite verse. And he says to me, the next song you write for me will be titled Jeremiah 2911.

And this is what I want from it. What I did for you. Stepped into your life and saved it.

I can do for anybody if they just press into me. I released our new record, Three Days, and it's charting and on stations of everything. And God is just showing off.

It's incredible. So I'm sure like everybody else, I would love to know the lyric. To Jeremiah 2911?

One thing he specifically gave me on that was he didn't want to hear any of the verse in the song. And I was like, well, that's different, right? And you know what I'm finding?

There's two things that God has given me right now. And it's this. When I say move, there's only four things you should do.

M-O-V-E. Move. And I've said that to somebody before and I go, Lord, if I'm confused by what he's saying, I'm like, God is not the author of confusion. You're listening to the wrong guy.

Right? You're listening to Satan trying to sidetrack you from what God has. If God tells you and there's no confusion to it, it's from him.

You need to move. And the other thing he's given me, especially coming out of this pandemic year where everybody's faith has been supplanted by fear because that's the devil's number one tool. And, you know, for your listeners, false evidence appearing real is a real thing. But the Bible is more real than that.

So tap into that. And if you're unsure of how to read the Bible, just read what's in red and you've got it. Just as the words of Jesus and you've got it. But he's telling me to surrender the outcome. And I'm like, wow, Lord, what are you saying?

He's like, so here's the thing. If we believe the Bible is the living, breathing word of God, if we believe that God Almighty is the I am and he is, he's the beginning and the end. He's the creator of the universe, right? If we believe those things and we've read the book and more importantly read the last book of the book, the outcome, my friends, has been determined already. And it was done when Jesus came out of that tomb. That's where your eternity starts, right? So what are we hung up with in our lives if the outcome's been determined?

So if we surrender to that outcome, it frees us as individuals to use the giftings that he's given us to reach the world for Jesus because that's the purpose we were all designed for. Absolutely. So inside the lyric for Jeremiah 29-11? Yeah. Boy, you put me on the spot here because I did have a brain injury. So I'm trying to recall whatever. You don't know, but I've had several. Did you? I have a hole right here in my head.

Do you really? Oh yeah. And people that know my story are like, oh my goodness. So I'm with you in so many different ways. But the beauty of it is the audience is just patient as they can be.

They are as patient as they can be. I'll tell you what, the big part of the lyric in the song is like the first verse or two is from me, my perspective, right? But then God takes over and it is a direct from him type message. And in the middle of the song, rather than a big chorus or whatever, I was struggling because people go, how do you write music? And I'm like, well, I don't. I transcribe.

Holy Spirit gives it, I transcribe it. And so the big point of the song that he gave me in the middle of it is I cry for you, I died for you. And at that point I just broke down crying in the middle of the song.

And it points people to what he's done in their lives and everything. When we do shows, I had a young lady after a show one time come up and she says, can I talk to you about that Jeremiah song? I'm like, sure. And she's like, it wrecked me.

It's just in here. I'm sure it did because I'm sitting there just processing. He cried for me. Yeah, he cries for us. I understand he died. Right. But he does cry for us too. My dad had quintuple bypasses his whole life, all this stuff.

Last October, he got diagnosed with cancer. It was a nine day journey. Nine days. Dad and I had this discussion because I'm ordained. We had this discussion. I'm like, dad, not only are you going to the buffet table, you have a name tag. So I need you to tell me how you know where you're going. It's important. He says, I know where I'm going.

I'm like, not acceptable. I need you to tell me. So he's like, Jesus died for me. He rose again. I believe in that. That's how I get to heaven. I'm like, then it doesn't matter what the doctors are going to tell you because you're going to be immaculately and fully healed, dad. And I know I'll see you again. So nine days later, I mean, he passed. And God talked to me after that.

So in July, we're getting ready to go back in studio to cut a single. And God gave me a song for about my dad, but for people called I'll Meet You There. So it's not going to be a sad song about me singing about my dad. Because if you ask me if it's a horrible thing that my dad's passed, God, I love my dad. It's sad. God lost mine in two years.

Yeah, it's sad. He taught me what legacy meant. But there's a bigger joy than the pain because I know I'm going to sing it again, right? So the name of the song is going to be I'll Meet You There. And it's all about no matter what we go through in our lives, I mean, it doesn't have to be the loss of a parent or sibling or sister or spouse.

It can be the loss of a job, anything that's devastating one of your listeners, friends. God is in it. He knows everything before it even happens. This is a preordained moment that we would be interviewing today because he had that lined up eons ago, right?

I'm sold out for him. And when we're sold out for him, the joy of the Lord will supplant all of our fears, all of our hurts, all of our worries. Yeah, and what's really neat about what you're saying, Benny, if I just add this little side note that I happen to know that just comforts me in amazing ways. Because imagine there's a lot of people listening who've lost somebody like that and they can hardly wait. Of course, we get to see him, which, you know, is the one that cried for us. But when you look in Genesis, there's something kind of really unique that people never tell you is there.

But if you look at it, I think it's beautiful. And if you know the Hebrew aleph base, then it starts with an aleph. The middle of it is a mem, which means like Messiah when you hear that mama sound.

And then it ends with a tav, which is like the end of the story. So when Jesus said to John in Revelation, like you said, the end of the story, he said, I'm the aleph mem tav. He didn't just say, I'm the alpha and the omega, because Jesus didn't really speak Greek.

He might have. But I think to John, being the nice Jewish little boy he was, that he was speaking his native tongue. So if you look in Genesis, when it says God created the aleph tav heaven, and he created the aleph tav earth. So when you, wait a minute, there's words in there that I did not know, or letters that I did not know, or in the beginning, like this is the first book of the Bible, and right there he's telling you something. That he's the beginning, the middle, and the end of a spiritual world, because he made the heavens before he made the earth. And he's the beginning, middle, and the end of, and oh, by the way, the word is God, and God is the word, and so those letters are the same thing as him, because he's the word. And so the Bible itself, the Bible itself is Jesus. And so it's all, like you say, it's coming together.

That's right. And we are going to, you know, I've got to tell you, Benny, I'll be thinking about that verse all day long. Like, he cried for me, he died for me.

Amen. And wouldn't it be nice to know, wouldn't it be nice to know when he cried for me? Because I have a sense, there wouldn't be necessarily times that I, that would immediately come to mind.

What's your thought of that then? My thought of that, what God's given me for that, is when I make a mistake, he cries a little bit in pain for that, going, oh, my child, I didn't design you for that. When I have victories in my life, he cries tears of joy, because he's so happy for what I was designed for. We're so finite, God is infinite, right? We try to figure him out. I had someone at one time say, what if God's speaking to me, and I'm confused about it. God is not the God of confusion. You're listening to Satan, so stop it, and dial in, and like, get in the book, just get in the book.

And that's the whole thing. And you know, you can look around with things going on in the world, and Satan is desperate, which is why everything that's going on is going on. He's throwing the kitchen sink at the world. You know who he's targeting? He's targeting Christians. Right?

Because he doesn't have to target the world, he's got them. I think the way 2 Chronicles 7 says, if my people. That's right. And so here we are. Benny, I hate we're out of time. As always, we're out of time before we're out of show.

But that's a good thing. We're hungry for more, and so now I know Benny, and I will have him on again. I can assure you, this will not be the last time we hear. I appreciate it. Anytime. Thank you, Benny. God bless. God bless. Thank you.