Dallas Car Ride with a Digital Missionary

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio. We are all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few minutes.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. Savvy social media technology guys that I've ever met. How about you, Rashawn? Yes, absolutely.

Literally. I've never met a tech giant like our brother John. For the kingdom. For the kingdom.

For the kingdom. And Rashawn, we see these great videos, we see these posts, we see hashtags, we see iterations of the gospel being proclaimed on all kinds of platforms, and that's possible, made possible by guys that God's brought to himself, like John who's sitting in the back seat on this expressway. I've never done a show from my car on the expressway in Dallas, Texas. It's kind of fun, isn't it? And we're right in the heart of downtown, cool fact right now. Beautiful downtown, and yeah, this is great that you're doing it now.

How about that? So John, welcome to Truth Talk, man. I'm going to hand you the phone, and I want you to tell your story. How'd you come to know Jesus as your savior before you became, well, you were always in tech even before you got saved, I think, but tell us your journey to Christ. Thank you, brother.

I appreciate it still. Yeah, no, it's, I usually like to be behind the camera as opposed to in front of the camera here since, well, I'm in technology, brother, but yeah, no, I would say I grew up in a Pentecostal home, so I've been knowing, I got to know the word at a young age. We went to a Christian school when I was little, and honestly, it's like when I started getting into technology, when, even when I was a teenager, it was, you know, I just got obsessed with technology at 14.

I started, started building things, and I saw my family when I was younger. It'd just be, my parents were big info, like reached a lot of people for Christ, very involved in the church, and then I saw there was a falling out with a pastor, and it was just a bad financial situation on his part, and you know, I saw our family get broken. I saw us, you know, grow very distant from God. We were in a spot where, you know, I just, we lost our community, we lost our church, we lost our church home, and we went to every denomination, like all the different denominations.

We were hopping around and trying to find a church home. Never really did, and I saw my parents started, we went from being genuine Christians living that life, and I saw a lot of hypocrisy at that point, and you know, eventually my parents got a divorce, and I saw the, uh, just the brokenness of, of that, because just knowing that that's now looking back and knowing that it's just not how God designed it. So, you know, I saw, like, my brother got into drugs, I, you know, I got into technology, so it's that. So I went to a tech school, and I was one of those people where it's, I would say, everybody, you know, everybody's got a path, it's like everybody can believe what they want to believe, and I was, I would say, you know, if you asked me, I would say, oh, I believed in God, I believed in this, but you know, I never really thought deep into it, I never really was, it wasn't a part of my life, it wasn't part of my identity. By the time I graduated, I ended up being, you know, I started building my own company, and, you know, I moved down to Florida, and, you know, I was in my, say, early to mid, I was mid-20s when I, uh, I started, my company had gotten very successful, I had everything that the world would say was important, I had a mansion on a peninsula, I had, you know, cars, whatever, whatever you'd think would be important, it's like we were throwing parties every weekend, and I was the most impoverished person, my soul was just destroyed, I was not, to understand spiritual poverty is to understand where I was at, when the world was saying that, you know, I had everything that the world values, and, you know, when you get to that, that point, it really, it really hits you, you get to realize how little and how, just how, how much of a lie it all is, just the lie of the world, the lie the enemy tells each of us, it's like that, you know, we, you know, at that point, I had my girlfriend who had not grown up ever in a church, and she, we were living together, I, I told her to move in, so, so, I had two children out of wedlock, so it's, uh, you know, we ended up, I had my aunt and uncle came to town, and they wanted to go to church, wanted me to go to church with them, so, they invited me to church, first time, went, it was like, I was like, I was not really happy, I was like, this is my Sunday, I don't really want to, uh, it's my one day off, I'm working non-stop, I'm like, yo, it's like, I had every excuse to book, but I was like, you know what, I respect them, it's like, you know, all their kids, they have 11 kids, which is a story upon itself, and, uh, I just saw, like, the godly characteristics of the, their kids, you know, then next time they came to visit, they invited us again, and my girlfriend at the time decided that she wanted to keep going to church, I, uh, I, uh, I didn't, so, I told her, um, you know, she could do whatever she wants to do, it's like, it's, uh, it's up to her, so, she started going to church, and eventually she started, it was at Calvary Chapel on Sarasota, and then eventually she started going to biblical counseling, and me and her were a mess, I mean, we used to fight, like, we were just horrible to each other, I remember we got in a big fight, and, which was pretty common for us, it was like, you know, I think our friends at the time probably would have given us a five percent chance of surviving, like, together, like, uh, I mean, you know, she, um, you get in a big fight and she responds differently, and I remember at that point I was like, I was like, oh, this is, uh, I think I was right in this one, so, I felt like I won the argument there, it's like, I felt pretty good about myself, then, like, a few days later we get in another fight and she responds differently again, and I remember for a second there, when she responded differently, and like, with grace, it was just something different, and I'm like, yo, and I remember at that point, I'm like, am I the one that's wrong? Am I, like, uh, is, like, just, you know, I, I always was the one that was helping people and fixing people, and I didn't need help myself, right? So, I remember she was, uh, yes, then, uh, I quickly dismissed that, then, um, a little bit later she ended up, just a couple, couple more days passed, and we ended up getting a fight again, and I'm like, as, as you can tell, this is a pretty consistent thing for us at the time, I don't think anybody would have thought we would have made it, and we would have four wonderful kids today, and an incredible, incredible life under God, but, um, yeah, so, she responds differently again, and at this point I'm like, I think I need some of this church stuff that you got going, so, so I, uh, so I start, uh, so I start going to church, so eventually I end up joining her in biblical counseling, and these poor people, they were volunteering their time, and just all they would do is they'd bring it to the Bible.

They did say, I remember, they said, yeah, we're going to go through X amount of sessions, like 10 sessions, or something like that, they're like, this isn't like a psychiatrist, they said, you will work through this, you will be, you'll be a different person when you get out of this thing, and I didn't understand that, because, like, yo, I, I'd been a counselor before, it's like, yeah, the idea that, like, yo, work a couple years, you just start getting to the root of it, then, like, you know, you figure out somebody you're going to blame, and then, uh, that all, all gets solved, right? But this biblical counseling concept was a little different, but I just thought I was going to argue with these people, so I was like, I wanted to tell them why the Bible was wrong, I wanted to tell them that they hated gay people, they didn't like, which ultimately, it's like, I think the, I just didn't want to have to get married myself, it's like, uh, in my own, if I'm going to be honest, my own fear at the time, so, you know, it was, uh, had nothing to do with that, that it was just my own fear and condemnation, you know, so we started going back and forth, and just, they just kept pointing me the word, they volunteered in their time, and it was about the seventh session, and I looked over, my, my wife is just, uh, over with my girlfriend at the time, you know, she's crying, and she says, I just want to be the person that he wants me to be, and it was at that moment that I realized that here is the person that I love most in this world, and if I could hurt the person I love most in this world, when I think I'm helping her, then I'm not the person that could fix her, and I need to be fixed myself, I just realized there that I needed God, and I needed to be fixed, I realized that I was the one that was broken, and it was at that moment I realized just that the Holy Spirit overcame me, it's, uh, you know, it was unbelievable, I can't even describe the, the, the feeling of when the Holy Spirit just, and just, I accepted Christ, that's when I truly knew what it meant to be a Christian in that moment, so. That's the testimony of John, this is true thought, I'm Stu in the car with my buddy who's driving, Ray Sean, and we're tearing up here in this testimony, don't we brother? Man, it's so powerful, from, from A to Z, God knew exactly what he was doing, and then through our brother John, man. And now John, you're using technology to reach people with the good news of Jesus, just 20 seconds on why that's so important, just challenge everyone as we get out of here. Yeah, no, I appreciate it Stu, it's, uh, yeah, the, there's nothing that's been more impactful in my life than Christ, and it's not a self-help thing, Christ has literally changed my heart, and to understand that and to see how he is the only solution to a broken world, I mean, how could I not?

How could I watch people, you know, if somebody was going to drive off a cliff, I'm going to tell them no, don't, and that's a, that's what I look at this, it's a, to understand just the brokenness that is in this world, because it is filled with brokenness, there's a solution to that brokenness, and it's a solution that it's unlike, it's, it's what we were designed for, and that's the cool, incredible thing, and I mean, there's, there's no more worthy task. Praise the Lord. Amen. Praise God. Truth Talks, Stu Everson, thank you John, use your skills in technology, cooking, sports, whatever it is, social media influence, parenting, that's it, to bring people to Jesus, that's why we're still here, amen? Amen. Glory, adios. This is the Truth Network.