Okay, we are back on Truth Talk Live! I'm Stu Everson, and is God in the process of pruning you? What is pruning?
Why does it have to be so painful? John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches. And everyone that is a part of the vine, he prunes to produce more fruit. And we have a gentleman on with us right now. He's a young man of God. He was on his way to be playing in the big leagues, smacking that ball out of the park.
And God had other plans, and now he's lighting up congregations. He is speaking to youth groups, to teams, colleges, and pros, and he has his own national podcast. It's called The Pruned Podcast. He is Ryan Shea. Ryan, man, it's good to have you with us, brother! Dude, thank you so much for having me on, sir. It's a pleasure.
Man, I tell you, you're encouraging me. I love your post on the IG. Friends, follow Ryan on the IG. Ryan Shea, follow the Truth Network. You'll see we post his podcast every week, sometimes twice a week.
The information is on Facebook, Instagram, all these different pages, and he's making it happen. Ryan, how did God take a guy who's just an aspiring athlete? You wanted to be, you know, you wanted to be the home run king in the MLB, to now you're, you know, traveling all around sharing Jesus.
Yeah, it's a funny story. I think most of the time, you know, when we think about calling and what you're supposed to do, what God wants you to do, a lot of us, you know, we think, okay, I'm gonna go into ministry now. It's kind of our decision. And as I look back on my life, really, God pulled me out completely from what I was doing and what I wanted in order to step into something new. And a reminder that I've always had is, you know, God's call oftentimes is something, the thing that you most do not want. It's the thing that when you're called to it, I mean, you're called to it regardless of how you feel, regardless of what you previously want or what you want in your own life. And I look back on my life, and by the grace of God, I'm doing what I'm doing today.
I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I always do miss and lace up the cleats. Man, well, but it's interesting how God had other plans for you. I've been studying the book of Jonah. You know, Jonah, God told Jonah to go. Jonah said no, he went the other way. And God used, it took God's will to get Jonah back into God's will. What would you say your wails were that God sent, or your winds, or your weather, or your willows, or your worms, all the w's you find in the book of Jonah?
Absolutely, yeah. A lot of things that I had to deal with was I actually succeeded at baseball for a really, really long time. So as you said at the beginning of the show, I was, I mean, everything was lining up for me to get drafted, to play in the pros, to make a living playing baseball. And I think those are the things where in my mind, you know, this started to get confirmed, like, okay, maybe this is what God wants me to do. I mean, when I'm seeing worldly success, maybe that's equating myself to actually doing what God wants me to do in my life. And as I started to continue to do those things, and they got bigger and bigger, all of a sudden, when the world shut down with COVID-19, all of that stuff fell away. And I'm reminded of the story of Jonah, like he said, where, you know, God will throw you in the ocean, you'll get swallowed by the whale, and his plan will come to pass.
And I think regardless of what happened, the Lord used something as crazy in all of our lives as COVID-19 to completely change the trajectory of my life. It's just so crazy to be able to even say this and this and that. But Ryan, how easy is it to get your identity connected to your performance and your success? Talk about that, and then kind of the shift that comes when all that's taken away.
Absolutely. Yeah, well, I'll say first upfront, man, shout out to my parents. Because any Travel Ball parent that's listening, they know growing up, I mean, it is a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of efforts being put into, you know, travel across the country and go to the city. the country and go to the tournament, go to the showcase, work out here.
It's a whole lot, as you said, in and out of season. But with that, it does come a change of sense of identity because you start to wrap yourself into who you are based upon what you do, right? I think a lot of times, you know, it's easier for non-athletes to do this because it's easier to not equate yourself to your job. But for athletes, yes, athletics is the job for them, but it also becomes a part of who they are.
I mean, 24-7, you're always eating a certain way, you're working out a certain way, who you hang around. Your class schedule at school is revolved around practice, so everything you do is centered upon this idea of you. So you are wrapped into your sport. And something that I struggled with myself was starting to think that, man, as long as I perform well, as long as I do well in the field, you know, that not only makes me a good person, but it makes me a good Christian. You know, like, God is more pleased in me when I perform better or do well.
And when everything fell apart, obviously, that came a lot of trials too. Because, okay, if I'm not succeeding, then maybe God doesn't love me anymore, right? Maybe I don't have worth, maybe my life doesn't have value because I'm not doing as well as I thought.
And, you know, going through college baseball, I played at Liberty University for two years, and just going through this whole, you know, trial, trying to figure out how to play, but also who I am in the long run, I quickly learned that you have to detach these things. Because ultimately, if you identify yourself in the practical things, you will probably identify yourself in the spiritual things as well. In other words, meaning, if I say who I am is based on what I do in sports, my career, my job, I will most often also say God's love for me is based on me. Like, it's up to me, I'm in charge of my salvation. And I think to really understand identity, you can't just separate it from practical, you have to say spiritual too. If I'm saved by grace, I can live in grace in everything that I do.
Wow. And if anyone wants to phone in with a testimony of what God had to do to get your attention, or what God did in your life, maybe God's will that helped bring you back to God's will, we'd love to hear from you at 866-34-TRUTH, toll-free 866-348-7884. You may want to chat with our special guest and give a word of encouragement to him as well. He's Ryan Shay.
He is the author of Pruned, a wonderful book, and also the host of the Pruned Podcast, which is an uplifting weekly podcast where he gets into these stories, he interviews some special guests, he does big-time collabs on social media with these folks just to point people to Jesus. I mean, at the end of the day, Ryan, what you said about, if I can just get my performance together, God will accept me, that's in the mind of, I would say a lot of Americans, a lot of people worldwide, that say, you know, one of these days, one of these days, I'll get my act together, and I'll get to church enough, and I'll read my Bible enough, that God will accept me, and then I'll be ready to follow God. Tell us the problem, tell us the damnable heresy with that kind of thinking, sir.
Yes, this is such a big problem. I was somewhere last week, I was traveling, and there was this question that was raised, and it's a room full of Christians, and the question is, hey, if you were to die today, like, how confident would you be you'd go into heaven, you know, one through ten, ten being super confident, one's not so sure, and if you look around at a room full of Christians, right, air quotes, I would say probably 45% of that number was, hey, I'm one through nine, I don't know, like, I'm not confident, I don't know what's going on, and the problem with that is, is that one through nine is still all up to you, right, whether you're a 10%, like, I'm definitely not gone, whether you're 90%, I'm like, oh, maybe I'm gonna go, that's still up to you, like, your salvation is still personal, it's still yourself, and it's still all rides on your performance, and the truth of the gospel is that it has nothing to do with you, it's never had anything to do with you, and the reality is, you have to believe first before you then receive the salvation, and I think we just, we've gotten to a point in American Christianity where, you know, there's this moralism floating around, where it's like, if I'm a believer in God, I'm a believer in country, and I just do all these manly things and patriotic things, and that's what a Christian looks like, and I don't think God's call is for us to man up as much as it is to man down, right? So at some point, you have to surrender your efforts and your strength and say, God, I can't do it except by your grace, and I think when you get to that point, you then understand that, yes, he has saved you by grace, it's a free gift of God, and if you call him the name Lord Jesus, right, you will be saved. That's a hard pill to swallow, but it's necessary to get into the kingdom. And sometimes you have to get, you mentioned the word down, you have to get to a pretty dark place, you have to get to a place of brokenness, Ryan, you have to get to a place where you come, literally, to the end of yourself before you can begin with God, and I guess that was real in your life, wasn't it?
Yeah, absolutely, that was exactly my story. To share a little bit just about myself, I mean, like it's been said, I was a baseball player in high school, was going to play baseball in college, COVID-19 hit, my baseball career kind of shattered, all of a sudden I want to now go into ministry, and I'm stuck at home, you know, just reading my Bible, it's COVID-19, we're not leaving anywhere, and so I'm just like pounding the scriptures, listening to verses and sermons and everything you can get your hands on, I'm all over it. And I get to college and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, yes, I'm a Christian, yes, I play baseball, I'm a Christian athlete, however, on top of that, the reason why I'm a Christian is because of all these things that I've done. I mean, God, look at my spiritual list of things that I've accomplished. I read the Bible, I pointed to the sky when I had home runs, like everything I do says I'm a Christian, and it's all up to me, right?
And I get to college, I'm away from my house, my family for the first time in my life, and I'm thrown in this environment of sin, and all of a sudden I realize, man, my desires are a lot worse than I thought they were, you know, like there's a part of me because of my sinful flesh that does crave the things that are not of God, and I found myself falling into these things time and time again, and I had to hit rock bottom, truthlessly, to get to the point where I'm like, not only do I know I need God's grace, but I am nothing without, like I have nothing to bring to the table, there's no part of me that's good, right, Romans 3 says, that no one is righteous, no, not one, verse 23, fall on the sword of the glory of God, and to really understand that I had to go through it and experience it to then understand my real needs to the Savior. We're going to come right back with his podcast. You're going to love to hear what inspires him to do this every week, his amazing book.
He went from hitting rockets out of the ballpark to hitting rock bottom. Ryan Shay's our special guest. Don't touch that dial, more with Ryan after this quick break.
Hang on. Truth Talk Live. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live, our last segment with a very, very special guest. He's got a powerful podcast.
Be sure you all download it. It's called Pruned with Ryan Shay, the Pruned Podcast. He's our special guest this hour, and our special thank you is a shout out to our friends at VineTastic if you are one of the 75 plus million people impacted by diabetes. You've got pre-diabetics, you've got folks that are diabetics.
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That's vine-tastic.com. We're grateful all of our partners, our affiliates and sponsors who help us carry this program, and Nick, our awesome producer making it happen for us today in the Truth Booth, Ryan Shea. What a testimony, man, and thank you for being so vulnerable and being so transparent. You get up there to talk to these athletes on the college level, the pro level, wherever you speak at churches. I've seen you speak at packed auditoriums. I've seen you speak at a little country church, but you open your heart to people and you share with them. They expect that they're going to hear from a guy who has it all together, who's got it licked and you've got it all figured out. But there's something powerful about how the grace of God meets you at your weakest point, Ryan. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Absolutely, it's so good. I've heard it said to never trust someone if they do not show you their limp. And I just think, you know, one of the things that the society that we live in around us has kind of cultivated is this idea that you have to have everything together, and you have to put on a front, and only if you do those things are you not only worthy of being listened to, but you have your life together.
And I'm not sure where this came from. That's not what the scripture says, right? James 5 16, confess your sins with another, say you may be healed. The prayers of a righteous person avail of much. Like there's an aspect of biblical counsel where you just, you have to be honest and real, man. And I think the more we can do that, we can connect with people in our weaknesses, because everyone can be impressed by your strengths, right?
Everyone's always in front with the things you do well, but only do you connect with people in your weakest moments. I think that's really where transformation happens. Well, I talk about how all of this has inspired you to really be a full-time minister of the gospel, and you're evangelizing, you're discipling, you're going, you're at the big Passion Conference over the weekend, you're preaching, you're speaking, you're doing this podcast. It's called Pruned, and that is a unique name. You've got a book by that same title. What inspired the concept of Pruned?
And tell us a little more about this book. Yeah, so the podcast is called Pruned. It's a discipleship podcast, really. A lot of the episodes are just formed about, you know, things that a Christian goes through in everyday life, like, you know, how do I handle suffering, how do I handle sin in my life, you know, why should I confess, all these big questions.
And then all the other episodes are with guests, like you mentioned before. So we have guests from around the country of all different types of backgrounds, you got speakers, pastors, Christian influencers, people that have been in the faith and have things to share about their own lives and how they've been pruned themselves. And really what the mainstream idea of the podcast is to understand that God is always in the business of shaping us more to his image, right? And that may come through good and bad, they may come through easy, hard, win, loss, but ultimately pruning should be something that in a weird way we should actually desire, right? The scripture says that those who he loves, he disciplines, and I think sometimes we think just because it's hard, maybe it's wrong, you know, if it's not easy, maybe it's not right, but ultimately God is trying to teach you something and show you how you can be more like him and bear more into his image, which is why ultimately pruning is a good thing. The book is called Abiding Living Life Abundantly, it is based from prune, it's a very similar idea, it's really just walking through the ideas, okay, what does a real relationship with Jesus look like, and as he's making me more into his image, what do I do and what do I play a part in doing more of that in my life? I love it. Ryan, the book, the podcast, you know, what's the best way folks can get a hold of these great resources?
Yeah, so the book you can find on all, you know, selling platforms, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the podcast, you get searched up on all streaming platforms, the prune podcast, the Ryan Shay, and then if you just google Ryan Shay, Ryan, or R-Y-A-N-Shay, S-H-I-E-H, there are some links and websites you can learn all about me, all about the books, and links to various platforms for the podcast or our YouTube channel. Ryan, a lot of people listening right now, driving around wherever they are, checking this out, whether they're listening live or listening to our podcast on demand at our Truth Podcast Network, they're stuck. They're just, it's, they're in a funk.
They're looking at a whole year ahead of them and they're like, what am I doing here? What's going on? Why am I suffering so much? Why did I just lose a family member over the holidays? Why, you know, why is someone else in my family sick all the time?
Why do I have all these toxic people in my life? Can you speak to people just dealing with just the roughness and the difficulties, the waves and the breaks of life? Yes, as we're, you know, as we're recording this, I know, as you said, there are a lot of people listening that are walking through valleys and storms and there's this question, you know, like, why am I going through this? Why is this happening?
Why haven't I gotten what I've received yet? All these kinds of ideas and questions. Um, and what I would say is to encourage all the listeners as we enter into this new year is maybe it's time to change your perspective. Okay. At the end of the day, uh, the Christian life is one of just daily saying, yes.
Okay. And to explain that, like, if I can wake up today, like Lord, give me this day, my daily bread, right? If I can wake up right now today, not worrying about tomorrow, not worrying about yesterday and say yes to the life that he's given me as a gift, whether that's good or that's bad, if I could receive that as a gift. And that means when suffering does come, it's just another opportunity for me to depend deeper on him. And when you look at life through that perspective, yes, it's easy to say yes to God when life is good, when you have everything you want, when you don't have it your way. And when you do not agree with the life that you've been given a lot, that's been placed in front of you, you now have a faith decision to make to say yes to that as well.
Right. It's easy to say yes, when you agree, it makes it a lot harder when it's not in your plan. And I think ultimately, as with the podcast, the idea that we're trying to put out there, we're trying to get people to think about is everything in your life is up for grabs that God will and can use to shape you more like him and to make you depend on him deeper. And if you could say yes to that, I can promise you, don't just take my word for it. Go read the scripture.
You will have your best life, not because it's the most prosperous or the most easy, but because you are the most dependent like him. And I think if you could view life through that lens, everything changes as you walk, not just into tomorrow, but into ultimately eternity. Wow, I love that. So encouraging, Ryan. You know, so many people, maybe like you, where they got stuck and they realized, man, this, you know, it's like the old saying, you know, I've climbed the top of the ladder just only to discover it's against the wrong building, you know?
They have misplaced their priorities and their values, and they've hurt a lot of people climbing up that ladder. So you found, you connected with God, you found this restored, renewed vision God gave you in the pruning process, which obviously is still going on. You have these limps, you have this really bizarre injury, and God got ahold of you.
You were killing it, literally, I mean, just hitting the ball hard and playing great ball as a high-level college baseball player, kind of meeting your dream, reaching that goal. And then at some point in that process, as God pruned you, as God got you back in his will, Ryan, he turns you outward to others. Can you talk about the mission field out there, and the mission field for believers looking out, and how important it is to get connected with God vertically in order to have this horizontal impact? So many people listening, there's so many people around them that need the grace of God to work through you to touch these people around you.
Can you talk about the importance, can you kind of mobilize our listeners just in these final, this final minute or so of the show? Yes, the first thing I would say is you have to be filled up in order to pour out, okay? So if you are not in the private space, like filling up with the Spirit, going to war with the demons, the practicalities around you that are trying to mess you up and steal, kill, and destroy your life, if you are not filling up, you will not be able to pour out, right? So this new year, I would make it a practice, a discipline, or a habit to make time for that and to fill yourself up with the Spirit of God so that you can then press out into everyone else around you. And so, everyone else around you. The second thing, more practical, is at some point, we just, we have to understand that our lives, as cliche as it sounds, like our lives are not about us. There's so many people that live this life. You may say it, you may hear it on the radio, you may even agree with it, but until you believe it, that your life is not about you, you will never see the need for other people to then need the grace of Jesus themselves. I mean, if you're a Bible-believing Christian listening, people are going to end up in one or two places, right?
That's the reality. Heaven with hell separated from God. And if you really believe the Scripture, when it says, I'm the way of the truth and the life, like you either believe it or you don't. If you believe that, then that means Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and the only way to eternal life. And if you can trust in that and put that in practice, when you start to live your life for the betterment of others, it's like, look, I have really good news and I've experienced it myself, so why would I withhold it from you, right? How much do I have to hate you to not share with you the good news, the key to eternal life of death on the cross from Jesus Christ? And if you could start to look at your life through the lens of evangelism, I'm telling you, it changes everything. As we enter into this new year, focus on trying to be healthy, eating better, working out, that's great.
That's really, really good. But my encouragement to everyone listening is what if your number one resolution this year was to have more evangelism in your life? Like, I'm going to tell anyone and everybody about Jesus, I don't care how weird it gets, I don't care how awkward it gets, because 500 million years from now, it's going to mean a whole lot that I made the decision to share about my faith and Jesus.
Wow, I love that. I just tweeted that, by the way, as you're talking, my chubby little fingers were tweeting, you've got to be filled up to be poured out. Friends, have you come to Christ, have you come to that well of grace to be filled up by him? And then are you going out like our friend Ryan is, all over the country he is? What about just at work, what about in your home, and just pouring out the good news of Jesus into others? Ryan, it's amazing, the more you give the Lord away and share him, the more excited you are.
Isn't it great how that works? What's your website? One more time, Ryan, so folks can learn more. You just Google Ryan Shay anywhere on Google, and you'll find me on all social media platforms and all websites. Awesome. Ryan Shay, The Prune Podcast with Ryan Shay, and get his book too. God bless you, my friend. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com
