Buzz Event – Bob Goff

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Well, hi, you guys. So, I’m Bob. It’s good to see you. I love it here. I am a lawyer. I was a pretty good lawyer. But I’m also getting this on the consul general for the Republic of Uganda. I’m not a U.S. diplomat to Uganda. I’m Uganda’s diplomat to the United States. I walk into the embassy. They’re like, where’s the Ugandan guy? Like, I’m the Ugandan guy. And if you come to my house, the flag of Uganda flies over my house. Isn’t that awesome? It looks like Germany got together with a peacock, but there it is. And you know what my house is? Looks like every other house on the block. But it’s not because of where the consul general lives and the flag of Uganda flies. It’s Uganda that crazy? If you guys ever screw up and need to seek asylum, see on Scott Street, the WikiLeaks guys are probably having lunch there. Let that sink in on you. And we fly under the banner of Christ, and it changes everything or changes nothing. It can’t just change a couple of things. And that’s what I spent a lot of time trying to do. And I’ll tell you, Jesus didn’t come and die on the cross, so you’d behave better. What he did is he came. So we fly the flag, and then he gives you people in your life to do life with and a reason to do it. You guys are noticing this Red Sox hat, you guys. I’m not a Red Sox fan. Never gone to a game. Could care less. My only sport is cheesecake. But my neighbor Carol was a huge Red Sox fan, and she got cancer. We knew she was going to be in heaven by the end of the week. And so she and I made a deal. I said, Carol, I’ll wear your Red Sox hat for the rest of my life and represent the Sox here on Earth. But in exchange, every time Jesus walks by you, you need to mention my name. There’s a version market that I knew you not like, Carol.

So I know why you’re doing what you’re doing. And then don’t be plainspoken about it. I think that’s what I like about Kentucky. You guys are just plainspoken. You’re not using £30 words to describe really beautiful ideas. This is my Bible. It’s from a guy named J.B. Phillips. It was the predecessor to all the living Bibles, the modern translations. Get this, J.B. Phillips was a youth pastor, and the only Bible at the time in England was King James. And none of the kids understood all the these and the hours. And so while he was in a bunker during World War Two, in there dropping the bombs, he decided, I’m going to write a Bible that people can understand. And it’s called the J.B. Phillips Modern English for Schools, and they put it in every school. Is that crazy? I think being plain-spoken is what God wants us to do. Here’s a there’s a verse in the song of songs, not at church. There’s another one. And it says this My beloved is mine, and I’m his. How much more plain can you get? That’s what God wants you to realize. And you got 27,373 days to figure it out. That’s about how many days you’ve got. That sounded like a big number to me till I had 23,000 in the rearview mirror I garnered. And he wants you to know this. And don’t take my word for it. It’s Simon Peter writing to his friends. It’s second Peter. One three. And he says this God has already given you. Anything that you need to lead beautiful, godly lives. You no need to be waiting by the mailbox for the next thing. He’s giving you everything that you need right now to lead them. And I’m learning it from the most unlikely places I teach at San Quentin Penitentiary. I was there the day before yesterday, and there was a guy there named Chris. Chris has got a problem. He doesn’t like prison food. He’s got a bigger problem he’s in for life. Do you know what Chris did? He let his friends know I like prison food, and they hope to come up with some other food.

Chris lets everybody know what he needs and he’s finding that God is providing everything that he needs to live this beautiful life. I asked Chris, What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever made in prison? He said, I made a cheesecake in my cell once. I’d like, Are you kidding me? I had him write it down for me yesterday. This is his recipe for how you make San Quentin cheesecake. Here’s what you do. You get five honey bugs. You got to steal those. He’s done worse, I. Then you need a cup of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. You can get that from Big Texas. He’s the guy that hooked him up. You need a cup of butter. And so he let all of his friends know what he needed, and they took the little square of butter off their tray. It’s kind of nasty, but they take it to D-block, and they give it to Chris. His case jury-rigged this little hotplate for his cup. So it’s like the surface of the sun. And he melts the butter in there, and mixes it with the torn-up sticky buns. There’s no, like, utensils because you’ll shank somebody. The next thing you need, cream cheese. And so there are some guys there. They get bagels and cream cheese. Seventeen of those little cream cheese shooters is two cups, and he mixes that in the last step. You need to chill it. And so he sends all of his friends from D BLOCK to get the ice out of their cups, and they run to sell it. He covers it in ice. He gives a slice to the guard. 

And I’m telling you, Chris is showing us what community can happen, like making our requests known to the people around us. What do you need? And then finding people to do some life with. I married a sweet Maria Goth. We could not be more different. This is sweet Maria. She. She and I are, like, so different. I get around you guys. I’m like, take her. I like people. She has what’s called severe social anxiety. She thinks having me in the room is a lot of people. We’ve been married for 35 years. We’ve gone out to dinner three times in 35 years. One of those was the Taco Bell. And here’s the deal. She just knows what she’s about is about me. It’s about the people we made, the people they married and the people they made. She has clarity about what she wants. She’s plain-spoken about it. She just knows who God wired her to be, and she’s living into that. When we got married, they said the two will become one. She thought we were going to become her. I go no. But here’s the deal. I’m not trying to be like her, and she’s not trying to be like me. We’re trying to be like Jesus. And we believe that God has already given us everything that we need to lead beautiful, godly lives. We believe that we are his. He is ours. And so you just bring your game. 

I know how to write books, so I write them. I just write lots of books. It’s so fun. On the last page of every book, I put my cell phone over. There are three and a half million people that have my cell phone number. You guys, I get 100 calls a day. It’s awesome. I can’t get a thing done. It’s terrific. And when I answer the phone and say, hello, people, go, Look, Bob, I call your father like Bob. When I say hello, I just answer every question that people have. And here’s the deal. People have sung all the Chris Tomlin songs. They’ve gone to all the Bible studies. They just want to know what the people that call me do not want to know. Is it for real? Yeah. And every time you show up, it is not just to say I’m here to like to do something for you, but where you show up and let your needs be known. That’s hard for me because I’m not perceived as a needy guy. But here’s the deal. I’m a needy guy. And you are, too. This is an intervention. This ain’t church. You’re needy. 

Have you met some difficult people in the world? Yeah, me too. You’re some of them. You’re just speaking the truth. Like, what I want us to do is to realize we’ve got these sharp edges that we got to bring to Jesus to say, Can you help me sort this thing out? I got a call from a sheik in Saudi Arabia. Like you ever spoken to a sheik? Yeah, he called up. He said, Will you come and build a school in our country? I might build your own school. You got all the oil? He said, But you want to come to my palace? I’m like, Yes. So I get to the palace, and his servants have servants. It’s nuts. And he said, you want a latte? I love lattes. You know, when they make a little design, and they say, Do you get those things? They make a little design in the froth. Well, this is the latte he made me. It has a picture of his balance I. Like, but he. You are so insecure. And then he took a tablespoon of 14 karat gold and put it. Or do you think you’re paying a lot at Starbucks? He put 14 karat gold on the top, and he said, If you drink the gold, it’ll make you look young again. I’m like, Liar. But what if we find the people around us, people like Chris, people who are hurting, people who’ve done wrong. People like us. People like me. And we give them a tablespoon or best. That’s what you heard from up here. At a time of crisis in a family, you hear a family of God pulling behind. That’s right. That’s who we are. That’s what we do. That’s a banner that we fly on. And if we figure out that we get everything right, it’s Naples, Florida. A couple of days ago, Ed and I were walking down the beach, and there were two guys helping their buddy ask the most important question he’ll ever ask anybody in his life. Check it out this way. They did. Will you marry me? And the reason I took a snapshot of that is that they could only help him ask the question. They couldn’t give the answer. And I think that’s our message. Like saying, My beloved, I’m yours, and you’re mine. Help people figure out the answer for themselves. We don’t need to do this. 

The big Simon Peter moment. Who do you say I am? And Simon? Peter said, Well, some people say you’re a teacher. And he was all of that. He said, Some people say you’re a prophet, and he was that, too. And then Simon, Peter said, I say, your God. You know what Jesus said, don’t tell anybody. Which is I was the minds of all my evangelical friends. Here’s the deal. Show people. Don’t tell them. Bring the ice. Get the sticky bonds. Bend a couple of rules. Like, do some things that. Are you going to get misunderstood? Heck, yeah. I mean, they killed Jesus. What’s a bad day for you? I get misunderstood all the time. 

Some of you are scratching your head right now. You don’t even know why you do what you do. I want you to do this experiment. If you’re able to lift up your right foot. You yoga people, don’t put it over your head. Show off. They so lift up your right foot. Now want you to go clockwise with it. All right, guys, that’s to the right. Now, while you keep going with your right foot, I want you to lift up your right hand and draw a six. Did your foot go backwards? I have no idea why that happens. They had lost to the rest of the service if you like. 

We don’t even know why we do what we do, but we can know a God who does. That’s the message of the Gospel of Christ, my beloved. You’re mine. I’m yours. That’s his message to us. It’s invitational. It’s come. It’s all about a bunch of information. Jesus was around for three years of public ministry. He asked 307 questions. He only answered three. Is that crazy? In three years? You moms out there, you get three a minute. Three questions. This is the first one he answered. It was so a lawyer like me. And the lawyer said, What’s the most important commandment? And he said, To love God with your heart and your soul and your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. The second question he answered, they said, We teach us how to pray. They said, I will, our father, and you know how the rest goes. The third time he answered a question. He said, So I hear you’re the king of the Jews. And he said, Yes, I am. I don’t think we have to have all the answers. I think what we need to do is ask the questions. We need to say, some of you identify with Jesus, but you haven’t asked the question like, what’s this really change in me if I’m here, if it’s really true that we fly under the banner of Christ? We’re not just being polite to Jesus, but we’re actually engaging. What would it look like to go all in and say, I want a lawyer? Obviously had a high rise law firm and all that, yet I walked into my own law firm, got everybody together, and I quit. I sat around, and people said, How come? And I said, I quit stuff on Thursdays. I quit my own law firm on Thursdays. You ladies are, you know, you’re an American. It’s hard. You need to hang in there. But girls, if you’re just dating the guy, break up with him. And when he asked, why say it’s Thursday? I quit stuff. I quit you. Some of you need to just know that you have permission to do the things you have permission for. 

We’re doing some stuff in the West Bank with Palestinians, people that don’t have an opportunity for an education. And we were over there last week, and I was going through Jerusalem because it’s, you know, it’s the run-up to Easter. And I was up at like four in the morning walking around the streets. And then Dawn broke, and I’m in front of this church where they plop a church on a site where they say, this is where Jesus was crucified and buried. So I went there, as you probably if you were the neighbor, he’d go, This is the sign that’s on the outside of the church. No explanations inside the church. I think that was for the tour guides, but I’m like, That’ll preach. What I think we need to do is show people who Christ is. The way that you show them is by doing stuff. Galatians 5:6. The only thing that matters is your faith expressed in love. And here’s the crazy thing. Jesus doesn’t need your help. I asked him before he came up here. What he wants is your hearts. He wants you to be his. He wants you to be his and for him to be yours. And what happens along the way? We just get distracted. We haven’t figured out who we are. 

We had to call these Russian nesting dolls until the invasion. Now, I call them Ukrainian nesting dolls. So in your face, Putin, like, I remember this when you were a kid. This is Bobby Goth happy guy, right? Would you guess that I’m pretty insecure? Yeah. I’m super insecure. I don’t mean last week. I mean, right now. That crazy like the guy this like whatever is insecure will you know this is what’s going on inside of Bobby Goff. When I was young, I had some crazy stuff happen to me. You probably had a little crazy happen to you. And I made up a story, my stories, everybody’s going to abandon me. And it wasn’t true, but it felt true. And I didn’t have the tools for that. And so what I did is I made up some rules in my life. What I decided I was going to do is that since everybody is going to leave me, I’m not going deep with anybody. Do you know why? Because of the story, everybody is going to leave me. Can some of you relate to that? And so then now I’m 20 years old, and I don’t have any friendships with anybody. I can’t get a date. I, I just won’t go deep. Do you know what I decided to be? I’ll just be the funny guy, so I’ll just make everybody laugh, and it won’t make me feel so insecure.

And so what we need to do, this whole idea of following Jesus is to figure out what’s the thing underneath the thing, underneath the thing, and to bring all of this brokenness to God to say, Will you be mine? Could I be yours? And so I just don’t want you guys afraid anymore. I just want you to live into whatever God has for you. And some of us medicate our insecurities in the craziest ways. Like, I’m like activity. I make coffee nervous. I’m just like, gah, just always on the move. We have a street not too far from us. And this is the street side. It’s an activity road. And sweet Maria said, Buddy, that’s where you live. Now, what I thought was I was just providing for my family. I was being a lawyer. I lived in San Diego, I worked in Seattle, and I flew there every morning and flew home for supper. Like I did that for 27 years. Like, you’re shaking your head. That’s just stupid. But what I ended up doing, this is my life. This is six weeks of my life. I had one of the interns take yarn like this is six weeks of my life. Like, that’s a dude that’s got a bunch of these issues going on in some of us in this room. You think you’re providing for your family, but you’re not providing what they need. They want you. It’d be easier to marry an ATM machine. You wouldn’t leave their socks out like I. What I want us to do is to just say what the thing is underneath the thing? And if we’ll take that courageous step. Well, knowing that God has given us everything that we need, He’s given us you guys, he’s given us these things and friends that can not, like, hold us accountable, but friends that will hold us close. 

They’ll tell us, as Jesus did. Peter, you didn’t say you’re such a wuss. What do you mean you don’t know me? Three times he said No, Peter, you’re a rock. He saw who Peter was. Turn it into. And I will tell you this. Jesus sees who you’re becoming. He doesn’t look at the old stuff. He wants to know who you’re turning into. 

And I guess I want you guys to be curious about the same thing I pulled into my driveway after all this crazy I was doing. And in this I, this is a woman who’s never raised her voice or said a crossword to me in the 38 years I’ve been loving her, the 35 she’s been loving me back. And this is in the front window of our house. Helpful added she wasn’t saying she needed help. She’s like, Dude, you need help. Because what I hadn’t done is brought all of this stuff to Jesus and I get the vibe. I’ve been here this morning. This is a safe place. Am I wrong? Have I misread the room? Are you really, like, out here to get me? Do I have reason to be insecure? Do I feel accepted here? I think I’m accepted.

And if we can walk in knowing that we’re accepted by God and accepted by each other, then we can, like, kind of keep it for real anymore. Like, we can actually talk about what’s going on in our life. We don’t have to just fake it all the time. We were driving through Texas. I love the names of cities. We’re driving through Texas. There is literally a city named Happy. Isn’t that awesome? Like, these are my people. So I took the offramp. It’s happy. And inside, there’s the happy center. This is where I’ve set up shop. Actually, there’s a drugstore over on the left there. Some of you are setting up shop there like you’re medicating, whatever it is that’s got you. You know what you want. You just don’t know how to get there. And I’m telling you, like, all these other solutions aren’t going to do it. It’s just you’re plain-spoken. It’s just Jesus, like, that’s your head. But it’s not like being polite to Jesus. It’s actually doing something about it. I was hungry, and he gave me something to drink or eat. I was thirsty, gave me something to drink. I was a stranger. I was creepy. And you invited me in. I was. I was naked. And you called me. I was in jail. And you came. That’s it. Hungry people, thirsty people, sick people, strange people, naked people, and people in jail. I carry little water bottles around in my car, and I pull over awesomely. Somebody like, Are you thirsty? Let’s say I have. Look at dude, have some water. And we say “dude” a lot in San Diego. Hey, there’s any of you been to In And Out Burger in California? I’m like, Oh, changed my life. That’s where I met Christ. I had a double double. I’m like, There is a God. I’ll get 50 hamburgers. I’ll just drive around and say, Are you hungry? And I say, I am. I’m like, Have a burger. We got a nude beach in La Hoya. I just stand at the top of a cliff and throw socks over. I’m not. Stop agreeing with Jesus. Do what he said to do. Hungry people, 30 people, sick people, strange people, naked people, and people in jail. I can’t think of one time in the Scriptures that he got all the disciples together and said, Guys, just agree with me, like Galatians 4. The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love. And what we need to do is bust through the things that are keeping us away.

I was on this kick of like the names of cities that I was in happy, and I found the name of another great city. It’s in Arizona. The name of this city is why it is Awesome. It’s 784 miles. There are a couple of shortcuts, but 784 miles, you got to make the trip from happy to why you got to figure out what it is because I want to be happy too. But to say why? Like, what’s the thing? What’s going to make you happy? I don’t know. Get $1,000,000 giveaway to like I don’t know what will make you happy. Let’s go figure out what that is so you can pursue it. I tried a bunch of different stuff, and I found out that it’s faith in Christ. That’s the thing that’s going to do for me. And it’s just. Just so I could sound like a religious person. I just go. I just bankrupt it out. Everything else. I tried being a lawyer, and it’s like, whatever. And I’ve tried some other stuff, and it’s like, whatever. I’m keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus. There’s something crazy about that. There’s a dog, I don’t want. Like, I don’t know, my wife got it. It’s a poodle. I’m so embarrassed to say it. It’s, like, older than it just won’t die. And this dog, its whole world is this blue ball you got. Who’s got a dog like that? Like their whole world. Yeah, you know, but your dog is probably good, and mine is just mean, like a rattlesnake. And everywhere, wherever I take that ball, it’s like, do I throw it in the fireplace and like, fetch, like he will throw one. I put everything else aside and kept my eyes fixed on Jesus. And that means just getting undistracted by some of the crazy that’s happened around you. And it won’t be the things that we say. It’ll be what we do. 

I’ve got a friend who’s the voice of Disney. Is that a great gig, or what they do every time there’s a parade? It’s like his voice. He’s like, It’s time for the parade. And then I guess he goes home short workweek. In every Disney movie, the trailer like coming soon. It’s his voice. This is what his card says. It says this, and people believe what I tell them. I’m like, Oh, that’ll preach. And people will believe what you say when they see what you do. I think that’s we’re right back to the Simon Peter moment. Don’t tell anybody. Show on. Quit inviting people to church. Welcome them when they get here because there’s a difference between getting invited and getting welcomed. Right. You get invited. Be like, we’re so glad you’re here because there’s somebody that just thinks about something different than you do. Guys, have you ever gone through the day in your untucked shirt? Is like one but not. Come on, admit it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all your colors like that. You don’t know. Yeah. And I think I met some people with their faith. They’re just theologies. Are Butner two off? Yeah. And here’s the deal. These are the ones that point me towards Christ because what I do is I go to the authoritative word of God, and I just say, What does Jesus have to say about that?

I don’t have quiet times. I haven’t had a quiet time in 25 years. What I do is I’ll take everything I’ve heard from you guys, and I’ll check it against Scripture. That’s what Paul said to do. Check everything against Scripture or write down those stories about a man who stood here in front of all of you to say, Now, I’ve had gone through some dark times, and you were here. I want to write that stuff down. I want to hover over that a little bit. What’s it feel like to be in a community? It feels like God has given him everything that he needed to lead a beautiful, godly life. And I just need to know that you and I or the people around us and what it takes, it’s just taken an interest in people. Here’s Paul talking about his buddy Timothy behind his back. Check it out. This really said, I don’t have anybody like Timothy. He’s a guy who takes a genuine interest in the people around him. Boy, let that be said of you. I was. 

There are some guys in Washington, DC, that are getting along. Have you noticed? Well, they were. There are some of these folks we’re trying to iron something out. And they said, Will you come back and sit with us? And I said, like, I’m just apolitical. I’m just like not involved in any of that stuff. And so he said he had an airplane. I’m like, all right, well, I thought we were going to land at Dulles. The plane turns, and we land at this airbase in Virginia. And like, what the heck? I get off the plane. You guys, this is where they put the creepy cameras in the airplane. The spy flights are like, who are you, people? Then he says, You want me to blow your mind off? Like, Buddy, I got nothing left. And he opens this big hangar door. Inside is the original Air Force One. He’s rebuilding it just because he can, like you got too much cash. So what? We’re sitting around this table, and these guys are arguing with each other about something, and I’m kind of vegging out on it’s like, and the guy next to me elbows me, and he shows me his cell phone, and there’s a text message. It’s from a guy named Greg Murtha. And the text message says, Do you know who Bob Goff is? I like that it’s awesome. And he texted back, and he said he’s sitting right next to me, and 2 minutes later, dings again, it’s Greg. And he said, Will you ask Bob if I’ll write the foreword to my book? 

Here’s the deal about Greg. He got cancer. He’d been through 100 rounds of chemotherapy, literally on his deathbed. And I mean, there’s only one answer to that. If you say no, a trap door opens, you go straight to hell, like it really just gone. So I said, you know, I’d be so honored to write the foreword, your book. Here’s the problem. I’d only met Greg one time, and Greg passed. He started his chance with Carroll and Jesus the next day, and I went around for the next month talking to all of his friends. I said, Tell me about Greg Murtha into the last person. You know what they said? He was a guy who took a genuine interest in the people around him. Boy, let that be said of us. I’ve already heard that said of you. I want that to be said of us. 

God gives us everything we need, and He gives us each other. I want to start acting like that by not just bringing the shiny things, but to bring this stuff to each other to get real with somebody. I mean, this church is full of stuff. These guys can be run in small countries, but they just want to find you. And it’s not just the staff, and it’s you guys. You’re the ones, too. It was four years ago outside of Detroit, and there’s a trucker going down the highway and he sees a kid on an overpass, and it looks like he’s going to jump. And the trucker knew that this was an irreversible decision. And I’m sure he had places to go and things to do. But you know what he did? He called every trucker going in his direction, and said where the kid was and what was about to happen. He didn’t stop there. He called every trucker going in the opposite direction, and said what was going down. And somebody was going to make a mistake. And we could fix it. And this is what happened next. Every single truck stopped. That’s the church people. That’s you. We let people know that if you fall, you’re not going to fall far. You’re going to fall right into the arms of Jesus expressed through your arms. And I think if we get that part right, we just kind of get everything. We just need a new vantage point on this. 

I’m going to read you five poems and it’s going to make sense as we go. Let’s do the first one here. I walk down the street, there’s a hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I’m lost. I’m helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to get out. Second poem. I walk down the same street. There’s a hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. Here’s number three or five. I walk down the same street. There’s a hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately. Here’s four or five. I walk down the same street. There’s a hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Here’s five of five. I walk down a different street. The church is a different street. And what we need to do is for people like me, people like you, people that are your neighbors, we need to let them know that this is a safe place to get real in. The way that we do that is to just to get real ourselves, to just take all of this stuff and just say, like, God, can you make something beautiful out of this? And we’ve all had tragedies that have happened. We’ve had these setbacks that have happened and want to get real with and say, did you make up a story to explain what your emotions did, know how to deal with, maybe messed up in the bad guys, maybe we’re looking at something you shouldn’t have looked at? Ladies, maybe you’re like sending messages to somebody you shouldn’t be sending messages or swapping them with. And on your very worst day with your biggest screw-up, you don’t want anybody to know about. Do you know what Jesus calls you? He calls you beloved. That’s right. He’s yours. You’re his. 

I want us to act like he’s given us everything that we need to lead these beautiful lives. I live nine months of the year in San Diego with Sweet Maria. The other three months of the year, we live at the end of an inlet in Canada. Well, our nearest neighbor is 10,000 square miles away. I spent 20 years building a lodge up there. We bring good guys and bad guys and undecided. After Kosovo, the war, they said, we’re our own sovereign nation. We brought Kosovo’s leadership up there. I didn’t do that. Only I invited Serbia, Albania, and Macedonia as leadership, too. I didn’t tell anybody who was coming. They were so mad. I’d like to me, like there’s something beautiful about creating safe places, inviting people. After 22 years of building this thing, it was time to put one last coat of stain on the place. I hired eight guys to go up for two months to put stain on this place. They were there for two days and on the second day they took all their oily rags. They put them together. It spontaneously combusted. Burn it to the ground. You guys, everything was gone. We’ve signed 35 peace agreements up there. Everything disappeared. And Maria and I were just shattered. I don’t know what it was burned down for. You may not have been a house, but it was a relationship. It was a hope. It was a career. It was a kid. It was something. And it all burned down. Sweet Maria and I were standing on the edge of this place. And. And it just. 12 hours later. Look in a word, all disappear. And there was a really well-intentioned woman that I think was still working on her people skills a little bit. And she said the reason God burned down your home is he wanted to show you his power. I mean, I wanted to scissor kick her in the neck and. Had I seen a ladybug in bed while you didn’t need to burn down my home? But I think what God does is he’ll burn down things, so we’ll realize our utter dependence on him.

This was Marie giving me permission to share this with you is a really hard thing for me, but it really flayed her. A person that’s lived a very quiet life, and we went to counseling together, and the counselor asked her what was the worst part about the lodge burning down? And she said it was the only place in the world that I felt safe. And we weren’t talking about the lodge anymore. We were talking about a guy 40 years ago that did something horrific to her, and he’s dead now. But if he wasn’t, I dig him up and kill him again. But I love Maria. No, man, if they took our lodge burning down for you to get real with what was going on in your life, then I would have lit the match myself. God will burn down whatever it takes to let you know that you’re his and he’s yours. And what I want to do if he’s doing The Burning Man. This is a safe place to be. This is a place of acceptance and love. It’s a place where we can connect with one another. We just need to keep it real. Maria won’t fly that way in and out of the space. There’s no roads. And so the only way in and out of this place is a beaver seaplane. You know, those planes to take off and land on the water. And so she doesn’t think I’m a very good pilot, so she won’t go with me. But every year on our anniversary, we take one trip together, and we’ll fly it to a lake somewhere and have a soda pop, and we fly back and dock the plane on the water. And at the time she got out, she left a note behind. It said, Meet me at the cabin. I’m good. Yes, it’s a run into the cabin. I’m like, this is going to be awesome. And you know what she done, you guys? She saved her wedding dress for 32 years, and she still fit it. And we duct tape me into a tuxedo and we renewed our vows, and I’m emotionally incontinent, which is really a problem.

If you’re a trial lawyer, all I could get out is beloved. I’m yours in your mind. I just couldn’t, you just let that wash over you this morning? I don’t know what burned down. I don’t know what is felt so wrong in your life. But he’s yours. You’re his. And I want us to live into that with that kind of freedom, that the kind of acceptance that I felt here. I have to close with this. We got one thing up in Canada that you don’t have a lot of here in Kentucky, and it’s sea otters. They’re everywhere. They’re like Priuses. They’re everywhere you go. And the thing about sea otters is they all hold hands. You know why? They don’t want anybody to drift away? People. That’s the church. We grab a shoulder or a hand or whatever is not creepy here. I want in on this. Come on, grab something next year. We’re there. We’re the family. A God. We get to do this stuff. Let me pray for us. Jesus, you’ve been eavesdropping on this morning. You’ve been is dropping on our life. You’ve had the guts and the grit not to just agree with you, but to, like, take this love into action to realize that you are ours and we are yours. And that’s it in your strong name. Amen.