Eli Carpenter Part 2

In Episode 1 "On the Road to Destruction", we saw how Eli’s life was a road of destruction filled with anger, addiction and crime that led to Eli’s incarceration. In this episode we’ll see how God has Eli "Under Construction" and how God is growing, maturing and healing Eli and making him the man God always intended him to be.

Eli starts to share How God walked him out of addiction to Drugs, Pornography, Anger. We see how God put the pieces in place for Ely’s life to change. From men who engaged Eli while he was in prison and took him to church, to the men who engaged with him starting a bible study and connecting him to a Pure Desire class.

Eli found a church where the Bible was preached and it started to make sense to him. Celebrating almost 3 years of being drug free. Eli is thankful to have broken Satan’s grip on his life. God let Eli get to the point that he was ready to surrender. At the moment he surrendered, the solution was there waiting got him. Eli says that since he has gotten around a group of men who have struggled with the same things, he’s found victory over the things that have dominated him in his life.

“The things that I have struggled with all my life, they keep me on my knees man.”

Eli has found that when he joins with God first, then other men in community, God provides healing.

Now Eli is learning to manage not just the external things in his life, but also the things happening inside. He’s learning to understand his emotions and manage what he’s feeling.

Performance

Eli realizes that after having to perform for his mom, probation officers, and everyone else in his life, he was trying to perform for God. He’s tempted to believe that he has to go to meetings, he has to… he has to… because it’s expected of him. He thinks that if he doesn’t do all these things, that he’ll end up back where he was. Now he’s learning to feel content. He’s starting to experience God’s grace and mercy.

While Eli has been striving to get his needs filled. He’s been striving to find contentment in the things of this world. Now he’s finding that all his needs are being met by and in Jesus. As he’s learning to give up performance, he’s finding contentment and peace in Christ.

The hard part of being in a community is finding it. Eli talks about having to invite himself to parties and events. He had to reach out and be a friend in order to have friends. Eli has now found people that he can call real friends. Eli is now giving from himself to his friends rather than giving what he had stolen. His friends are giving back happily when they didn’t before. His new friends draw closer to him when Eli’s struggling rather than abandon him like they did before.

Eli is learning, that Life with Christ is not easy. But its far more fulfilling than he has ever experienced or imagined.

Eli was a middle child raised by a single mother. He didn’t know his dad early on, except what his mom shared about some of the stories of fear and abuse. He was angry as a child and didn’t know why. “I don’t know where it came from, but as a young man, I had a lot of rage” He spent much of his youth in different types of treatment and detention.

As a child Eli was out of control, this led to diagnosis like Bipolar, ADHA, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder… “I was conditioned/ trained to believe that if there is something wrong with me that I could just take something and fix it.” At 11 Eli smoked pot and drank alcohol for the first time. This just escalated until, in the middle of a multiple day drug bender, Eli overdosed at age 13.

By age 15, Eli was selling and using drugs. A semester before he graduated High School, he dropped out. His plan was to spend the rest of his life selling and smoking dope. Two weeks later he was arrested for class 3 felony burglary. This pattern continued. Eli now believed drugs were the problem. “I believed that if I could just stop using the drugs, everything else in my life would be ok.”

But Eli couldn’t and didn’t stop. Repeated interactions with authorities and the Law led Eli to being sentenced and incarcerated for 5-10 years. Even in prison, Eli found a way to get high and stay high. But that meant a lot of time in solitary confinement. It wasn’t until towards the end of Eli’s incarceration, that he finally did something he had never done before. That was when the trajectory of his life changed.

Through all this story, Eli looks back and can see how God was using key people in his life to continue to work on Eli.

“I used to go to any length to stay high, now I go to any lengths to stay clean.” - Eli

In the middle of the trial, remember that God has a plan for you.

In Part 2 of Adam’s story, Adam is learning to surrender and let God be Sovereign. Even when he can’t see the outcome.

Adam has been learning patience through the trials he’s gone through. God started to “equip” Adam daily to be a better parent as he learns to remember that his boys are an answer to prayer in the moments, knowing that God has a plan for them just like God has had a plan for Adam. So Adam is learning to be better so he can lead his boys to be prepared for the plan God has for them.

One of the ways Adam is learning to equip his boys is by openly modeling his relationship with God. Early in the boys’ life, Adam talks about having a relationship with God, but not letting Him be sovereign. He enjoyed having God as a best friend, but God still let him struggle since Adam was still running his life his own way. “I wanted to get to know him (in a relational way), but I didn’t want him messing with my stuff.”

Adam discusses, as the boys got older, what it was like to blur the traditional family roles. His wife was the alpha earner in the family, and her schedule led to Adam being the primary homemaker and parent. This created a lot of stress in the relationship. A good portion of the stress and friction centered around expectations, unspoken and unmet.

One of the places Adam felt like he failed was when an experience in his wife’s life appears to cause a separation between his wife and God. She stopped attending church, would sit in on family prayer time, but not participate. The divide eventually spread to their marriage. Now in the middle of a divorce, Adam is faced with the idea that this is his failure too.

Looking back and seeing how God has shown up and taken care of Adam and his family, helps him trust that God has this moment too. Adam is learning to be patient and wait. But, while Adam waits, he’s learning that God has work elsewhere for him to do.

Just because God has me in this moment, doesn’t mean I won’t feel this pain. It means that God will redeem this pain. He’ll make this into something valuable.

“You can make it through this, but get a spotter” Reach out to God and reach out to a Christian friend, someone so you don’t break.

Who is God to Adam? “My King, My Father, who allows me the freedom to make my own mistakes and then helps me deal with the fallout in a way that allows me to learn and to grow and to become better.”

Gratitude Patience Equipping Trust Divorce

This is the first in a two part story. We’ll walk with Adam through his formative years as he learns to trust God. In the second episode we’ll hear how Adam is in the middle of putting that trust into action in the middle of the storm.

Adam grew up in a close family working in agriculture in Kansas. His family was active in his Lutheran church growing up. While very active in the church as a child as he grew up, it became less meaningful.

Were there times that he needed God to show up as a kid? At age 9, Adam had an infection that his body’s autoimmune response was to kill the pancreas. This resulted in diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. He had to learn to live with this new condition at a time when we knew a whole lot less about it than we do now. He had to learn to give himself shots, to keep snacks around. He began to think that this medical condition was a punishment for something he had done; or maybe God wasn’t as real as the religion he grew up in wanted him to believe God was. This allowed bitterness and resentment to creep in.

The distance between Adam and God grew. Eventually, Adam felt so worn down, that he found himself looking for ways to end his life in a way that would not look like suicide. In the midst of his multiple ineffective attempts that God clearly communicated that God was not done with Adam yet. And that Adam was not to try and do God’s job. This experience helped Adam get through confirmation in his church and confirming what he believed about God.

God continued through Adam’s life to reaffirm that God was not done with him yet. A theme in Adam’s life began to develop. God was watching over Adam and repeating, “You can’t do this on your own, but I’ve got you.”

Fast forward, at age 21, Adam was married and wanted to fulfill his dream of being a father. Struggling to have kids, Adam found out through a fertility clinic that he would not ever have kids. His wife divorced him as she wanted to have a family and wanted to do that with someone else. This led Adam down a self destructive road apart from God. Even though Adam wasn’t giving God a second thought, Looking back, Adam realized that God was walking through him with this. Four years later, engaged to a woman who was not able to have kids, found out they were expecting their first son. Just over a year later, their second son arrived. God was blessing Adam, even though Adam was not walking with, talking to, or even thinking about God. God answered ‘YES’ to a prayer that Adam hadn’t prayed in years, that he thought the answer was “NO”..

Through an Alpha Class that met at a local bar, Adam reencountered God. God said, Remember me? I’m the one that did this for you. It was, “Hey, I’m real. Come get to know me.” This was the beginning of a meaningful personal relationship with God.

We’ll finish this episode rewinding to an episode in Adam’s life when he made bad decisions and found himself picking up a Gideons bible while in jail. God showed up time and again to keep Adam from driving his life off a cliff. God proved that he was faithful even when Adam was not.

Confirmation Diabetes Suicide Infertility God’s Blessing

How does a foul-ball screwed-up kid, who doesn’t want to make it to 14, get to this place in the middle of God’s love.

Larry started life very confused about who God is. His parents divorced when he was young and he felt that the broken family was his fault. Thinking that if he had been a better kid, his parents would still be married. As an Altar Boy in a Latin Catholic Mass, Larry had no understanding of what he was involved in. This left Larry at a point where God was not even on his mind, and by his early teens, regularly considering suicide.

Larry talks about how his dad had a temper. Though he knew his dad loved him, he never heard his dad tell him that he loved him. He never told his dad that he loved him either, as even until the end of his dad’s life he was still impacted by fear of his dad.

A few teachers and coaches made a connection and impact in Larry’s life. Larry found an outlet in sports. One of his connections in sports led him to Lincoln, Nebraska to walk on as a college athlete for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. While in Nebraska he met his future wife. While dating, a hard breakup sent him packing, back to L.A. After reconciling they married and lived in Los Angeles. Unable to find a job along with her desire to be close to family, they returned to Nebraska.

Larry started to understand faith when his wife wanted their daughter to go to a Lutheran school and said that he needed to start to learn a little about the Lutheran religion. This mixed with seeing that others in his life who expressed faith in God had a peace in their life that Larry wanted and couldn’t explain created an opening in his heart.

Larry had spent his entire life with a fear of what he thought God was. Then when he started to see a compassionate and peaceful God he started to open up to the realization of Who God really was. Not who he had thought God was. For Larry, seeing was believing. He had spent his life not believing in God because he couldn’t see him, and had never seen proof that God existed. When the Lutheran pastor asked him why he believed God didn’t exist because he’d never seen proof that he didn’t exist. This question changed how Larry thought. It opened up his mind and heart and Larry’s life changed.

It wasn’t an easy road after that moment, but Larry said there have been a lot of blessings. Listen to hear how his life changed and what some of those blessings have been. Listen to hear how God turned Larry's failures into ministry opportunities to impact and change the lives of others.

Following a Father’s model of a life lived with the Father. Bob Thune

Bob grew up in a small town of 800 in the middle of South Dakota. Bob’s relationship with his dad was very impactful on Bob. He learned a lot about character from his dad’s example.

Though Bob’s parents were religious, they weren’t…Genuine Believers. Bob shares the story of how his dad, Harold, as an adult was led to Christ by a high school friend. The high school friend, John, living in California, had a heart for Harold to come to a genuine faith in Jesus. While in California, John got other believers in their church to start praying for Harold and an opportunity to share the Gospel with them all the way back in South Dakota. Eventually that opportunity arose and John and his wife invited Harold and his wife to their house for a bible study. When they heard the Gospel, they entered into a personal relationship with Jesus that they hadn’t experienced before. This created a dramatic change in their life.

Bob’s parents felt that the church they were a part of wasn’t sharing the gospel, so they joined with a couple other families and started their own church. This decision to start a church had strong consequences in the small town, as many in their town felt betrayed. Business declined in the small hardware business they owned as many in the town boycotted the business.

Watching his parents travers this journey laid the foundation for Bob to develop his own relationship with Jesus. This led Bob eventually to ministry and pastoring a church. His youngest brother John grew up to be a US Senator and the Minority Whip.

Bob’s parents modeled genuinely their faith and relationship with Jesus for their family. Bob credits his parents' sincerity regarding their relationship with God, and modeling the value of a relationship with Christ for creating a recognition and desire to take ownership of his own walk with Christ. Through daily family devotions and a camp experience Bob learned how to have a quiet time, to open up the bible, study and pray. This was the foundation for his personal growth and development in his own faith with God.

Bob shares Who God is, by sharing how God has shown up in his life. Tune in for the rest of the story of Bob’s amazing life.

[This episode is a follow up of Season 1 Episode 2]

From the heights of the Rockies to the bottom of a bottle. In the next installment of his story, Matt Anderson shares how he met and gave his life to God in the Rockies at an Amway business meeting and how that encounter transformed his life.

It wouldn't be long until his faith would be tested when he and his wife faced the embarrassing loss of a family business and standing in the community. This was followed shortly by the heart wrenching battles of her struggle with health and eventual death. Left alone as a single dad and widower, bearing the weight of the loss of the love of his life, for the first time Matt turned to alcohol.

In this episode, Matt shares how God continued to show up in miraculous ways. From unexplained miracles to the right person showing up with the right message at the right time. God even brought a community around Matt to share with his family in a time of great need. Matt shares how God ultimately prepared him to be at his wife's side when her body finally failed. You'll continue to hear how God was involved in the intimate details of Matt's life and the lives of those around him.

When talking about his past, his failures and embarrassments Matt said, "When someone tries to bring up my past, it's like someone trying to rob my old house. I don't live there anymore."

This and so much more. You'll not want to miss.

As Jim went through the caring for his parents as their health failed and he eventually buried them he also saw his marriage fall apart, Jim was confronted with his need for the health and healing that only an intimate God would provide.

God would step into his life through his involvement in the church. It was through one on one relationships and small groups that Jim has found healing and meaning in his life. It was through this involvement that Jim would develop relationships with other men who walked with him through the mountains of his life. Jim found emotional and spiritual maturity as he grew closer to God in these relationships.

As an introvert, these relationships were vitalizing and exhausting. Jim attributes a lot of his growth to reading. Specifically reading and studying books with other men. These men challenged Jim to dig into God’s word and start memorizing scripture. In this episode Jim will share with us some of the scripture he has memorized and you’ll see why it was meaningful to him.

It is through the relationships and memorizing God’s word that Jim has been built up and supported. You may be an introvert, and listening to this podcast may be enough human interaction for you. We want you to know that even introverts need a few key relationships with others who can walk alongside you and encourage you as you draw closer to God who will strengthen and embolden you.

Believing in God was one thing, but having a relationship with God? …That was totally different. -Aaron Rood

Aaron’s life is an example of how even though Aaron was not pursuing God, God was pursuing Aaron. God was putting things in place for Aaron even though he wasn’t asking or seeking.

Aaron was a PK (Preacher’s Kid) who eventually found a personal relationship with Jesus after decades in a church. Aaron shares about his journey from being churched to being in a relationship.

As a PK, of course Aaron grew up in church, but by the time he was in high school, Aaron started taking time off from God. Aaron wasn’t rejecting God, but just wasn’t engaging God in any way.

Aaron felt like he was kind of drifting through life and letting life happen around him. Yet somehow God was already working in his life. Aaron shares the example of how God brought him and his wife together in the middle of this drifting.

Several years down the road, while Aaron and his wife were on the praise/worship team at their own church, chaos in their church sent them visiting another church. While there, they were asked if they “had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Have you accepted Christ?”

Even having grown up in a church, Aaron had no idea what that meant. He believed in God and Jesus and doing good things. He didn't know that Jesus wanted to have a role in his life. “Believing in God was one thing, but having a relationship with God? …That was totally different.”

“Jesus did this for me to fill the gap, so I can go straight to God.” Aaron began to Grow: “I didn’t want to be a good person, I wanted to be a good Man. But what does that mean?” He started on a journey to figure out what having a relationship with God meant. “Christ came to save us, but also to give us life and joy now.” Does growing closer to God mean learning to do what we were intended to do?

“I feel God is giving me a sense of urgency. God created us for relationship. When I accepted Christ, it was the start of that relationship that’s been growing ever since.” Aaron shares how while he’s heard God’s voice, he thinks God mostly uses other people to speak to him.

Tune in to hear about the journey as Aaron learns his wife is diagnosed with MS. Hear how Aaron wrestles with, “What does the Vow ‘in sickness and in health’ mean?”

What would it look like if you followed the vision God gave you for your life and ministry? Join me for this Dynamite story. As Tom and Lori share how, “Work Hard. Pray Hard. Trust God." became a mantra on the wall in their home.

Early on in his adult life, Tom followed the plan God had for him. He felt his role was to hold God’s hand and let God lead him. From a radio job waiting for him out of college, to a job in the Investment business, to a calling, he and his wife received, to start a Ministry/Business in Financial Services. Tom shares what it was like to follow God. They faced some trials right away that led them to let go of the business and trust God to manage it as Tom had to step away and tend to family issues. When he came back, the company was still there. This led Tom to continue to Trust God more and more.

Listening to the story of a missionary agency that was having to shut down because of poor investment decisions, led them to see a need for consulting in financial decisions. They saw a vision that was “so clear and so real,” there was no doubt that we had to follow the vision God was giving them. It wasn’t a prayer of should we do this, but ‘What do you want us to do next?’

Once they committed to pursue God’s vision, they immediately saw that God had laid the groundwork for their vision to take place. They saw how God had already put things in place for them to succeed.

The first five years starting the Ministry/Business were some of the most difficult years of their life. But it led them to recognize that God could see the beginning from the end, and the end from the beginning and everything in between. "The best thing you can do is immerse yourself in the word of God." Tom would get up early, before anyone else, to spend time with God. Learning to look at things from God’s perspective, led Tom to trust God more and more.

Having spent hours and days and years immersed in God’s word and in Prayer with God, the fifth year of setting up their Ministry/Business was the greatest, most wonderful, most blessed year of spiritual growth that Tom has known in his life. “I wouldn’t trade the struggles of that year for anything.”

God led them to use the platform of their Financial Services Ministry/Business to focus on four things…

1. Use the platform of money to introduce people to Christ who don’t know him as their Lord and Savior.
2. Make disciples of those who had made that commitment and now want to follow God in financial matters.
3. Impact families by strengthening marriages, helping parents to train children to be faithful stewards, so that money is not a problem in marriages and families.
4. Reproduce themselves in the lives of others so they could go out and do the same in others.

The risk in life became: not in going forward and doing it, but in pulling the plug and not going forward. Because they would have missed being a part of what God was doing and using them as missionaries in the financial field.

All this in the first 20 minutes. You’ll definitely want to hear the rest.