Bringing Heaven to Earth - Leaders' Talks

Hey, I'm Steve Holt, the senior pastor of the Road at Chapel Hills.

This is the Road Podcast.

Thanks for joining us.

My heart is to empower you to change the world.

I hope this message impacts you.

Here now is our guest speaker.

A couple of um staff meetings ago, we we actually had it up in the parking lot because it was such a beautiful day.

Took camping chairs to the top of the parking lot because you can see Pike's Peak in the view.

And we're praying and Kristen opened her eyes and there's gold dust on her hands.

Two days later, we were having noontime prayer, and we've been having consecutive noontime prayer from 12 to 1 for oh, just short of 160 straight days now.

And I was leading it on Thursday, and I was praying, open my eyes, there's gold dust on my hand.

And God told me a long time ago, when you start getting close to the supernatural realm of heaven, it just seeps into the natural realm.

So about 15 years ago, I started praying, Lord, touch my ears and open my ears so I can hear the frequencies of heaven, so I can hear what you hear.

And I prayed, Lord, touch my eyes so I can see the prisms of your presence, so I can see what you see, touch my heart, so I can love people like you people, like you love people, touch my hands, so I can touch people like you touch people.

And after about six months, the first thing I noticed, I started smelling heaven.

I'd go into rooms, there'd be beautiful bouquets of roses, and there's no roses there.

I'd smell them everywhere I'd go.

And it was like I was smelling heaven.

Then I'd started hearing heaven.

I'd hear part or uh angels take off their wings like a partridge, you know, that and I'd turn around and get all excited, and they weren't there.

And then I'd hear them as we did worship, their voices joining in, and it sounds a little bit differently.

And then I said, Lord, why is all this happening?

Well, so number one, you prayed for it.

So, number two, when you start getting close to the glory realm of heaven, it seeps into the natural realm.

I said, God, what do you mean?

He says, Well, he says, now when you go to the beach, you start to see the signs of the beach way before you get to the beach.

You can smell the salt in the air, you can see the gulls and the terns flying overhead.

You can see people with surfboards on their car.

They'll give you the thumbs up or thumbs down for surfs up, surfs down.

So you can see the signs of the beach way before you get there.

And so the same thing is with heaven.

And so we had a women's conference at our church.

We brought Julie Meyer in from IHOP.

This is a church in Pennsylvania that I helped pastor at.

And um, and our son Isaac was a worship leader too, and and I was a multimedia pastor, so um I had um uh I was in charge of directing all the cameras.

We had um like five network quality cameras, you know, and I could do a reverse angle on any shot, so I had like 10 shots to choose from.

And they were manned, except for one was a robo camera in the ceiling.

So I said to Isaac, be my technical director and man that robo camera and watch what I do.

And he says, Man, I'd like to see some of the things you're talking about.

As soon as he said that, an angel feather came down and landed on the council right in front of us.

And I said, Does that qualify?

He said, Yeah.

And so one of the sessions ended, and um, and we're walking um down a hallway, and this building was an enormous building.

Um, we had Kim Clement come in a couple times a year, James Gall come in a couple times a year.

They both prophesied, and Kim Clement, I see a vast property overlooking the city.

Vast, vast property.

And so this vast property you're talking about, we tried to buy seven years earlier, and um they laughed at us.

The company was AMP, American Marine Products.

It's a Fortune 50 company.

I never heard of it before I moved to Pennsylvania.

And um, seven years later, um, this building that was their national communication, world communications headquarters, they communicated with 34 nations to this building out of this building.

They came to us and they wanted to sell it because they were building a new building, sold it to us for pennies on a dollar, way less than we offered seven years earlier.

And so we built a sanctuary.

And Hershey Medical was adding on to their medical facility.

So we used all their back dirt underneath there, and we put it under a sanctuary, so it was all healing dirt, you know.

And so um, it's an amazing place.

But you can, it was like three stories at some levels, two stories, one story.

Walking down the hall, and you can see down at the first level, it's where our offices were, up on the roof was an angel.

He was about nine feet tall, never seen one before.

I mean, I'm freaking out, you know, and I'm on the phone, and Isaac's with these freaking out.

And we thought maybe if we go down to the next room, we can get a better view and a picture.

But he was about nine feet tall, had ruffled wings, and about a six-foot sword, and it looked like he was standing guard over the city, you know.

And we went to that in the next room and he was gone.

And on my way home, I said, God, I know the kids often see angels, the pure in heart do.

And I'm childlike at heart.

And I believe one of the uh characteristics uh of the maturity of the kingdom of God is childlikeness and to be overflowing with wonder and awe and hope and expectancy.

So I said, God, I'm childlike.

I don't want that to be a one-time event.

So I went home and I got home.

I had been divorced for eight years.

I got the kids, says a little something, um, but I owned up to my roles and where I went wrong.

And so I'm walking up the stairs, and there's an angel at the top of the stairs, and it startled me.

And I almost fell down the stairs, and I caught myself, and I said, How long have you been here?

He said, Well, you moved in this house eight years ago, and you prayed there'd be an angel at the top of the stairs.

Every night your kids were sleeping here.

And I said, Uh yeah?

He says, I've never left.

You know, angels are subject to the heirs of salvation.

We can release angels.

And so today, we'll talk about bringing heaven to earth as soon as I bring up my computer.

If you turn your Bible to Matthew chapter 6, um, you all know this scripture.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

We're gonna say it, it's the Lord's Prayer, but let's just say it together, okay?

And it's talking about what we're gonna talk about today.

So, our Father, which art in heaven, if you can repeat with me, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.

So if we go back to verse 10, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

You know, our destination is to go to heaven, right?

But our purpose is to bring heaven to earth.

Would you agree?

How do we do that?

Well, in Revelation chapter 12, verse 11, it says, and this is a we've all heard this, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and he loved not their lives unto death.

Revelation 12:11

The word of their testimony.

So we all have a testimony.

Testimonies are stories.

We all have stories.

Some people think they don't have a testimony because they've lived a squeaky, clean life.

And I'm thinking that's the best testimony altogether.

I mean, you didn't have to go through the hell that I went through.

And I went through hell.

I mean, I I delivered it, you know.

Um, but they didn't have to go through that.

So that's a great testimony.

So today I'm going to talk about some stories.

Sometimes bringing heaven to earth is as simple as smiling.

I like to say that smiling has the same effect on people that sunlight does on an unbudded rose.

It may allow a struggling life to blossom once again.

Smiling, there's it can do a lot.

Well, I hate shopping, especially at malls.

And but if you're a father of teenage kids and it's Christmas time, where do they want to go?

The mall.

Especially back, you know, 15 years ago or so.

And so um I have two boys, two girls, but my um youngest two were girls and they were pre pre-driving age.

So we had to go to the mall, and the the one day we went was a Friday night.

So I went and and you know, usually at the end of the mall, they have these comfortable chairs.

You can sit at either end of the mall.

And I think they put them there for guys like me, guys that hate shopping, that just want to come there and relax.

Maybe people watch a little bit.

So I sat down and they said, Dad, you got one job today.

Guard the packages.

I said, No problem, you can count on me, you know.

So I get comfy in this chair, and those chairs are comfortable, let me tell you.

And it didn't take long, and I was snoring away after a couple minutes, you know.

And all these packages are mounting around me.

And I, you know, I wake up and I stretch and I yawn, and I thought maybe I should go for a little walk.

So I walked to the other end of the mall, forgot all the packages, you know.

So my kids found me and they said, Dad, you had one job to do, one job, you know.

And they said, then they just shake their head.

So went to the lost and found, someone turned them all in.

So that was a miracle in itself.

So next weekend, Saturday and Sunday, we went to the mall.

So Saturday I thought, let me do something different.

I gotta stay awake, I gotta guard the packages, you know.

So I thought, I'm just gonna smile at everyone I see.

So I tried to get eye attention, you know, eye contact with everyone.

And as soon as I did, I just smile.

One of those cheesy cat eating the canary grins, you know, grinning like a butcher's dog.

And then they would smile back at me, you know?

And I thought, well, this is kind of fun.

And so um Sunday, next day, we went there and I'm at the mall again, sitting in my chair, comfy chair, drinking my latte.

And this guy comes up to me.

He says, You were here yesterday.

And I said, You were here yesterday too.

I smiled at you.

You had a blue jean jacket and a ball cap.

I remember you.

He says, Yeah, let me tell you my story.

Yesterday when you smiled at me, two days before that, my my girl broke up with me, and I got fired that day.

And I was on my way home.

Put a gun in my mouth and but you smiled.

And something happened.

You smiled the first time.

As long as I can remember, I had hope again.

I said, What's your name?

He said, Joe.

I said, you know, faith is the subject of things hope for.

The evidence of things that things are to have faith if you don't have hope.

So let's just pray for hope.

I told him all about Jesus, and he that day, Joe, right then and right there, heaven came to earth, and Joe experienced heaven, and he transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

You know, it didn't cost me anything to smile, nothing.

But the result was priceless.

In fact, uh, you know, I believe that the aroma of every act of loving-kindness that we do rises like the smell of freshly baked bread all the way up to heaven with open windows.

It doesn't take much on our part.

Sometimes a smile, sometimes a nod, lets you know that you're listening.

Sometimes your shoulder can bear the weight of their grief.

It doesn't take much, you know.

And it's cause it's inexpensive on our part, it costs us nothing.

How many of you know that God's a fun-loving God?

I mean, he created me.

He's a fun-loving God.

It's like, go, team Jesus, you know?

So God's a fun-loving God.

I believe he speaks to us when we play as well as when we pray.

Some people, they work hard so they can play hard.

I play hard so I can work hard.

You know what I mean?

It's just the opposite.

Lincoln said, that which grows never grows old.

You know?

I don't ever want to grow old.

In fact, I think old age is on a sliding scale.

Always about 25 years beyond that with that which I am.

So I'll never get old.

And I'll be 62 in a few weeks here, but really I'm I tell people I'm eight and a half in dog years, you know.

I'm just 18 plus shipping and handling.

Lots of shipping, lots of handling, you know.

So, but he speaks to us when we play as well as when we pray.

I had some friends living in Minnesota.

I was living in Pennsylvania at the time, and this gal and her and her nephew wanted to come out and visit me.

So I said, Cher, come on out.

And there's a lot of things to see right where I lived.

I lived right across the river from Harrisburg.

Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania.

Sometimes it gets overlooked because you got big cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but Harrisburg's the capital.

I lived across the street or across the river in Camp Hill.

So you can they could have gone and seen that the Capitol building.

They could have gone a few miles east and saw the Amish country and all the buggies and even visit some Amish farms and stuff.

There's a um a smorgasbord.

It's run by the Amish.

It's in Blue Ball, Pennsylvania.

Some of you have been there because I've talked to you.

But it's it holds 1,200 people that's run by the Amish, and all the meals are like drop dead, delicious.

So whenever the girls did good or my kids did good in their pork card, where you know I'd treat them.

Where do you want to go?

Let's go to Shady Maples.

That's where we went.

So they could have gone to you know to see the Amish.

They could have gone to Gettysburg, which is just south.

Um, and they could have gone to the Appalachian Mountains, all the great places five miles to the west.

But and they wanted to see all those things, and they did, but they said, first, we want to go to New York City because we're that close.

And so, um, you know, Baltimore's an hour away, Philly's an hour away from the Harrisburg area, DC is an hour and a half, Pittsburgh's three, New York's a little less than three.

And so we jumped on a train next morning, went to New York City.

First thing they wanted to see was the Statue of Liberty.

You can see it in the background there.

And the best way to get there is the Staten Island Ferry pictured here.

You can go right to the island where the Statue of Liberty is, and you can crawl up in it and walk up in it.

But if you just want to see it, you know, a great great pictures, the Staten Island Ferry.

It takes off from Manhattan if you haven't done it before.

Um it's three stories, takes about 25 minutes, lands on Staten Island, and it's free.

And so, and it's packed because it's free, and all these tourists.

So, me being the poster child for ADD and my middle name being fun, I'm thinking, how can I involve every single person on this ferry in some kind of game, multi-generational game, and have fun doing it.

So there's three floors, there's three of us going.

I thought, let's have a three-floor game of duck-duck goose.

And so, if you know what duck-duck-goose is, you go along and you bop people in the head, duck, duck, duck, then you bap some on the head, goose, and then they have to get up and chase you.

And they chased you and you'd run around in a circle until you can get back to their chair.

And if you can beat them back to their own chair, they're it.

Why let everyone catch me?

Because I wanted to be it, because I'm inclusive, you know.

And so I did it on the first floor.

Then I went up to the second floor, started another game.

Went up the third floor, started another game.

So I started three games myself.

So did the other three.

Three of us, three floors, nine games of Duck Duck Goose going on at the same time.

No one watched the Statue of Liberty, okay?

And we get we get into New York City, we get into the port there at Staten Island.

This guy comes up to me.

He says, Can I talk to you?

I said, Yes, sir.

He says, Uh, you know, I've been on this ferry 35 long years.

And this was the absolute most fun I've ever had in my life.

I said, What's your name?

He said, Rupert.

I said, Rupert, if there's one thing I could pray for you for, what would it be?

He said, Would you pray that I could receive the joy that you have?

I said, Rupert.

That would make my heart really glad to pray that.

So I prayed that for Rupert.

Rupert transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

And right there, right then, right there that day, Rupert experienced heaven.

Our next, yeah.

Thank God.

Our next stop took us to Times Square.

We got off about a block before that.

Before we got off, you've heard of Chinese fire drills.

Well, you know, if you come to a stoplight, everybody gets out of the car, runs around the car, and gets back in.

I thought, let's do this on the subway, because we got like eight stops to go.

So first stop, I yelled out, who wants to do a Chinese fire?

And everybody looked at me like I was on crack.

You know?

It's like no one responded.

I threw in it though.

Next stop, who wants to do a Chinese fire?

About 10 people.

Within about three or four stops, 50, 60 people running into one door about the other door, jumping up and down high five, you know.

God speaks to us when we play as well as when we pray.

About a block away from Times Square, a couple blocks away, there's a little fountain.

It was a hot day.

And so I took off my socks and my shoes, and I just went right into the fountain and sat down, started splashing.

And a cop came up to me and says, Hey, buddy, you gotta come out of there.

It has the government property and everything.

You can't be in there.

And I said, Oh, come on.

You want to come in.

And I started splashing a little bit.

He said, No, no, no.

You gotta come out, you know.

Within two or three minutes, this guy had his socks and shoes off.

And he was sitting down next to me.

I said, What's your name?

He said, Joe.

I said, Joe, there's one thing I can pray for you for.

What would it be?

He says, and he and I prayed for him.

And right then, right there, heaven came to earth.

And Joe experienced heaven.

New York City cop.

Right across the road there, right at near Times Square, was a cop on horseback, okay?

And he was directing traffic.

So I went up to him and said, Hey, buddy, I look like a tourist, right?

He said, I can tell you're a tourist.

I said, Well, let me sit on your horse.

I said, What?

He said, You can't do this in government property.

No way.

Let me sit on your horse.

Come on, buddy.

He said, No way.

Within a couple minutes.

I was sitting on his horse.

I had his hat on, and I'm blowing a whistle, leading traffic, and the cops cheering me on, you know?

Come on, come on, you know.

Right then, right there.

I think heaven touched earth, and he experienced heaven.

Our next stop was Central Park.

And Central Park is really an anomaly because it's a sea of green amidst all these skyscrapers.

A lot of people, these executives take their lunch break in Central Park and everything.

But I'm telling you, everyone you'll ever meet knows something that you don't.

They could be a homeless person, they could be a state senator, but everyone will ever meet knows something that we don't.

When we treat people like royalty, every single person, we glean a little bit of wisdom off of.

I know how enamored I am to anybody that compliments my children.

How do you think God feels when we do the same for his kids?

You know?

So that's when we saw her.

Her name was Donna.

And this is not a picture of Donna.

Um I couldn't, I didn't have one back then, but it gives you an idea.

But she was homeless, and Donna was probably a lot younger than our years had indicated.

She'd really lived a rough life, lived on the street for a long time.

She had three teeth, I think three teeth.

And um, and we just loved on Donna.

We sat next to her, she was sitting in the middle of a park bench.

We wrapped our arms around her and we endeared ourselves to her, and she endeared herself to us, and I said, Donna, everyone's got a story.

What's your story?

So we sat for a couple of hours and listened to Donna's story.

You know, and one of the very most valuable things you can give to another person is the gift of your undivided attention.

And you know you have it when you're nodding with them, you're following, and you're really seeking first to understand before you're understood.

You're not waiting for her to come up from here so we can fill in with what we have to say.

We're just loving on her.

So we said, Donna, we want to do a couple things special for you today.

So we took her and got her nails done.

And we took her and got a steak dinner.

And I'll tell you, Donna did a marvelous job with three teeth on that steak dinner.

She didn't eat all of it, so she saved some of that for later.

But we told her all about Jesus.

She didn't accept him right then and there.

But right then and there, heaven did come to earth, and she did experience heaven, even though she didn't accept him.

Years later, I'm sitting in my office at church in Pennsylvania, and I get a call and said, You might not remember me.

My name is Donna, and I'd forgotten about Donna because there's a lot of People you pray for.

But as she's telling me her story, the memories starts flooding back in, and so did the tears.

And she said, I want you to know because of the love that you and your friends shared with me that day, that night, I asked Jesus into my heart.

And she said, What I'm doing now is I run a homeless shelter for people in Central Park.

You know, we have no idea what impact will have.

If you throw a rock in a pond in the natural realm, it makes a splash and ripples occur.

The ripples get smaller and smaller as they grow away from the point of origin.

The kingdom is a little bit different.

Will we make a splash with our lives?

It creates ripples.

The ripples get bigger and bigger.

They become waves.

The waves become tsunamis.

Mountain ranges can't stop them.

Continents can't stop them.

Oceans can't stop them.

What we do can impact the world just by our loving acts of kindness.

I always say, whatever you can ponder in your heart, God can carry in your womb.

What Donna pondered in her heart was to help other people.

God carried that in her womb.

And now she's running a homeless shelter.

A couple years ago I went to Montana.

I have three kids that live there.

They all moved there later on in life, but um they're all grown.

But my boys, John and Dan, and John's wife Lucy and Dan's daughter Keely all live in Bozeman, Montana.

So I lived there at one time many, many years ago.

Beautiful town, if you've never been there.

And um Keely is gonna be 20 this year, my granddaughter.

So I think she's getting married this year.

I don't know if she knows it yet, so I wonder if she's listening.

But um, and I said, I told her, Keely, if you get married, I want you to have 12 babies.

She said, she said, but I said, but don't worry, you don't have to have them all at once.

She said, thanks, grandpa.

So I said, you can have them in a few different litters if you want.

So then my youngest child is Sarah Elizabeth and lives in Missoula.

So I'll just uh rabbit trail here.

All my kids have names.

Jonathan, Kyle, Daniel Allen, Hannah Eileen, and Sarah Elizabeth.

They all mean something.

Names are important.

And so um I write songs.

You know, I went through a 40-year stretch where I wrote a worship song every week for 40 years, so about 2,500 worship songs.

Most of them are just between God and I and our walks in the garden.

And so as soon as we knew our kids' names and they were still in the womb, I wrote them songs.

And I'd sing them their songs.

And every time I'd sing it to them, they'd kick for joy.

It reminds me when Mary visited Elizabeth, John the Baptist inside Elizabeth, kick for joy when Jesus entered inside Mary.

And my kids would do that when I'd pray, when I'd sing over them.

Well, Hannah Eileen, Hannah means graceful bearer of the light.

And she is, when she was born, she was crying up the storm.

So I cut the cord and I grabbed that little bundle and I started singing her song.

I love you, baby, Hannah Eileen, you who are my dream girl.

Baby, Hannah Eileen, you are the bearer of the light.

You go to war with the righteous sword, your prayers before the Lord.

Unbended knee, you speak your please, for the kingdom to be born.

So I started singing her song.

And she stopped crying.

She looked at me and started giggling and started kicking with joy.

Zephaniah 37 said, God delights in us and he rejoices over us with singing.

My oldest kid is 40.

And my kids will still call up and they'll say, Sing me my song, Dad.

And when I do, I melt, you know?

And it gives me a smile, just a small indication how God must feel when he delights in us and rejoices over us and sings over us.

So Sarah Elizabeth was in Missoula, Montana.

Her name means Princess Set Apart for God.

Right after high school, she went to college and she went to a very liberal school, Mercy Hearst in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Sarah's a really smart kid, but kind of a loner, really had a different crowd that she hung out with.

For three and a half years, I didn't hear from Sarah.

Not for my lack of trying.

I'd call her every week and say, Sarah, I miss you.

I love you.

Just want to hear your voice.

My light is always on, like Tom Baudette.

I said, I just love you.

Call anytime.

After three and a half years, Sarah called me and said, I don't longer go by Sarah Elizabeth.

I'm a transgender man now, and I go by the name of Paxton.

I said, Well, Sarah, you're a man now.

She said, Yeah.

I said, Are you man enough to smoke a cigar with me?

She said, Yeah.

So I went to Missoula and she had some friends over, and they were both gay.

So I taught them how to smoke a cigar.

And um this is like being vulnerable.

But um one lit the wrong end, and I had to show them cut it off and start over again.

Uh but you know, so we're we're imbibing on a little scotch in cigars, and uh and I can say that in church, I guess, uh, because I already did.

Um, I said to these kids, all three of these kids are grew up in church, but they don't know who they are.

So I said, God has never looked in your mirror and wished he'd seen someone else.

He gets giddy over every time he thinks about you.

And if you just once saw yourself the way God would see you, you'd never be the same again.

No one can woo people the way God does.

My prayers for all my kids are even when they make a couple steps away from God, that he'd put up a roadblock and gently steer them back out in the open where they can discover him all over again in a fresh new way.

You know, God's not a mass producer, he's a handcrafter.

He grows each of us a little bit differently, and we're all unfinished versions of what we will become.

You know, you'd never look at a skyscraper halfway built and judge the building when it's halfway done.

Why do we do that with people?

God's not done with them.

They're unfinished versions of what they will become.

And so I started telling these three kids God stories, and they just started weeping up a storm, blowing snot, and they said, if we could find a church like that, we'd go every week.

And I said, guys, you can be the church like that because God lives big in you, He's inside of you.

You have his DNA, you can do whatever your spiritual daddy does because you're his children.

And they said, Well, does God love us if we're gay?

Does he love us if we're transgender?

So he absolutely loves you.

He might not like everything you do.

I said, but I'm a pastor.

I'm sure God doesn't love everything I do, but he loves me.

If he had a refrigerator, my picture would be on it, you know.

I think I'm his favorite, you know?

So we can debate that.

So I said to Sarah, let's go camping.

Let's go up to Glacier National Park.

It's about four hours away.

So about 20 minutes outside of uh Missoula, you can put up this is this little donut shop picture here.

And um, there's usually a line out the door.

And Sarah said, Dad, we gotta go there because these donuts, it's really eating one of those donuts is really like a religious experience.

I said, Well, well, we have to go there.

And he said, But I gotta warn you, it's gonna take a long time.

Because they make every one of their donuts right to order as people are ordering them.

I said, Oh, okay, I'll wait.

I said, if you're if it's that good, I said, I trust you, you know.

So we're we're waiting, and the line outside was we're outside for at least 20 minutes before the line got inside.

And um, and this is just uh just a really small, hunky dunk little donut shop in the middle of nowhere.

And as we get inside, I could see that it was just a two-person operation doing the donuts.

It looked like a husband and wife, and they had a really small space, like about this big.

And um and as I got closer, I could see that the the woman had a scarf on her head, no hair.

So I, you know, I just uh assumed that she had gone through cancer in radiation.

So we got up closer and it came our turn, and we're at the counter.

I knew I was gonna beat her a while because the donuts are gonna take a while.

So I said, Do you have cancer?

And she said, Yes.

I said, Well, I want you to know that I had cancer and I lived, you're gonna live too.

So about two and a half years ago, they took out the whole left side of my face.

Okay?

I had basal skin cancer.

It was just a little spot on the surface, underneath the surface, it was most of my face.

So they cut me from here to here to here, down into my chest, took all that skin from my chest, rotated that up and over into my face.

So this used to be my chest.

It's funny how it knows to grow a hair now.

So before the operation, I said to the doctor, and he was one of the best of the best, I said, as long as you're cutting me open, I said, Can you can you make me look like Brad Pitt?

He said, He said, only one half of your face.

I said, that's the face, uh, that's the side that I face the cameras, you know.

So about a week after the surgery, he takes the bandit off and shook his head for about a minute.

And I thought, my God, he screwed up or something, you know?

And I said, Is there something wrong?

He says, I've been doing this for about two decades.

And no one, and I mean no one, has healed that much in a week.

And I always pray for supernatural, accelerated healing and recovery for other people.

And I prayed that over myself too, and he did.

So you can see a little bit of score up here, but he did a good job.

I I was asked him if he could do something with my with my tummy and the rest of me, but but no.

So I asked this lady her name.

She said, My name's Sarah.

I said, Sarah, can I pray for you?

She said, Yeah.

So the place was small enough.

I was able to reach over the counter, and she was like right there.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

Her husband put his hand on her other shoulder, and we just started praying.

And I started praying, and she started crying, her husband started crying, I started crying, my Sarah started crying, and I looked back, everybody in line, even out the door, was crying.

God came down, and right then, right there, Sarah experienced heaven.

Our next spot was Glacier National Park, and right outside the park, there's a little place called the Glacier Grill and Pizza.

It's neat that there's a rainbow over this, but um place was packed.

I mean, servers were running like a chicken with your head cough.

I did restaurants for many, many years, and I know what that's like when you're just slammed.

You're so far in the weeds.

And this server came up to her and she had DD on her name tag, but God said, Her name is Dawn.

So I said, I bet that's not your name, D D.

Is your name Dawn?

And she said, How did you know that?

And I said, Well, just sometimes God just drops those things in my lap.

And as soon as I said that and the words released out of my mouth, God said, Her daughter is named Dawn.

And I said, Do you have a daughter named Don?

And just the floodgates opened up, and she just started bawling.

And she said, Yeah.

And I said, Don, if there's one thing I could pray for you for, what would it be?

He said, Would you pray that my daughter, Don and I, get back together?

It's been 10 years since we've talked to each other.

So I prayed that and we hugged her, and I told her about Malachi III, and hearts of the fathers would return to their children, children's hearts to their fathers.

And I said, Don, I'm pretty sure that applies to mothers as well.

And so right then, right there, heaven came to earth and showed up in dawn and experienced heaven.

We never know what's going to happen when we're talking to people.

And I always try to be sensitive to what father's saying whenever I'm out with people.

And usually, you know, in restaurants especially, when I ask people if there's one thing I pray for you for, God usually gives me a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom or something about their family.

And God just intervenes and and he shows up in a traumatic way.

I moved out here in 2017 because I got really bad arthritis in my knees.

And um, there's a point where I couldn't walk across the room without crutches.

And um getting a new knee in July, but God's slowly healing both my knees, but there's still there, it's no cartilage, bone spur on bone spur.

And so I moved out here and I formed a company with my brother.

He lives out here, it's called Life.

And Life stands for the Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs.

So basically, what we do is we teach people a systematic approach, 24-step approach, how to open a business.

And we've uh impacted about 110 countries doing it.

And so, but we had this Kingdom Business Summit at Great Wolf Lodge a couple summers ago.

And we had taught classes Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Thursday we had a reception, people coming in around the world.

Friday and Saturday we had a summit.

When we were teaching these classes, we had Great Wolf Lodge cater the food, they did a great job.

And one of the people from the classes said to the person catering the food, Man, this is great food.

She said, I don't know.

So I had an operation on my ears seven years ago, it knocked out my taste buds.

So during the break, he told me about this, and he told me her name's Amy, and he described her to me.

And so on the next break, I looked for her and I saw a person that fit her description.

I said, Are you Amy?

She said, Yeah, I said, I heard you can't taste food.

She said, That's right.

So I had um I had an operation on my ears seven years ago, knocked out my taste buds.

Can't taste any food since.

I said, Amy, do you mind if I pray for you?

I believe God can heal you.

And she said, Wait a minute, Buster.

She said, I gotta tell you right away, I'm a Jehovah's Witness.

I said, Amy, I don't care what you are.

I said, I think God can heal anybody.

And she said, uh, well, okay.

And so I'm praying for her, and I didn't see any facial expression change on Amy's face.

So I said, Amy, I don't want you to be disappointed if you don't sense anything right away.

Because sometimes healings are instantaneous, sometimes they're gradual.

She said, Well, okay.

So do you mind if I check on you in the next few days?

No, not at all.

Next three days, I'd hunt Amy down, I'd see her across the room.

Amy, get over here, girl, give me a hug.

You know, I'd say, do you sense anything?

No.

On the fourth day, on the fourth day, Amy came and tracked me down.

She said, I want you to know, I stopped by Starbucks today and I got a double shot of vanilla in my coffee just by faith.

And for the first time in seven years, I can taste all food.

So right then, right there, heaven came to earth, and Amy experienced heaven.

That same conference, I was house-sitting for a guy named Len Crowley.

Len is part of our congregation.

Sometimes he's out of town most of the time, but when he's here, he comes.

Great, great guy.

House sitting for him.

And it was like the second week of this conference, and I'm going by 7-Eleven.

God says, Stop in here and get gas.

I said, God, I never get gas at 7-Eleven.

It's so expensive.

I said, I got a third of a tank.

I don't need gas.

God says, just go get gas.

I said, okay.

So I go get gas, and God says, go inside and get something.

I said, God, I don't need anything.

I'm already fat enough.

I said, I'm not hungry.

I said, He said, just go get something.

And I said, okay.

So I go inside and I get an iced tea and I go up to the counter, see this guy, and on his shirt, the guy cashed me out and says, father of a heart survivor.

He said, Tell me about your shirt.

I've got five kids.

Baby Levi is a year and a half old.

Levi's had two open heart surgeries.

Tomorrow he's having a third.

And his chances aren't good.

The fact that they don't expect him to make it through it, but it's his only chance.

And I said, I know what it's like to hand my one and a half-year-old child off to a doctor for open heart surgery, not knowing if she'll come back alive.

My daughter Hannah had open heart surgery when she was a year and a half.

I said, My daughter lived.

And Levi still live.

So I said, Can I pray for you?

Can I pray for Levi?

Yeah.

And we were just both crying and blowing snot.

And uh and that night I went home and put it on Facebook, and about 300 people were praying for baby Levi.

Two days later, I'm driving by that 7-Eleven.

I'd forgotten about baby Levi for that moment.

It's still in the back of my mind.

But God says, Go stop at 7-Eleven, go to check on baby Levi.

So I stopped in there and I said, Look, two days ago I came in here.

There was a guy that had a baby, has gotten heart surgery next day.

Baby Levi said, Is he working?

He said, No.

In fact, the last night the guy worked here, his last night was and he and he quit.

Uh, was the day you came in?

He said, Some guy came in and prayed for him.

I said, Well, do you know what the status is?

Do you know any way to get a hold of him?

I just want to check on the baby Levi.

He said, Well, my husband is best friends with his father.

I said, Well, tell me, tell me.

Baby Levi said, Well, Levi survived the surgery.

And the next day he was running around, and the doctor said, No child like that going through what he's gone through has uh recovered that quickly ever that he sees.

And so, what if, what if I didn't stop for gas because it's too expensive?

What if I didn't go in and get something to drink because I was already full?

What if I didn't put it on Facebook about baby Levi?

You know, would he have gotten healed?

I don't know.

Uh I just know that um right then and right there, baby Levi experienced heaven.

And um and heaven came down.

You know, about 33 of us or 32, 33, 34 of us, something like that, went to Washington, D.C.

for the Let Us Worship Sean Foyd event in October.

It was a day before the Amy Coney vote.

The neat thing about it is the day before that, or 40 years before that, was Washington for Jesus.

There was a million people on the mall, and I was there.

Took a bus from Minnesota, just gotten saved a couple few years earlier, and took a bus and 40 years earlier, 20 years earlier, Lou Engel was there with the call, and 400,000 kids, and Sean Foyt was there, it was 17 or 18-year-old girl, the worship leader, um, or the worship team was my worship team from the church in Pennsylvania.

But um, so it was neat.

I got to lead a Muslim Uber driver to the Lord, uh, Leo and Kathy Goaz and Nick Schreifels, uh, us four went around in a group.

And and on the way back, on the way back, we were flying united, flow united out there at flying united on the way back.

Leo got bumped up to first class, but he didn't want to jump up there because his wife was coming too and didn't have two first class tickets.

So he gave his ticket to Nick Schreifels, and Nick said, Al, why don't you take it?

And I'd never flown first class before in my life.

I I didn't know if I was supposed to hold my pinky out or what when I drank something, you know.

And so I'd sit next to a guy and said, Hey, my name's Al, what's yours?

He said, Dave.

I said, Dave, what do you do?

He said, actually, I'm a United Airlines pilot.

I said, How long you been doing that?

I said, about 30 years.

And I said, uh, wow, I bet you're the senior flight pilot on every plane you're on.

He said, I am, because of my longevity.

He said, Al, what do you do?

He said, I'm a pastor.

And he's really quiet.

Crickets for 20 minutes.

And you can tell he was just stewing on something.

Finally he says to me, you know, Al, I really got a problem with God.

So, well, tell me about it.

I got a problem with God because there's a lot of gays and lesbians in the airline business.

And I said, I know.

My niece is a flight attendant for Delta, half her wedding party.

We're gay and lesbians, and it was a great time.

And he said, Well, I got a problem with God that hates gays and lesbians.

I said, you know, Dave, I'd have a problem with too if God hated gays and lesbians, but he loves them.

So how do you figure?

I said, Dave, do you have kids?

Yeah.

Are they older?

Yes.

I said, do you love everything your kids do?

He says, No, no way.

I said, but you love your kids.

He said, Oh, I love my kids.

I said, why would God be any different?

He might not like everything they do, but he loves them.

I'm a pastor.

He doesn't love everything I do, but he loves me.

And he thought about that.

He says, Yeah, that makes sense.

Ten minutes later, he looks at me and says, What about abortion?

He said, What about it, Dave?

When does life begin?

I said, I think it begins at fertilized egg and sperm there.

He says, How do you figure?

I said, Dave, they're finding bacteria on Mars.

They're calling that life, that fertilized egg and sperm about the same size.

It's not gonna grow up to be anything but a baby.

It's not gonna be a dog.

It's not gonna be a kangaroo.

It's not gonna Be an apple tree, it's gonna be a baby.

He said, Yeah, that makes sense.

So about every 10 minutes he had something else he came back with me with.

Finally, I looked at him and said, You know, Dave, it looks like you're trying to figure this out.

He says, I am.

So I'm an intellectual.

I said I can see that you are.

I said, Dave, sometimes if you want the peace that bypasses all understanding, sometimes you have to give up your right to understand everything.

He says, That makes sense.

So, Dave, what if I'm right?

What if there's a God?

What if there's a devil?

What if there's a heaven?

What if there's a hell?

What if Jesus was real?

What if he came to die for your sins?

And you go all through life and you don't accept him, and you end up going to hell.

Don't you think you're taking a big gamble with your life if I'm right?

If I'm wrong, Dave, doesn't matter.

Party on, Garth.

But what if I'm right?

What if I'm right, Dave?

And he's really quiet for two minutes.

And this whole time I'm talking to him, from the minute they start talking to him, everybody's leaning their heads in the back.

See, people over here are leaning like this.

So everybody in first class heard every conversation we had.

The flight attendants heard it.

After two minutes, he looks at me and he says, You're right.

Let's do this.

And he grabs my hand and I lead him in a sinner's prayer.

And I said, Dave, you've just transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

And the character of any kingdom emanates from the character of the king.

I said, because you're the senior flight pilot on every plane you're on, and you're a Christian.

I said, you have spiritual authority.

You're the highest ranking spiritual authority person on the plane, but you can affect the spiritual atmosphere and spiritual authority over everybody that flies on your planes everywhere you go around the world.

I said, Dave, you really are important.

And he says, I really am, aren't I?

And I gave him my card and I said, Dave, you can call me anytime.

One time he called me at two in the morning, one time he called me at three in the morning.

And uh, did I get mad when he called?

No.

I said, Dave, is that you?

Gosh, it's so good to hear from you.

So how are you been?

And he asked me such simple questions.

We talked.

I said, Dave, call me anytime.

So I will.

It's great.

You know?

So you never know.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Road Podcast.

It's been my joy to be a part of your life today.

And you know, that's part of what we do here at The Road, and this is what I do in having this Road Podcast is to empower people to change their world.

My passion and desire is that you would take God's word through the power of the Holy Spirit and make that relevant for your life.

You know, the reality is that God has placed your life here on this earth to make a difference.

And if you'd like more information about how to grow in Christ, if you need prayer, if you want more equipping in different areas of your life, go to the road.org.

God bless you.