060: Faith & Future | The Invisible Force That Shapes Who You Become

0:08 SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Warriors Haven Podcast, the place where discipline meets purpose and everyday people become unstoppable. I'm your host, Jaisha Sutherland, a retired Army drill sergeant, single mom, and the founder of the Warriors Haven. Around here, we talk fitness, mindset, and the mission of building a stronger you, mentally, physically, and financially. Because this isn't just about the gym. It's about life, leadership, and living on your terms. So gear up, lock in, and let's step into the Haven where Warriors are made.

1:10 SPEAKER_00: And this one, we're talking about faith and future. And like I said, stay with me for this. This one's gonna be very specific, and you're gonna know if this one's gonna be for you. So y'all know I love asking my questions. So, what if the thing shaping your future isn't something you can see? Think about gravity. You can't see gravity, but you can see what gravity does. You can you can't see the wind, but you can see the trees move. You can't see a thought, but one thought can change a decision.

1:50 SPEAKER_00: You can't see faith, but faith can change the way a person walks through an impossible season. And that's exactly where we're going today. Welcome, friends, to this very special Warriors Haven subscriber-only episode on the Invisible Forces series. Today's conversation is different because today we're talking about something that many people believe is deeply personal, something that has carried people through war, loss, divorce, failure, uncertainty, grief, rebuilding, and starting over. Today, we're talking about faith and the future.

2:32 SPEAKER_00: And my guest today is someone who understands what it means to look back at your life and realize that the person you were becoming wasn't necessarily the person God was calling you to become. His story includes decades of being around Christianity without necessarily experiencing the depths of transformation he would eventually discover. He's a husband, a father, a grandfather, a servant leader, and the host of The Valiant Forge, a podcast built around helping Christian men stop drifting and begin living with clarity, conviction, purpose, and legacy.

3:10 SPEAKER_00: Friends, can you help me please welcome Mr. Mark Osborne? Mr. Mark, welcome to the show.

3:18 SPEAKER_01: Jason, thanks, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

3:25 SPEAKER_00: This one, like I said, Mr. Mark, it's for our subscribers only. So I have kind of gotten into this conversation with you just a little bit. And bringing on to this episode, I think these um subscribers are gonna be a little taken aback. So I'm really excited. So I'm really glad that you're here. And I want to start by telling you why I wanted this particular conversation to happen. So I've been building this invisible forces series around something I believe is easy for people to overlook. They're their forces working beneath the surface of our lives: identity, discipline, energy, belief, choices, environment, and today, faith.

4:04 SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the biggest changes in our lives begin long before anybody else can see them. So, Mark, before we get into these seven or so questions that I have for you, I want to give you the floor for a moment. Can you tell us who Mr. Mark Osborne is today? And what do you think God was trying to teach the younger Mark that he couldn't see at that time?

4:31 SPEAKER_01: Who I am today, I'm I'm deeply driven. You know, as you said, I'm deeply driven by my faith, by my faith in God, because when my w life was at its lowest point, I had no choice but to surrender to something, something that I couldn't see, but I knew in my heart that kept me from destroying my life. I I to answer what I think God was trying to teach the younger Mark. It that's a tough question because I think the younger Mark wasn't so teachable. The younger Mark was just kind of floating around, taking life as it comes and just trying to figure it out as he went along.

5:16 SPEAKER_01: I never never really sought uh counsel from mentors. I was in church my whole life, but I never really was discipled. And that's something that's lacking in churches today, and even in any kind of a thing. I I'm sure you would agree with this. Somebody should have a mentor, no matter what you're doing. In business, in fitness, whatever it is, there should be someone over you, not over you, but who's been there before who can kind of lead you and guide you. I never had that. I may have had it, but I didn't seek it.

5:54 SPEAKER_01: I was just floating with the wind. I I what I've learned since then is that I do need mentors. I do need to seek the Bible, I do need to rely on my faith instead of just floating with the wind. I think a lot of men today, they just they wake up every they wake up every day and go to work and come home with no purpose, no sense of direction. Right. You need you need to have some kind of a purpose and direction in your life because it it helps you become a better man.

6:29 SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is so powerful. And I think that that's where this conversation with you, Mr. Mark, is really where I want it to start. Um, sometimes we're living through a chapter and you just don't understand the chapter. And you don't understand the pain, you don't understand the delay, you don't understand why something isn't working. And then years later, you look back and realize, oh, that's what the season was at what it what it was meant for, what it was preparing me for. And I think you can kind of relate to that.

6:57 SPEAKER_00: And so this, I want this to kind of take us into the series that I'm in, which is the invisible forces in season two now with the Warriors Haven podcast. And so, Mr. Mark, you described yourself as someone who spent decades as what you would call a casual Christian before experiencing a major spiritual course corruption. What changed when faith stopped being something you were simply around and became something you were actually living?

7:25 SPEAKER_01: Well, just before that, I had I wasn't even I was still around faith, but I had drifted so far away from it that I needed to grab hold of it and come back to it. So I just just to kind of give a quick synopsis. I I went 48, I had this sort of a midlife crisis. I was never really into fitness or self-awareness or anything, didn't pay attention to my nutrition. My daughters, both of my daughters grew up. My purpose, the reason I was around faith my whole life, was to show my daughters what it's like to live in a Christian home.

8:06 SPEAKER_01: I wanted them to choose men who were Christians and have the same life. I knew enough about being a father that your daughters will marry who they see. Yes, who they're who they're around. And my my daughters married good men, so I'm I'm thankful for that.

8:21 SPEAKER_02: Oh good.

8:22 SPEAKER_01: But but I was I was so young when I had my first daughter, I was 19. Gotcha. And so when my youngest daughter moved out, I was 42. Okay. I still had a lot of life left. Right. But my my purpose from 19 to 42 was raising my daughters. But I I didn't know what I was gonna do now. Right. Yeah, my my first granddaughter was born at 42. And you know, I was a good grand I'm a good grandfather. That was part of my purpose. But it wasn't the same as having the kids at home.

8:57 unknown: Yeah.

8:58 SPEAKER_01: So at 40 48, my youngest daughter moved out, she got married, and then I I didn't know what I was doing in life. I just kind of just was aimless and directionless. And I didn't even realize because I was just living life every day, happy go lucky.

9:16 SPEAKER_02: Right.

9:17 SPEAKER_01: Happy, happy being the not correct word. But I was just living life, and before I knew it, I had drifted, I had gotten depressed. I woke up on the morning of my 48th birthday, didn't even realize it was my birthday. Wow. I turned on the news and they said the date of my birthday, and I was like, Oh, today's my birthday. Wow. And I just sat there for a moment, like, how would I not know if my birthday was even coming up or that it that it's today? And I realized that I was just not paying attention to what was going on in life.

9:54 SPEAKER_01: I was just doing the going through the daily motion.

9:57 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

9:58 SPEAKER_01: So I I hadn't prayed a whole lot during my Christian life, and I said a prayer that morning. I'm like, God, what is wrong with me? Help me find some kind of direction, help me find a purpose. And as I drove to work that morning, I drove past the gym. And they were it was just opening up. And when I when I saw the gym, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna stop by there after work. I had to let myself get out of shape. No, I'm gonna stop by there after work and I'm gonna join the gym. Well, during that time, as I while I was a Christian, I never shared anything about my life on social media or I actually was very reserved and laid back.

10:38 SPEAKER_01: I didn't want people to know a lot about my life. Yeah, I was shy, introverted. But I I went in the gym and got a membership and I posted my membership card on Facebook. Oh wow. When I did that, all these people were like, Oh, this is awesome. I got all kinds of comments and likes and all this stuff. And they're like, Oh, you know, once you learn how to do this, I'd be love for you to help me if you know I think you can do this. So I I went all out. I started posting everything that I did on social media.

11:10 SPEAKER_01: I went, I did a couch to 5k. I was getting up at 3:30 in the morning going on a run, and I was posting my runs, my progress, and people were loving it, but so was my ego. Ah, and my ego was like, Oh, this this is cool. And then as I started gaining some muscle and losing weight, so I in a year I lost 60 pounds and gained about 15 pounds of muscle. Wow. I lived in an apartment that was up four flights of stairs, I could barely make it up the stairs. Wow, and then a year later I ran a half marathon.

11:47 SPEAKER_01: Yeah. I'm not saying all that to brag. Right. But like those are good things to do. It's just I I was more driven by the attention and the praise than I was trying to improve myself. It's very important to be a fit person and take care of yourself. That's God was actually trying to lead me there, but I took it to the wrong place because I wasn't close enough to God. And that just ate me up, and that went on for about five years. Oh, wow. I I I was close to getting a personal trainer certification.

12:24 SPEAKER_01: I started a business on Instagram helping people in training, and I was DMing with people, and one of those DMs, it was a two, two to two and a half year conversation with another woman that started out innocent. I was helping her with some training and some nutrition advice, and then we started talking about our marriage problems. Oh then it got deeper and deeper, and it turned into an emotional affair. Thank God it never it never got to the point of us ever meeting each other in person. I mean, we were doing FaceTime and stuff like that, but we never met each other in person.

13:03 SPEAKER_01: One morning, I left my phone on the couch, went in the kitchen for something, and when I came back, my wife has my phone in her hand, and she's she's in tears. Oh wow. And I I knew I knew what she had discovered. Right. And she's like, What what are we doing? And this was a few days after our 35th wedding anniversary. Oh wow. And her her tears and you know a lot of men have this moment where they get discovered, you know, where that they're doing something wrong, and they kinda wanna they kind of want to make excuses or whatever it is.

13:44 SPEAKER_01: I I was broken in that moment. I fell to my knees in that moment. I told her I was sorry, I prayed to God, I repented to God in that moment, and she's like, Well, what are we gonna do? I said, That's all done. Everything that I was doing, it's it's over. I gave her all of my information to my phone, all my passwords, told her everything that this woman and I had discussed over the past two years. Right there with her in the room. I FaceTimed this woman and said, This, this, this was a wrong relationship that we had.

14:27 SPEAKER_01: We need to end this right now. I I won't be talking to you again. Sorry about this. That was the end of it. Wow. And I did it with my wife there because I needed to let her know that she was more important than all of this stuff that I was chasing in that moment, and I didn't even know. It was just in that moment, it was like God said, Okay, that's enough. You need to stop.

14:53 SPEAKER_01: And then once that started happening, I started, okay, I I can't live this. If if I'm gonna be a man of faith, I have to be a real man of faith. I can't just be a man who professes faith. You know, there there are there are a lot of people right now who is saying they're Christians and they profess faith. And I don't judge anybody. Right. But your life shows if you truly have faith. And that those five years where I was chasing that fitness journey, the whole time that I was doing that, I was saying God told me to do all this.

15:29 SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, it wasn't, it was me. Maybe God did tell me to do it because I needed to get in shape, right? But I was doing it for me, not for God. Then at that point, I was like, okay, I have to start changing. All the discipline that I had learned through fitness, because I wasn't a disciplined person before then. Yeah, all of that discipline I started applying to some of my spiritual life. And it helped me find balance.

15:57 SPEAKER_00: So oh wow, that sorry that I talked about very no, that was very powerful. And I I appreciate you being very vulnerable, especially sharing that story. I I think you know, so many people are going through so many things, and maybe that's part of that conversation and everything you just shared that somebody maybe needed to hear, you know. Um, who knows? And I just appreciate that you share that. And so, Mr. Mark, I want you to help me unpack this for the listener. How can someone recognize that they're going through the motions spiritually, even if they attend church, believe in God, or consider themselves a Christian?

16:33 SPEAKER_00: And what is one practical step that they can take to move from knowing about God to actually building a relationship with him?

16:43 SPEAKER_01: That's a great question. Because when you build when you have a relationship with someone, you talk to them, you talk with them, and you you don't just talk to them, you talk with them and you have a conversation with them. Now that's weird because we're talking about the invisible thing. God's invisible, right? How do I talk to God? Well, I I tell him, I pray to him, and then I wait in silence, see if I feel anything or hear anything. I've never ever heard an audible voice of God. People have, and I I truly believe that.

17:21 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

17:21 SPEAKER_01: Where I get most of my thoughts that I know are from God, sometimes they pop in my head. And if a thought pops in my head, like with the podcast, everything was inside of me was telling me to start a podcast, and I was avoiding it like the plague.

17:39 SPEAKER_00: Right.

17:40 SPEAKER_01: But it it just kept, it wouldn't leave me alone. So I asked a mentor. That after my wife and I went through that, I had found a mentor and a guy who was leading me. I asked him. We prayed about it together, and out of nowhere, uh, a lot of the people, most of the the only people in my church that knew what my wife and I went through was my pastor and his wife. Within a couple of years, men started coming to me and asking me questions about their life. I mean, I'm I was a little bit older than them, so maybe they felt like I had some wisdom and I had learned some things in life which I had.

18:20 SPEAKER_01: But all of a sudden they're asking me questions that I had to find answers for because I didn't always have the answer. And that found me looking deeper into how to help other men.

18:34 SPEAKER_02: Interesting.

18:35 SPEAKER_01: And when I when I talked to my mentor about, you know, maybe starting a podcast and how it won't leave me alone, he said, usually if something like that won't leave you alone, you definitely need to test it and see if it's God.

18:48 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

18:49 SPEAKER_01: And I started having little little conversations here and there. I looked into what it would take to start a podcast, and I'm like, how how am I gonna get on a microphone and talk? I can barely say five words to a person that that I don't know or even that I know. Now I'm gonna get on a microphone and just babble. How am I gonna do that? I I you know when I sat down, I I write I typed up an introduction script.

19:17 unknown: Yeah.

19:18 SPEAKER_01: If I can do it, I can just read the script, you know. And my first, my very first podcast, if you go back and listen, you can tell that I'm reading.

19:26 unknown: Right.

19:26 SPEAKER_01: I got a little bit better over time.

19:30 SPEAKER_01: That so how a man knows that he's not he's not just living this uh casual faith. Uh huh. Is you feel it. You you you just to say a churchy phrase, I know that I know that I know. Ah you you just because that's what faith is. Right faith is for sure it's you have to act, you have to take action, you have to do something. Just saying a prayer alone is an act of faith. Especially, you know, if you're praying in front of a bunch of people, maybe you're looking for people to to see what you're doing.

20:13 SPEAKER_01: But if you're in your car alone, you wake up in the morning, no one else is around, and you say a prayer, that's an act of faith. When you start doing things like that, and then you start hearing things that you wouldn't normally hear, you just start getting a feeling. You go through a trial, and you don't worry about what that trial, because you know you just know that you're gonna come through it. That's how you know that it's not a fake faith, it's a real faith. When you truly believe that no matter what you're going through, a lot of Christians like to say, you know, come to Jesus and all your problems will go away.

20:49 SPEAKER_01: They won't go away. Life is gonna happen no matter what. Right. When you come to Jesus, when you believe in Jesus, you know he will be there with you through that storm. He's not gonna take the storm away, but he'll lead you through it.

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21:05 SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, that's so powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. So I have a question, and I'm gonna ask you, what did you personally have to surrender before that relationship with God could become real?

21:26 SPEAKER_01: I had to surrender who I thought I was.

21:31 SPEAKER_01: Because I thought no one liked me. I thought I was kind of a worthless nobody person. So part of the reason my podcast is called The Valiant Forge. There's a story in the Bible with Gideon.

(Cont.) 060: Faith & Future | The Invisible Force That Shapes Who You Become

21:45 SPEAKER_01: God came to Gideon and called him a valiant warrior. That was Gideon didn't believe in that. Gideon's like, I'm the loser, I'm a loser. My clan is the lowest of the lowest clans. That's how I felt about myself. And when I started that, that That fitness thing, then I was like, oh, people like me now. But they didn't even then they weren't liking me. They were liking what I was doing, what I was showing off. Right. What I had to surrender was who I thought I was, and give everything to God and let Him make me who He wanted me to be, not who I wanted to be.

22:24 SPEAKER_01: And what what I have found through that surrender, who He wants me to be, lines up with what I want to be. Not what I thought I wanted to be, but what I do want to be. I want to be a man who helps other men. I like being a podcaster because the words that go out through the podcast help other men improve their life. That's what I want to be.

22:48 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

22:48 SPEAKER_01: I never wanted that before. I wanted people to like me.

22:52 SPEAKER_02: Right.

22:53 SPEAKER_01: If you like me, great. But what I want you to see is the God in me. That's who I want to be. And that I had to surrender who I was in order to get to that point. And I'm still on that journey. I haven't figured it out yet.

23:06 SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow. Oh, I love that distinction. Um, because I I think you can be around something without actually being transformed by it. And that applies far beyond faith. You can be around fitness without becoming healthy. You can be around successful people without becoming successful. You can read books about discipline without becoming disciplined. And you can be around Christianity without allowing Christ to transform your life. That's one of the invisible forces we're talking about. So proximity isn't the same thing as transformation.

23:38 SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, a friend all over the world. I hope they wrote that one down. So, Mr. Mark, what do you say to the person listening right now who has prayed, believed, worked hard, and still doesn't see the future they hoped for?

23:55 SPEAKER_01: Oh man. You asked me a tough one. You know, um, faith, faith produces endurance. I I don't remember the exact scripture, but it's in James. It says, count it all joy when you're in various encounter various trials, because the producing of your faith produces endurance. You have to just keep holding on. And you know, I think if you're not seeing it, you may be you may be missing something, and that's where you have to talk to somebody, talk to a mentor, seek the Bible, and if there's things you don't understand in the Bible, talk to someone else.

24:39 SPEAKER_01: I I I talk I say this a lot because I have I have three men in particular that I talk to on a regular basis. One of my pastors, we meet once a week at six o'clock in the morning at at Dunkin' Donuts, and I know it's it's a sacrifice for him, but I get so much out of those conversations. I I've been there. I mean, I still am there once in a while where you know I I'm still waiting for some things to come through.

25:11 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

25:12 SPEAKER_01: But the the invisible force that we're talking about, I believe that invisible force is gonna make it come to pass. And if it doesn't, it's okay. Because I still believe and trust in him. That's what keeps me moving forward. I don't I don't think I really answered your question, but that that is a great question and a tough one.

25:34 SPEAKER_00: Awesome, awesome. Well, let me then just continue. Um, with having faith in future that you cannot see. And what does particular faith look like when your circumstances haven't changed?

25:55 SPEAKER_01: When your circumstances haven't changed, and you you you just sorry, I'm gonna stumble here.

26:04 SPEAKER_00: No, you're good, you're good. Because I mean, I just I want to know like if somebody's in a situation right now in just a season of their life, and they're you know, they they believe, they're praying, but you know, they we can't see into the future, but they are you know, just they're trying to, they're really trying to believe, but they just can't see because of their circumstances. Like, what's what's a piece of advice that you can you can give them if as a listener, one of our friends in the world is just kind of stuck in in this right now?

26:33 SPEAKER_01: Yeah. So a question that gets asked Christians a lot, you know, if God is so great and so merciful, why do all these bad things happen in the world?

26:43 SPEAKER_00: Yes.

26:44 SPEAKER_01: And the the typical answer, and I totally agree with it, because there's a lot of things that happened in my life that I wish didn't happen the way that they did. I mean, honestly, I my testimony that they call it, yeah, it's great because God stepped in, but I wish that wasn't part of my testimony. Right. I wish I didn't betray my wife.

27:06 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

27:06 SPEAKER_01: That wasn't God, that was me, but it's part of my story. Yeah. I wish God had stepped in earlier. But sometimes we we don't always see what's going on. Right. Again, the invisible force. We don't see what's going on on the surface.

27:23 unknown: Yeah.

27:23 SPEAKER_01: We don't know what God is working behind the scenes. Yeah. You know, and I think the answer to that is you just have to keep holding on. You definitely need to seek counsel, seek the Bible, and and hold on to that faith. Because if if you're one thing that you said is that if you're trying to hold on, if you're trying to hold on, your faith might not be as strong as you think it is.

28:00 SPEAKER_01: Because I don't need to try to do this anymore. I don't need to try to know that God is gonna come through whatever situation I'm going through through.

28:11 unknown: Yeah.

28:11 SPEAKER_01: Whether he does it or not. The Hebrew children, when they were thrown in the fire, they were said, they said, you know, we're gonna throw you in the fire. If God doesn't save us, we still won't bow because we have that that kind of a faith. Right. When you have that strong of a faith, no matter what your situation is, whether you'll come through it or not, God will still be there for you. I you just gotta hold on.

28:36 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that. Oh, that was such a powerful answer. Thank you so much. So, Mr. Mark, let me ask you this question: what's the difference between trusting God and simply sitting back waiting for God to do everything?

28:52 SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a great one because there's waiting isn't just sitting back and waiting, there's active waiting. Waiting is praying to God every day, reading his word every day, doing the things that you know to do. There's a scripture in Proverbs that says lean not on your own understanding, but trust the Lord with all your heart and in all your ways acknowledge him. That means you gotta keep doing, and there's another one that says, Do all that you know to do, and then stand. You said waiting. There's there's no sitting back and waiting.

29:33 SPEAKER_01: Like I can have faith that I'm gonna lose 15 pounds in a month. Yeah, but if I just sit back and wait, I'm probably gonna gain 15 pounds.

29:44 SPEAKER_00: Right.

29:46 SPEAKER_01: If I believe that God wants to lose me to lose 15 pounds, well now I'm gonna start moving. And if if I'm one of those people that hold on to wait a little bit longer than others, I'm just gonna have faith and believe that if I do the right thing, God will meet me there and help me through that. That's it's the weird thing about faith. You can you can believe and wait for God to move, but he wants you to take action. Faith, faith is more than just waiting, faith is action. You can't do nothing unless you move.

30:20 SPEAKER_01: And when God says, if you say to this mountain, be moved and it'll be moved, that's a whole theology I want to get into. But part of that is you have to say to the mountain, saying something is an action. You have to take action. You can't just sit back and wait. If you're sitting back and waiting, maybe you don't truly have faith.

30:45 SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow. Now that is a huge distinction. Oh, friends, wherever you're listening, all over the world, I really hope you just listen to what Mr. Mark just said. Because faith isn't necessarily passive. Sometimes faith looks like taking the next step before you know where the entire road goes. And that's where faith starts connecting with another invisible force, obedience. Oh, Mr. Mark, we're going there, we're going there. What's one of the hardest things for humans to do is to give up control. We want to know the outcome before we take the step.

31:29 SPEAKER_00: We want certainty before we move. So, Mr. Mark, how do you know when you're supposed to keep pushing, when you're supposed to wait, and when you're supposed to surrender something you've been trying desperately to control?

31:44 SPEAKER_01: For me, it's if nothing goes right, if every time I try to move in this direction, something something obstructs it. And if I move in this direction, it goes nice and easy. But if I keep because I want this so I want this road over here so bad, I keep trying to force my way through it.

32:08 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

32:08 SPEAKER_01: And and God will allow that. God's a gentleman. He'll allow you to kick open doors that you shouldn't open. And that's what I did with my fitness. I kicked open a door that I shouldn't, which led me down this ego trip.

32:21 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

32:22 SPEAKER_01: And now I I'm I'm still a fit person. I still take care of myself. I learned through that journey how to take care of myself. But I'm no longer chasing the validation. I'm just chasing trying to be healthy and balanced and being a good man.

32:38 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

32:39 SPEAKER_01: Because I chose the road that God wanted me to, the road that created, the road that I surrendered to. It would have been easy for me. I probably could have been, I had this great transformation story. You know, I was 205 pounds down to 160 in a year. I had all this great, I could have made a lot of money doing this. Honestly.

33:03 unknown: Right.

33:03 SPEAKER_01: But that's not what that's not what my God wanted for my life. Right. God wanted for my life for me to help other men. I don't know, you know, as a podcaster yourself, we don't always know who we're helping out there. Right. We may we may never know all the people that we've helped throughout this journey. That you know, that's how you know which road to take, which ones not to take, when to move, and when not to move. Because if if you're getting obstruction, if there's all kinds of trials and tribulations through that road, you're probably walking, you're probably trying to go the wrong way.

33:47 SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, I love that. So obstacles start appearing along that journey, and it's more frequent. You probably know you're fighting a battle, you probably don't need to be fighting as hard and really kind of pay attention. So, okay, I really appreciate that. So, Mr. Mark, how do you distinguish between fear telling you to stop and God telling you to wait?

34:13 SPEAKER_01: Man, you asked some tough questions.

34:16 SPEAKER_00: We're getting into it, Mr. Mark. I want to know.

34:19 SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's it's it's is really for me, you know, this is the uh that invisible force. It's real through prayer. Because before before I do something that I know that I don't know for sure if it's God, I I need to pray as much as I can. And I do, I have, I have done that. You know, I there was something recently that I won't get into. Someone was asking me to start doing something for the church that already, and it's it's not about you know not being able to do it. I'm already kind of being stretched in all kinds of areas.

35:00 SPEAKER_01: I still had the time. I could have made the time to do it, but is that really what God wanted me to do? Because if I would have done that, I would have had less time with my wife. If I would have done that, I wouldn't have been able to spend as much time with my kids. Those are things that you you gotta look at. Because as a man, as a biblical man, as someone who you know loves God, loves his wife, if you're stretching yourself in so many areas that you can't give who you are supposed to give the love to your family and those around you in your life, that's probably not God.

35:38 SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, you asked about the fear. If there's something good that that's on your mind to do to help somebody, and it's not gonna take you away from anything, but you're not sure that you can do it, that's when it's fear. If the only thing holding you back is you not having the confidence to be able to stand up and do it, right? That that that's fear holding you back. But it was the same thing for me with this podcast. I went I I I probably started it about six months later than I should have because I was letting fear hold me back.

36:18 SPEAKER_02: Wow.

36:19 SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't know what I could well how I didn't know how I was gonna do it. Yeah, I didn't know what I was gonna say. The Bible says if you open up your mouth, I'll feel it. I'll feel it. And I w I wasn't ready for that. I didn't think I didn't have enough faith for that. Yeah, and eventually I overcame my fear and then they stepped in and met me there.

36:42 SPEAKER_00: So can you just highlight really quickly then the difference when God is telling you to wait?

36:52 SPEAKER_01: I don't know if God ever tells you to just wait.

36:55 SPEAKER_00: Okay.

36:56 SPEAKER_01: Like I said before, you have to actively wait. I d I I think if God's telling you to do something, I don't I don't remember a time where I needed to wait for something that God told me to do. Usually when God's t there's been times that God told me to do something that I didn't do it, and it was too late. Because I waited. Yeah, I don't I don't remember a time in the Bible where God said to wait. Yeah. There's been times where there were prophecies in the Bible. God said in this time you're gonna do this and this and this.

37:38 SPEAKER_01: But he didn't tell them to wait. He was preparing them for what's about to come. That that's that's how I feel about waiting in faith. I don't think waiting is an act of faith, personally.

37:51 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that. Thank you. And so I I really wanted to ask you that question in particular because I think so many people, regardless of where they are in the world, can really relate to that, where they may have a thought or a dream or a vision, and they the fear, they're they're confusing the fear of not executing to the thought of, you know, maybe God's just telling me to wait because things aren't lining them up and you know, something just keeps coming them up or whatever the case is, and being able to find that distinction.

38:20 SPEAKER_00: And I think for humans, we really try to control um the outcome. And we want everything, you know, to fall in alignment the way that we want it to fall in alignment. And if we can't control it, then everything is gonna fall apart. And I think sometimes the the real question isn't can I control this? The question is, can I trust God with this? And so, Mr. Mark, when you've openly talked about your own journey with fitness, self-improvement, the ego, the social media, and eventually realizing that becoming a better version of yourself isn't necessarily the same thing as becoming the person God created you to do.

39:02 SPEAKER_00: That's a very powerful distinction. And so my question to you is how can someone tell when personal growth has quietly turned into self-worship?

39:16 SPEAKER_01: Is is when you start forgetting about God and you start realizing, you start thinking, I did this, I got myself in shape, I became a better business leader, I became better at this. When you that I mean, when you start using the word I a lot, and when you we talk about faith and personal development, you do have to take the action, you do have to move. But where the difference in faith and personal development is, is you were relying on God and the Holy Spirit to do it. Now I've done that. I've I powered my way, willpowered my way through running a marathon.

39:59 SPEAKER_01: I I pushed myself to do it, and it it can happen. You definitely can improve yourself, yeah. But I also willpowered, not even willpowered, I did things I was able to give up some really deep personal things in my life that I would not have been able to give up on my own. I don't want to go too far into detail, but these were things that certain addictions that I had in my life that I had for many, many years, that even through personal development and reading like this is this is this is what you're doing with your life when you fall into this addiction.

40:43 SPEAKER_01: I c I couldn't stop it. Wow. But then but then when I surrendered and realized I'm not my I'm not it's not just me that's trying to make my life better. It's the Holy Spirit because when I learn to give up some of these addictions and stop doing some of these things, the Holy Spirit can use me to help other people. I think the real answer to the difference in personal development and and faith, faith is about helping other people. You become better so that you can make people help other people around you become better with personal development.

41:28 SPEAKER_01: You become better so you can be more but you can be better, you can be more successful. There's nothing wrong with being better and being successful, but use that to help others. That's the difference in faith and personal development. It's it's more about everybody else that you come in contact with than yourself.

41:49 SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you for that. I really appreciate you breaking that down. Um what did the lesson in doing that and through your kind of personal journey? What did that lesson in a sense kind of cost you? If I'm able to, if I'm able to ask you that question.

42:14 SPEAKER_01: It cost me a lot of my friendships that weren't helpful, that weren't so you know, I had a lot of friendships of people who weren't who were just like me. They were the the casual Christians. And I had to kind of I tried to bring them up with me, and one of them actually did come with me, but the others they didn't they didn't want to. And this this is another personal development thing. You have to pay attention to the people that you have in your life, whether they're bringing you up or pulling you down.

42:48 SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Bible talks about this all the time. Jesus modeled community with his disciples, he put 12 ragtag men together who got better after the Holy Spirit came in and they their lives improved.

43:02 SPEAKER_02: Right.

43:02 SPEAKER_01: Didn't didn't turn out the way they wanted it to, but they they lived what they believed.

43:09 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

43:09 SPEAKER_01: You know, one of so that's I had to sacrifice some friendships. I I sacrificed some addictions. A lot of the habits I had in my life that weren't causing me to be better, that were just holding me back. I I had to put them aside. I would spend this was one of it wasn't really an addiction, it was just a habit. I would spend four or five hours a night playing video games, and when I didn't realize I was spending no time with my wife. I wasn't spending enough time reading, trying to learn more to become better.

43:47 SPEAKER_01: So that's you know, those are the same. It's it's the only difference in personal development and faith development is you have the Holy Spirit behind you to help you through. It rather than just trying to power through it on your own. Yeah. It still takes discipline. Yeah. But it's it's discipline that's driven by another force, an invisible force.

44:12 SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes. I I couldn't agree more. And I think, you know, as we turn into seasons, you know, and I think you can relate as a as a fellow podcaster, there's certain things that you have to honestly let go, some thought loops, some thought process that you once had. You know, for me, it was the imposter syndrome of thinking that I couldn't do it because of my background being in the military and just really only having that background. You know, former drill sergeants are just only knowing military terms, military life.

44:42 SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I really had to do a lot of work and dig deep to know that, you know, I'm I'm allowed to be in these spaces too. And I have something really valuable to bring to the world as well and to serve. So, you know, I think knowing where you are in your journey and what you're gonna have to let go of if you want to, you know, get into the next place in your life and coming to the realization and knowing that it's okay. So, Mr. Mark, I know that now you're a grandfather and you've talked about the idea that even if nobody listened to your podcast, your grandchildren can one day look back and see what you stood for and what you were trying to leave behind.

45:21 SPEAKER_00: So I want to take that idea even further. When you think about legacy, what do you believe people misunderstand about the future?

45:34 SPEAKER_01: I think they misunderstand that. Well, what what I feel about legacy, legacy is something you are establishing right now. You have to start building it now. You know, I you talk about my my grandchildren. You dug deep, by the way, because that was an old episode.

46:00 SPEAKER_01: My my grandchildren, even now, if they're like, oh, that's cool. My my grand they call me pop pop. Popop's a podcaster. That's so cool. They tell their friends and all that. But I believe that someday, I I just had a grandson born just a few months ago. He's literally two months old. His name's Oliver. Someday, right now, while he is growing up, being an infant, maybe 15 years from now, he's starting to try to figure out life, and he's gonna discover my podcast or your podcast or somebody else's podcast, and it's gonna help him to start to learn how to grow up properly and become a man and make the right decisions.

46:50 SPEAKER_01: I I think what people misunderstand about legacy is they they want to see it now. Yes, a legacy is something that's in the future that you you can't even see.

47:02 SPEAKER_02: Right.

47:03 SPEAKER_01: And when I say you're establishing it now, you're you're building now what's gonna last for future generations to come.

47:12 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that. I love that. Um so Mr. Mark, what should someone listening today begin doing differently if they want their faith, values, and character to outlive them?

47:29 SPEAKER_01: First of all, for every faith person, the first thing you have to do is repent. And for me, it's it's repent daily because none of us are perfect. That's why Jesus Christ came. You know, in my faith, Jesus Christ came to die for our sins because he knew we were flawed humans who needed help. That's why he gave us the help. So the first step is to repent. And when you repent, you turn. So whatever you're doing wrong, you try to turn away from that and stop doing that wrong thing. That's that's part of surrender.

48:07 SPEAKER_01: And then it comes to the other side of it, you know what to do right, is you start doing those right things, and it takes daily action. The Bible says pick up your cross daily, it's the same as as discipline. You have you have to work on it daily. You pick up that cross and you just start moving, doing the right thing. And if you don't do it correct today, it's okay because there's tomorrow. You can just pick that up again tomorrow. If you screwed up today, it's okay. Tomorrow's still coming. Jesus Christ gave us his grace.

48:46 SPEAKER_01: His grace covers us for a multitude of sins, for a multitude of wrongs. I have I've heard people tell me so many times, oh, I just not that kind of person. I just, you know, I try it so many times to start getting in shape, and I just can't because I I do it for a week or two and then I give up. That's okay. Just pick it back up again tomorrow. Just don't beat yourself up for it and and keep going. You know, that's what I would tell anybody. Yeah, surrender is giving it all to God, but then moving forward in that.

49:24 SPEAKER_01: This this whole waiting thing is not enough. You can't just give it all to God and then wait for him to start moving you. You have to put one foot in front of the n of another and start moving in the direction he wants you to go. And in order for you to know which direction to go, seek mentors and read the Bible and pray. And when you pray, prayer is a conversation, it's not just thank you, God, for this day. Gratitude, absolutely important. Thank God for all that he's given you, and then you wait.

49:59 SPEAKER_01: The self-development, we'll call it meditation. So you wait, you wait for God to speak. And when you're reading the Bible a lot, it gets inside of you. You don't even know it. Like just in your speech, it starts coming out. It starts in your head, it just comes out. A scripture will pop in your head out of nowhere. That's how you start moving with God. You have to move, you can't just wait. But that's that's where you start.

50:28 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that. So I want to piggyback off that question and ask you, what do you say to the person who's praying right now but feels like God is silent?

50:41 SPEAKER_01: There there are a lot of times in my life when I I feel like that, even now. You know, um there are there are days that I'm like, okay, well, I I have to do a class in a in a couple weeks. I'm leading the life group and I've been praying about what am I gonna talk about, what am I gonna say? And nothing has come forth. And I'm I'm still waiting. So what I'm doing is I'm studying the Bible. I'm you know, I'm using the tools that are available to me. I'm going to chat GPT. Okay, I want to try to do this class, and I can't just rely on that.

51:17 SPEAKER_01: Right. Again, it's a it's a feeling. That's the weird invisible force thing. It's sometimes it's a feeling. Yeah, I've I've had a chat tell me a few things. Oh, this would be a good, you know, it spits it out instantly. Oh, this would be a good class. Yeah, not feeling that right now. Right. And honestly, it's it's starting next week. Today, something came to me, and then I started talking to chat. I'm like, okay, I get this is how I'm gonna work this out. But it just takes intentional praying and waiting, and it's it's it's weird, it's it's a feeling.

51:56 SPEAKER_01: So if you're praying and you're hearing nothing, you mind if I get a little bit deeper with the the spiritual stuff?

52:04 SPEAKER_02: Not at all.

52:06 SPEAKER_01: The times that I've been in that place where I felt nothing, I had to do something harder, like fasting, praying three times a day. I've gone on multiple day fast just to because maybe I'm missing something. Because I don't think from my faith perspective, it's not God who's not trying to speak to me. I'm just for some reason, something is blocking that feeling of what I'm waiting to hear. So then I need to do something different. Fasting is a biblical thing, Jesus fasted. And I I'll I'll tell you, the times that I fasted, it broke something in the spiritual realm where it's like, okay, now I feel this, I know this is God now.

52:57 SPEAKER_01: And I I personally live a fasted lifestyle once a month, and it I do it for health reasons as well as spiritual reasons. I'll do a 24-hour fast. Yeah, and when when I'm fasting, I'm praying constantly. Because as the Bible talks about prayer and fasting. Yeah. I I think if you're not feeling something, you have to find a way to go a little bit deeper, even if it's just meditation, even if it's just reading more, or finding a friend and saying, Can you pray with me?

53:29 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that. I love that. And I really appreciate you being able to kind of give that practical sense of idea. You know, so if somebody's really in the season, they're praying and they're not hearing anything, creating that disruption, interrupting that thought process and implementing something like the fasting. And again, friends listening all over the world, Mr. Mark and I, we are not doctors, we are not physicians, we are not experts in this field. So please speak to your physician that you have.

53:59 SPEAKER_00: If this is something that you're going through and, you know, make sure health-wise and your medical records can reflect for you to be able to do something like this. You know, don't just because you're listening to this episode and you're hearing Jay and you're hearing Mark speak, think I'm gonna go and do this, you know, this fast. Please do it healthy, please do it responsibly. We don't, anything that's on the Warriors Haven podcast is not for you to be reckless with. It's for you to have the information, other practical tools to apply.

54:26 SPEAKER_00: So please take medical professional advice in applying something like this tool that Mr. Mark has done for himself and understand too, Mr. Mark has been in this space for a while and he knows what his body needs and how his body's gonna respond. All of our bodies are different. So I just wanted to give that disclaimer in that too with um with what you just kind of gave as a practical tool. And Mr. Mark, we're coming down to some of our time now for the for the episode. But if you could sit across the table from someone who was completely lost in hope in their future, what would you tell them about faith, identity, and the possibility of becoming someone different from who they are today?

55:10 SPEAKER_01: I've done this multiple times on my podcast now, where I've sat across from someone that, you know, when I do a solo, I'm trying to talk to who I was five years ago, because that's who I want to reach. For me, the guy that I was five years ago, I forgot about God. And I would I would tell them, don't forget about God. And I know there are people out there we're talking about an invisible force who may not believe in God, which which is fine. But look around you, look around it. You we talk about an invisible force, but the fact that you and I are having a conversation, an intelligent conversation, yeah, the fact that there's air to breathe, to me, it's it's it may be invisible, but it's there.

56:00 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

56:00 SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I would tell anybody, don't forget about God. But if if you're really struggling, uh thing that I talk about a lot, you don't have to say, I'm just not that guy. Because you can't change. For with a from a faith perspective, for sure you can change. Because if you believe there's a force behind you helping you to change, you can't change. It just takes daily intentional action to change. And start looking around at your surroundings, looking at looking around at the fact that you can breathe.

56:40 SPEAKER_01: Look at your family. Use uh a practical thing is the gratitude thing. Look at what you have. If you can move your fingers, be grateful for that. If you can speak, be grateful for that. And when you start realizing that you have all these things to be grateful for, your your perspective changes. And that's that's really where faith starts coming in, because a lot of times when you when you're just feeling dejected and low and down, it's because your perspective is on the negative things that are around you.

57:15 SPEAKER_01: And when you start seeing them in a different light, then the light of Jesus comes in and helps you see things differently, and it helps you move better, helps you move forward. If you don't forget about God and remember that God is there, whether you see him or not, whether you can feel him or not, he is there. He loves you, he cares about you no matter who you are, whether you've ever prayed ever in your life, whether you haven't, God still loves you. That will give you the hope to keep moving forward and the faith to keep moving forward.

57:58 SPEAKER_01: So, what I would tell anybody is don't forget about God.

58:03 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that. And that was so, so powerful. So, to our friends that are all over the world, please take those words and carry those words with you. And again, just like Mr. Mark, you just said, you know, you may not believe in God, but you may believe in a higher power. So, whatever that looks like for you, and wherever you are in your journey, just tap in, tap into that. Mr. Mark, I want you to finish this sentence as we close out this episode. Your future is not over because your future is not over because God doesn't want your future to be over.

58:44 SPEAKER_01: God wants you to be a better person, to move forward and to help others.

58:50 SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a beautiful answer, Mr. Mark. Thank you so much. Not just for coming on the podcast, but for being willing to have a conversation that goes deeper than success, deeper than achievement, deeper than productivity, deeper than what we can actually really see, because that's what the invisible forces has really been about. There are things happening and shaping our life that we cannot always see. Our thoughts, our beliefs, our identity, our choices, our discipline, our environment, and today, our faith.

59:25 SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's the message somebody needed. You don't have to see the entire future to take the next step. You don't have to understand the entire story to trust the author. And you don't have to become everything tomorrow. You just have to be willing to take the next faithful step because sometimes the future begins changing long before the circumstances do. And to everyone listening to this special subscriber episode, this episode is intentionally different. It's personal, it's deeper, and it's designed for the person who doesn't just want motivation, but wants to understand what is happening underneath the surface of their life.

1:00:08 SPEAKER_00: If the conversation gave you something you needed, don't just listen and move on. Take one idea from this episode, write it down, write about it, talk about it, and then do something with it. Because knowledge doesn't change your life. Applied knowledge does. And faith isn't just something we talk about. Sometimes faith is the next step we take when we can't see where the road leads. Mr. Mark, thank you for being here. And to everybody listening, keep rebuilding, keep believing, keep becoming. And remember, the forces you cannot see may be shaping the future you haven't seen yet.

1:00:48 SPEAKER_00: Friends, you're listening to the Warriors Haven podcast. And like I always end, stay strong, stay focused, stay ready.