Thanksgiving is upon us and we can’t think of a better conversation to share with you than our interview with Grammy-nominated, Dove award winning Blessing Offor. This past summer, Doug and Brad got a chance to sit down with Blessing to find out what makes him tick. How does he maintain such joy in the midst of hardship? Blessing does not disappoint. But before you can say, “Please pass the cranberry sauce,” or in Doug’s case, “Please throw the cranberry sauce away.” (You’ll see what I mean,) we clear up some personal Thanksgiving issues. All that and more as we Go M.A.D.!
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Thank you for listening and Go M.A.D. today!
Thanksgiving is upon us and we can’t think of a better conversation to share with you than our interview with Grammy-nominated, Dove award winning Blessing Offor. This past summer, Doug and Brad got a chance to sit down with Blessing to find out what makes him tick. How does he maintain such joy in the midst of hardship? Blessing does not disappoint. But before you can say, “Please pass the cranberry sauce,” or in Doug’s case, “Please throw the cranberry sauce away.” (You’ll see what I mean,) we clear up some personal Thanksgiving issues. All that and more as we Go M.A.D.!
Connect with us on social media and / or email:
Twitter - @GoMADPodcast
Facebook - facebook.com/gomadshow
Instagram - @gomadshow
YouTube - @gomadshow
Email - gomadshow@hutchcraft.com
Or find out more about us on our website: gomadpodcast.com
Enjoy the show? We'd love it if you took a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/go-m-a-d/id1593068456
Thank you for listening and Go M.A.D. today!
Hey everyone, in this episode of Go Mad with Doug and Brad, we will talk about praising God even in the midst of the storms and we'll give some practical steps to help start you down the road. We'll get to hear from Dove Award winning artist blessing offer, who has been through a lot in his life but he has decided to choose joy Ready, let's go ["Dogs and Dogs"].
Jesse:Thanksgiving is upon us and we can't think of a better conversation to share with you than our interview with Grammy nominated, Dove Award winning blessing offer. This past summer, Doug and Brad got a chance to sit down with blessing to find out what makes him tick. How does he maintain such joy in the midst of hardship? Blessing does not disappoint. But before you can say, please pass the cranberry sauce or, in Doug's case, please throw the cranberry sauce away, you'll see what I mean, we clear up some personal Thanksgiving issues. All that and more as we go mad.
Brad:Hey everyone, welcome back to Go Mad with Doug and Brad and Jesse. Good to have you back here with us.
Doug:It's almost Thanksgiving. While we're recording this, brad has look, you could either say, one of the coolest or dorkiest sweatshirts ever. All I can, let me try to describe this thing bright, bright orange, in fact, several shades of orange, with an enormous turkey with a baseball hat on.
Brad:Makes total sense. What's the story behind that, Brad? So there's a Are you sure you?
Doug:wanna know this.
Jesse:There's a Buckle in. I was a young lad, I was eight years old.
Brad:You know what bottom line? There's a brand I love baseball brand that I love but I decided that everyone puts out ugly Christmas sweaters nowadays. They wanted to have an ugly Thanksgiving sweater and let's face it this sweater-. Accomplished. I can wear this to Thanksgiving dinner, please don't, and you will not know anything I've dropped on it.
Doug:It is so many different colors Too shame. People will just think it's part of the design. I'll be at that dinner. Please don't wear that. Underneath it, though, is your blessing offer shirt. I'm pretty excited about this conversation with blessing offer. Just won some Dove awards like a few weeks ago incredible artist. But since we're close to Thanksgiving, I gotta ask you guys perhaps one of the deepest, perhaps deepest theological questions you have ever heard. I gotta know where you're at on this Cranberries in the can or real ones at Thanksgiving dinner?
Brad:The can is the real one.
Blessing:No, yeah, no, it is.
Brad:If your cranberries are not shaped like a can it is not real.
Doug:My look on the debate. My conclusion is the best place for cranberries is in the trash can next to the table.
Jesse:I was just gonna say can we just punt the year, the?
Doug:year. Here's another thing. So Thanksgiving in the South. I never even knew what these things were until Thanksgiving. No, these things are Doug work on your preposition.
Blessing:No, this thing called grips here in the South if you're not from the South.
Doug:You might not know what it is, but it's kind of just like a big slop of white stuff. It kind of looks like a concrete mix, big slop. So none of you guys are fans because I mean, I have had people be like no, it's not Thanksgiving dinner without it. You put butter and cinnamon on it, and raisins and, I don't know, watermelons or Now you're making things up, that is Well and is it really that good if you have to put that much stuff on it to?
Brad:eat it, and this is where we'd like to do our PSA and apologize to all our friends from the South. Please keep listening. Send us a casserole, I will say, growing up in the Northeast, they do actually grow cranberries up there and most people don't know. In nature they actually are shaped like a can and then just there you go.
Jesse:That is funny, you just pick them. And they just slide right into the can. It's so simple.
Doug:I'm so excited that for this episode.
Brad:Blessing.
Doug:Offer is one of the best new Christian artists and one of the best artists you've heard. Trust me, go to YouTube, go to Spotify. Millions of views, millions of streams. Check them out. I wish I had. That's his real name Blessing Offer. I wish I had as cool of a name in ministry as Blessing Offer. I wish I was like I'm Doug Boring, like I wish I was like I wish I like why couldn't I be like mom and dad, like charitable von kind or something you know?
Doug:But no, mine is Doug. You know what someone told me the other day? Wait, charitable von kind. Well, I've been thinking about this.
Brad:Oh, have you. I've been thinking about this a lot.
Doug:Well, especially since I'm like it's such a cool name and like on the same day I was talking about that, someone was like well, you have a cool name too. And I'm like, doug, how was it cool? They're like, well, that was like always the name of the stuck up sorority guy. And like the movies, the 80s movies. Yeah, oh, my goodness, doug Doug, don't forget your polo game today and make sure you wear the yellow sweater that you tie around your shoulders.
Brad:Or the turkey sweatshirt. It's all the colors, and then that's called a segue. I gotta tell you. So I learned this morning. Actually Blessing Offer has three Christmas songs out now including. Little Drummer Boy. I listened to that one this morning. You gotta check it out.
Doug:I promise you I will be streaming those later today. That's exciting.
Brad:Now I'm going to tell you a little bit about Blessing, but here's the reality is we had, we were able to sit down with them just a little while back when we were hanging out with a lot of native young people, and he just was there with us and at such a heart for Native American, for what God was doing, and his story connects on so many levels. Let me tell you a quick glimpse of who he is, because this is really important. We are talking today about ways to praise God even in the storms and there's lots of storms out there and we're going to talk about real stuff In people's lives, yeah, and we're going to talk about real stuff and how just real, practical steps.
Brad:But Blessing offers a great person to talk to about this, because here's the deal. This is a guy who has been through a lot, but he can relate to people as he talks about experiences of struggle, of triumph, life, love, all these different things, but it's from a distinctive perspective. This guy, he, is a Nigerian, born, connecticut raised. How many people you get that are Nigerian, born, connecticut raised, and now he's natural based double award winner. But here's what happened with Blessing, thank you, in Nigeria.
Brad:He was losing sight in one of his eyes when he was six years old, and so his parents sent him to live with his uncle in Connecticut because they wanted him to have the best chance of having a sight restored. Now this glaucoma left him blind in one eye, so he only envisioned in one eye, and then, when he was 10 years old, he lost sight in the other eye through a water gun accident and so he's blind. He has these things working against him and what does he do? He says you know what? I'm going to learn to play piano. I'm going to learn to play piano. And he's got a gift for it and he's using it to bring joy. So we're going to get to hear more of that story. But you've got to know he is someone that's been through a lot and he is saying but I've realized there's still ways to praise Jesus in all of it.
Doug:An amazing voice, singing voice, an amazing voice just to listen to.
Brad:as far as his thoughts on the subject, I got to say, when we first sat down with him, you were able to share with him something, because your son, taylor who, I have to say, the day this podcast released, released his turning 18. That's right, turning 18. And we'll hear a little of his story. But I've got to tell you I love how you first I kind of introduced yourself and Taylor to blessing I got your ultimate review for you here, all right.
Doug:So my 17-year-old son is totally into the classic music. He's got an old soul, loves the vinyl he brings it right sir. He loves playing guitar and keyboards and everything and I turned on my tribe and he perks right up.
Jesse:He goes what is that he hadn't?
Doug:heard that one and I said that's Blessing Love who's coming tonight, and he absolutely. He loves the Jackson Five and you actually referenced the Jackson Five in the song and he said, dad, please tell him this is awesome. So there's all the other great reviews to have.
Blessing:There's the top one right there, Listen when the kids love it. You did it right. There you go, that's right.
Doug:Yeah, Taylor absolutely loves Blessings kind of music. By the way, if you're wondering which one was Blessing and which one, was me the one who sounded cool while he was talking. No, it was Blessing Love and the one who sounded like the stuck up frat guy was me.
Doug:So, today we're talking about praising God in life's storms no-transcript health storms, sometimes a prodigal child storm you might be going through. We went through Anna, my wife and I went through that about 18 years ago. There's been other ones, but probably our biggest one, our most challenging one, was hearing that Taylor was going to be born with a very deadly and rare heart condition, some chromosome issues. They told us he had what they call brain bleed. When they looked at before he was born, when they looked at the pictures and we were told by the doctors just prepare yourself because we actually are not confident he'll make it out of the birth canal. As my dad says, doctors don't make those decisions, dr Jesus does. And without getting into a lot of details, taylor is truly a miracle.
Doug:We have had to deal with some health issues, for sure, therapies, but the worst of the worst, when Taylor was born was not there. He did have a heart surgery at two days old, but he has lived a life where he has really blown away doctors, surgeons, times where they were about to do a surgery. They looked at him and they said it looked like it was already done. So we don't have to go in there, things like that. But I'll tell you God has used that hardship in our lives related to Taylor's health, some of the ongoing things too to teach us about his goodness and trusting him. Praise you in the storm.
Doug:There's a great song and you've probably heard it. It's one of the biggest and most beloved Christian songs of the last 20 years. I think the reason for that is because every mature believer knows deep down that our worship and our trust of God can't be determined or better not be determined by our circumstances or our feelings. A faith like that isn't really faith at all right, and eventually that kind of faith is going to flame out. So we trust the God instead that knows our circumstances, that works lovingly for our good in the midst of even the most difficult times, and the God the bottom line to me is a God that loves us enough to die in our place, certainly loves us enough to be with us in the storms of life.
Brad:You know, doug, that actually leads me to what I think our first step would be for people, our first encouragement we don't have to wait till the end on these. We're going to share them throughout and we're about to hear more from blessing here, but the reality is that first step is to remember that your situation is your assignment, and I'm going to ask you about that in just a minute. But first let's hear from blessing, because the reality is he talks in this next part is we're sitting down with them about remembering who you are, and he has got an incredible part of his story of how he sees that God wants him to use his life to impact others. Let's take a listen to what blessing had to say.
Blessing:It's funny because I you do a lot of the tell the story and when I tell my story in my brain there's always like you know the watch yourself, that's you know watching you go. Oh, that happened to one person you know. I was born in Nigeria. I am from a tribe and my tribe is called the Ibo tribe and I speak a language called Ibo and anytime I meet people from Nigeria, I speak my language and they about have a heart attack.
Blessing:Because they go, but you sound like you're American. I grew up in Connecticut, so the English is down five, but I remember when my when I left I was six and my parents and my family are still back home I came here with my uncle and my dad specifically said don't forget your language.
Blessing:He said like literally he said don't come back here speaking English like you don't know who you are anymore. And even at six years old, that made an impact on me, because the richness of being from a tribe, being from a group, being from a people being, from being from a society that that is so like, that identifies with itself, you know that says, hey, we are these people, you know. So it's even when you say you know, I joke with people about being an offer, right, that's my, that's the smallest tribe we can always be part of as our family, right?
Blessing:The smallest tribe is I'm from this family, and then the next tribe is like, maybe our church community, right? Or maybe the the street we're on, you know, have a little group of people like, oh yeah, we're from this high school, right. But it's like when you're from an Ibo tribe you say, okay, we've been here for a long time and we are this kind of people relative to the people around us. You know, we love education. When you come to America as a, as an immigrant, we go to school, we get degrees, we all of the cliches, right. So it's like leaving Nigeria and hearing my dad say Remember who you are. Even as a six year old, it meant the world to me because I was like, yes, I am an Ibo person, right, but and not but. And when I came to America, I got to join another tribe. I got to be from Hampton, connecticut, which is where I grew up, and I got to be from the Northeast and I got to be from Nashville, where I live now. I got to be from New.
Jesse:York.
Blessing:I got to be a songwriter in the songwriting community and you know all that to say. There is so, so, so much to be proud of about all the different identities that make us all up and at the end of the day, as it as it kind of the tapestry starts getting weaved, you start to see that at the end of the day, you know, here we are just all people. You know what I mean.
Brad:That's right.
Blessing:And all believers, or you know, all suffering, all struggling, all feeling the same feelings. Right, so we can identify with any level of tribe we want to. You know, and I just I love being able to sit across from anybody and say, hey, who, whatever it is you identify with, I get it. You know what I mean Because, at the end of the day, we all woke up today because God let us wake up. You know what I mean, and you miss somebody. I do too, and so these are the things that that, at the end of the day, that's the tapestry of just being human. You know what I mean. So the tribe we ultimately all belong to is that of people trying our best on a daily basis, you know.
Brad:It's so key what Blessing said there about remember who you are.
Brad:Because when we remember that, as we talk about on this program, all the time, on this podcast, that we are Christ ambassadors and so when we see that we're His people and that we're His ambassadors in every situation, it helps us to see and remember that our situation is our assignment, where God places you, whether it is in times of plenty or times of want, no matter what you are looking at the struggles, the hard times, especially those health times that we are still to be His ambassadors and use that as a launching pad. Now, doug, it comes to mind for me you mentioned Taylor before in his story, one of the things that has always stuck with me from your days where you were at that hospital. That was your home. I mean, you and Anna were just there with him and that was a time where there were hard days to praise him in the storm. There were times of struggle for you, but you kept being brought back to.
Brad:I know God also has me here for a purpose. You're in an elevator and that story it always sticks with me. Tell us about that.
Doug:It was actually a miracle in the first place that we were at Chop at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for Taylor to be born One of the best things I've learned. I'm 52, it's taken me a while to learn this, but one of the best things you can do in the middle of a tough time is try to get the focus off yourself. Purposefully do things, look around to get the focus off yourself, otherwise the anxiety, all the details of what seems to be going wrong, will eat you up so many times. Like you said, brad, our situation is our assignment from God. It's not random, it's on purpose. So many times God has put you in that tough situation to be a light to somebody else in that tough situation, to be an ambassador for Jesus for somebody else in that tough situation that probably doesn't have that hope. Yet Right after Taylor was born, he was hooked up to all these machines.
Doug:I got into this elevator at Chop from the NICU and where they keep some of the most in trouble young kids, babies and I met this Croatian gentleman and he had a beeper on him and he looked like death warmed over. He looked devastated and I felt like I was supposed to talk to him. I said hey, how are you doing? And he said I'm actually doing awful. This is the worst time of my life. I've been here for six months with this beeper on. He said my life used to be about my job, my wife, my life. He says my life now is this beeper. I wait to see for it to go off. So my daughter, who has been in this hospital for those six months and the first six months of her life, so she can get a heart transplant, if one becomes available. He says I'm getting close to a divorce with my wife, we're very angry with each other, everything has fallen apart in my life and I'm just going. Lord, what can I say to this gentleman? I just asked him if I could pray for him and so he said yes. I've never had anyone say no, by the way, when I'm asked if I could pray with them. And we bowed our heads and I did. I prayed for him just for about a minute or two and we got out of the elevator and he thanked me and he walked away. I never saw him again, but I believe that God had put me in that elevator at that time on purpose, to be light and be his ambassador there.
Doug:See, how you respond in the storm is directly tied to how you spend your time when you're not in it. So, like before, I'm so thankful. I was raised by parents that shared with us that God is good all the time, no matter what our circumstances, so that when we were in that tough circumstance I already knew that. Because praising God during the hardest times is never going to happen if you only praise him when you're feeling great. What percentage of our lives do we feel perfect?
Doug:But praising him in the storm is a decision that you've already made before it ever hits. That's Job saying. My heart will choose to say. I will choose to say blessed be the name of the Lord, no matter what's going on. And I remember Anna and I sang that song on the way home after we got the news before Taylor was born that he had this deadly heart condition. This way, when you've made a decision first, your heart is already attuned to praise God, regardless of what hits. Everyone knows that when you hear a hurricane is coming or that a hurricane could come, that you get ready for it before it hits. That way it doesn't blow you away when you're in the middle of it. Do the same thing decide how good God is and that he's in those circumstances before the storm ever hits.
Brad:Doug. That story is so practical, so real for people, because there are people who have walked through hard times and maybe your situation isn't that bad. Maybe it's not. That situation of your son is in the hospital and your daughter is waiting for this medical news and everything. Those are hard situations, but it doesn't matter. Storms are storms. They hit hard.
Brad:So we want to keep encouraging you with steps that you can take to praise God in the storm. So you've got to remember that your situation is your assignment. Please also remember to talk to God more during those times, not less. Look for what purpose he has in it. Talk to him about it. Be honest with him. Don't sugarcoat the prayers. Talk to God in an honest way. He knows your heart. He knows what you're going through. Express that to him and then don't just fire it off to him. Sit there in the stillness and listen to what he says to you, because when we take time to listen, we can learn more about what that storm is and how he wants to use that Before we go back to hearing more from blessing. One other point I want to stress.
Brad:This was a personal thing for me the other day. It may sound simple, but it is to take time to praise. The other morning I woke up and I was just I'm going to be honest I was feeling grumpy. And now, doug, you know me, my family knows me. That's not me in the mornings. I used to not be a morning person. I am now and I love getting up and greeting. They spend time with Jesus, and I just was in a funk and I'm like man, so I still sat down and had my time with Jesus.
Brad:You know, sometimes you have those moments where it's the sloppy upside the head and I read this verse Psalm 9 1,. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart. I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. It's the only verse I read that morning because I said I get it, god.
Brad:And so I just went to my Jesus journal and I opened it up and I just started writing thank you Lord for and by the time I was done with my second thank you Lord for, my heart was already changing. I felt a smile starting to come across my face there and I realized that that's why part of why David writes that, it's part of why God encourages praising in all circumstances, because when we start turning our eyes to Jesus when we turn back to praise and it's not always easy, please know. I don't mean that it's always easy to dig up that praise, but when you take the time to start listing the blessings, they are there, they are there and all of a sudden it starts to fine tune your heart again, starts to change the direction of what you're thinking. So I loved that just the other day that God was like there's a reason I tell you to praise. Get to it.
Doug:Brad, are you suggesting that somehow being honest with God and your relationship with them and getting in God's word, especially in a hard time, somehow changes your heart? Is that what you're trying to say?
Brad:I think that is. I think that is.
Doug:I love it. Well, you're right. That reminds me about a cool part of our conversation that we had with blessing. Let's listen to this. I eventually asked him about blessing. How do you keep your joy? Let's listen to what he had to say. You said something that really resonates with me. Is it your father's name? Remember who you are. Remember who you are. By the way, my wife is Navajo and she speaks the Navajo language, and her parents said the same thing to her. So that's a cool kind of speak Doug does not speak it.
Brad:I do not Doug, how dare you?
Doug:He says some words, Although I will tell you I asked the Navajo friend of mine how smooth is this blessing?
Blessing:Tell me.
Doug:When I got interested in my wife I said can you teach me something cool to say in Navajo to her to impress?
Blessing:her.
Doug:And it worked. 20 years later, I High five.
Brad:Yeah, right here, but you were not sure. But either way, she still hasn't told me what I said, but yeah, but.
Doug:I'm wondering, just reading some of your biography and some of the challenges that you've had in your life, for your smile, for your joy. So how do you, for someone who's listening right now and is in the middle of a really difficult life challenge, or for young people here that are in the middle of something that might seem when is this ever? When is this going to stop? Why is God letting me go through this? How do you keep your joy through the challenges, man?
Blessing:the irony of joy. This is an old Albert Camus quote. I use this a lot. He says grief carves a canyon, so that joy may overflow it.
Brad:Right, that's deep. Oh, that's good.
Blessing:And Albert Camus would call himself an existentialist. I don't even know.
Blessing:I don't think he'd identify as a Christian. But I went through a phase where I read a lot of his stuff I still do sometimes and there's so much faith in it that he didn't then realize. But he says grief carves a canyon, so that joy may overflow it. And I love that because it's a picture of the deeper the grief then the greater the joy that will come to overflow it. So if you have a shallow grief then maybe you weren't that sad, but you don't need much joy then, you know what I mean the your portion of joy is greater for your portion of grief, so right.
Blessing:So that is how God works in all the ways. So it's like being from a third world country. You would be surprised at how joyful the people are from where I'm, from Nigerians and Haitians and Africans in general, and people just from places where you think they would be. You know, you go, please adopt a kid from Phil and the Blank. They're hungry and they are so please do that.
Blessing:But also they're some of the happiest people you've ever met. And the reason is that when you have nothing, you realize that on some level, on some spiritual, emotional cosmic like only God can level, you can still be happy. And as soon as you find that you're still smiling, even with nothing, then the world has lost its hold on you, because you quickly realize that your joy is not dependent on material things.
Doug:Great point. Blessing made that his blessings. You can't count whether God is blessing you based on the amount of material things that are happening. This is the problem with the prosperity gospel man. It makes someone assume that their suffering is because God is cursing them, when in reality he sends suffering. Wait a minute, this is the Bible. Wait what Doug. He sends suffering to make us more like him.
Doug:Philippians 1.29 says For it has been granted to you, gifted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him. Why? The answer is right there in Romans 5. We also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character and character, hope.
Doug:We have it so mixed up that the lie that following Jesus means, in each year life, a bigger financial blessing. Tell that to the apostle Paul in disgusting Mamertime prison in Rome who's about to be beheaded. Jesus himself said following him was going to result in greater hardship sometimes. So we ask God for the God perspective, what my dad calls putting on the God glasses to see things from his perspective. I mean, have you ever prayed, lord? Help me to put you first, help me to love you the most, because this hard time could be him answering that prayer. Maybe I've depended on things other than God so many times in my life for stretches. He's answering that prayer saying well, I'm going to put you through this so that you will get to a point where you're depending on me more than those things. So it ends up being a gift that produces that perseverance and, ultimately, that hope.
Brad:I would say one thing that hit me from what he was sharing there and just thinking through what we thinking of others. This really hit me from Romans 12, 15, where it says rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. So that'd be one other step I would throw out. There is to think of others and to rejoice with those. Maybe you're not going through something that you can really rejoice about right now, but if someone else is, enter into that with them, and also mourn with those who mourn, if they are going through a tough season, if they're going through a storm, mourn with them, just be there with them, come alongside them. Because when we rejoice with others, we get our focus off ourselves and back on others and back onto what God is doing. And when we mourn with others, we also sometimes get a glimpse that you know what. Maybe my issue isn't that bad, maybe what I'm doing I was just on I or someone could?
Doug:always have it worse, yep.
Brad:On I I was on social media just the last couple of days and some friends of ours are going through something where there is their young granddaughter who is dealing with just found out two days ago she has leukemia and she just started.
Brad:Yes, there was her first chemotherapy treatment and all of a sudden you start to look at that and you're like, honestly, for for me, I was like what was the thing I was complaining about earlier this week? And I, because all of a sudden you start seeing people and seeing situations the way God sees them and that helps us Learn how to praise him in the storms more, because we're able to come alongside others and bring that and that's really and we're gonna pray to wrap up here soon, but what I want to make sure we know this is all about being Christ's ambassadors, like we've been saying along the way, because when we learn to praise Jesus in the storm, we can help others find Jesus in their storms, because they see that we have handled things in a different way, we are talking about things in a different way and our perspective is different and, wow, if people Can find Jesus in the midst of their storms, it is life changing.
Doug:Brad, you just nailed home one of the most important things that we will say to the gods word says About this mourn with those who mourn, rejoice with those who rejoice, because when you get the focus off yourself, not that what you're suffering with is an important but or that God doesn't care about it he does but when you get the focus off you, some something happens in our hearts, some healing begins to happen. When we get the focus up ourselves. Suffering is so much about perspective. Remember when the disciples asked Jesus, they said this man was born blind. Lord, who sinned His parents? Are him that he was born blind? Remember Jesus answer. He said neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
Doug:And, friend, if you're listening right now, whatever your storm is, if it's financial, if it's health, if it has to do with your children, remember that God wants to display his power through your life and to you. And this life is not about Smooth sailing. It's about Jesus being with you through all of the hardship and it's about you being able to be an ambassador and a light for someone else when they're going through the same thing. So, as a follower of Christ. Our suffering has a purpose. It's not random, it's not meaningless. There's not.
Brad:I want to just say a thank you to even though we sat down a little while back for blessing off, for being part, yes, of the podcast here, because he has to make a difference hard. It was great to have him with us. Thank you to listening. Remember, leave us a review, rate the show, put a couple words there about what it means to you, share it with a friend, and we want to just Encourage you as you're sitting down at that Thanksgiving table. If you haven't done that yet, remember, just enjoy that time, remember those moments, have a great Thanksgiving, giving praise to Jesus for the things he has done. And until next time,