Veterans Day: Love Behind the Fight

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign Liberty and Equipped Podcast I'm Greg Davis, founder of NeoMag and a firm believer that life is worth living boldly. Liberty should be used for good and we all have a calling to be equipped to pursue it. Every week we explore what it means to live with intention and carry the tools and mindset that prepares for whatever comes. We'll dive into the topics around the freedoms we cherish, the gear we trust, and the skills that equip us. There's more than a podcast, it's a mission. Life, liberty and equipped to pursue it. Foreign we're coming you live on the NeoMag YouTube and Facebook accounts. Instagram has given us a boot for a while, a year and we'll be pulling your live comments right into the conversation. If you're listening to the recorded podcast, we go live Every Wednesday at 1pm Eastern on YouTube and Facebook page and we would love to have you join us in real time. Don't forget to join the NeoMag Insiders club. It's free to join and right now insiders are getting 30% off NeoMag products. The whole month of November Black early started, Black Friday started early. For our insiders, just head over to neomag.com and sign up through the pop up on our site. While you're there, please. While you're here, please subscribe to the channel, follow us on social and leave a review for the podcast. It really, really helps more people discover what we're doing and keeps this community growing. Now, this week we celebrate our veterans as we talk about liberty and the cost of freedom. Today, it's fitting to recognize two people who know that cost firsthand. My co hosts are not just part of this conversation. They're veterans who've stood in defense of the very freedoms we're here to discuss, gentlemen, your service and example. You continue to sit, remind us that love of country and love of others go hand in hand. We're grateful to have you with us. Welcome my co host, Nate Hills and Michael Billings. [00:01:44] Speaker B: Cheers. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Cheers, gentlemen. [00:01:48] Speaker C: Man, this office looks awesome. I just keep looking at the video and like, wow, we actually look like we have a studio now. [00:01:55] Speaker A: And not with us today is Tib. [00:01:58] Speaker B: He's in the Caribbean. [00:01:59] Speaker A: He is. Don't feel bad for him. [00:02:01] Speaker C: Don't. Don't feel bad at all. Nope. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Mike, we still got a little bit of that door jam right there. [00:02:06] Speaker C: It's because you moved the camera. [00:02:08] Speaker B: All right, all right. Life Segment. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Life. Segment. Life isn't just the big moments. [00:02:14] Speaker B: It's the everyday joys worth protecting Family, friends and community. Let's talk about what makes life rich. So. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Actually, so I with that intro. I also just want to mention our machinist is also a veteran. [00:02:29] Speaker B: True. [00:02:29] Speaker A: He's a marine. Any of our part time guys was. [00:02:33] Speaker B: John is a vet. [00:02:34] Speaker A: John's a vet. George has been here for a little while. [00:02:39] Speaker B: But he's not. [00:02:39] Speaker A: He's not a vet. [00:02:40] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:41] Speaker A: I think he's the only one then. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Yep. [00:02:43] Speaker A: But yeah, a lot of us here are a lot of. Not us. That sounds like it includes me. A lot of people here are veterans and. Or also serve as police officers or did so. Surrounded myself with a lot of. And cops. Killers. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Cops. [00:03:02] Speaker A: So I'll kick off life segment this week. So this last weekend it was. It was a great, great weekend. Just what a. It was. We took a couple of my favorite events of the year. Like you know how you just have. You have certain events through the year that's just like. You just look forward to that thing all year. Some of those things, two of those things happen in the same weekend. They don't normally the same weekend, but hit the same weekend. So one of them, our church does something called Jesus Prom. And I'm gonna be honest, the name of it, it's really lame. I hate the name of it. [00:03:31] Speaker B: Terrible name. They need to come up with a better name. [00:03:33] Speaker A: Event is cool, but the event is amazing. So then the name. But what it is, it's. It's basically a prom for special needs people. And it is. They've been doing this for like 15 years now. [00:03:48] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:03:48] Speaker A: Took one year off for Covid. [00:03:50] Speaker B: Is that I actually, I was gonna say. Is it not longer than that? I feel like it's been longer. [00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah. We're doing the math. I think It's. It's been 15 years. Okay. And it is such a cool event. Just seeing the faces. So just to paint the picture. So this year there's always a theme. The. The theme this year was. Was dancing in the rain. [00:04:09] Speaker C: So I think I saw you dancing too. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Yo. You did. If you. If you saw my Instagram, I was so not well. That was the whole point. I'm in the band. So we do a. For like half of the night. The half night is dj. And we actually brought in a real DJ this year. And he did. Jake did just crush it. He did so good. And then. And then we have a live band. But just to paint the picture so that they had the whole place decorated. They had like. It's like balloon clouds and like written, you know, raindrops. Hanging and twirling from the, from the ceilings everywhere when they come in. So they actually roll out a red carpet. [00:04:44] Speaker B: That's pretty cool. [00:04:45] Speaker A: And all the volunteers. So it takes like 300 volunteers to pull this off. We had. [00:04:48] Speaker B: So you almost have more volunteers than you do attendees. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So there, there's probably what was there 138 guests or what we call them. [00:04:57] Speaker C: Perfect. [00:04:57] Speaker A: And each guest has, has a escort. Yeah, we give them a different name than that, but yes. So each, each guest has somebody that's. That's with them the whole night. We have games all over the place. There's dinner for them. There's. Yeah, they said there's a live band. They do karaoke in the main. In the main room of the church, they have karaoke. And so a lot of the, the, the volunteers. We already frozen a lot of the volunteers that are. There are, are like just to be there to encourage and stuff too. So for the red carpet when they all come in. So the line starts forming like an hour before. There's people standing out and it was cold and rainy that night. There are people standing out there forever. And they. And so they, they come in and there's music going and we're. And, and. And we're all, you know, we're all clapping and hooping and hollering for them to come in. And so they just come in just feeling like they are royalty and seeing their faces, just pure joy and an excitement and they're. It just cracks me up from the get. And then. And then the whole night is just all about them and giving them a good time because there's a good chance that when they were in school, they, they weren't there for stuff. [00:06:14] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:14] Speaker A: So it's just. It's just a really, really cool event I look forward to every year. And. And so. Yeah, so. So that was great that. That was Friday night and then Saturday. It's one of my favorite sporting clay competitions of the year is down at Cardinal Center. I know Mike knows it for. They also have like pistol rifle ranges and stuff too. And so they do a night shoot. And so they bring out like those big construction lights and they have like two of those construction lights on each. Each stand. And so it's. They're pretty well lit, but you're still shooting at night. And there's definitely a different vibe to it. And they have like burn. They have burn barrels at each. At each station. There's just this whole vibe to it. [00:07:02] Speaker C: Right. And they were glowing too. Right? The clays were glowing that's just a light that's just. [00:07:09] Speaker A: That's just because of the lighting on it. Yeah. And it's just white light. But when you put white light on in the dark on, like on those orange clays, stuff like that, they just. They pop, they glow. And so that's my favorite shoot of the year. And for some reason I always do really good. There's a lot of people I know, actually know a lot of people who do not go because they just don't think they're gonna shoot good because it's nighttime at night. And, you know, some people say that at night and with the lights on, everything like that, it throws off your depth perception. I've never really experience that. So there's people that just won't come because of that. So I have. [00:07:47] Speaker C: The clays were the shorter. Like not. Not far. Far clay. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah. They don't really throw anything that far because there is limitations with the lights. Sometimes it's surprising how far they'll throw stuff and how. I feel like the technology and the lights get better every year too, it seems like. Because I remember the first few years I went to. I've been going to the shoot for probably over a decade and. Or no, it won't be over a decade. Probably last five, eight years, something like that. And the. Yeah. So the lights just seem to kind of get brighter and they. And they've added more. I keep telling people, I'm like, you're basically shooting. It's basically daytime because. Because the lights are so bright. But it's just kind of this. It's this whole vibe. And for whatever reason, I always do really good at the shoot. I have. Last year, I. Last year I didn't do great for whatever reason, but I actually ended up winning my class this year. [00:08:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember you saying that this. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Week and two years ago I won my class. So I was looking back, I have got. I've placed top three at this shoot. All but like one or two years. I don't know what it is. I also kind of go into the shoot like it's a night shoot. Who knows what's going to happen at this shoot? So I don't really care all that much. I mean, that helps. [00:08:57] Speaker B: And I don't understand why people wouldn't just go and have fun. [00:08:59] Speaker A: Just go and have fun. [00:08:59] Speaker B: Who cares what the classification is? Just go shoot it. Have a good time. You're out. The weather's. I know the weather could be crappy. Right. But so cold. Just go and have a good time. Like who cares? You get to shoot at night. Like, who do. Who gets to do that? [00:09:13] Speaker A: We only can do that one time a year. [00:09:14] Speaker B: Right. And even with the, like. I know you said that it's basically shooting during the day because of the big lights they put up and all the other stuff. But at the same time, how often do you get to do that? Like, it's a. It's a different opportunity, a different chance to do something cool. Go do it. Just have a good time. [00:09:28] Speaker A: I mean, it's. It's definitely more expensive than Gravid Round, but they have all the lights to bring and everything. But they cater in lunch, they cater in dinner. It's kind of a whole day. And there are other events to shoot during the day, but it kind of ends with this night shoot. And it's just. It's so fun. And the crazy thing is there have been years that I've shot that in shorts, and there have been years where it's like frozen 20 degrees sideways snow. And that makes it difficult because that snow gets lit up by the lights too. Sure. So trying to find a clay in the snow sometimes, but it's just kind of. Again, it's this whole vibe. It's just this whole fun thing. So. Part of the. [00:10:03] Speaker B: It's part of the fun. [00:10:03] Speaker A: So. Yeah, it was. It was an amazing weekend for me. Both those things are things that I really look forward to every year, and they both hit the same weekend. So it was pretty awesome. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Nice. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:12] Speaker C: Sounds like a good weekend. I'm gonna have to go shoot this match. This sounds like you come next year. [00:10:17] Speaker A: It's so. It's such a good time. [00:10:18] Speaker C: Yeah. You'll have to keep me in the loop on the schedule. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:20] Speaker C: Well, so I actually had a match too, this weekend, and it was brutal. You know, you show up and it's raining and it's wet. So I didn't come with the right jacket. I wasn't prepared. I had a hoodie on, actually, the one I have on the floor over here, which is kind of funny. But I left the house and I. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Was like, so that's not good enough for a rainy day. [00:10:45] Speaker C: Well, I had multiple layers. And it wasn't raining in Wadsworth. By the time I get to dss, it's raining. Oh, it's just raining. So, you know, we had that temporary cover until you had to go out, but I was the rso, too. So I'm running the timer or the tablet and we're rotating. [00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:01] Speaker C: So I went into it just like, don't Freeze to death. That. I mean, that already happened before I got there, but my feet got soaked, stepped in a puddle, and the waterproof shoes were no longer waterproof. So I was walking around dealing with that, but ended up actually shooting really well outside of the classifiers, which I bombed. The easiest classifiers, I shot two 100% in my class in carry optics, and I got third overall combined for the day, and I won the class in my division. So nice. That was a really good weekend for the miserable conditions that we were shooting in. So that was. That was a fun weekend for me. Outside of that, I did. I got some classes scheduled for next year, so I'm excited to get to travel and to pick back up in training. We got the first form supplements in the other day, so I've been. [00:11:47] Speaker A: Meat sticks. Do meat sticks count as supplements? [00:11:49] Speaker C: They. They do. They're protein. It's. It's pure protein. It's. It's just beef. No deliciousness. It's like the protein snacks. [00:11:56] Speaker B: But it's fine. [00:11:57] Speaker C: I can't stop eating them. So I brought them in for the office for all of us. So you guys devour them. So that's. That's kind of what's going on here. I'm ready for the holidays. Honestly, I'm excited to hunt this year. So I'm, like, trying to negotiate and, yeah, finagle my way in to be like the good boys club, to be able to go hunt without any complication. And then getting home to see family, like, Thanksgiving's coming up. I know that's the busiest time of the year for us with Black Friday, the sales going through the month as well. But I'm excited to go home and just spend time with family. Hopefully it's not as cold in Tennessee as it is here right now. It's exhausting. [00:12:35] Speaker A: Shouldn't be. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Well, and it's warming up right now. It'll be. By the end of the week, it'll be back into the mid-50s. [00:12:40] Speaker C: You guys said that I could go with, like, 65 Sunday. [00:12:42] Speaker A: Supposed to hit almost 60. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Well, there you go. [00:12:44] Speaker C: See, there we go. That. [00:12:45] Speaker B: That would be your wish comes true. [00:12:47] Speaker C: A good weekend. [00:12:48] Speaker B: So it'll go back down. It'll go back up. Go back down. [00:12:51] Speaker C: What about you, Nate? What do you have going on? [00:12:53] Speaker B: So, I mean, we. It's all Black Friday prep when it comes to work stuff. I did get back in the gym this week. I don't know what I did. Probably just slept wrong on my shoulder. But I've been out of the gym for A couple weeks. So I got to be back in the gym this week, which has been fun, although I'm a little bit sore, which is all good. [00:13:09] Speaker A: It's good. [00:13:10] Speaker B: So be back at the gym, which is nice. But then the other thing with the weather changes, it also means that plans have changed, not in bad ways, but with weather changes, that means there's more wind. At least in Ohio, when you have hard switches between warm and cold, wind blows. So I actually had an apple tree fall in my backyard. Luckily, it's one that I was planning on taking down next year anyways, and it didn't hurt anything when it fell, so it's not a big deal. But that would. The plan was to cut that down on Sunday or, excuse me, cut that up on Sunday. Well, then we got our wonderful winter storm warning and the, you know, 20 degree weather. Not warning, but the 20 degree weather coming. So I needed to get the camper weather winterized quicker rather than later. [00:13:57] Speaker C: It came out of nowhere. [00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it went from, oh, this is going to be fine, we can wait a couple weeks to winterize the camper to I needed to do it. So I winterized the camper on Sunday with my dad after we got back from church. It was like, okay, I don't have time to cut up the tree. I'm doing this instead. So it's just that kind of time of year where it's like, well, plans are changing last minute, so I've got an apple tree just laying down in the backyard. And unfortunately, because it gets dark so early, I can't just do it after work. And the weekends are full for a little while, so the apple trees are gonna have to sit for a little while. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah, we're heading to the. We're heading quickly into that time, at least for me. I know. I don't think you care as much about leaves and stuff as I, As I have to. But like a ton of leaves came down this past because. Because of the snow and everything like that. And the problem is if you don't get them up before the snow continues, it'll kill everything. It kills everything and everything just freezes and sticks together. So I, I did a little bit of leaf pulling us. I didn't get to mulch. Mulch them or anything, but at least got a little bit of it. [00:14:59] Speaker B: No, I actually do care. [00:15:00] Speaker A: I have a lot of. I got a lot of leaf management. Management. [00:15:04] Speaker B: For me, it's not about looks. I'm not trying to keep up with anybody being out in the country. Like I Am. But I don't want it killing my lawn. So I'm hoping that we thaw out enough and things dry out enough because we had rain followed by snow. So hopefully everything thaws out and dries up enough that I can get the mower out. Just, I think. Cross your fingers. Think that I only have one more mo. That I really need to do to mulch and blow most of it because most of it came down in the snow. I do have a big oak in the backyard that will be dropping leaves until January. Yeah. [00:15:35] Speaker C: Yeah. So I've got two of them. And it's just. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That doesn't do anything. Oddly last year I actually lost it. Lost all its leaves by mid November, early of November. And I don't remember it was because of high winds or what, but it was bare by mid November, which was shocking. But this year it's not doing that. [00:15:53] Speaker A: So I think last January I. I did one more. I was able to do one more mow and leaf mulch because oaks finally dropped and it was still warm. [00:16:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm hoping to get one more in. We'll just see how that. It really just depends on what the weather does. So we'll see what happens. But for the most part, it's all good. [00:16:09] Speaker A: We're. [00:16:10] Speaker B: We're making. We're making moves forward. So we've got to do the final clean out of the camper. I just winterized it, which just means putting the antifreeze and the lines and all that stuff. I actually still haven't cleaned it out entirely, like getting. So I take mattresses out. I take anything. The only thing I don't take out is the largest mattress, which is the one that my wife and I sleep on because it's too big to easily take out and store somewhere. But I take all of the other stuff out before I put it away into storage just in case a rodent gets in, so they have nothing to chew on. So I still have to do that final take everything out and clean it. Because I do a. Just a quick scrub down of everything before I put it away for the winter. So I've got to do that. And then we'll put it away in the barn. The barn that I stored in for the winter, probably in the next week or so. And that'll be done and put away. And then it's just wait until I have enough warmth to do the final mulch and that cut up of that apple tree and all the other stuff. And I should be good for the winter with me we put away patio furniture with the snow coming in, we. Everything else is ready. Probably need to clean out the gutters. But other than that, one thing I. [00:17:17] Speaker A: Forgot to do is unscrew my hose. [00:17:21] Speaker B: I did all those, too. [00:17:22] Speaker A: So there's a good chance that. That. That my sprinklers ruined and stuff like that. But not the worst thing in the world. [00:17:28] Speaker B: Well, again, it was just. [00:17:29] Speaker A: It. [00:17:30] Speaker B: Not that it wasn't in the. The forecast, but it did come on. Just kind of. [00:17:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Out of nowhere, it felt like it was just. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, there's snow in the. [00:17:40] Speaker C: Oh. [00:17:40] Speaker B: And it's not just snow. It's 20 degrees. It was because we've had. We have snow in November frequently, but rarely is it snow and below freezing for multiple days in a row. I mean, Sunday into Monday and Tuesday, it was actually winter feeling here. I mean, I was in a coat. [00:17:56] Speaker C: And it was cold and windy, like you said. [00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And windy and all that stuff. So from that perspective, it felt like winter. [00:18:04] Speaker C: I'm behind in the yard work. Once I didn't know it was going to snow. Wasn't paying attention to the weather. Yeah. Oh, tomorrow's gonna be a great day. You know. Went to bed as I'm gonna get up, cut the backyard one more time. [00:18:14] Speaker B: Nope, Nope. [00:18:15] Speaker C: And I woke up to snow and it was like, oh, welcome to Monday. [00:18:17] Speaker A: I thought about. As I thought about for a moment, mowing my snowy leaves. [00:18:22] Speaker C: I thought about it, too. [00:18:23] Speaker A: I've done it before. [00:18:25] Speaker B: The issue, at least the issue for me is my mower is too heavy and the ground is. [00:18:29] Speaker A: I was worried about the ground being too. [00:18:31] Speaker B: My ground is way too wet for my. My mower to not also ruin my yard. Because if I do that, then I have ruts for the spring. I already have to roll my whole. I try and roll my yard every spring anyways. And it's just if I do this, I'm going to make it worse. It's just. It makes everything a pain, so. [00:18:50] Speaker A: And then, since Tib's not here, I made up something for him. Says one time he threw his own feces back at a monkey. [00:18:56] Speaker B: Oh, wow, that seems facetious, but we'll let it. We'll let it ride. [00:19:01] Speaker A: So that's weird. Tip shouldn't do that. Well, I'm excited about today's show. I think we got some good, good topics, so let's head into Liberty. Liberty isn't about what we can get away with. [00:19:14] Speaker B: It's about how we use our freedom to serve. [00:19:17] Speaker A: Let's explore what that looks like today. So it is Liberty or this is Liberty Day. Yesterday was Veterans Day. [00:19:27] Speaker C: Liberty Day. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Every day is Liberty Day. [00:19:28] Speaker B: Liberty Day. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Yesterday was Veterans Day. So it's kind of Veterans Day week. And so I thought, I thought we'd kind of center some things around that, that this week. And I have a quote that I found, but first I thought I'd kind of post a, pose a question for, for you guys and for, for everybody on the live is would you rather fight for the. For people you love or against the things you fear? [00:19:55] Speaker B: It's a good question. I think it's easier to be motivated to fight for the people you love than just fight against the things that you're scared of. Because if you're just fighting the things you're scared of, it's just fighting for yourself, it's selfish. Whereas if you're fighting for someone else, there's an altruistic motivation behind it. Unless you're just a narcissistic, self centered person, which they exist out there. But I do feel like it's easier if you have a reason beyond I'm just scared of this. [00:20:32] Speaker A: Right. What do you think, Mike? [00:20:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I put a couple of show notes in here and one of the things that kind of. I agree 100% with Nate, but love, Love is what I'm going to fight for, what I would stand for. Right. And the biggest one that I can take away from this is if we allow fear to run the show, it blinds us of the purpose and it divides us instead of unites us. And love is something worth fighting for. And I love exactly what you said. It's selfish to fight in fear because then you're just fighting for self preservation or in a cause of yourself. And I like the idea of having something worth more than myself to stand for, to protect and to fight for. [00:21:13] Speaker A: I agree with you guys that I think in theory that's, that's true. But I also, again, this is gonna be different, different for everybody. But I think, you know, fear drives, drives us to, to do things. It. Fear is what is what motivates the news. And the news motivates, you know, is motivated by it because people respond to it. And we've experienced, you know, being, being, being in this industry. We've experienced that when things happen in, in the world, in this country, people react out of fear and they want to go buy guns. They want to, sure, right. So, you know, fear is definitely a motivator. [00:22:03] Speaker C: And, but a motivation versus something I want to fight for, in my opinion. Are Two different things. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:22:09] Speaker C: Fear is an absolute motivating factor. Pain is a motivating factor, but pain doesn't drive the purpose. Pain, if set with long enough, will break you down, too. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Or that fear, if you sit with it long enough in personal opinion. Right. But it'll just break you down. It can't build you up with the good reasoning behind it. But it's not my driving factor. Right. [00:22:39] Speaker A: So the quote that I. That I have this week is actually one of my. One of my favorite quotes. And I've. I've used this quote in different ways that we can get to, but it's this. It's by G.K. chesterton. G.K. chesterton. There we go. The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. What's your thoughts on this, on this quote? Have you guys heard it before? [00:23:04] Speaker B: I'm assuming I've heard. I don't know if I've heard this exact thing, but I've heard things like it before. Yes. [00:23:10] Speaker C: Something similar. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree. The hard part about this is, yes, I don't disagree with the sentiment. The other issue is when you're actually. [00:23:28] Speaker C: So. [00:23:28] Speaker B: I mean. I mean, Michael and I have both been in the military. I mean, both of us have been in the Army. And there's a certain amount of. When you're doing things, you're. Yeah, there is some motivation of doing stuff for, you know, for country and for liberty and all that other stuff. But there's also. I'm doing it because I'm trying to do it for the guy next to me. I'm doing it with my unit. So I almost would love to add to this that he also loves what's next to him. Right. Because it's not just what's behind me. Because I think. And I. Again, I don't disagree with him, but he's thinking specifically, like, well, I'm not just hating what's in front of me, but I'm trying to protect what's behind me, which I get that. But he also forgets that he's. You love what's next to you, because that is just as important. It's what is what's behind you. Because what's behind you, you don't see. But what's next to you, you do. While you're in the midst of the fight, you can think about what's behind you, but that may distract you from what's happening in the moment. Whereas the guy that's Sitting next to you in the midst of the fight, who is facing whatever you're facing, you're doing that together, hand in hand. And that is going to, a lot of times be the thing that you think about more often in the moment, I think, than what's happening behind you. That doesn't mean that's the thing that motivated you to get into the fight. [00:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah, right. That's what I think. There's probably different motivations for different times, Right. I think of the people who saw 911 happen and then signed up. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Right? Yep. [00:25:06] Speaker A: Their motivation. I think we can oversimplify things too, and say it's one of the other. Like multiple things can be true at once. Right. So they, they love what's behind them, they want to protect them, but they're. [00:25:21] Speaker B: Also. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Angry about what happened to them and that the people who, who did that. And so there's, there's wanting to fight back for that. Right. So it's. It. I think there's, there's about, it's. It's about what's behind me and what's in front of me sometimes. What do you guys think of that? Like what, what's your. [00:25:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I touch kind of on what Nate was saying, and I think the word that immediately came to me was just the camaraderie and the brotherhood right there. And I agree with you. Like, I joined the military because I wanted to go to school and it was like you had to get a loan, like you had to go to school and you had to pay for it. And my parents wanted me to pursue one education because I was already like working in the medical field, doing part time firefighter, like volunteer whatever I could, following my dad's footsteps. But I wanted to be a pilot. Ultimately. I wanted to fly planes. Always had a passion for the air, and I still get to do it now today, from jumping out of planes to still getting to fly from time to time. So one of the things for me was it was a great opportunity to both serve my country, but also to have an opportunity to get an education. And I found when I had the opportunity to go into the military, I got some active duty time. One of the most memorable, memorable moments was in. It was in Germany. Right. And I got to see what true brotherhood was or camaraderie was because we were in the sticks of it in a mock deployment and we were attached to an engineer battalion that was prepping for a deployment to Afghanistan. So we were doing mock missions and simulations. So our job was engineers, was route clearance, demolition looking for IEDs, interrogate, interrogating the area and transportation. Infantry were attached to us, right? Humvees didn't leave outside of the base, but in missions here, we use them and so forth. So to speed up the story, we had a buffalo. It's an UP armored vehicle. Get stuck in the mud on a turn in Germany on a German road, and it brought it on three wheels. Anytime a vehicle comes one wheel off the ground, it's an all stop. Like, you got to call the wrecker. Well, we had a wrecker, thankfully, but the wrecker got stuck too. So it called calls for just mass chaos because we shut down our German road. And we're foreigners, right? Americans already stand out as is. Right? Blonde hair, blue eyes. Back when I had hair. But my drill sergeant, not my drill sergeant, my platoon sergeant got out of the Humvee. We were at the very back because there was a German man and he was pissed. He wanted to get by. And we couldn't let anybody buy for the safety issues if that vehicle rolled or anything, we just couldn't do it, right? So we had to block off the area. And I never saw the camaraderie of brotherhood until we were all in the Humvee watching him. And as soon as that German man got aggressive and hands came on to our nco, there was no time or anything that you can put to it other than all doors simultaneously open. And we came out and we had rifles with blanks attachments on the end of it. Right. But we all were there for that person. And that taught me what camaraderie was and what brotherhood was, because it didn't. And to preface this, I was in the reserve unit in Millington, Tennessee. So I. I was a minority in my unit. I wasn't the majority for my race. They were primarily African American black men. And I didn't see color. We didn't see color. And that was one thing that the military did instill in me, is what Nate said too, is in the moment, it wasn't about what was in the rear. It was about that person next to me. And that person next to me went through the same crap that I went through, ate the same junk MREs that I had to peed in a bottle because we didn't want to get dressed to go to the latrine in the middle of the night. We suffered, and sometimes we suffered in silence. But that was the true brotherhood for me. So to wrap this up, to go back to it, kind of to the question, I think I would agree with you. 100% Nate. That the person next to me at that time, those guys still to this day. I get DMs from time to time. They shoot me a message, say, hey, I'm proud of you. Like super glad to see what you're doing. And I appreciate that more than you can imagine because those guys were, yeah, thick and thin like we were. We couldn't take on the world, but we were ready to when we were together as, as a platoon, as a unit, as just young men wanting to both serve our country, get an education and do cool things. I mean, I had an awesome experience in the military. So I haven't read this quote. I've read similar ones, but that one does kind of resonate. And what you said is, is the kind of. The paramount to it is the brotherhood to the person next to me in that moment. Granted, I never went to war or anything like that. I never saw anything of that degree. But I would have died for those guys more, more times over than my own family because those were the guys that were everything to me in that time period. [00:30:07] Speaker A: Makes sense. That's cool. So the times when I've. So I've used this quote or a variation of this quote to try to help somebody understand. So there are people on the outside of our industry and everything who don't understand. And we see it all the time in comments and stuff, right? Like why would you carry a gun? Why would you want to do any of this? And I've tried to explain to people before, well, the reason I do is because I want to protect those that I love. It is not about me wanting, I don't want to kill anybody. [00:30:50] Speaker B: Sure. [00:30:50] Speaker A: That is literally the last thing that I want to do. [00:30:53] Speaker C: And you're not there to be a hero. [00:30:54] Speaker A: That is not. I'm not there to be a hero. I'm not. I do not want to have to kill anybody. However, I love my family so much that I'm willing to do things that I don't want to do, protect them. So I've used this quote of variations quote before just to try to help them understand that we don't believe in carry and we don't believe in self defense because we hate anybody. [00:31:18] Speaker B: We're not doing it to seek out violence. It's simply ultimately I always simplify it back to it's a tool. It's just a tool and it's a solve a problem. That is it. Now the problem might be violent and it might end poorly. Right? Like it's not a problem that we're seeking out. But it's a problem I certainly don't want to be faced with. With empty hands. Yeah. [00:31:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't want to not have the tool to take care of those who I love so much. And so as I was thinking about that, because I have a couple more questions here that really I was going to kind of ask you guys because you guys have. I'm not a veteran at all. And so you guys have more experience on this and the guys that you surround yourself with, Nate, both you guys have family who has served and everything who you know a lot more. So I almost wonder if this quote exists for the same reason that I've used it to try to help people understand. Right. So maybe on the outside, and I'm one of those outsiders, maybe on the outside we think this quote exists because there's a perception that veterans, people who, and I should, Veterans and currently serving are doing so because there is a. Because hate is a. Hate is a motivator to it. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Sure. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Do you guys think that is true? [00:32:42] Speaker B: I wouldn't say so. I don't. In my time in the military and I didn't meet everybody, obviously the military, while the military is small, you know, only 1%, less than 1% of today's population in the US actually signs up and joins the military. Less than 1% of military aged adults will sign up and join the military. So it's not a very big population. You can't meet all of them. It's just not going to happen. But the people that I met never joined up for any hatred of any group of people. They never sat and said, I'm going to join up so I can go kill these people. That was never ever a motivation or a goal. There was Certainly, especially post 9 11, there was. I saw somebody attack us. I want to protect, I want to do something about it. There's, but there's also, honestly, there is some much less noble reasons to do it. I mean, pay for school, get job experience, escape a bad life situation. Honestly, like there's, I met so many people that were like I didn't have much of an option and this was a great way for me to get out of my life circumstance, get life experience, get job experience. And when I'm done with my four to eight years, whatever, I'm gonna get out with experience in life and I can go do things which I actually, you know, kudos to that person for doing that. I see nothing wrong nor would I lessen degrade their level of service for that reason. It's you still did something that less than 1% of people will do. But I don't think I ever met a single person that ever said, oh, I did this so I could go because I hate somebody else. Like, I did this with a motivation of somebody else. Am I gonna say that that person doesn't exist? [00:34:36] Speaker C: Yeah, you definitely had them. You had those guys that were like, I want revenge, you know, or like. [00:34:40] Speaker B: Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm not gonna crazy. [00:34:42] Speaker C: I want to hurt people. [00:34:43] Speaker B: I don't think that that is. Honestly, I think those people get weeded out quickly. I do. I think those people get weeded out. [00:34:50] Speaker A: They. [00:34:50] Speaker B: That stuff shows up and they're. They're guys next again, the left to the right of them were like, hey, you're crazy. Like this is. And not in a funny, funny haha crazy, but like, hey, this is not safe. You're not good for the unit. [00:35:03] Speaker A: You're not in a good place. [00:35:04] Speaker B: Your perspective isn't good. You're not here for the right reasons and those people don't last. [00:35:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think it's. One of the questions I had here is in a polarized society, how can we rediscover the love behind our actions rather than focus on the hate in front? And you know, I think even though we kind of just said like there's. Yeah. That there might still be some of that. Most of the reason why people go to do sign up is because of love of country and love and love of the people in the country and not so much about the hate in front. But again, I think. And I'm kind of pushing us a little bit because I do think this is a motivating factor for everybody, not just those who serve that hate and fear do creep in and do motivate. Do you guys have any thoughts on that question? I guess. [00:36:07] Speaker B: I mean, honestly, I struggle to even come up with a good answer for it. I. I posted a video, I don't know, a couple weeks back of just. And it was. I. I still think it's a great video. I. We were coming out of Cedar Point on a hollow weekends and it. The American flag was fluttering in a sunset. I thought it was a beautiful shot. It's framed underneath some roller coasters. It's really cool. I thought it was really pretty. I took a picture and a video of it and I posted. I posted it on. On Instagram. I also posted on YouTube and I didn't get any hate on Instagram. Everyone that follows me would be fine with it. And I don't have, like a bunch of followers or anything on YouTube, but I got my first troll comment on YouTube and the guy said something along the lines of, the US Is not the greatest country in the world. And if you read my caption, I said nothing about the US Being the greatest country in the world. I did say something along the lines of, even in a time of divisiveness, the flag still flies strong above it. Right. I am a patriot. I do believe wonderful things about our country. I'm proud to be here. I feel like it's a blessing to be here. All of those things enough that I signed up. I did the thing right. I put the flag on my shoulder. I decided to do that. That is all a very real thing. And so it does bring me to emotion. Watch seeing my flag fly beautifully. I do actually have some pride in that. That's a. That's a cool thing. Which is why I took a video and a picture and I posted it out there, right? And on the interwebs. Yeah, on the interwebs. And I answered the guy, and I tried to be kind. I mean, you guys know that I'm not somebody that trolls people back. That's not a thing. But I did. I did answer him. I said, where did you see me say that the US Is the greatest country in the world? I said, I do have pride for living here. I do believe it's a blessing. I said, do you live in the US I just asked the question, like, do you live here? No, he never answered me, but I actually would have loved to have had a discourse with him, like, where do you live? Do you live here? And if so, why? Like, what is. Why is me posting a video of our flag so offensive to you? Why is that so hateful and polarizing? Because I never said anything about your views, which, to be honest with you, I'd love to actually have a civil discourse because clearly we probably have a different perspective. If me posting a video of this is offensive to you, then I would venture to guess that we probably are on different sides of the aisle or different sides of a discussion on that. But I'd love to have that discussion. So I really don't know the answer to how to move that direction. I do think that having civil discourse and not regressing to name calling and immediately to just word vomit aggressiveness is a way to do that. The problem is, and it's not one side versus the other, because both sides do it, right? Like, this is not, hey, this side does it worse than the other. Because again, both sides are just as bad about it as others. Come to the table and just let's have a conversation. And even if you don't agree at the end of the conversation, you don't have to hug, shake hands and walk away like you don't. There's no reason to leave with anger from that conversation. We can walk in and have a civil discourse. We can walk in and have that. You don't even have to leave being best friends. You don't have to. I have friends. I have reasonably good friends that I don't see eye to eye with politically, but who cares? Yeah, we don't, we don't sit and talk politics all the time. We care about each other very much. We. One of my closest friends, I know she doesn't believe most of the things I do politically. She actually, because she struggles so much with her politics, she doesn't vote. She chooses not to vote, which I actually understand what she does and I can appreciate why she doesn't. I don't. I wouldn't necessarily agree with the approach because I, that's. I have beliefs otherwise. But we can sit and have a civil discourse and I would call her one of my closest friends, even though we are completely different in our political views. But we can sit and talk about it and we can have a hug, like, hug it out at the end of it and walk away like it. There's no anger, it's no vitriol, no big deal. So why can't we. We should all be able to do that, just have a conversation and walk away from it. We don't have to have the same views. We're. This country is founded on freedom, political, religious ideation. You should be able to be free and have that discourse. But that also means that I can be free to have my perspective. You can be free to have yours. I can be free to have mine. Let's meet in the middle and maybe, maybe we can actually convince the other person to see the other person's perspective. Whether you change that perspective is not right. [00:41:00] Speaker A: They don't have to change how they. Their beliefs, but at least I understand. I was watching a video came up yesterday as I was scrolling and what it appeared to be is there was a college professor, he had a couple, I think he had a couple young women sitting in chairs with mics and he was asking them questions. And the questions were geared around being killed by police. So he was just asking them kind of general questions. Do you, you know how many, you know how many people do you think are murdered by police every year. How many people do you think were black? How many of those people do you think were. Were, Were unarmed? And the question, in the way that, that these, that these women were answering were probably how. Most of us, if we were just to listen to the media, it's probably how we would answer it. We would say that it's, you know, if you listen to media, it would say it's mostly black men and they're mostly unarmed. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Sure. [00:42:07] Speaker A: Right. And so he would ask them these questions and then he would pull up actual stats. [00:42:11] Speaker B: Sure. [00:42:12] Speaker A: And it was complete opposite of what they're. It's just data, what they're answering. And so his, his whole point was we need to seek out truth to be able to understand what we're standing for and what we're standing for. Right. Like that was. That's kind of meat of it. And these, these young ladies were, were, were, you know, took this very well. They seem to both be thankful for this information. Like, wow, this, you know, if I think one of them said, well, it. She was surprised, and she was like, yeah, I just going off of what I'm being told on. On the media, that's. Turns out that's not how it is at all. So that's kind of where I want to go with this. I think part of the answer to this question, what the question was, if anybody doesn't remember, is how can we rediscover the love behind our actions rather than focus on the hate in front? I think it's seeking out truth. What is the truth of the situation that we are fighting for or fighting against? [00:43:13] Speaker C: All right, here's a good one for you guys. Name this quote. You can't handle the truth. Right. That's. That's all I can think of is when you say that. So that, I mean, both you guys are 100% right. And I have to say I still agree with you on what you're saying. The. The divisiveness is there. And the problem with society today is the conversation has shipped from actually having a conversation about a subject to. You become the subject. [00:43:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:43:36] Speaker C: You become the subject that I'm going to attack because I don't know the actual truth or all the information. [00:43:42] Speaker B: Sure. [00:43:43] Speaker C: So sometimes when I talk to people or I'm giving an example of something that I'm knowledgeable on. Right. And even then, I might not know all of the answers. So instead of just creating the fallacy and embellishing the truth or giving him something that what they need to hear Right. I'd be like, this is what I know, right. And this is what I can give you. And is it anything else? Look it up, check it out, you know, go get other reference points. Right. From a perfect example from teaching. I'm not the first person to ever pick up a gun and tell somebody else how to pull the trigger. Right. And I still seek knowledge from other people. I don't seek it from one person, I seek it from multiple people. And then I break it down to find what works for me and then build around what works for me and build upon that. So that's the truth. Right. We don't seek the truth, we don't want to have the conversation because we'd rather attack the person because we're not knowledgeable enough on the subject matter that we're talking about. And then it goes nowhere. If you look at, you know, Charlie Kirk was a prime example. Everybody hated the man, right? But he did speak the truth on a lot of subjects. Right. And he did push buttons. Right. He did kind of pry at you and he did challenge you. And sometimes that's a good thing. It's just we again take it as an emotional attack on ourself instead of I'm focusing on the subject that we're talking about and this is what we should be primarily focused on, not you and me against each other. You and me on this topic. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Sure. [00:45:10] Speaker C: And then let's build from that. [00:45:11] Speaker A: Right? [00:45:12] Speaker C: And I've walked away from many conversations. Really. Man, I felt like a complete idiot and I thought I knew what I was talking about. But you know what? I was taught something new. I was educated. And to your point too, I'm not here to change people's perspective or their perception on something. I've tried for two years, I've tried to, you know, troll back to the trolls on, on the social medias, the interwebs, to, you know, challenge people back. And it gets nowhere because I'm not going to change their perception regardless of if I feed them the factual data, analytical information that they need because they're not going to look at it and they're not going to believe the source that it's coming from because I'm the one that regurgitated that data. So it's, it's, it's like you're at a double edged sword no matter what you do. You can't win in this. I'm not saying you can't win, but it feels like it's, it's just unobtainable goal to be able to Have a conversation, to be able to challenge others in their beliefs and their thoughts and their thinking and to be able to give them the opportunity to go do the research ourselves. And the last little caveat to that is the misinformation is right here. Because everything now is so programmed to a political side or a political bias instead of an actual factual truth. Because it's not about how we can help the people, it's how we can control the masses of the people and create that divide. So that again, what is it at the end of the day? Control. A little tangent on that part, but. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Well, I think something you said I was going to respond to. Oh shoot, I just lost it. I do want to bring Shane on, on YouTube, made a comment. I want to bring this in and I think we'll move on because we're going to kind of come back to this a little bit in the Faith and Fuel segment. But Shane said, with the state of the world, I feel bad for veterans who fought or lost their lives for this country. I think what he's going on, what he's trying to say, I think is just you fight for something and then maybe the opposite of what you fought for actually happens in the country. [00:47:18] Speaker B: I would say, Shane, I get what you're saying, man. [00:47:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I get what he's. [00:47:22] Speaker B: Saying, but I'm a vet. My dad's a vet, both my grandfathers were vets. My dad is a 555-combat-devet and he's 100% disabled through the VA and all of his stuff is combat related. And I don't think that he would sit there and regret his service, his combat related wounds, any of that stuff. Even looking at the state of our country now, is it, are we divisive? Do we have a lot of frustrations with things that are going on politically? Sure. We are still free. We can still fight for what we believe in politically and not have much in the way of repercussions for that. We can still worship the way we want to worship religiously. So we are still a free country. Is it where our forefathers would want us to be? I'd argue probably not, but we have full autos. But I would just be. I understand what you're saying. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Yes. So we've kind of talked about this. I don't know, I'm gonna guess like eight podcasts ago or something like that. We talked about are we willing to have the negative to us, the negative side of allowing freedom? Right. If we want complete freedom, are we also willing to Let other people who don't agree with us and want the opposite of what we want to also have the freedom to want that as well. Yeah. Right. So that's. That's got to be something that I guess I've been asking you guys is like, if. If you are going to put on a uniform. Uniform and fight for this country, you. You also got to be willing to fight for those who maybe want to burn the flag. Yeah. Fight for those who. Who don't agree with you. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Yep. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Right. Like, those people live in this country, too, and they are Americans as well. [00:49:33] Speaker B: That's the point. [00:49:34] Speaker C: So when you put the uniform on. [00:49:36] Speaker A: You'Re not fighting for one outcome. [00:49:37] Speaker B: Nope. [00:49:38] Speaker C: No. You're fighting for everybody. [00:49:39] Speaker A: You're fighting for everybody, whether they. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Freedom, which is meaning political freedom, religious freedom, the freedom to say what you want to, in theory, do what you want within reason. That is what we're fighting for. Which means if you want to insult me, you want to take the flag that I've been wearing on my shoulder and fighting for and burn it. I may not agree with you. [00:50:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:02] Speaker B: I probably find it offensive, and I do. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm the one that's posting a video of the flag flying and getting emotional over it. Right. Like, that's something that I find. Again, I'm a patriot. I find that to be a big thing. I cry when Taps is played. I get emotional when we sing the national anthem at a Monster. A Cleveland Monsters game. Like, these are big deals to me. So, yeah, I'll probably find a defensive. If you throw my flag on the ground and burn it. I. I signed up. So you can do that. [00:50:30] Speaker C: Right. [00:50:31] Speaker A: I believe that you should have the right to do that. Even though I find it. [00:50:34] Speaker B: I don't. [00:50:35] Speaker A: Credibly offensive. [00:50:36] Speaker B: I don't think you should do it. [00:50:37] Speaker A: No. [00:50:38] Speaker B: But I didn't. I did. I signed the bottom line to make sure that you're allowed to do that in the future. [00:50:45] Speaker C: Generations of your offspring can do the same to do that. Right. The people say that all the time. Like, oh, you want to die for complete strangers? No, I don't want to die. First off, I don't want to die. Like, I don't think any. Any guy goes into the military, like, I'm gonna go, you know, slaughter some. Some people, and then I'm probably gonna die, too, like that. I don't think that's the ideology behind it. I think we go in with a sense of pride and honor, and then when we put on that uniform, it's, again, I'm not. I'm not putting a racial divide or anything like that, but majority of my unit was black. And it was the best thing for me because I grew up in Memphis, and there was still. There's still, to this day, racial tension. I mean, we see it across the world, but. Well, maybe not the world, right? I can't speak for the world, but the United States, we see this divisiveness in. In a lot of the misinformation on the mainstream media, too. But my platoon sergeants were the best men that I could ever think of. Right. There were firefighters for the Memphis Fire Department. My dad was a lifelong firefighter in Carville. His, like, father, growing up, father figure, was a Memphis firefighter. Like, I didn't even know that they knew each other. They met each other in passing and, like, had a career. This man was a leader. He was a great man. And when we put on the uniform, it didn't matter what gang you were, what gang you used to be in, what you used to do. Nothing. It didn't matter what color you were. You were just there together as a whole. And that's. That's what we need. That's. That's truly the. The best part about it is when we put the uniform on, it wasn't about anything else, about protecting those that hated us, protected those that loved us, protecting the ones that we loved, and protecting the country that we stood for. Right? [00:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:11] Speaker C: I don't believe where our country is today is where it was or where our founders would like it to be. Right. I don't appreciate a lot of things that are going on inside of our government. I don't appreciate a lot of things that are going inside of the military. But I would stand and back it to the. To the last round that I could fire right to the last dying breath. I would. I would die for my country and for my fellow Americans. I don't want to be a hero. I don't want to be a martyr either. But I would serve. Right. If I had the chance or the opportunity that came that I was called upon to do that again, or even as a civilian, I would do that. And your question to that was, how can we do it as civilians? Serve in your community? You guys are a great example of this. You go to so many church events. You just went to an event this year that you've been going to for ages, right? And you're giving back, helping your community members. I don't have to put on a uniform anymore, but I get to give back to what my skill set is, what my passion is. And some of it is just behind a camera, you know, And I have people that are just like me. I'm a dirty civilian, right. That, that wants the knowledge and we pass it on and we give back to others and we help and that's, that's what we need more of. That's. That's the love, that's the generosity, and that's, that's how we can serve others, is by showing that. And a little bit of pride in your country goes a long way. We speak so much about what we hate and we don't stand for or talk as much about what we stand for and anymore, right. We hide behind the fear of the, the separation of the parties, the division, right? And then behind closed doors with our buddy, be like, oh, man, you know, I'd beat his, you know, if he was burning the American flag. I caught myself, just so you know, no beeps going on, so he's a good one. So that's just one of those things. How can we as civilians today serve in a standpoint? Don't coward a fear. Don't be a. Don't let the fear be a cowardice for you. Right? Stand for what you believe in. Don't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in. It doesn't mean attack somebody else because they might not have the same opinion. Have that conversation. But serve and let your actions through serving, whether it be in your faith, whether it be in your job, whether it be in your community, let that be. Or even for your country, for your fellow American. Right? Let that be the, the showcase. That was a long one today. You asked me to read into these today, so I really did read into these. [00:54:34] Speaker A: But no, that's good. I did remember what I was going to respond to. So you said something about how about how people don't want to have civil conversation these days. I think that's true online, but I think if you get face to face with somebody, I think things get civil real fast, it changes. [00:54:54] Speaker B: Well, it's hard. [00:54:55] Speaker A: It's hard. You're looking, you're looking into somebody's eyes. Like, you know, I think once you, once you humanize who you're talking to. And I've had, I've had some heated conversations online with people who I know and, and love. And so I still know that they are human. But there is something about looking into somebody's eyes and having a, having a conversation with them or argument or whatever that things get real civil real fast. So I Think part of, part of what the answer is to this is stop getting into arguments online and, and have conversation with people. And, and if, because if you are, if you aren't willing to have the conversation in person, then you probably shouldn't be having. Having that conversation at all. [00:55:35] Speaker C: Right. And. And again, it's perception. It's how you interpret something becomes your perception. And it, it's sometimes how you talk to your, your wife or your other, like, hey, you want to go right now? Like, you want to hang out? Like, yeah, sounds good. That's a typical guy response. He's like, sounds good like that. You're right. It's a perception of how the response is interpreted. But it's not always that the dialect or the dialogue wasn't intended to be that way. [00:56:00] Speaker B: I mean, ultimately, I just think that you need to slow down too. [00:56:03] Speaker C: Right. [00:56:04] Speaker B: Going back to that, if you feel the need for whatever reason to interact with somebody online, then slow down. There's a comedian. I actually don't know his name, but he makes me laugh every time I see this clip. He talks about. He asked his dad how to have a successful long marriage. And his dad said, son, don't go with your first response or your second response. Go with your third response and you'll have a good long marriage. And he goes, what do you mean? He goes, just don't go with your first response. And he goes into a long story about how his wife opens a cooler and the stuff inside isn't. Isn't cool. And when he looks inside, he realized she didn't put any ice in. And he goes, honey, there's no ice in the cooler. And she goes, well, duh, it's a cooler. It keeps everything cold. And he's like, I didn't go with my first response. And I didn't go with my second response. And I said, oh, that cooler must be broken or something like that. I can't remember. It's funnier when he says it, but it's, it's. The sentiment is the same thing for interacting with other people. Instead of going with your first angry response or your second angry response, take a second. And honestly, there's a good chance by the time you get to your third response, you're just going to delete the comment altogether and not have that. Have the discussion. Yeah, but if you still want to. [00:57:21] Speaker A: Have the discussion, flick it on and off real quick. [00:57:24] Speaker B: If you still want to have the discussion. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's a quote that I've seen, you know, basically that, you know, when what when we are having a conversation with somebody, we don't, we don't listen to learn. We listen to respond and we listen to argue. And I think that's part of, as well as people just don't know how to have conversations anymore either. Sorry guys. We're gonna try to get the camera back up and running again here. But we do need to get moving into the next, next segment. We're actually gonna be, we're actually going to be kind of coming back to this topic and the Faith and Fuel segment. We're going to kind of, we're going to talk about what does scripture say about, about hate and, and war and, and fighting and all that stuff as well. So let's head in the next segment. [00:58:22] Speaker B: The right tools, the right skills at the right time. This is where we get equipped to. [00:58:26] Speaker A: Live boldly, to be ready for a complex. All right, so we have a few things in the equip segment today that we're going to be talking about. First thing is I mentioned it in the intro that for our insiders, our, our Black Friday started last Friday. We are offering 30%. I can't think of the last time that I offered 30% off of stuff on our website, but we're offering 30% off for insiders. You just have to log into your account and you will get the discount. It is only on NeoMag products. So center strap NeoMag alias tactrap EDC tray, it's going to work on the standard EDC tray, standard mini tray, watch stand and all that stuff. Things it's not going to work on are like magazines and bags and some of those third party products that we bring in. So if you're an insider, you can, you can take advantage of that now get that Christmas shopping done early and take advantage of that. You can go sign up for that. For the insider club on the website, either go up to the search and type in Insiders club or if a pop up comes up you can sign for it there. So take advantage of that discount. Now. The first Black Multicam products dropped last Friday. We dropped the NeoMag Gen 2 and black multicam and the tact trap EDC and black multicam. I believe we still have some, still. [00:59:50] Speaker B: Got some of those both in stock. Go get them now. [00:59:53] Speaker A: We did not do a lot of them. I expect they'll be gone by the end of the month. You know, probably enough in there to get through the. I'll get through the month. I would, I would assume depends on if you guys go and Buy them up right now or not? [01:00:02] Speaker B: I'll say it really depends. So the we're going to drop Black Multicam every Friday. A Black Multicam product every Friday. If you're waiting to buy all of them together at the end of the. [01:00:14] Speaker A: Month, it's a risky move. [01:00:15] Speaker B: It's a risky move. I'm not trying to pressure you, it's your call. But I'm not guaranteeing you're going to get all of them. [01:00:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you might get the end of the month and go, I didn't get any of these things. [01:00:24] Speaker C: Yep, we're almost out on two of them. Right. [01:00:28] Speaker B: Again, we've, we've sold a decent amount of. I'd actually have to go for the count. I can't tell you exactly what it is. We have more tack traps than we do Neo Mags, so take that into consideration. If you're looking for a Black Multicam Neo Mag, I can tell you we. [01:00:39] Speaker A: Have single digit left. [01:00:40] Speaker C: Yeah, don't worry, we're lower on the. [01:00:42] Speaker B: Neomags than we are on tact traps, but take that for what it is. [01:00:46] Speaker A: So I will tell you guys, since there's a few of you here, we are going to be dropping the Black Multicam alias belts both in the Cobra buckle and the standard belt. So we did a kind of a pre order belt this summer. [01:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:03] Speaker A: And it went really well and we only left that open for like a weekend and we had a ton of people afterwards say, oh, I wanted that belt and we pre ordered a couple more this time. So we are doing a pre order. We're going to leave this open through the end of the month. [01:01:18] Speaker B: It'll go through midnight on Cyber Monday. [01:01:22] Speaker C: Wait, say that again. How long does it go for? [01:01:24] Speaker B: Through midnight on Cyber Monday. [01:01:28] Speaker C: Oh, there's no applause. There it is. Now that's big. 30% off black multicam every week for the month of November and this deal coming up. [01:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah, now I want one. Also the 30 off will not apply. [01:01:45] Speaker B: For the Black multi game property. [01:01:48] Speaker A: It'll work on a lot of, a lot of things on our website, but the Black Multicam stuff it will not. But this is, this is your one time to get yourself a alias belt in Black Multicam. The one time. [01:01:58] Speaker B: Yep. So I mean this, you, it will be open. This is a. You have essentially, what is that, almost three weeks? I think two and a half weeks anyways, that it will be open for you guys to pre order this. So the nice thing is you have the time. We will have a wider range of sizes for both the lowepro and the Cobra than we normally do. Just because we can. It's. It's a little bit easier, especially since we'll do a custom run and a custom order. So we'll be able to have a little bit wider range of sizes for these. That'll help you guys out a little bit. So if you are going to be. [01:02:35] Speaker A: They're going to be made to order. [01:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:36] Speaker A: So we are making it for you when. When you preorder it. [01:02:40] Speaker B: So this isn't going to run out of stock. But if you don't order by midnight on Cyber Monday Summer first, it's. It's too bad. And we are not going to. If you email us, I guess the second. Yeah, if you email us in the second, say, I didn't get my order in. Tough cookies, man. You had two and a half weeks. I'm sorry. Like, it's just. That's just the way. [01:03:02] Speaker C: It's. [01:03:02] Speaker B: The cookie crumbles. We're not going to do it. So. [01:03:04] Speaker A: So we are giving you guys even more heads up. This is going to be launching on Friday. Both the Cobra buckle and standard. So I actually thought for. For equipped, we could just kind of talk about the Alias belt. For those of you who might not know anything about it. It's about how it works. What's the advantages of it. Why is it different? [01:03:21] Speaker B: It's got Alias stuff on it. [01:03:22] Speaker C: Yeah, tell me about the Alias. [01:03:23] Speaker A: So I've got one here. If you're watching, you're gonna be able to see super up close, but I will explain as detail as I can for those of you who are listening. So the Alias belt, I spent several years working with Blue Alpha. We had them on, on the podcast last week to make this, make this belt. It is a Tegris core inside this belt. Super lightweight. Just rigid enough, I think it's not. It's not too rigid. It's not going to cut into you. [01:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's nice. [01:03:50] Speaker A: It's not floppy enough that it's not going to support. And so the support is very important because what the, what the Alias does. So we have our Low Pro version, which basically has a strap that goes, goes through a loop. So your adjustment is on that, that Velcro strap. And then on the adjustment side, there's. There's about an inch and a half of elastic. It's a pretty stout elastic, but it's enough that it kind of gives you a little stretch when you're. When you're bending over, when you're. I don't know if you're doing yoga while you're rewiring this. It's going to be pretty comfortable while you're doing that because it's going to have. Have a little bit of stretch with you. And then that Tegras is wrapped on the inside with like a nice soft loop material. And then on the outside, this is the part that'll be black Multicam. We currently have black, flat, dark earth and od green and gray and gray. We have four, four different colors right now. And so the outside has squadron on the outside, and that squatter on the outside covers up some holes that we have lasered the entire way around this belt. And the reason we did that is because we wanted the most, the strongest connection for your Alias. So if you aren't even familiar with Alias system, Alias is a clip and receiver system. We have receivers that can go on this belt and hard mount. I can go. We have ones with brackets that can go on your, like your core essentials belt. We have receivers that are magnet, that are magnet. We have, we have our beltless receiver. So we have this receiver goes a lot of different places. And then we make different holster clips. And we also have outside the waistband clips. What super cool. So this is a very modular system for inside the waistband and outside the waistband. If you want to use the outside the waistband. And you can essentially have your EDC belt, you can have the Alias belt you can wear all day, every day. Super comfortable. And it can in seconds be a battle belt. You can put receivers wherever you want on the inside of the belt. Actually bolts through the belt into the receiver. So you have a crazy strong connection of the receiver to the belt. So now because it's such a strong connection, we can offer outside the waistband. That was a whole kind of. That's not the whole reason, but one of the big driving factors of us doing this belt so we can give you strong enough connection to have outside the waistband thing. So on this belt that I'm holding here, I have a IWB EDC holster with our bottom mount with a wing holster clip on it clicked into the receiver for inside the waistband. And then I have our drop leg adapter with, with the QLS on it and a thigh strap. So you can have this clicked in, you know, if you're ready, on your right hip. And then on the left here, I just, I just grabbed a, a handcuff holster. And we have a Molle adapter that can attach to that and it can click on there. So you can, you can attach med kits, mag, caddies tourniquet holders, tourniquet holders, handcuff holsters. Pretty much anything that's molle backed you can attach to this belt. So it is kind of a. There's nothing like it in the market that can so easily bridge from EDC to battle belt. Mike has his set up for competition and so there's, there's so much you can do with this belt. And then our Cobra buckle version of this belt. The, the biggest difference is a, has a Cobra buckle. It still uses a, a Velcro strap for the adjustment, but once you set it, you can kind of forget it. And then there's no elastic on it. When we made this belt, there were, there were some feedback of people who didn't want that stretch. They wanted something even, even more rigid. And so on our cover buckle we figure, hey, let's make this a little bit more battle belty. And so we got rid of the elastic on that, on that belt. So did I do a good job on that? [01:07:35] Speaker B: I think you hit all the points. [01:07:37] Speaker A: So it's a very kind of 10,000 foot view of the Alias and what it does. You can go to the website then and click on Alias. You can learn even more about the, about the system on there. [01:07:48] Speaker B: I mean the biggest thing for me is if you're looking a couple things. If you're looking for the black multicam in particular, if you're a fan of black multicam with this pre order John. [01:07:57] Speaker A: No, I won't be. [01:07:57] Speaker B: You will be able to get it too. If you are looking for a size that we don't stock currently there will be a wider range of sizes because we can make this to order. So this will be your opportunity to do that. And it's awesome. [01:08:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So, so buy it. Just, just quickly like a couple other advantages of the Alias because you're like, why would I go through the trouble of having these receivers and swapping out holster clips? Well, one reason is a big reason is the modularity which I, I just described. The modularity is huge. That's probably one of the biggest things that people go to the Alias for. I also believe it's, it's more, it's more concealed. You don't see holster clips, especially with it. With the Alias belt, you don't like, you don't have the brackets. Our receiver with brackets. Again, you barely. There's no holster clip, but you can maybe see a little bit of like holster clips if, if you're somebody who maybe who tucks in. If you want the ultimate concealment, you don't see holster clips because everything is moved to the inside of the boat. And I also think it's just, it's more comfortable with, with the ability and, and part of that comfort kind of goes with the modularity. It's so easy to, to move my holster and secure it either in my bag with a hook and loop receiver or, or move it to a hard mount or whatever. Let's be honest, it's more comfortable to not carry than it is to carry. And if I can still have my handgun nearby and secure and I can move it that way, that's more comfortable. [01:09:21] Speaker C: What you off body carry? That's so wrong. How dare you. [01:09:26] Speaker A: If you want to hear more about that, you can go, go listen to one of our first episodes we talked about. [01:09:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Or go just look at the YouTube comments. [01:09:32] Speaker B: How dare you ever take your gun. I, I live with my gun on my body. [01:09:37] Speaker A: I sleep, I shower. [01:09:38] Speaker C: I poop in the waistband with my gun on me. [01:09:41] Speaker A: Never take it off. [01:09:41] Speaker B: My gun never comes off my body. [01:09:43] Speaker C: I love the alias belt for competition. Honestly I'm probably going to switch over in 2026 to the Cobra buckle belt just to get a little bit more solid retention. Being that I'm, I'm just adding so much more. I'm running like four four mags plus the drop adapter, plus the competition magnet and my tack trap. So. But it's been great. Like honestly the, the convenience of it is I'm no longer and I speak from experience. I have like nine plate carriers. I can only wear one. Right. And I have like six different battle belts configurations. But the convenience of click, click, click, I'm out. You know, releasing my receiver, I'm out, throw it in the bag and then I'm dropping my, in the waistband right back in. Or if I'm just done and I don't have to have anything, I'm out. I'm not stripping a battle belt or stripping a two part belt. Taking the velcro off now my pants don't stay up because I'm skinny and putting another belt on. So I love that. The guys, I harass them all the time when I leave the range because they're having to go here and there, unload and I'm like click, click, click, click. All right, you know, I'm good. See you guys later. [01:10:46] Speaker A: Yeah, bye. [01:10:48] Speaker C: So if you guys, if you haven't checked out the alias belt, now's a great opportunity. And I know we're going to say this at the end, but if you're not an insider this is a perfect opportunity for you guys to get massive savings. Even if you're not ordering the custom black multicam alias belt. The alias belt has multiple colors for you to choose from. 30% off. Again, that's the. I've been here two years, Alan. That's the biggest sell. [01:11:06] Speaker A: Yeah, this is the biggest sale I've ever seen. And even though you're not going to get a discount on that black multicam belt, all the accessories for it you are going to get 30% off of. So if you want. If you want to load it up and get. And be able to have a complete outside the waistband and inside the waistband set up for your alias belt, this is the cheapest that, that you're ever going to get it. [01:11:26] Speaker C: And I know it takes a little bit of time to set up, but honestly, it takes time to set up a battle belt and you can only have one configuration. Now if you build out all of your outside the waistband or inside and run it all alias, you have endless options from stack to G code to mag carriers, holsters. We can run almost every holster in the industry with. With the drop adapter. So these are. It's just a great overall EDC belt, but also with that capability for you want to go out to the range and set it up as an outside the waistband configuration. [01:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So we did get a very nice comment here from Patriotic Pangolin. He said the alias belt is the best. I have three receivers on mine and wear the belt every day for the last probably year and a half to two years. If I'm wearing clothes, it's on super helpful and reliable. So there you go. We have. [01:12:12] Speaker B: I only have one issue with that comment. Why wear clothes? [01:12:15] Speaker C: Yeah, wear the belt. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Because he wants to wear the belt. [01:12:18] Speaker C: He wants the belt. [01:12:18] Speaker A: I would not recommend wearing the belt without clothes, but you could just. [01:12:21] Speaker B: Just use the beltless. [01:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. I would definitely. If I'm not wearing clothes. [01:12:27] Speaker B: You've done that on video. [01:12:28] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:12:29] Speaker A: There's a video. [01:12:29] Speaker C: It's. [01:12:30] Speaker B: It's video with Greg without pants. [01:12:32] Speaker A: I mean, I was wearing underwear. It's like I was. [01:12:34] Speaker B: We blurred that he was wearing no pants. We all got to experience it. [01:12:39] Speaker A: You had your pants off too. [01:12:40] Speaker C: Yes, you did. [01:12:41] Speaker B: But I'm not on video. [01:12:42] Speaker C: Oh, I have. [01:12:42] Speaker B: There's no proof. [01:12:43] Speaker C: Oh, I have the picture. [01:12:44] Speaker A: No proof. [01:12:45] Speaker C: The cameraman had to get nice and tight on these shots. [01:12:48] Speaker B: No proof. [01:12:50] Speaker C: This is going to be one of those posts. [01:12:52] Speaker A: Well, that wraps up our equip segment. Let's head into faith and Fuel. Faith anchors us, fuel drives us. Let's open God's word and find the. [01:13:02] Speaker B: Wisdom we need to live it out every day. [01:13:08] Speaker A: So there are so many scriptures that I could have pulled out to kind of apply to our Liberty segment that we're talking about today. And this is frankly it could be its own four hour podcast on this topic. But I picked out kind of one, one verse and then I just. They started snowballing. I picked out a few more to kind of as. As we go through this conversation but the first one I picked out, second Timothy 1:1:7 says for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self control. And a little note I have here is that, is that love is not a weakness, it's a strength that drives courage. So the reason this is the first thing I picked out is I think again we talked about our. The human nature is to respond to, is to respond out of fear. And one of the things that I have just in this last year in my own spiritual maturity that I've experienced that is like God has helped me understand when I feel fear, when I feel hate, when I feel these emotions like that those are not of God. And one of the ways I know that is because of one of them is because of this verse. For God gave us a spirit not of fear. So if we are fearful, that is not of God, God would not allow us to be fearful but of power and love and self control. And if I don't feel love then that's even more proof that what I'm feeling is not of God. And I think it's so important for us to understand our feelings now. Feelings and emotions are, are fine to have all of these, but I think understanding what to do with them and where they're from because. And, and we're going to get to another verse that, that, that is going to talk about about hate and anger. But it's. It's easy to allow fear to turn into hate and anger instead of love and self control. What's your guys thoughts on this verse? [01:15:32] Speaker C: I like the part that says hate is not something God gives us, it's from the enemy. I know that's not the verse, it's just kind of the sub notes that we have here. But you know, as a kid I was growing up, you know we'd always say I hate that, I hate that, you know, come to food or something like that. And the older I got hate became such a just derogatory word like it was. It's one of Those things that now, even to this day, if I catch myself saying it, I'm like, don't really hate it. Like hate is just so harsh, right? I can dislike something and for me to hate someone, you know, like it says here, it's almost like. Like a sin, right? So I try not to hate anyone in this world or hate anything I can have a strong dislike for. But to go back to what it says, it says, for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self control. I like another note that we said. Love is not a weakness, it is a strength that drives courage. Love can be viewed as a weakness a lot. And because we can be viewed as less from an emotional standpoint, from a man, from a masculinity standpoint, it's like, I love, I love you and I give that emotion and that soft side of you. And it can be used or viewed as weak. But I don't think, I don't think love is weak at all. And I think love, as was his strength that drives courage. I think love is what is the strength that drives the courage. So that's my take on that verse. [01:17:05] Speaker A: Really, Nick? [01:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So I was just having a meet with a guy on Tuesday nights and we were kind of talking through. He just got a new role. He's taken over. He just got a new role in a new job. And he was talking about his nerves, his excitement and his nerves in that role because he's got some. He's very excited about it, but he's also nervous because he's got some large responsibility he's going to be taking on and taking this role. And we were discussing, essentially, we didn't actually pull up this verse, but we're discussing that aspect of it, that God didn't design us for fear. He designed us to rely on Him. When you go through and read Scripture, you go through and read even as you read and reflect on Christ as a figure, right? So we understand Christ is fully man as well as he's fully God. If he was fully man, which we understand him as, that means he understood and felt and experienced all the things that we experienced as human. Which means he did experience fear and doubt and all those things, but he didn't allow those to affect and change his actions. Didn't allow him to not love people. It didn't allow him to change his. His goals and his motion, his forward motion. A couple spots that you see that happen. One of the first spots you can see that happen is actually his first miracle when he is turning the water into wine. His mom comes to him and says, hey, we've run out of water. And he looks at his mom and he says, it's not my time. And she goes. She basically says, just do what he says. I'm actually reading a book right now that's kind of talking through his ministry. And it's approaching it from a. [01:19:06] Speaker A: I'm. [01:19:06] Speaker B: Going to say it's humanizing this story so that you can see the story of Christ, not him, but the human eyes of the people in the story. Meaning right now, we just finished the section of Mary watching her son grow, and obviously we don't know exactly how she felt. She didn't write any of the Scripture. We can't know her feeling, but kind of, they wrote it from a perspective of a mom watching her son with knowledge of what her son would be one day and everything. And one of the things they talk about is, again, this is conjecture. We don't know exactly. But we do know that he does argue with her and say, it's not my time. And then he acquiesces and performs his first miracle. And in that moment, is he feeling doubt? Is he feeling fearful? You know, he just has been baptized. The spirit of the Lord has come upon him. He goes out into the desert for 40 days, 40 nights without food, without water, horrible, arguably a horrible experience, spiritually draining experience. And comes back ready to perform his ministry. And then he goes to this wedding and they're like. She's like, it's time. And he's like, ah, not sure I'm ready. And she goes, no, you're ready. You can do this. And the moment he takes his second, he goes, yep, I'm not going to let doubt and fear change my course. And he does. His first miracle. Next time we see it is right before he goes on the cross, which is arguably one of the most terrifying things that you could possibly do. He knows that he's about to sacrifice himself and he's going to be separated from his father and the fear in that moment. And he's terrified. And he's asking, is there any other option? Knowing there's not, and knowing he's going to have to do it. And it doesn't change that, but he's going to ask the question anyways, can we do something about this? I really don't want to. I have fear of this. I'm going to do it anyway. Can we do something else? But he has fear in that moment, but he doesn't allow that to change the fact that he has a spirit of love and power and self control. And the self control is, I'm going to push through this. I'm going to do it regardless of the feeling that I have, because I have this feeling, but I'm going to push through that feeling. [01:21:25] Speaker A: That's good. I think you're making a good, good distinction, which is there's a difference between a spirit of fear and being fearful. [01:21:32] Speaker B: Correct. [01:21:33] Speaker A: If somebody jumps out and scares me, you know, there's. There's some fear. There's nothing wrong with that. My point's gonna mean a dark alley. I'm going to be afraid. There's nothing that. That fear. There's different. [01:21:41] Speaker B: There's nothing wrong with walking across a tall bridge, looking down and being like, ooh, yeah, that's scary. Right? That is not. There's nothing wrong with that. But not doing something that you're called to do out of a sense of fear is wrong. [01:22:00] Speaker C: Yeah, sorry, guys, we're technical difficulties. [01:22:05] Speaker A: We're gonna get this camera thing figured out one of these days. So next verse I have for us is first John 3:15 says, Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. So hatred is spiritually lethal. It destroys from within before it harms others. This comes from. There's pushback, and the Pharisees are kind of arguing about the law and stuff. And so what Jesus is really getting at here is that it's a heart thing, right? Like, if you hate a brother or sister, God considers that on par with murder. And I think we would put murder on a way higher scale of sin. Right? Like, you get a lifetime jail sentence for murder. You don't get a lifetime jail sentence for hating somebody, or you used to. But, you know, there's a difference. We put a difference between the two, but God looks at it as the same because in our heart, even though we. Even though we haven't taken that life, in our heart, we hating somebody is on par with taking a life. And so this is another one that came to my mind especially as we were talking about our quote this week was, you know, it's a true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what's behind him. So there's this. There's this wrestle, there's wrestling that we have as humans to hate and even allow that hate to happen because we think that it's a righteous hate. What do you guys think of this verse? [01:24:01] Speaker B: Well, so one of the things with this Right. So I think your note makes a good. Hatred is spiritually lethal. So it's spiritually lethal to you. But what does hatred of another human keep you from doing for them? Not only does it keep you from loving them, but it keeps you from giving them the greatest gift that we can. We're called to do one thing, and that is to minister and bring people to Christ. And if I hate you, how am I supposed to do that? There is only one thing that we're called to do. So again, I'll bring. This is not a scriptural thing, but there was a. There's an interview. You guys can all look it up. I can't remember which one of the duo it is. There's the magicians duo, Penn and Teller. I believe it's Penn, the tall, not silent one of the two. He is an atheist. He's a outright stated atheist. He in an interview talks about how a fan of his came up to him, had a wonderful conversation, enjoyed his show, and then handed him a Bible. One of the things that I actually do very much appreciate about him is that he's actually very open to having conversations. Going back to our early discussion is he's not going to be hateful about. If you walk up to him like, hey, I'm a, I'm a believer and I want to give this to you, he's not going to be like, well, you're a piece of crap and go away. He actually, he accepted the gift with a, I don't need this, but thank you. But one of the things that he said, he's like, if you believe in this, meaning the Bible, if you believe in what this says, how can you under good conscience not come to me with a gift to try and save my soul? Because what this says is that I am going to internal damnation if you don't do that thing. So if we hate a person, and I'm not saying I'm good at this, by the way, but if we hate a person, how are we supposed to minister and tell them about the love of Christ and love them and share the gospel with them, to try and assure that their soul is also going to heaven, that they are also going to be secure and at the tail end of their life? Right? You can't do that. That is where it's spiritually lethal. It's not good for your spirit, but it's certainly not good for theirs either. And you can't do the one thing that you're called to do. [01:26:28] Speaker A: That'S good. [01:26:31] Speaker B: So, yeah, you are murdering Him. [01:26:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:34] Speaker C: It's a lot of energy to invest on hating someone else. It's exhausting to hate, like, to put all that effort. Imagine that, that energy and that effort, if you could channel that. Right? And so. And it was kind of what we talked about was. Was fear. And there's a. A respected fear, and there's a fear that we shouldn't be afraid of. All right? And in this case, you know, like, if I'm going to hate someone so much that I can't channel that to be a positive energy, like you said, to give back or to showcase God's power through you. Even with the person that could be the worst person in your world, like, are you any better than the hatred? I don't think you are. So, you know, I like the next verse a little bit more. [01:27:29] Speaker A: The next one is one that gives me some peace. Romans 12, 17, 19. Actually, I don't think it's all that. Anyway, it says, do not repay anyone evil for evil. Do not take revenge, for it is written, it is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord. I think it's, you know, our sense of justice is we want to see justice done now. And there are times when that needs to happen, obviously, but sometimes we want to take revenge into our own hands because we want to circumvent legal justice or whatever it is. And so we want our own justice. And what's important to remember is that God is the ultimate judge and he will have the ultimate revenge. Is that the right one? [01:28:26] Speaker B: You've got it right. You just missed. You only actually have. [01:28:30] Speaker A: That's definitely not three verses. [01:28:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just 17. So the whole thing is, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable. Well, hold on, let me try. [01:28:39] Speaker A: So there are some dots here, I think. Let me do a paraphrase. [01:28:42] Speaker B: Let me do NIV instead. I think that's. You got. Anyway. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. Oh, yeah, I see what you did, or what it is, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you. Live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord. Yeah, so, yeah, I see. Yeah, I think it's just kind of a paraphrase. Paraphrase of it. [01:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, I think this. This should give us some peace. That even if we don't see the justice that somebody deserves in this Life, God will have the ultimate. The ultimate judge, judgment. [01:29:26] Speaker C: Yeah. I can't wait for the man, the big man upstairs, to whoop some tail. Just saying that's. You know, this verse is kind of the one that resonates with me because, you know, I said this jokingly, but I said this with a little bit of sincerity. You know, going through a hard time in my life and somebody hurt me, and I wanted them to feel how I felt. And it wasn't. That was revenge. Like, I wanted them to feel the pain that they. They put into my life without accepting accountability for my own actions. That also created the detriment in. In that situation. Right. Or simply put, the red flags. Right. Ignoring the red flags out there. So the revenge is just a fester that just. It's like a leech. It attaches to you and attaches to your soul, and it just breeds hatred. It breeds nothing but evil thoughts. It doesn't do any good for you. For me, personally, the anger, the fear and the pain was. I wanted someone else to feel that instead of. I wanted to let it go. I wanted someone else to be able to feel what I felt for their actions, right? And the moment that I finally let it go was the moment that I was able to breathe, right? And it was the revenge, the anger, the resentment to the point of. Of hate, right? And when you let that go, there was so much overflow of peace. And I know, could I had my worldly revenge? Absolutely right. Would it have felt good in the moment? Probably so. Probably would have a good little smile and chuckle of it afterward. I would have felt guilty. I would have felt shame. All of the negativity that follows evil, that follows hatred, that follows revenge would have just been that guilt and shame and that burden that I carried. And I didn't. I was like, God, it's in your hands. And I didn't want it to be in his hands at all when I put it in his hands. He took that burden. He took that away from me, and he gave me peace and he gave me things that I've asked for. Right? But I unwillingly wanted what I thought was best for me, not what he did. So that one's the one that definitely resonates with me. I've read that verse many times. [01:31:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. So last one I have, I actually picked this up, Nate. I was back here working room, prepping. I was listening to a podcast. And so I was listening to podcasts just before doing this podcast, and they gave this. They were talking about this verse on that, it says, Ephesians 4, 25, 26, says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. So this verse actually speaks into quite a few things that we've talked about in the last hour. Here is we talked about seeking truth and speaking truth with our neighbor. Obviously, back when this happened, people weren't talking on Facebook, but speaking face to face. Speak the truth with your neighbor and put away falsehoods. And I think it's also important to realize that we are members, for we are members one of one another. One of another. Yeah. So just like understanding that we are all human race, even though there are different races and everything within the human race, we are all human, and we are. We are one another. And this is, to be even more specific, this is written to the church in Ephesus. So he's actually. He's. He is actually talking to believers and members of. Of a church body. Now, the church in Ephesus was a very messy thing. There were multiple races coming in together, and it was a very difficult thing for that church to try to put all these different races together. And so he speaks into that. But the part that I love about this, and this is what they're actually talking about on the podcast, it says, be angry. It says, be angry. It says, but do not sin. [01:33:46] Speaker B: I was gonna say. So I don't know what translation that is. [01:33:50] Speaker A: I think it's esv. Usually what I use. [01:33:55] Speaker B: The way NIV says it, which is a slight difference, because to be honest with you, it makes more sense to me in NIV not to say that doesn't. It just says, therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor. For you, all members of one body, in your anger, do not sin. It's not saying don't be angry. [01:34:12] Speaker A: Yeah, anger is something that you're going to feel. [01:34:16] Speaker B: Just don't sin because of it. Don't let it drive you to sin. Do not let the sun go down while you're still angry. Which. Who hasn't heard the don't go to bed angry in terms of your marriage or your wife and that kind of thing. That's a very practical word of advice, but especially when you're thinking about, in this case, other believers. But in general, just don't go to bed angry. Don't go to bed harboring something, because you will fester on it like it will fester. It will be there. And that will drive something else. Maybe it drives you to hatred. Maybe it drives something else. I don't know. But don't let the sun set on that anger. Let it go. [01:35:03] Speaker A: Let it go. [01:35:04] Speaker B: No, I'm not letting go. [01:35:05] Speaker C: Stop it. [01:35:08] Speaker A: It's important to recognize there are things that we should be angry about, and you're allowed to. If we're not angry about the injustices of the world. [01:35:15] Speaker B: Well, anger isn't a sin. [01:35:17] Speaker A: Right. [01:35:18] Speaker B: We watch God get angry. God gets angry throughout the Bible. We watch Christ walks into his father's house and gets angry enough. He gets angry enough to sit down and braid a whip, which, by the way, if you actually talk to anyone that's ever braided a whip, that's a very long process. He's so angry that he sits down and braids a whip out of three plates of leather and then goes into the temple. [01:35:41] Speaker A: If you want to talk about premeditated whipping. [01:35:43] Speaker B: Yeah. He goes into the temple, flips tables and whips people out of the. Out of the temple. So, I mean, you want to talk about somebody getting angry, you can get angry. It's not. It's not something you're allowed to. It's not something you're not allowed something. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm trying to say? You're allowed to get angry. Don't allow that anger to fester into a sin. Don't let it. Don't reflect on it. Don't allow it to move into hatred. Right. You can allow it to motivate you into something else. [01:36:11] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. You can let it turn into action, which is. I am. I'm angry at. At seeing children abused. So you go into working with, you know, sentinel or something. Right, Right. [01:36:26] Speaker C: Not a negative action that becomes a sin. Right. Or legal against the law. [01:36:31] Speaker A: Right. I'm. I'm going to get involved somehow to fix the problem that's making. Like we should. We should. There are things we should be angry. [01:36:39] Speaker C: About, like picking up arms. But don't literally go pick up arms to go hurt or cause harm to others. But it's like, okay, there's an injustice going on, and I have an ability. I'm going to fix it. Fix it or stand up to be, you know, the community that comes together to change it. [01:36:54] Speaker A: Now, there are some things that we are not going to be able to, you know, so that it says. And then there's a comma, or I should. Semicolon. Do not let the sun go down in your anger. You know, you are not going to fix child abuse overnight. [01:37:11] Speaker B: Nope. [01:37:11] Speaker C: Nope. [01:37:12] Speaker A: But what God does want us to do is come to him and give him this anger. I am angry about this. This injustice is not of you. I am angry about this. And give that over to God so that you can have a clear mind, clear conscience, clean hands. [01:37:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:37:31] Speaker A: The clarity, your heart, Right? [01:37:32] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:37:34] Speaker A: So like I said, I could have picked a lot of verses and a lot of stories in scripture to go through this and it's a, frankly, it's a really big, big topic. But I thought these were some good ones just to kind of touch on topic and give us all something to think about and give us something to kind of strive towards. Because there's a, there's, there's a balance in life. And ultimately God knows that we are not perfect. He knows that we are going to hate. He knows that we are going to be angry, that we are going to lash out, we are going to seek revenge. We're not going to do any of these things perfectly. That's where the good news of the Gospel comes in, is that Christ already, even before you were born, died for your sins, died for the things that you have not even done yet. Christ has died for you because he loves you so much. He has already paid for those sins. So we can come before God with clean hands, pure heart, because God has already done that for us. If you don't know that good news, we would love to talk to you more about that. That's important way to kind of end this topic, I believe. So we're going to go ahead and wrap up today. We had a lot to talk about today. It was a great episode. I appreciate all of you in the comments and, and all you that stuck through and listened to us this long. Thank you for. Thank you for tuning in to life, liberty and equipped. If today's conversation challenged you, encouraged you, or helped you get more equipped to pursue your mission, share it with a friend, drop a comment and leave us a review. [01:39:03] Speaker B: Don't forget we go live on the NeoMag YouTube and Facebook page. Used to be Instagram, so be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so you can be part of the next live show. [01:39:13] Speaker C: And if you guys are not already part of the NeoMag Insiders club, now's the time. Get early access to NeoMag gear exclusive content. Wink Wink. 30% off this entire month and front row seats. Everything we're building. Wink wink. The black Multicam this month. Go to the website [email protected] to sign up. [01:39:31] Speaker A: Until next time. Live boldly. Stand for liberty. Stay equipped. We'll see you guys soon. Bye.