From Clown to Cook County: How God Uses Every Broken Piece | David Ebel

David Ebel was born dying — subject to a medical experiment at one day old, carrying 21 birth defects, and living in chronic pain from age 6. By 20, he had made five suicide attempts. Then he walked into a church because a girl was cute, found Jesus, and nothing was ever the same.

 In this episode, David walks us through an extraordinary life shaped by obedience: from dressing as a clown to share the gospel with children, to 12 years of road ministry in 49 states, to planting a church in inner-city Detroit, to serving as chaplain inside Cook County Jail, to building a Salvation Army corps from the ground up. He talks openly about living with chronic pain, his book When the Doctors Say No, God Says Yes, and his podcast God Says Yes — and why he wakes up every morning asking, “What’s my adventure today, Lord?”

David Ebel's Website 

God Says Yes podcast

This is a conversation about what happens when you say yes to God and never look back.

•       Hebrews 13:5 — “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (David’s anchor verse through chronic pain and hard days)

•       Matthew 28:20 — “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (The “always” sermon that changed David’s early faith)

•       00:00 — Welcome & Introduction

•       00:32 — The Clown: David’s First Step in Ministry

•       01:52 — 800–1,000 Souls a Year: Kids & Family Evangelism

•       03:17 — Going National: 49 States, 20 Countries, 12 Years on the Road

•       04:55 — Saying Yes When You Don’t Know Why

•       05:17 — 21 Birth Defects, Chronic Pain & the Road to Brokenness

•       06:24 — Five Suicide Attempts & Finding Jesus

•       07:48 — How God Speaks: The Still Voice, the Mighty Wind & the Two-by-Four

•       10:02 — Stacking Dominoes: Detroit, Cook County Jail & Church Planting

•       13:04 — Building a Salvation Army Corps: Zero to 28,000 Sq Ft Debt-Free

•       13:29 — Life Inside Cook County Jail

•       15:08 — The Joseph Principle: God Uses Every Layer

•       19:02 — Living with Chronic Pain: “Always and Anyhow”

•     

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Transcript

[00:00] Jan: Welcome everyone to just talking about Jesus. So glad that you're joining us today. Whether you are watching or listening or both, whichever way it is, we are happy to have you.

[00:12] My guest today is David Evil.

[00:16] So glad to have you David. Thank you.

[00:18] David: Thank you.

[00:20] Jan: David has so many things that we could talk about but we can start with a fun fact in his background. There you can see a picture of a clown. Tell us about that.

[00:32] David: Well,

[00:33] when I gave my life to Jesus at 20, I had never known anything about ministry or even about Jesus. I was raised without it and my life was horrible.

[00:42] When I gave my life to Christ, God put it on my heart that what a better person my life would have been if I had known Jesus as a kid.

[00:51] And my training in high school and college was theater.

[00:55] So I had some,

[00:57] I knew what performance should be and dressed up as a clown and did a one day vacation Bible school.

[01:04] You know, I was about three months in my faith.

[01:07] So you know they get, they got what I knew and it lasted about 45 minutes but it was the first, it was a first shot but during it there was a speak little voice in my heart that said, you keep telling me you'll do anything for me, we'll go love my kids.

[01:22] So I took that as a challenge and I found performers that and, and had them teach me their skills and I tied them all together and had a professional clown teach me how to do clowning.

[01:35] Excuse me.

[01:37] And once I did,

[01:39] people started seeing that I did it and they would book me for this or for that, for one day things.

[01:44] When my wife and I got married,

[01:46] she and she and I branched out and even added puppets to it and we, that's what we were doing.

[01:52] And eventually the clowning ended up doing. I did youth camps and did all kinds of things and we were winning, we were winning souls, not a couple of souls. We were winning an average of 800 to a thousand souls a year.

[02:07] And you know, for a guy who can't even keep myself straight,

[02:10] we, we have no illusions there.

[02:13] Jan: Isn't it amazing the, the avenues that God takes, you know, to reach different people?

[02:20] David: And the door happened that God changed channels for me what I was doing. He decided that was not what I was going to be doing.

[02:28] So I moved to South Georgia and I was, I was living in Wisconsin at the time,

[02:34] moved to South Georgia and went on the road doing kids and family ministry in little churches in the, in the South.

[02:41] And they did it just a clown.

[02:43] And that's where the kids celebration circus came from which was the theme.

[02:47] And we had everything custom made and the costumes and everything that we did was handmade, one of a kind, collectible.

[02:54] So my thinking is that God didn't send his second cousin Louis to the cross. He sent his best.

[03:01] How dare we offer less?

[03:03] So my standard in whatever I do for God is going to be the best shot I can give.

[03:08] Now, there can be better, but it's still my best shot. Now, if I can bet, get better, the next time will be better, but it's never going to have to be apologized for.

[03:17] So we went on the road and it grew, and it grew and it grew. And then eventually word got out in the performing community that I was doing it. And performers invited me to go to a clown convention.

[03:30] And, you know, I mean, they've got conventions for everything else in the world. Why not?

[03:34] So I went and ran into some, some real pros who really invested in me, really encouraged me.

[03:42] And out of that I start, you know, I, I, I improved and I improved and I studied. And it wasn't long before I was being booked all over the nation.

[03:52] And we stayed on the road. On the road 12 years.

[03:54] We hit 49 states in 20 countries and by other people, when, when I go and I, I go to a place and present, I always had the altar call at the end.

[04:05] And the deal was that the host had to count how many life changes happened. Oh,

[04:10] an evangelist who tells you I had 500 people.

[04:15] Who's, how can I count 500 while I'm doing my job?

[04:19] So I think it's,

[04:21] sometimes it's ego driven. And I'm not saying it is in every case, but it can be. And so for me,

[04:27] I always had them tell me,

[04:29] you know,

[04:30] who came forward,

[04:32] who was life changed, not how many times they came. I don't count them seven times. If they came forward seven times, I want to know what,

[04:39] how many life changes there were. And by the counts of other people,

[04:44] there was over 25,000 counts in 12 years.

[04:48] So, I mean, again, I can't keep me straight. So I miss the mailman. I just deliver the message. Everything else is up to God.

[04:55] Jan: And isn't it interesting how when you say yes to God, even though you don't really know what it's all gonna, the future is gonna hold with it or how you're gonna do it or how you're gonna do it, you just take the step and God just shows you one step at a time,

[05:10] you know, just one step.

[05:11] David: Well, that's about all we can manage, right?

[05:15] Jan: Right. And then yeah.

[05:17] David: And see, I was born with disabilities.

[05:20] I was dying at birth. And they used in a medical experiment at one day old.

[05:24] And the side effects were so profound, four months after it was done, to me,

[05:27] it became illegal to do it to humans.

[05:29] I have 21 birth defects.

[05:31] I started juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at 6.

[05:34] So between 6 and 20, my life was not okay.

[05:39] I lived in chronic pain.

[05:41] I was the littlest kid in the school.

[05:43] They thought I was going to be a dwarf. I outgrew dwarf. But, you know,

[05:47] at eighth grade, I was still at three foot one.

[05:49] Jan: Wow.

[05:50] David: And so, needless to say, I couldn't do sports, couldn't do. So I was bullied a lot.

[05:54] So I got into creative things. And when I gave my life to Christ, I did. I went to college on handicap money. And one of the things that they. They would allow me to take with my disabilities was theater and broadcasting.

[06:08] So I was going for that. And about a year and a half in, I had a nervous breakdown trying to be too much.

[06:15] And between there and the next three and a half years,

[06:19] my life slid down a slope like somebody poured motor oil down it and just pushed.

[06:24] And I was three days from my fifth suicide attempt when I went to church because the girl was cute,

[06:31] good spiritual guy that I was,

[06:33] and found Jesus, dumped the girl, and God delivered me from drugs, alcohol, demon possession, a hemorrhaging ulcer, and called me to preach in an audible voice in one night.

[06:44] Jan: Yeah, well, you need to listen to this podcast episode because it's got some similar things in. There was just. Yeah. Crazy things that. That happened.

[06:53] David: And I mean, I. I didn't have enough theology to know what happened to me.

[06:56] Over the next few weeks, I had people who mentored me to help me understand what happened, because. Could hardly work. I could hardly do anything. I was just like a.

[07:05] Like a little kid at Christmas. But it was Christmas, but never stopped.

[07:08] I was overwhelmed and overstimulated by everything. It was so good.

[07:12] And that was 1973.

[07:15] Jan: And, you know, there's. There's more people than not that hear audible voices of the Lord, you know.

[07:22] David: Oh, yeah, he's generous if we're listening.

[07:26] Jan: Yeah. People don't just. They just think, oh, well, he's out there someplace, or, you know, he's not going to talk to me. Why would he talk to me? But he does talk to us, you know, and.

[07:36] Yeah, and maybe it's just a thought in your head or your heart like that, but I have heard. Heard only one time, but an audible voice, you Know, and it was.

[07:44] Yeah, okay. That's all right. I got it.

[07:48] Yeah.

[07:48] David: And. And I think, I think God speaks biblically. There's this. There's this,

[07:54] the little wind,

[07:55] there's the mighty wind,

[07:57] and in my case, there's the two by four,

[08:00] you know, however he can get our attention so he can, he can keep us on track.

[08:04] That's how he's going to reach us.

[08:06] A miracle is when God moves, whether we recognize it or not.

[08:10] Jan: And how do you know, how do you recognize God's voice?

[08:15] David: For me,

[08:16] for me, it's really clear. It's. It's like someone sitting right here talking right here,

[08:23] even though it's not. I'm not hearing it. It's that intimate.

[08:27] And I know that. I know. And because I experienced it the first day and experienced it, you know, on and on and off again through 50 years plus.

[08:37] It's a familiar voice.

[08:39] But. And sometimes it's. It's got to be like a two by four because I'm, you know, I'm, I'm.

[08:44] Jan: I'm distractable as we all are.

[08:48] David: I was ADD before they had letters for it. So I,

[08:53] Jan: I think too, for me, it's like when I, I just call them God drops, you know, like all of that. I'm not doing whatever it is,

[09:02] focusing on whatever this message is going to be at the time, you know, but it'll be something like, yeah, you should start a podcast.

[09:10] Okay. Not really sure how to do that.

[09:13] Yeah, if that's what you want. Show me what to do,

[09:16] you know, or,

[09:18] or the books that I write. He always tells me what the title is going to be or, or what it's going to be about ahead of time or things. So, yeah, it's just something like, not that I thought of.

[09:28] I know that I didn't just come out and think about, you know, things.

[09:32] David: It's got to be inspired or I don't have the energy because, you know, I. Now that I know I can be creative,

[09:40] it's really hard to know what God wants me to do with all of his. The stuff he's given me the ability to do.

[09:47] So I really have to be diligent to make sure I hear.

[09:51] Jan: Yeah, yeah.

[09:53] So you've done all kinds of things in your life. You became a new person at a fairly young age.

[10:00] Yeah, right.

[10:02] What kind of things, in retrospect,

[10:06] do you feel like,

[10:08] where you can see the pathway that, that God, because this happened,

[10:13] he led you to this and it resulted in something else. Tell us a few things like that sure.

[10:19] David: Well, I'll give you the Reader's digest version because I, I know that, you know, time is of, of the essence.

[10:25] When I, when I gave, when I started doing the kids ministry,

[10:29] we were invited to go to the ghetto of Detroit. We were, we lived in the suburbs of Detroit.

[10:33] And there was a guy who'd taken an old hand built church that was, I mean,

[10:40] this was like a German handmade church. They had all the gingerbread and all that. And he, he was rebuilding a church in an old building in a very violent, very scary neighborhood.

[10:53] And I went to help out and do one set Sunday morning and stayed five and a half years. This is evangelism and outreach director.

[11:02] And planted a Christian coffee house that went over 400 people and, and worked full time.

[11:09] So, you know, I was doing 18 hour days,

[11:11] seven days a week for five and a half years.

[11:14] Jan: Yeah.

[11:15] David: But my thinking was that I wasn't supposed to live past 20 of all the stuff that happened to me.

[11:21] So this is all bonus time. So I better dig in because I don't, didn't know how long I'd last before heaven.

[11:26] So I wanted to get it all in.

[11:28] So I just went after it, you know,

[11:31] jumped off the cliff of faith and did it. And from the, from that, that experience I learned church planting.

[11:38] From that experience, I learned evangelism.

[11:40] From that experience, I learned a lot of practical things that later in my life I would use over and over and over and over again.

[11:48] But when I got there, I was helping up for one day. And when he said, why don't you stay and help me out? I said, nope, not going to do that.

[11:56] Why not? Well, aren't you going to pray about it? No, no, I don't have to. I know what God's got for me. I'm good.

[12:01] And I went home and my wife says, you going to pray?

[12:03] No, I don't think so.

[12:06] You're not going to be happy if you don't pray.

[12:08] Okay.

[12:10] About three days later, every time I tried to pray, you promised him.

[12:14] You promised him.

[12:15] You haven't talked to me.

[12:17] So I talked to him and he said, stay.

[12:21] That's what we did. And when that was done, then they, I went to Chicago and planted a church and ended up as the assistant staff chaplain at Cook County Jail, the most violent jail in America.

[12:31] He did that for a couple years. With the knowledge I got from Detroit,

[12:34] I was well equipped to do that.

[12:37] And then when that was done,

[12:40] then I went to Wisconsin and tried to keep the church open that should have been closed but when that was done, I went, I went on the road and then when I came off the road,

[12:54] it was because my body would no longer handle the travel.

[12:58] And they sent me to a little town in California that needed this. I'm a Salvation army officer.

[13:04] So they wanted to put a Salvation army in this little town, needed somebody to do it, and I was available. So they sent me and God, God went ahead of me and prepared the hearts of the people.

[13:15] We went from no address to 28, 000 square feet of debt free space in six years.

[13:20] Yeah,

[13:21] that's all God.

[13:23] Jan: Yeah. Yeah. Tell us, tell us some about your prison, working in the prison.

[13:29] David: Well,

[13:30] I mostly did. Cook County Jail is where they put people on their way to.

[13:36] And, and so it's the worst kind of transitional.

[13:41] And the only difference in ghetto Detroit and Cook County Jail was there was less, there was less weapons out in the open.

[13:49] And I mean I,

[13:51] I saw some blood all over the place in, in the jail.

[13:55] You know, it was not a, it was not an easy place to be.

[13:58] But after five and a half years of wandering on the streets of the ghetto,

[14:02] it was like, okay. And I had no fear.

[14:07] You know, looking back, maybe I, if I hadn't had God in my life, I would, I would have been terrified.

[14:12] But I had no fear. I knew I was doing what God told me to do. And we led people to the Lord and, and to have them then go confess that they'd murdered people and, and, and, and, and volunteer for whatever that meant.

[14:26] Go to go. You know, and a couple of them actually ended up in the lecture chair after I led them to the Lord because they knew they were, they were forgiven and they knew they were going to heaven and they knew they deserved their body to be destroyed.

[14:40] And so they, they made their peace on their own and came back and told me and, but we, so we discipled them as much as we could as long as I was there.

[14:48] And, but so it's everything, everything is like, it's like stacking dominoes.

[14:54] One thing builds on another, which builds on another, which builds on another. And the end. You can see the whole process and.

[15:00] Jan: Right.

[15:00] David: But when you're doing it, you're dealing with the domino in front of you.

[15:04] Jan: Exactly.

[15:08] You know, it reminds me of the story of Joseph.

[15:11] All the things who would have known that getting thrown into a pit is going to lead you to Egypt, to Potiphar's house, to being in jail, to ending up having dreams and you know, doing all of the,

[15:26] all the layers of everything that God Puts together because he's building you for the next thing you know, he's building your skills and who you are and whatever to be able.

[15:38] Enable you to do that very next thing.

[15:41] David: I agree. I. I think that God always equips us before he sends us because he's not going to deny himself one good thing.

[15:53] Jan: We were talking about Joseph and how God layered all the things in his life to get him to his ultimate purpose, which was saving his nation,

[16:03] Egypt, and how he does that with our own lives.

[16:07] So many things. You know, even when you were in. Was it Detroit, where it was inner city and.

[16:14] David: Yeah.

[16:14] Jan: Hard things. And then you ended up in a prison that was the same kind of things and layered things for that.

[16:21] Yeah. It's just amazing how he's done that. And I think,

[16:26] absolutely.

[16:28] God doesn't waste anything.

[16:30] No, you know,

[16:31] free will. Yes, we have free will.

[16:34] He kind of wants us here and we might go this way, but he kind of eventually gets us back to that spot he wants us to be right.

[16:44] David: That's what the Holy Spirit's for.

[16:47] Jan: And as he does that,

[16:49] he uses it in with the variety of things. Like, I mean,

[16:55] you were drinking, you did drugs, you were suicidal, you had a bunch of things in your life that were not so great.

[17:05] Right.

[17:05] David: Yeah.

[17:06] Jan: And yet I'm gonna guess that he's directed you to people like yourself.

[17:13] David: I, I have had friends who I led to the Lord who later said were the best dirt magnet I've ever known.

[17:21] Because you, not only you drew me, but then after that, through my friends, you drew them.

[17:27] See, you know,

[17:29] because you've been through it. You get it.

[17:32] Jan: Exactly,

[17:33] exactly.

[17:34] You know, and it, and why do we love Jesus so much? He went through everything imaginable. You know, he was rejected, he was abused, he was,

[17:45] you know, he had good times, but he had a lot of bad times. And, and, you know, he went through grief and all the things,

[17:53] Everything,

[17:54] you know,

[17:55] that we're going to relate to,

[17:58] which we know is why we can trust him. Right.

[18:01] David: Exactly.

[18:03] Jan: Yeah. Yeah.

[18:06] David: So, you know, to me, the, the great. The greatest gift is I wake up in the morning and he's not done with me yet.

[18:13] You know, I'm, I'm. I've been ready for. For heaven for a long time, but when I wake up and I'm not in heaven, it's like, oh, okay,

[18:21] but what are we going to do today?

[18:23] Yeah, what's my adventure today, Lord?

[18:25] Jan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because here I am. Show me what you want me to do.

[18:30] David: Yeah. What? I don't want to do is, is sit around and just be, be like some of the people I, I know who basically they turn on the TV and they're done for the day.

[18:40] Yeah,

[18:42] that's not heaven. That's not heaven on earth and that's not heaven ever.

[18:47] You know,

[18:48] my, I have pain that some days kind of, kind of sidelines me and I'm not productive that day.

[18:55] But that doesn't mean they quit. It just means I have a, I have a less productive day.

[19:00] Jan: Let's talk about that a little bit.

[19:02] With living with chronic illness and,

[19:06] and how that,

[19:07] that does kind of stop you sometimes, you know. And how have you been able to like what are some things that you grasp on to scriptures or things that grasp onto or characteristics of God that help you through that?

[19:23] David: Well, the, the main scriptures you never, I'll never leave you forsake you. I'll be with you always.

[19:28] And when I was a brand new Christian I,

[19:31] I, I heard a wonderful black preacher and he preached for an hour on always and he, you know, everybody was on their feet and everybody was weeping and just because he, he, he was just, he was like, he found a room full of nails and he was just driving those nails home and he was,

[19:52] he was hitting the mark on every single one.

[19:55] And, and out of that when, when I am having difficult days,

[20:00] I know that the rough days are just rough days.

[20:03] They're just a difficult day and many of us will have rough days.

[20:08] It may not be pain, it may be depression that tries to get a grip on us.

[20:14] It might be someone betrays us or we loan someone money and they won't pay us back.

[20:20] I mean there's lots of these kind of things that can sink a nail into you so you're not free flowing like you were when everything was good and or in my case,

[20:32] bad days, pain,

[20:33] you know, shoot, I,

[20:36] I, I end up having to have injections in my neck just so I can be civil.

[20:40] But what does that mean? It means that, that two days before the injections I'm begging God to hurry up and two days afterward I'm grateful that I've got another three or four months before I have to do it again.

[20:52] But that doesn't mean I'm going to slow down.

[20:54] It just means I am, I am more committed to doing something, something good anyhow.

[21:02] I think, I think you know, always in anyhow are two of my big ones. You know, he, he'll never leave me. All he's going to be with always and I'm going to do something good for him anyhow,

[21:12] daily,

[21:13] every day, no matter how I feel, no matter what, you know, if I'm in the hospital or if I. If I'm sitting on the back porch, it doesn't matter. I am going to do something good for him.

[21:25] And that commitment to. He's always been there for me. I will be always there for him.

[21:30] Is. Is. Is really a deep thing for me. It's. It's not just going through the motions.

[21:36] It is. It is part of my spiritual DNA.

[21:40] You know, I'm. I'm. I am rewoven into the product that he wants me to be.

[21:46] And that. And that means faithful and that, you know, I'm not. I'm not amazing. I'm faithful.

[21:52] Jan: Yeah. Yeah.

[21:53] David: God is amazing.

[21:54] Jan: A lot to be said for that. I interviewed my friend Angie Clayton, and she has lived with chronic pain for years and years. But she put together an anthology called Chosen, which is coming out soon.

[22:07] But her idea is we're chosen for those hard things.

[22:13] We're chosen for those hard places because God needs us to be there.

[22:19] God needs us to take us through it, but also to be there for somebody else.

[22:25] David: Yeah. We're an open book.

[22:26] Jan: Yeah. Yeah.

[22:28] David: And when we're living transparently,

[22:30] we're living as an open book read by all men.

[22:33] Jesus gets to shine through us,

[22:36] and we're not a fun house mirror where it's all bent out of shape because we're in the way.

[22:41] We are a transparent vessel that he can shine clearly through and there's none of us left behind.

[22:47] It's just pure him.

[22:49] Jan: Right, Right. Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. So you wrote a book. Tell us about your book.

[22:55] David: The book is called when the Doctors say no,

[22:58] God says Yes.

[23:01] And basically, it's the story of my life. It's, you know,

[23:05] how when the. The doctors were very plain that I wasn't going to live and then I wasn't going to live, that I wasn't going to. I mean, it just. This has been a song and a dance my whole growing up,

[23:15] and by the time we got to this, the chapter I'm at now,

[23:18] there's been seven times they've said, well, that's it,

[23:21] you know? Yeah. So doctors practice. God perfects. So I take advice, and then I go back to the. To the great physician and say, now what do you want to do about that?

[23:31] Because obviously, you know, the doctor gets paid,

[23:37] so the only way I can pay him back is to love him more.

[23:40] Jan: Yeah. Yeah.

[23:41] David: And, you know,

[23:43] it's going to be my. It's. My body's not going to stop until it stop. Stops.

[23:48] I'm not going to give him. I don't give up ground easily.

[23:52] I've had people say, you're the stubbornness man. I know. And I said, is that a compliment?

[23:57] And they said, in you it is.

[24:00] And I'm going. I have to go back and have. Say. Please explain.

[24:03] Because usually when you say something stubborn,

[24:06] that's. That's not a compliment.

[24:08] Jan: Yeah.

[24:08] David: But what they mean is that I'm driven.

[24:10] Jan: Yeah.

[24:11] David: That God has called me and I have. I have a passion, and no one or nothing's going to slow me down. And so that's a compliment.

[24:19] Jan: What is the main point that you want people to carry away from reading your book?

[24:24] David: That if I can go through it and come out victorious,

[24:27] man, you got it easy. You can do it, too.

[24:30] You don't have to go through every knothole I went through.

[24:33] You don't have to suffer everything I've suffered. You'll have your own battles. You'll have your own challenges.

[24:39] But the same God who was there for me from hello. Is going to be there for you as soon as you are open to hello.

[24:46] Jan: Yeah. Yeah.

[24:48] David: When I. When we published the book, the editor of the book was the opposite of the Christian.

[24:55] And so he went through it and said to me,

[24:58] this book is BS And I said, well, thank you. Except he didn't use the initials. And I said, thank you so much. He said, no, no. You have to understand,

[25:07] I look at books every day.

[25:09] No human being can have lived through all this.

[25:12] You had to make this up.

[25:14] They said, no, and it's all documentable. He says, prove it.

[25:17] Jan: Okay.

[25:18] David: I said, all right. He said, how do I prove it? He said, I want you to go through your book and all this stuff that seems like it's too much. I want you to call those victories, and I want to see every victory in a row on a page.

[25:29] Otherwise, I'm not going to ever believe you. And if I don't believe you, your book's not getting published to us.

[25:34] Jan: Huh?

[25:35] David: Thank you. I feel so much better now.

[25:37] So.

[25:39] I do not like sitting down and doing homework.

[25:42] Oh, I. I never have. And I'm. I'll wake up in heaven going, thank you. No more homework.

[25:49] You know, but. So I. But I did it. And it took me for better part of a week with my add mind to keep focused long enough to get it done, but I got it done and I sent it in.

[26:01] And when they published the book,

[26:05] in the appendix, there's a thing called the note from David, which is how to give your life to Jesus step by step by step,

[26:12] including what to pray and how to reach me, if you want to know more. But then the next appendix I didn't know about, he put that in the book is All My Victories.

[26:23] Jan: Oh.

[26:24] David: So he validated every claim without me even realizing he was doing it. That's pretty good stuff from a guy who don't believe.

[26:33] Jan: Well, how do you know that? Maybe at this point, he does.

[26:38] David: Well, we. We know that, you know, we were there to plant seed.

[26:41] Jan: Yeah.

[26:42] David: Everything else is not my business.

[26:44] Jan: Exactly. It's not our job. Yeah.

[26:47] David: I'm grateful that I learned very early in my faith that I don't get to play God.

[26:52] Jan: Yeah.

[26:52] David: Because I. I can't even be my own God, much less take care of anybody else, so.

[26:57] Jan: And who wants to be in control of all of those things that you can't, you aren't in control of?

[27:02] David: You know, I learned that when. Before I ever got saved. I. I knew that before. Before I knew that Jesus was a way out.

[27:10] Jan: Yeah.

[27:11] David: I couldn't stand the way that was. I. I was in. You know, and that's why suicides look so tempting, is because I just couldn't handle what was going on,

[27:20] you know? Shoot. I drove it. I drove it the day before Christmas. I drove a car off. Off a bridge over a River at 100 miles an hour.

[27:30] Jan: And yet here you are.

[27:32] David: It was Michigan. The river was frozen. I hit mud and dragged a tree out by the roots that was bigger around than a dinner plate. They towed the car out, and I drove it home.

[27:47] Jan: Nope. Not this time.

[27:49] David: Tell me the angels haven't had their. Their do trick. Keeping me alive long enough.

[27:55] There's three overdoses, a car off a cliff, and then three days from a rifle.

[28:00] Jan: Wow. Wow.

[28:02] David: So, I mean, you know, and I've had people say, you're so joyful. Well, wouldn't you be, under the circumstances,

[28:10] Jan: when you find out that there's a God who loves you and he still wants you around and you have value.

[28:17] David: Yeah.

[28:18] Jan: Yeah.

[28:19] David: I'm just. I'm just saying, if he could do it with me, what can he do for you?

[28:23] Jan: Yeah.

[28:24] David: How. What amazing things are waiting for you out there in spite of your limited predisposition to failure?

[28:34] Most people think they're going to fail anyhow, so they. They don't try. Like jumping off a cliff of faith.

[28:39] They.

[28:39] They get their toe in the water and go until I want to go further.

[28:43] Jan: Yeah.

[28:44] David: Now When I gave my heart to Jesus, it was off the cliff and never looked back. Yeah.

[28:49] Jan: Best thing that ever happened, right?

[28:51] David: Yeah. Well, I mean, shoot. I've had people say, what, don't you want to go back?

[28:56] Well, you want to buy the gun? I mean, just because that's all that was. What Beck would be to me is, you know,

[29:03] go ahead and get the gun and finish the job.

[29:06] I've, I've lived so much since then.

[29:09] I don't want to go back to that. Yeah, there's nothing in that that anybody I can imagine would voluntarily look forward to in their right mind.

[29:19] Jan: For sure. Yeah, for sure.

[29:21] David: So I'm, I'm in a heavenly mind now.

[29:25] Jan: You also have a podcast. Tell us about that.

[29:28] David: It's called God says Yes.

[29:30] Yes. I stole it from the. For the book title.

[29:33] But the reason I did is because when I started mentioning to people I was considering doing a podcast,

[29:39] they kept saying, why are you calling it God says Yes?

[29:42] So,

[29:43] okay, we'll try it.

[29:45] You know, you can always change it if it doesn't work.

[29:47] Jan: Right.

[29:48] David: It's not as carpet as steel.

[29:50] So I did, and the response has been phenomenal.

[29:54] Every issue I get, I'm getting comments.

[29:57] And I'm not looking for perfect people. I'm looking for people who God is perfecting.

[30:03] I'm our guests. I don't want perfect guy people. I don't want the great theologian who can only talk in 25 cent words.

[30:12] But all I want to do with it is get people to realize that God loves them.

[30:18] We were custom made by God to love that. We were created from the inside out. So that's why we're. He created us to be like him. He didn't create us to look like him.

[30:27] He created us to be like him.

[30:30] So as a result, we don't have to look alike. As a matter of fact, even twins don't look alike from the inside out.

[30:36] We, we are individuals because he, he loved us individually.

[30:41] He created us independently.

[30:43] And as a result,

[30:45] his love for us never changes except deeper.

[30:49] Jan: Yeah. Wow. What a God we serve, right? What a God.

[30:53] David: So that's, that's the whole podcast is getting people to go from who I was to who I is, to who I, who I believe I'm going to be.

[31:01] Jan: Love that. I love that. Where can people find you?

[31:05] David: My, my website is my name David W e dot com.

[31:10] Jan: Okay.

[31:11] David: And, and you can order the book through that. You can look at all the pretty pictures on the website. I am a photographer and I'll put

[31:20] Jan: links in the show notes for that. And, yeah, what a blessing this has been. Thank you so much for being part.

[31:28] David: I'm so honored that you invited me. Thank you so much.