Transcription
I was wondering if I will speak to the issue that many have been concerned about and probably just go ahead and get it out of the way. I'm not very good at beginning nicety stuff, but it's a few weeks ago, I'd been battling with a bad cough for about two months. And actually, we're in the middle of our month-long or three-week-long school on the Father Heart where leaders come from all over the world. And went to a doctor, um, find out why I couldn't get rid of this. And x-ray showed fluid in the lung. When they checked the fluid, um, it was adenocarcinoma, which is really about the worst kind of cancer you can get. There's no hope for it. Um, and immediately I just started to laugh. I just thought, isn't this ridiculous? You know, and it's been confirmed last Wednesday, finally, in the University of South Carolina Medical Center in Charleston. Um, but I was extremely sick three weeks ago, and I've got so much energy now, and I'm out running and exercising, and I couldn't do anything for six months. So I don't know what's happening with it, but, uh, my doctors think I'm a little nuts. They, they don't think I think I'm in denial. And, uh, but, um, I just, uh, in fact, three different high-profile people. Heidi Baker heard the news and just started laughing. Can you believe how stupid the devil is? The dude that tried to do this. And, uh, and Graham Cook sent an email. He says, man, that all of heaven's laughing. He says that this is going to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God. And, um, and I, uh, Chuck Pearce sent one yesterday saying the exact same thing. And it's just, uh, you know, we don't have to be discouraged when troubled times and adversity come to our life. And there's been no fear, not lost in our sleep. I'm just excited at the miracles that are going to come from this. And we have nothing but that this is going to be what God takes others have men as Satan and men as evil and turn it around for good in our life. And, uh, people have asked and, and, you know, man, is there something in your history? Uh, when you grow up around the sea and boat yards? I've been around all the chemicals and all the disastrous cancerous materials. So you can look back and say, yeah, there was some, a lot of stuff in my youth. But, uh, we know a God that's more powerful than all of that. And I appreciate your prayers. You can follow along the website and we're going to be knowing what you know to do in the natural. Will not be doing chemo or radiation, but just following more of a whole natural thing. And it doesn't work on this type of cancer anyway. So, um, we hardly begin to feel much of the healing take place. So, so we got that out of the way and we can go on with the thing now. And that answers all the questions and I won't have to answer in my before and after the meetings. So, okay.
It was 1979. I was captaining a 44-foot fishing boat off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My whole life at that time, my 27 years old, had been nothing but the sea. It's all I'd ever really known. All I ever wanted to do. Uh, this particular, uh, week, we'd go to, we'd go to sea for seven to ten days. We'd fish until we loaded up the boat with eight or nine thousand pounds of snapper and grouper, and then we'd, we'd come back in and and sell them to the fish markets. And, and this particular winter storm, a week, a winter storm was coming through. The whole fleet went in, and three of us decided to ride the storm out. There was a 70-foot steel hull up off of Hatteras. There was a, another boat, Captain Willis, a few miles to the north of me. I was right on Big Rock, right straight off of Morehead City, 62 miles off the coast. And when the storm hit, the weather bureau was calling for 30 to 40 knot winds. Well, it was blowing 69 miles an hour at the, the lighthouse off of Morehead City. Seas we're running 20 to 30 feet high. At midnight, we're in a 44-foot boat, so you can kind of do the math there. I mean, when you're in a storm like that, and what happens is the top third of the waves are usually breaking. The rest of it's kind of a roller. And so, I mean, it just buried this 44-foot boat. And I mean, I mean, it was really fun. I mean, it's better than any ride in Disney World. I'm just waiting for them to do something like this, you know. And what is really fun is when you got, you got a hardcore, rough, tough seamen on the boat that around the bars in the waterfront, they think they can whip anybody. But boy, I get about to see in a winter storm, and I just delight. I mean, I just, I just delight in them puking your guts out. I mean, it is just so much fun. I, I was bullied as the 97-pound weakling as a kid, and I got my revenge during my years as a sea captain. I mean, making these guys ride out in the storms. And, and, and this particular night, the waves were just burying our vessel. We have a, have you always put the boat on anchor during storms like that? Because if you keep the bow into the sea, the wave just kind of breaks over the boat. And if it doesn't take out any windows, and no hatches or doors pop open, you're buried. You go underneath the wave, and then you kind of pop out the other side, and you roll, and you're thrown from one side to another. And, and, you know, they're the real newbies, green horns, they're screaming, thinking they're about dead. And I'm just sitting here thinking, man, this is just awesome, you know. And, but midnight, the other two vessels are going down, and they're scrambling for their life. Because if you go down in the winter time off the Outer Banks, you've got about five minutes before you're unconscious from hypothermia, and you're dead. 180-foot Coast Guard cutter got to Captain Willis. We were out of the same port together, right as a rogue wave hit it. And a rogue wave is where two waves will come at each other from kind of an angle. And when they hit and collide, the wave increases 50% in height. And the entire wave, not just the top third, but the entire wave then curls. And if you're ever right in that fork where these two waves hit, it either just takes you on down. I've had it happen once. I'm still covered with scars all over my body from the windshields exploding into me. But this night, the rogue wave hit, hit Captain Willett's vessel right as the, the Coast Guard cutter was pulling alongside, and the vessel went down in less than 10 seconds, just swallowed up. Four men went into the sea, and it was just miraculous that before hypothermia got them, the Coast Guard was able to rescue those four. But at the same time, was the cries of six other men on the steel hull, 70-foot steel hull, said, we're going down, we're going into the water. We have life raft, but no survival gear. And we knew no survival gear that means they're dead in five to ten minutes, max. And we listened all night for the search for these other six men. In fact, they never found a trace, never found a life raft or anything. And it was really a night of terror. I mean, you, you don't know what terror is like until you go to sea and meet with me. I mean, it is really fun.
Just this past January, sailing to Antarctica on a 74-foot sailboat, 50-knot winds, 30-foot seas. Even the crew was puking their guts out, man. I just loved it, you know. And, but it was right before sun, sun-up when a rogue wave caught us. And with two thousand foot of anchor rope out, so that it'd stretch and be, uh, flexible enough, and it still snapped our anchor line, turned us sideways into the sea. The next wave hit our vessel, and we're capsized. You don't know what you're full of until you go to sea with me, and whatever you full of comes out.
At 27 years old, I was a drug addict. I was an alcoholic. I was a pornography addict. I'd been involved in most of that stuff from about 12 or 12 years old on. I'd been raised in Daytona Beach, Florida, in the whole surfing culture and hippie culture. And it was just the life growing up in an alcoholic home. It was just normal for me. I didn't feel any guilt. I didn't feel any shame over that. But it talks about this night in Psalm 107, verse 23 through verse 31. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters. These will see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. Because he raises up a stormy wind, and they rise up into the heavens, up on top of a 30-foot rolling wave. They go down into the depths. They go down into the trough of those two waves in between them. They go up, rise up into the heavens, and they go down in the depths, and their soul melts, and they're in their trouble, and they stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. But then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, and he guides them into their desired haven. And see, my wife had been telling me for about a year, we need Jesus in her life. That didn't make sense to me. I was raised in church. It was high church, but it wasn't a place where people had encounters with God. It wasn't a place where people's lives were transformed by the love of God. And so by 12 years old, I'd, I'd never went back to church again. I wouldn't even get married in church. I was married at sea on my fishing boat because the sea was my life. And she kept saying, we need Jesus, because she was married to an emotionally detached man. She was married to a man who was so filled with anger, he just constantly lived in a state of agitation against everyone and everything. And so it didn't make sense when for her to say to me, we need Jesus, that just meant attending church, but no change of life. But when that wave took us down, and I knew in a matter of seconds, we've got, we've got seconds to where this, this vessel either is going to right itself back up, or if any window or door pops open, it's going to be sucked to the ocean floor in a matter of seconds. My laugh, my life flashed before my eyes. And the memory that came to me was the memory of, of a seven or eight-year-old boy, a little boy that, that just something in me wanted to belong, something in me wanted to feel accepted and loved. And like any other, other weekend, there was a whole group of neighborhood kids in our neighborhood, all played together. But I was the, I was the youngest, and I was the scrawniest. And they'd gather together down at a friend's, near friend's house, and, and, and pick up sides and have a baseball game every Saturday. And, you know, the routine, you get all the kids and you line them all up against the, the fence, and you take the two oldest guys or the two jocks, and they're always the captain. You know, why am I, why aren't I ever the captain? You know. And, and then the captains stand back, and, and then they draw for who chooses first. And do you know the pain of not being chosen first? Yet there's something in every one of our life that longs to be the first one picked. Just one somebody to want me, somebody to value me, somebody to accept me. Well, I was never picked first. I was the one nobody wanted. They fought over not getting me because nobody wanted me on my team. And do you know the shame of feeling like you're on the outside looking in, and never knowing how to get on the inside? The shame of feeling like you have no value in the eyes of your peers. And this time, like any other, when I got up to bat, and everybody making fun of me, I struck out again. At this time, was a turning point of my life because this time, my best friend's dad, Mr. Mullen, saw the way the other kids treated me. And they saw me walking back from the, from the plate with my, my shoulders stooped and my head bowed. I was just covered with a robe of shame. Guilt says, we did something wrong. But shame says, I am wrong. I'm a failure. I, nothing, I have no value. And as Mr. Mullen saw that, he came running over to him, and he, he took me over to the chair where he was sitting down, and he came and he sat me in his arms and gave me the biggest hug. And he said, he said, Jack, I'm proud of you. You didn't let those kids get to you. You tried. You see, in a moment of failure, love found me and covered my shame. At that moment, it didn't make any difference what the kids were saying because Mr. Mullen's loved me the way I was, and he valued me and accepted me. But what happened was, I realized at eight years old, that was the first memory I ever had of being hugged. You see, my father was an athlete. He was a tennis instructor whose dream was his two sons become the tennis champions of the world. And from the time we were old enough, my father put a tennis racquet in our hand, and we're out on the tennis courts every day being trained and equipped to be champions. My brother became the top 10 in the nation during college years. But then there was the other son. What does it matter with you? Can't you do anything right? Are you a wimp or something? You never hit the ball in the net. You never win anything. Hitting the ball in the net, hit the ball, be a monster, be a gorilla. You see, my father trained us with fear and intimidation. And when you failed in my dad's eyes, when you lost a match, if you hit the ball in the net three times in a row, you got the look. That look of superiority with condensing tones that says, you're a failure in my eyes because you can't, you can't perform up to my, my rigid expectations of what I want you to be. And see, 93% of communication is not words, it is tone and its body language. And day in and day out, what I didn't know as a little child was a stronghold from Second Corinthians 10:4 and 5 as being built in the heart of a child. A stronghold, a habit structure of thinking of itself. It is not demonic, but it is an open door that can give the demonic realm influence in your life. It's a habit structure of thinking. It's an ungodly belief. And the ungodly belief that began to be built in me is, you only have a place in your father's heart if you can hit the ball right. Because my brother rarely lost a match, and when he'd win a match, my dad look at my brother, that's my boy, that's my boy, and he'd look at him with such passion and such value and such honor. And then I'd lose the match. And he had one son that performed well enough to earn a place in his father's heart, but he had another son that couldn't hit the ball right. And see, when I went home from Mr. Mullen's house, I realized for the first time, for the first time, something's not right at home. And see, all I wanted was my father to invite me into his heart the way Mr. Mullen did. So I got out on the floor. He's watching the ball game, reading the paper at the same time. And I start inching my way over to my father. I risked opening my heart, only for him to see me get close to him, says, what do you want, boy? I risked opening my heart, and nothing came back. It was not a matter of whether my father loved me or not. My father loved me. He would have given his life for me. But my father was abandoned by his father at seven years old during the depression. And you can't be a father if you've never felt like a son. And by the time my father, abandoned by a father, raised in small town Georgia, by the time he made it into his teenage years, he found out there's only one way to keep shame off the door because he was the only kid in town without a father. And none of the other kids that went to church with him were allowed to play with him. They weren't allowed to their house, they weren't allowed to his, because of what his father had done. And he learned the only way you can be somebody is beat everybody in athletics, be the best. And he became the captain of every team, became the, the town hero in his teenage years. The baseball was the pros were scouting them out to draft him into the pros. And World War II broke out, and he found himself in the jungles of New Guinea and Philippines fighting for his life. And when he came home, my father was a survivor. He survived abandonment of the father, survived being raised in the depression, survived being the shame of the little small farming community he lived in, survived the war. And survivors love their children deeply, but they express love to their children by providing well to their children and by teaching them to be to survive. But they don't have an understanding of the ability of opening their heart to love. And see, my father trained us, be strong, be a man, don't rely on anyone, be a monster, be a gorilla. If you cry, I'll give you something to cry about. And what I didn't realize, my father was making me into a man of strength and independence. And as my, my life was in jeopardy at 27 years old, that was the memory that flooded through my life. Memories I had longed to, to, to medicate and to comfort myself with drugs and alcohol and pornography and immorality. And I cried out to the Lord in my trouble. The next wave hit the vessel, righted the vessel right side up. I was able to scramble to the wheel of the vessel and get the engine, the bow back into the sea. We survived the storm, went home in the morning, with a crippled vessel. You see, I was so strong that when we're strong, we cannot find God's love. Took a week to re-out the vessel, re-outfit, ten thousand dollars repairs, went right back out after that. Got caught in another storm off the Outer Banks once more, was capsized during, during the rough storm once more. So our crew screaming, and we're not knowing whether we're going to survive. We were the only boat anywhere off the coast at that time. We knew there was no help if we went down. And my life flashed before my eyes at 12 years old, when I, when I, I said, I don't want to be my father's son anymore. The one time my father screamed at me one too many times on the tennis court. Please, please understand. My father was a good man. He was one of the most loved and honored and respected men in Daytona Beach, Florida. September 12th was Barney Frost Day every year because he was such a kind and generous man. But when it came to being a father, he was a sergeant in the military, and it never changed as a father. You obeyed what he did, or you got decked, slain in the spirit. And I saw the day at 12 years old when I walked off that tennis court, and I, he said, get back here, I'll never show you anything again. I dropped the tennis racquet, I walked the two miles home, and I didn't care. I ceased being my father's son that day. But see, in Romans 8, verse 19 through 23, it talks about a deep, deep pain, a deep longing, a deep suffering, and a groan that is within every human being ever born. It's the cry inside of every one of us that I just want my daddy to love me. It's the cry inside of every one of us that we just want dad to just call us over one time, open his heart, and just, and just say, son, I love you just the way you are. And, you know, when we want this the most, it's not when we've won the match. When we want it the most is when we failed, when everyone around us is making fun of us, everyone around us is teasing us, is when we need a father to run to us with outstretched arms and say, it's okay, son, I love you the way you are, not the way the world says you must be. And see, when you felt like you opened your heart to receive a father's love and nothing came back, that pain seeks pleasure, pain seeks comfort and pleasure. And so by 12 years old, I was a pornography addict, addicted to self-gratification. By 12 years old, molested, and for the next four years, in all types of, uh, perversion and all types of immorality. That, that you see, when you've not been touched in a healthy way in your childhood years, you allow yourself to be touched in unhealthy ways in your teenage years. It led to drug addiction, it led to alcoholism. When all I really want, all I really want, it's the same thing every one of us in this room's wanted. We want our father to invite us, to invite us into his heart. But I was a failure in my dad's eyes. I couldn't do anything right because it wasn't just the tennis court. It was the report card. It was the way I dressed. It was my hair. It was the way I did yard work. There didn't seem to be anything I could do right in my dad's eyes. James Dobson once said, it takes 40 words of praise to counteract one word of criticism in the heart of a child. But in the house I grew up in, there was 40 words of criticism for every word of praise. And see, every day, a habit structure of thinking, a destructive habit pattern of thought, is growing thicker, bigger, and becoming a fortress around me of fear. The same fear you struggle with, the same fear everyone in this room has battled, and many still battling. The day, the fear that's expressed in three ways: the fear of trusting. You risked opening your heart to love and nothing came back, and you begin to fear trusting. The fear of rejection and abandonment, and the fear of risking opening my heart to love again. Those same three fears are the fears every one of us deal with on a regular basis in our life. And they become a stronghold of independence. Independence sees every other human being as a potential threat. Independence and self-reliance sees every person as a potential enemy, even those you live with. And so we begin to build around us this, this stronghold of independence, self-reliance, that's rooted in a fear of trusting, a fear of rejection and abandonment, a fear of, of opening our heart to love. And then we start comforting ourself and medicating our pain with sexual addictions, with pornography, with drugs, and even as skinny as I always was, with food. I mean, there was nothing like mint chocolate chip ice cream. I mean, I see, I couldn't do anything right in my dad's life, but I, I could do one thing better than anybody else. I could think like a fish. And this second time as I, I'm about to lose my life, as I'm at a point where either the vessel is going to the ocean floor, it's going to pop back up, I saw those teenage years when the only thing I could do to get praise from anybody was up on the pier, the Main Street pier in Daytona Beach. I fished 365 days a year because I learned if I could catch a big fish, all the people would gather around you and stroke you and pat you on the back, you did good. And see, every one of us longs for praise and affirmation. Gary Smalley says, it takes 12 moments of praise or affirmation for you to feel good about yourself on a daily basis because God created us. God loves praise. But he created something in every one of us, but we just want to hear somebody say something good about us. And when we have somebody that constantly affirms us, we're drawn to that, and we pour our life in that. And so by the time I was, I was 22 years old, I'm one of the top commercial fishing boat captains on the East Coast of the United States. I'm giving my whole life to the sea. I'm the youngest commercial snapper and grouper fishing boat captain. And from the first time I went from mate to captain, I became what was known in our, in our sphere of relationships or fishing community, top hook. And top hook is who can outfish every other person. And you fishermen here, how many fishermen we got here? Oh, I'm gonna just rub it in tonight. All right. I mean, when you go fishing, Christianity's out the door. It's all about who catches the biggest with you and your buddies. I mean, it's who catches the most. Now amp it up about a hundred fold, that this is your life, this is your living, this is what you do. And see, when the fleet goes to sea for a week, when you get to the dock, maybe you saw it in The Perfect Storm, remember the movie? The, the real romantic moment at the for, at the beginning of the music's playing, and the, and the two swordfish boats are sailing in together, and the woman captain gets to the dock and unloads, and the boss, the owner of the vessels, comes, and she's got what's called a slammer. She just loaded the boat down, and they just made tens of thousands of dollars. As soon as the, the boat owner looked at her, man, you're just awesome. And just does that. That's the way my dad looked at my brother when he won a match. But then he turns around to George Clooney, and what's he do? Gives him the look because George Clooney just barely made expenses, didn't make the boat owner any money. And the boat owner turns around, first two minutes, and gives George Clooney the look. As soon as he did, I started crying. My wife said, what is the matter with you? I said, it's my luck because I grew up with that look. It's, it's where we go to school, it's the sports teams we were part of, it's families, it's where we go to church. Your value is measured by how well you perform. And if you perform right, people want to be with you. But if you don't perform right, I mean, they don't even have to say anything. You can feel it in their body language and in their tone. And see, when the fleet comes in from a, we could see in any fish house, there's a, there's a chalkboard in the commercial fishing boat fish house, and at the top of the board is the name of the boat with the most pounds of fish for the week, all the way down to the, the boat with the least pounds of fish. Maybe you've watched Deadliest Catch. It's all about who catches the most pounds because whoever catches the most pounds, it's bragging rights. And you can't imagine the glory come in. It's better for some of you guys that know what I'm talking about. It's better than mainline and crystal meth. I mean, it really has. I mean, your heartbeat goes from 78 beats to about 180 in 10 seconds. It's all about, it's all about the praise of man, and it's all about you being able to perform. And see, when you're top hook and you go into the waterfront bars, man, the glory of that moment. What you need to realize, everybody hates you. They kiss up to you, they brown nose you because they want to find out where they, where you caught the fish. But they all want to take you down. And see, my father rejected me for 10 years. He put no time into my life. In the summertime, he went on tennis retreats and tennis camps with his oldest son, and I vacationed with Mom because I didn't play tennis anymore. But now at 22, 23 years old, I started making more money than my dad. I'm making $50,000 a year in the 1970s and my early 20s going fishing. Now guys, this isn't nets, this is hook and line. I mean, we're catching grouper up to 450 pounds. I take a 5, 10 pound red snapper, put it on a big shark hook on a 10 pound sinker, 300 pound test wire line, drop it down on a shipwreck, come up on two and three hundred pound groupers. Beat that. People always wondered, what's the biggest you ever caught? We're, we're on the Amberjack wreck, 42 miles east of Daytona Beach, Florida, 168 foot of water, known to have these giant groupers on there. But they wouldn't hit small baits, and we couldn't get a, a small fish live. And here comes a mahi-mahi swimming around the boat, 15 pounds. And I wonder, I wonder how big a fish they'll eat. So I put that 15 pound mahi-mahi in the boat, clipped the tail off so he couldn't swim, put him on a big old giant grouper hook, dropped him down on that wreck. 450 pound Warsaw grouper. The next wave hit the vessel, righted the vessel back up again, and we went, we went in the crippled vessel again. I'd cried out to God once more, God save us, but I was so strong, I could not find his love. Two more trips back to back, four trips in a row, we almost lost our lives. There's an interesting thing about crisis. Crisis depletes you of your independence and self-sufficiency, and you begin to find out what you're full of. And it's a few days before Christmas. I'd almost lost my life for four weeks in a row. The whole fleet had gone in, but Christmas, except for Brian on a 40-foot, 40-footer out of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. I'd grown up with Brian in Daytona and going to school with him. We're a few miles apart. I got a school of fish in the Devil's Hole on the charts. It's called Georgetown Hole. We called it Devil's Hole in commercial fishermen because two vessels had disappeared in the 1970s without a trace in this, this deep cavern, 62 miles off of Myrtle Beach. And the third one's about to. We'd had several thousand pounds of snapper on the boat when a school, a giant grouper moved in and started ripping the snapper off the boat, off the hooks. We went to giant hooks and live snapper for baits. Over the next four to five hours, we caught 28 fish. The smallest one was 100 pounds, the biggest one was 315 pounds. I caught 15 of them myself. One double header, two hooks on the rail, 200 pounder on each one. Beat that guys. We loaded the boat down. We're waist deep in these giant Warsaw groupers. I've been on radio silence when you're in a bite of fish like this, you don't tell anybody else. I headed back to the dock. A northeaster was coming. I wanted to beat it in. And Brian didn't have hardly any fish on the boat. And once I got off the fish, I called him and said, Brian, I'm heading in. You don't have a load yet. I said, I got a full load. Right, you've done it to us again, haven't you, Jack? I said, yeah. Told him what we loaded the boat down with. He said, put me on those fish, Jack. Put me on those fish. So I gave in. And since they won, anybody around, put the radio on low power, which about three, four miles, and put them on those fish. I headed in. He pulled several big fish, and I got in about 30 miles from the coast and out of radio range from him about when the northeaster hit. I made it on back in, just hope Brian made it back to Mount Pleasant. I was running out of Southport, North Carolina. It's Christmas morning, 10:30. I didn't know if Brian had made it back or not. I assumed he had. The phone rings, and I remember the call so well. It was the boat owner's wife. Have you seen Brian on the Ranger Four? And I said, I left him on Devil's Hole. Well, you're the, the last one to see him. His father was an important man in the state of Florida, in the House of Representatives. They had 14 planes and ships search for them for 10 days. They never found a life jacket, never found anything. I was at a point of emotional collapse. You see, my father had been coming to the dock, and all he wanted to know when he came to the dock when I unloaded fish was, you top hooked this week, son? Top hook? And if I was top hook, my dad would look at me the way he looked at my brother when my brother ran a match, and that's my boy. And he'd hang around and wait until he got all the fish off, and he'd put his arm around me, and we'd head to the bars with all the crew, and, and we'd drink, and he'd laugh. And, and see, when I went to sea, that's what I rode the storms out for. I wasn't taking my boat to the dock until we outfished every other boat, no matter what the weather was. They called me the Rough Rider because many times the only boat at sea would be our boat because it's not going to the dock until we're top hook, until we've outfished every other boat. Because, because when I got to the dock and I wasn't top hook, my dad only one knew, you top hooked this week, son, you top hook. And if he looked up on the chart and saw, saw my name even second place and not first, it gave me the look that I'd had 15 years later. He wouldn't even hang around. He'd go get in his car and drive back to the tennis courts. And see, I realized, I don't have a right to be, I don't have a right to laugh, I don't have a right to rest. And when my father go climb in his, in his car and drive away, I'd tell my crew, clean the boat up, get it iced up, put the fuel back on, we're leaving in the morning. You've got one night home. Boats stayed home four or five nights. But if we weren't top hook, we're turning around and going back because it's, it's all a matter of, do you feel like you have a place in a father's heart, or are you gonna have to work harder, slave more? My wife said, why do you have to turn around and go back? It wasn't about money. It wasn't about what the rest of the fishermen thought. It was about looking into my father's face and either seeing that I have value to him, or if I have no value, I'll risk everything, even the lives of my crew, just to see my father smile at me one time. And see, every day of my life, all the way up into my twenties, that destructive habit pattern of thinking, that fear of trusting, that fear of rejection in my dad's eyes, that fear of opening my heart to love, was building. This isn't just my story. Have you figured that out yet? It's each of our story. We've all battled with this same stronghold of fear, whether from good homes. My wife, from the best of Christian homes, still the same stronghold of fear because the entire world system, religious system, athletic system, political system, business system, is all built upon either, that's my boy, or the look. One time, I gave my thirteen-year-old daughter the look, and she went running to her bedroom crying and wailing in tears. She came out with her belt, handed it to me, and says, beat me, Dad, but never look at me like that again. That's the wound that can come from feeling like you don't have a place in the father's heart. When Brian was lost, something broke inside of me. I went on a several week trunk until it was all the money was gone. Had to go back out to sea again. And once again, another storm. It was just the winter from hell. I've almost lost my life again. I cry out, God save me again, but I was so strong, I couldn't find his love. I could not acknowledge need. I thought everyone else was the problem. And I lived in a state of constant agitated resistance against my crew, against my family. And if my crew ever did anything to displease me, they got the rage and the anger. And I became known as Captain Bly off the Carolina coast. Nobody could work for me, though they made double, triple the money because we made more money than every other boat. To this day, I'm still known as the top snapper grouper commercial fishing boat captain on the East Coast of the United States for all time. But what was the price? Everybody despised me, but I earned their respect by being the best. But I walked on every human being to get there. And finally, the, the pain, the torment. You see, in 1 John 4:18, fear brings torment because every time I came in as top hook and unloaded, I knew I've got to go out and do it again. Because now, if I don't outfish the entire fleet, not only are you made fun of by your father through the look, everybody in the bars taunts you, all the other fishermen taunt you. And I told my crew, February 16, 1980, help me get the boat iced up and ready to go. Takes about six hours to get it all set and ready. And I told them, you're staying home. I'm going alone. You don't go to sea alone. It's dangerous enough. Commercial fishing offshore is, you're 21 times more likely to die or suffer a debilitating accident than any other occupation in the world. I've got the scars to prove it. I've seen them in my bag of cents a million. As they were untagging, tying the bags, what's cents a million? It was the $250 an ounce pot around back in 1980. Told them, I don't need this anymore. And they said, what are you doing? I said, I don't know. I got on my boat and I sailed offshore alone, 40 miles off the coast. I got the Doobie Brothers quadraphonic stereo just blaring away above the sounds of the, the engine. And for the first time in 10 years, I think I, I kind of got a little sober in the commercial fishing industry. You don't have seasons when the town is dry because they're all the smugglers, and we've all got it stashed away everywhere. For the first time, I'm thinking clearly. When the Doobie Brothers get to the song that I always despised and hated, Jesus is just all right with me. Jesus is just all right. Oh, yeah. I tried one time going to church with my wife when she was pregnant with our first child in '79. She gave her heart back to the Lord, began going back to church. And one time she got me to go during this season of crisis, this winter from hell. And as I walked in that place, long hair and beard, wild looking, I mean, everybody in the church gave me the look. And then the preacher just focused on me the whole time. I felt more shame there than I felt in my dad's presence when I failed. I left in the middle of that and said, that's it. I'm not going near that again. And so when the song came up, Jesus is all right with me, I mean, it was anger coming out of me. I'd been reading a Living Bible. My wife's brother gave me a Living Bible. Just read the words of Jesus, just read in there, Jack. And so I started reading it during storms. And I started, could it really be true that God is like this? Because see, we see God through the lens of our earthly fathers. And I thought, if there is a God, he must be just like my dad. And I didn't want anything to do with him. But as I began to see Jesus, and I'm 40 miles off the coast, and I started screaming, gut here. 27 years old, I'd become everything I had wanted to become. The top commercial fishing boat captain on the East Coast, money, drugs, a good wife, son at home, everything anybody could ask for. And my whole life is filled with misery and fear and torment. And I began to rage at God. And there's only one way I can describe what happened. It wasn't any spooky visions. There wasn't any voices. There wasn't anything strange. Except for, I felt like I was sitting in Mr. Mullen's lap when I had failed at eight years old. Love found me. And now at 27 years old, you see, when I was strong, I couldn't find God's love. But as my friend Ed Peoric says, when I became weak, God's love found me. It's a love that finds you in your most weakest, broken moment. And for three days, I, I'm just crying. I can't stop crying. Didn't hear any voices, but I'm just pouring out all this pain. I caught 600 pounds of grouper by myself, just talking to God, and just, just playing, and just have, I mean, I, I cruised home after three days. My best friend had come in the night before on, on the boat, and Rick, and he jumps on the boat to help me tie it up. And we tie up, and he fires up a joint of Colombian gold, man. Smuggled in 300 or 6,000 pounds last night, got 300,000, got a couple pounds for you in the trunk, Jack. It's free. Try this. And I said, man, Rick, I don't need that anymore. And he said, what, man? I don't need that, Rick. I was singing the Doobie Brothers song, you know, that song, Jesus is just all right with me. Man, I've been crying, Rick, for three days, man. I can't stop singing that song over and over again. I don't want it anymore. I threw all my pornography overboard. Rick, he said, you were, I said, I threw all the pornography. I threw all my, my, all my Led Zeppelin overboard and my Pink Floyd overboard. All I can play is Jesus is just all right with me. Rick says, I grew up in a holy roller church in, in Ohio. I'll tell you what happened. You, you've been born again. I didn't even know the phrase. I'd never seen Billy Graham on TV, you know. Six months later, Rick's born again on my boat. After the smuggling rings bro, and busted, and he has to turn state's evidence, and the mafia is looking to kill him. Isn't it interesting how crisis depletes you of your independence and self-reliance? I went home from my wife to my wife from that trip, freshly born again. Drug addiction gone, just like that. Never touched it again. Pornography addiction gone, just like that. Never touched it again. Alcoholism gone, just like that. Still shrank a few beers. Went home to my wife, said, let's go to church. First time she was slain in the spirit, and she couldn't believe. Well, where do you want to go to church? I said, well, take me to the church you grew up in. You don't want to go to that church. And I said, no, I want to go. You, you said you grew up a Christian. Take me where you grew up in. She's, she's kind of panicking. He said, no, no, no. I said, no, you take me where you grew up. She says, are you going to leave your gun in the car?