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What does it mean to truly hear God's voice in today's noisy world? Jonnie T, host of Refuge Freedom Stories podcast and author on Substack, brings an authentic perspective to this question that will resonate with both spiritual seekers and long-time believers.
From his early encounters with faith at age 19 to falling away and finding his way back, Jonnie's winding spiritual journey offers powerful insights about divine persistence. "God was kind of taking the scales off my eyes," he explains, describing the moment in a bar when he suddenly realized, "I don't really belong here." This pivotal realization started him on a path that would eventually lead to podcasting, writing, and street ministry.
Jonnie demystifies the often misunderstood concept of "hearing God's voice," describing it not as dramatic audible conversations but as something more subtle—an impression, a Scripture passage suddenly becoming alive, or an unexplainable urge to pray for a stranger. His practical approach emphasizes immediate obedience: "If you feel like God is pressing you to go and pray for somebody, you got to act on that immediately, because then the enemy doesn't have time to come in and put those doubts in your head."
His everyday evangelism offers a refreshing template for faith-sharing that doesn't feel forced or awkward. When service representatives call him for technical support, he asks two disarming questions: "Do you listen to podcasts?" and "Is there anything I can pray for you about?" The responses have been surprisingly open. He suggests a subtle but significant shift in language—asking to pray "with" someone rather than "for" them—creating a collaborative spiritual moment rather than a hierarchical one.
Ready to tune your spiritual ears to a divine frequency? Jonnie's story reminds us that God speaks in whispers, impressions, and unexpected encounters—we just need to learn how to listen. As he powerfully states, "The moment that we speak to God, God already puts things into motion to minister to you." The conversation awaits.
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00:29 - Welcome and Guest Introduction
04:12 - Birth of Refuge Freedom Stories Podcast
06:41 - Interviewing Lives Changed by God
07:46 - Johnny's Personal Faith Journey
10:51 - Hearing God's Voice
16:57 - Street Ministry and Everyday Evangelism
23:23 - Success, Challenges and Legacy
26:28 - Final Encouragement and Contact Info
WEBVTT
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Hello everyone and thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Dorsios Show Today.
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On our episode we have Ronnie T, who is incredibly passionate about Jesus.
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He is a speaker, trainer and budding author, host and producer of the Refuge Freedom Stories podcast and author Glory to Glory on Substack.
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Johnny, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
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Dorsey, it's great to be here with you and thank you so much for previously being a guest on Refuge Freedom Stories.
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I really enjoyed our conversation.
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Yes, definitely, I enjoyed that as well.
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Can you introduce my audience as someone else introducing you?
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Sure, I'd like to introduce you to Johnny T.
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As Dorsey said, he hosts and produced Refuge Freedom Stories podcast.
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He's also branching out to co-host a new podcast called the Exchange Life and is a budding author on Substack from Glory to Glory and working on a few books.
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Devotional, hopefully, will come out later this year.
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Essentially, Johnny is a man who loves God deeply and is very thankful and blessed to walk this life with Jesus and ultimately I just want to live for the world, to see nobody but Jesus in him.
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Amen.
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What's the story behind the name of the podcast that you host?
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Yeah, so back in 2020, a friend of mine, reverend Alan Campbell.
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He runs a ministry called Refuge Ministries Canada, and Refuge Ministries Canada was birthed out of Alan's own experience.
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He ended up in penitentiary due to life on the streets and the things that he was involved in, and when he was in there, some Salvation Army guys came in and ministered the gospel to him and he gave his heart to the Lord.
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And the Lord spoke to his heart and said Are you tired of living your life this way?
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And he said yes, and so when he got out of prison, he was asked by a youth detention center to go and share his story in one of the western provinces in Canada, in Alberta.
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And when he was there, he ministered and a young man who was 12 years old came up to him and said well, my heroes are Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer.
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And he said, oh well, my hero is Jesus.
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And this young man gave his heart to the Lord.
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But when Alan was flying back to Ontario, he realized there was nobody to mentor that young man, and so he started Refuge Ministries Canada, and that was over 25 years ago, and so they were the first point of contact for young offenders and others that get out of prison to help them get a place of their own for six months, you know, to break that cycle with other people, and they get Bible teaching and they get mentorship and help them find work, and so on and so on.
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And in 2020, he called me up and he said hey, johnny, I just read a survey that said that 77% of Canadians believe in miracles.
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I said, well, that's great, I believe in miracles too.
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And he says yeah, we've seen a lot of miracles through the ministry over the years and I want to do a radio program.
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And I said, well, that's great.
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I said what do you want me to do?
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And he said, well, do you want to help?
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I said, sure.
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So I said I can help you with the technical side of things and being kind of a geeky, computerish guy.
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And I said but you're going to have to find a radio show host because I don't have that kind of voice.
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And then the next day or the day after, another guy called him up and said hey, I really like what your ministry is doing.
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Is there anything you need?
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And Alan said yeah, I need a radio show host.
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And so we started our half hour radio show and it's been on stations across Canada since 2020.
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And a couple of months after we started the show, someone came up to me and said do you guys have a podcast?
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And I had this big light bulb moment over my head and I said, no, but we're going to.
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And I knew nothing about podcasting whatsoever absolutely zero.
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And so God took me on this whole journey of launching the program into a podcast and we've been going ever since.
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What type of people do you interview on your show?
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As you said, you interviewed me on your show.
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What are the other types of interviews and stories that you talk about on your show?
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Yeah, so we've interviewed everybody, from addicts and people who are addicted to drugs, alcohol, pornography, different things like that.
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We've interviewed a lot of veterans I have a very special place in my heart for veterans and we've interviewed musicians.
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We interviewed a lady that came out of human trafficking.
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We interviewed a major league baseball manager that won the World Series Major League Baseball manager that won the World Series.
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We've interviewed a man who made $100 million by the time he was 31.
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It's a wide range of people.
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There's no particular type of person that we're looking for to be interviewed.
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What we are looking for is people whose lives have been changed by the power of God, and I think the wide variety of guests that we have on the podcast just expresses that to the world, because God is so broad in his love for each of us and yet he created us individually, so we each have our own personal journey towards him, and the ways that he ministers to people's lives is just incredible, because the way God would speak to you could be much different from the way that he speaks to me, and it could be different from the way he speaks to somebody else, and so it's just so interesting to hear how he has spoken to all these people and it just shows the vastness of his character, his love for us of his character, his love for us.
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I've just gotten introduced to Substack and just started knowing a little bit about it.
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What is your book about?
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Glory to Glory, on Substack.
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So from Glory to Glory is a Substack of articles and notes and the podcast is also posted there.
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You can post podcasts on sub stack as well and basically, you know, as I do my devotions every day with the lord and things like that, he, I believe that he reveals things to me, not, you know, any kind of special way, but just things that kind of speak to my heart and, and so I felt a burden to share that, and so that's what I've been doing for the last year and a half or so is publishing these articles.
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When I read something and it speaks to my heart, I think, well, god probably wants to speak to somebody else's heart with this same kind of message.
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So that's essentially what it is is a collection of those articles and short notes and, again, as I said, the podcast as well.
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And so they're all on Substack and you could find them under.
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From Glory to Glory Tell me about your life growing up and your story.
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Yeah, so I grew up in a home that ended up in divorce.
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My parents split up when I was young and you know that had anybody that goes through that, that has an impact on how they perceive the world and the things going on around them, and so on and so on, and so I grew up in some level of poverty.
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You know, with my mom and my brother, and when I was 19, I was going to a church and the pastor preached a message and I just believed that I needed to go forward and ask Jesus into my heart.
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So I did that and I just felt this sense of joy, this sense of I had a smile on my face that you couldn't wipe off for three hours, just like a Cheshire cat.
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A big grin on my face, and so that was a real starting point for me.
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And then, you know, sometime after that, uh, some issues came up and I kind of fell away from the Lord.
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The Bible talks about the seed falling in different types of ground, and I think in my case I just didn't have enough of a good root in the Lord to keep me planted there, and so I kind of wandered for a little while and then in my middle I met my wife my now wife and she had just become a Christian and my own spirit recognized that joy and that peace in her that ultimately I was looking for.
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You know, we all look for God in different ways before we know him, and people get involved in a whole bunch of different things, and so that was my case, but I do remember that God was drawing me just before we met and I remember, you know, going to the bar and looking around and thinking to myself what am I doing here, Like I don't really belong here, this is not what I should be doing with my life.
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So God was kind of taking the scales off my eyes.
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And I'm the one who met her.
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It was just, you know, really prominent to me that I need to give my heart back to the Lord.
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So I did that, and so since that point, you know like life has its own burdens and struggles and challenges that we all face, but through all those things, Jesus has always been faithful to reveal himself to me in ways that I can understand him and to help me to draw closer to him.
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So now I'm super passionate about hearing his voice.
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I'm really trying to plug into tuning my ears to the frequency of his voice, just like you would tune into a radio station or something like that, because that's so important.
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It's all about that relationship with him and that's what changes us from day to day.
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It's not we can't do it in our own strength, but as we align ourselves with him and we let him live his life through us.
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That's when we're going to see change in ourselves and those around us.
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You know, you mentioned about you know hearing the voice of God, and what does that look like to you?
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What does you know?
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How do you view that?
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When you, when you hear the voice of God, what does that sound like to you?
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What does he speak to you about?
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You know when he does speak to you.
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Yeah.
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Well, there's times where, like I said about the Substack articles, like when I'm reading in the Bible and something just becomes alive to me, if you want to look at it that way Something just kind of jumps off the page and I go, wow, there's something there and I need to dig into that.
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That's one way that God would speak to me and through his word.
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And anytime that we believe that God is speaking to us, we need to go back to the word, because the word never changes and that's the truth.
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There are other times when it's almost like an impression, it's like a real need or a real something that has to be done right then and there.
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For example, I was in my devotions the other day and I read a passage of scripture that I'd read many, many times before and yet something jumped out at me and immediately I knew that I had to write it down and post an article about it, because it was something that was speaking to me and I thought somebody else needs to hear this.
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So I try to be obedient to when I get those promptings.
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Or sometimes it might be that you're in a mall or you're somewhere and you just feel like a need to see somebody and say I've got to go pray for that person or I've got to go talk to that person about God.
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So it's not like an audible voice.
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Those are rare.
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We're not all Saul's, we're not all on the road to Damascus type of thing, but God definitely does speak to us.
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It could be through another person, it could be through his word, it could be through like a sense or a presence, just those kinds of things.
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Even sometimes when you're listening to Christian music, there's times where you just sense God's presence.
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So I think for me that's kind of things.
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Even sometimes when you're listening to Christian music, there's times where you just sense God's presence.
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I'm still learning that there's a great book and it's called hey, it's Me God.
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Are you there?
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It's Me God.
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By Dr David Chodka.
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If you want to read that book, it's awesome.
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It gives you a real understanding of how to fine-tune the ways that you hear the voice of God.
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I actually had Dr David Chodka on my show.
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He's a great guy.
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Yeah, I had him on the podcast too.
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Yeah, he's full of life and the Spirit for sure.
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Yeah, I had him on twice now because I had to, you know, cut the show into two pieces.
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Yeah, he likes to talk.
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Preachers like to talk, that's for sure he does.
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How did God you know when you were growing up and you know going through everything that you went through how did God change your life?
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God change your life?
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Yeah, so I mean, as I mentioned, you know, when you, the world has its ways of trying to confuse people and to draw them away from God by giving them substitutes, you know, and that can be people or drugs, or alcohol or whatever it might be.
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So you know, that was the typical kind of lifestyle that was going on around me and that's essentially what I fell back into.
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And yet, when I gave my heart back to the Lord, like that seed that was planted in my heart when I was 19, it was still there.
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And so as I kind of wandered aimlessly for a few years and found my way back to God, like he planted that seed in better ground and as it started to grow, things just drop off really quickly.
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You know, as I said, like I already knew that I shouldn't really be in some of those places and doing some of those things, and God just kind of reinforced that.
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So it was very easy.
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A lot of those things dropped away real quickly.
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And then, as you or as I, started to grow more in the lord, you know, I just started to really embrace christianity as a way of life and, you know, going to church more and going out on the streets and preaching and singing and trying to reach people and tell others about what god has done for my life.
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And I remember one day at work a guy came up to me and I guess that the change must have been recognizable or significant enough, because he came up to me and he says hey, johnny, he says what really happened to you?
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And so I told him hey, this is what happened.
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I, you know, gave my heart back to Lord and he's just helping me, you know, make life better and with a walk with him.
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So that's kind of how it went.
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You mentioned earlier and you just mentioned it again, about you know going out on the streets and you know speaking and preaching, and you know, you know sometimes you're in the mall and you know you feel like, you know you want to go and play for somebody in that mall.
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What is that experience like?
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Because sometimes you know you would think to yourself, well, I don't want to do that, I'm afraid of you know what their reaction is going to be.
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I'm afraid of what the what they're going to say and think of that nature.
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What have the reactions be and how have that you?
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What does that look like?
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Yeah.
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So, and that's a great question, because just the other day, when we were recording an episode for the other podcast, the Exchange Life, we were talking about obedience and that'll be coming out in probably April sometime.
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Obedience, when God is speaking to you and as I'm learning is it has to be immediate.
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So if you feel like God is pressing you to, let's say, go and pray for somebody, you got to act on that immediately, because then the enemy doesn't have time to come in and put those doubts in your head and say, well, is it really me, or am I just trying to do that on my own?
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What's going to happen?
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All those kind of lies that the enemy is trying to put in front of us to stop us from following God.
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So obedience has to be immediate, and so, for example, one day it was, we give out t-shirts for the podcast and I believe you have one Refuge Freedom Story t-shirt, right, and so I was wearing that t-shirt and I was in a Home Depot and I was going through the self-checkout, buying whatever things I was buying, and one of the workers came up to me and she said do you need any help?
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And I said, no, I'm good.
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And she said can I ask you about your shirt?
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And I said, sure, and I said it's a podcast, I'm blessed to host and produce it.
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And she said what's it about?
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Kind of like you asked me.
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And I said, well, it's all about how God's changed people's lives.
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And she said, well, that her daughter had taken her own life and that her and her husband were having a really hard time dealing with that, obviously.
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And so God brought me across that lady's path to have the opportunity to pray with her and just tell her you know God loves you, god sees that God is here, type of thing.
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And so there's been situations like that.
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Or, for example, when I'm on the phone talking to a service representative of a company whether it's like an internet company for technical issues or, you know, maybe a service call to whatever it might be I always ask people two questions.
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The first one is do you listen to podcasts?
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And the reason I'm asking that is so I can tell them about the podcast as a tool that they can learn about God.
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And the second question I ask them is is there anything that I can pray for you about?
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And you would be surprised at how open people really are to having that question asked of them, because everybody's on a journey towards God.
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Some will plug into Him and some will choose to take a different path away from God, but God draws everybody to Him and so when we ask people if we can pray for them, god allows us to participate in ministering to their heart, about their need that they have personally.
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And there's been some tremendous discussions with people over the phone about praying with them and they're just touched.
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And some people, even when you call into a ministry for prayer like a 700 Club or 100 Huntley Street or something like that those people there that are spending their time ministering to others in prayer they have needs too.
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So when we call in and ask for prayer about a situation, I like to ask them is there anything that we can pray for you about?
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And some of those people said you know what?
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Nobody's ever asked me that question before, and I think people are just waiting for God to bring somebody across their path that would take the time out of their schedule to pray for them and show them that God really does love them.
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So I think it's important to act in obedience immediately and if you get that prompting in your heart and say you know what that person looks like.
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They're having a tough day.
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I should go pray for them.
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Go and pray for them.
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Go and ask them if there's anything that you can talk to them with about God.
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Yeah, and I'm part of a youth group.
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You know leadership team at my church and we were talking about, you know praying for other people and you know one of the leaders said that probably one of the things if you ask somebody can we pray for you, they probably will not, regardless of religion.
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You know what God they believe in.
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They probably will not say no to that prayer.
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Yeah, and I think too that you know it's not that we should be perhaps saying can we pray for you?
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It's more like can we pray with you about something?
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You know, because if we go and I've said it myself can I pray for you.
00:19:58.723 --> 00:20:05.324
But if we go to somebody and we say, can I pray with you about something, is there something you'd like prayer with?
00:20:05.324 --> 00:20:08.384
Because then it engages them in the conversation.
00:20:08.384 --> 00:20:12.383
It's not an us and them kind of thing, and I think that's an important aspect too.
00:20:15.837 --> 00:20:17.203
And it's not an us and them kind of thing.
00:20:17.203 --> 00:20:18.388
And I think that's an important aspect too.
00:20:18.388 --> 00:20:22.857
And I may rephrase my question as I ask that of people what have been?
00:20:22.877 --> 00:20:24.559
your biggest success in your life?
00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:27.664
Well, that's a subjective question for sure.
00:20:27.664 --> 00:20:34.999
You know the world measures success in a lot of different ways, and a lot of those ways don't line up with biblical principles.
00:20:34.999 --> 00:20:37.726
I think the biggest success would be family.
00:20:37.726 --> 00:20:45.188
Another would be just being part of God's family too.
00:20:45.188 --> 00:20:48.415
It's so important to me.
00:20:48.496 --> 00:21:33.111
That's something else that I've really started to see more in the last short while is that you know the things the Bible says the things of this world will pass away, right, you know our love for the things of this world will pass away, and I just feel like all that the world has to offer is fading very, very quickly in my life and my heart and I'm becoming more focused on just living a life that expresses God to the world, and I think the two work in conjunction with each other, because the more we seek him then the less interest there is in the things of the world and what the world puts as priorities.
00:21:33.111 --> 00:21:41.673
So I would say, if you want to call that success, I would say that that's one of the most important things in my life.
00:21:52.075 --> 00:21:55.568
What have been some of the biggest besides what you've been through in your life with accepting God and then going you know, going out into the world?
00:21:55.568 --> 00:21:58.863
Besides that, what have been your biggest challenges in your life and how did you overcome that?
00:22:00.635 --> 00:22:00.957
Yeah.
00:22:00.957 --> 00:22:06.461
So you know, as I talked about how I grew up, we grew up in poverty.
00:22:06.461 --> 00:22:13.298
My mom worked hard, you know, to try and make ends meet for us, but we did without a lot, and so you know I'm blessed to have worked.
00:22:13.298 --> 00:22:28.624
You know, to try and make ends meet for us, but we did without a lot, and so you know I'm blessed to have worked, you know, throughout my life and God has always been there to provide, and I did feel a big responsibility on my shoulders to work, and I'm very thankful that he made avenues and opened doors for me to work.
00:22:28.624 --> 00:22:30.208
So I appreciate that.
00:22:31.474 --> 00:22:44.500
Challenges, you know, I think kind of letting go of the things that the world tells me are important and becoming more in tune with God can be a challenge for everybody and it has been for me.
00:22:45.364 --> 00:22:50.039
God is understanding and loving and he works through us at a pace that we can deal with.
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He doesn't say you need to get rid of this and this and this and this, like He'll take us along that journey and He'll draw us closer to Him.
00:22:56.787 --> 00:23:04.743
Other challenges would be where we talked earlier about how do we know God's speaking to us?
00:23:04.743 --> 00:23:11.044
That's one of the biggest challenges that I'm going through and have been for some time.
00:23:11.044 --> 00:23:20.643
It's just, if I believe God wants me to do something and I didn't do it, then the enemy is quick to condemn us.
00:23:20.643 --> 00:23:39.903
Now the Bible says there's no condemnation to those of us who are in Christ Jesus, but yet that doesn't negate the fact that perhaps God wanted me to do something or say something to someone and I didn't for, as you mentioned earlier about the fears and the things like that, and so I've missed out on a number of opportunities.
00:23:39.903 --> 00:23:44.165
I believe to be part of what God wanted to do in somebody else's life.
00:23:44.165 --> 00:23:49.104
So that kind of breaks my heart and that's definitely one of the biggest challenges.
00:23:50.915 --> 00:23:53.582
What is a legacy that you would like to leave?
00:23:55.586 --> 00:24:03.016
I think just being like it's not about me, right?
00:24:03.016 --> 00:24:03.317
You know?
00:24:03.317 --> 00:24:24.784
I think if there's anything that could be said or thought about me, it would be that I'm a man after God's own heart and I just want to leave this world with a truth or an understanding that God really is alive and God really does want to change people's lives.
00:24:24.784 --> 00:24:25.346
And there's hope.
00:24:25.346 --> 00:24:41.630
And I think, if you know, when my time comes to pass through this veil into the next life with God, I just hope that I'm remembered as someone who you know was a God-fearing man and wanted to be part of what he wanted to do in the world.
00:24:41.630 --> 00:24:43.923
There's no greater legacy than that.
00:24:45.615 --> 00:24:54.807
I always like to ask my guests to leave a word of knowledge or a word of encouragement for my listeners.
00:24:56.931 --> 00:24:57.471
Absolutely.
00:24:57.471 --> 00:25:17.465
What I would tell anybody who's listening today is that it doesn't matter what you've done in your life, where you are personally right now, what your challenges are, what your struggles are, god already knows that you're going through those things.
00:25:17.465 --> 00:25:20.144
He knew you before he created you in your mother's womb.
00:25:20.144 --> 00:25:29.376
He already knows your life from beginning to end, and I would encourage you don't give up on God, because he's not going to give up on you, and just that.
00:25:29.376 --> 00:25:32.185
All it takes is prayer.
00:25:32.185 --> 00:25:41.934
It just takes a moment to say God, help me, god, change me, god, bring somebody to share the word with me, and God will hear that prayer.
00:25:41.934 --> 00:25:43.682
I was reading Daniel today.
00:25:43.682 --> 00:25:56.969
When Daniel was praying, gabriel came to him and said the moment you started to pray, I was sent forth to come and minister to you.
00:25:56.969 --> 00:26:06.410
So the moment that we speak to God, god already puts things into motion to minister to you.
00:26:06.410 --> 00:26:17.163
So be encouraged that God is alive, god loves you and God has a purpose for your life, and don't let the world steal that away from you.
00:26:17.845 --> 00:26:18.145
Amen.
00:26:18.145 --> 00:26:22.685
Well, Johnny T, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:26:22.685 --> 00:26:30.089
Where can my listeners get your book and listen to your podcast?
00:26:31.416 --> 00:26:38.321
Yeah, so Refuge Freedom Stories is heard on all major podcast platforms and a whole bunch of other platforms, so it's easy to find.
00:26:38.321 --> 00:26:53.599
You know Apple, spotify, you can find it on Substack, and the Exchange Life podcast is also on all those platforms, and if you go to Substack, from Glory to Glory, you'll find articles and notes published there.
00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:59.884
The devotional that I'm working on right now isn't published yet, but it should be out sometime this year.
00:26:59.884 --> 00:27:02.844
I just have to finalize the draft and figure out how to publish it.
00:27:04.855 --> 00:27:08.131
Well again, granny T, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:27:08.131 --> 00:27:10.420
We greatly appreciate having you.
00:27:11.884 --> 00:27:15.404
It's been great to see you again, Darcy, and great to have the conversation with you.
00:27:15.404 --> 00:27:17.804
God bless you in all you do for God's kingdom.
00:27:18.154 --> 00:27:19.119
God bless you as well.
00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:23.005
Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:27:23.005 --> 00:27:27.267
We greatly appreciate having you and tuning in and listening.
00:27:27.267 --> 00:27:32.926
Please go and like and share this episode and be encouraged by so.
00:27:32.926 --> 00:27:35.882
Until next time, God bless.
00:27:35.882 --> 00:27:36.644
Bye-bye.
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