"Collateral Blessings": Turning Challenges into Miracles ft. Marco David

From Cancer and Police Work to Pastoral Leadership: Pastor Marco David's Journey of Faith & Collateral Blessings

In this powerful episode of 'From Wrong to Strong,' Omar Calvillo sits down with Pastor Marco David, lead pastor of Midwest Bible Church in Chicago and author of 'Collateral Blessings.' Pastor Marco shares his incredible journey of faith, resilience, and redemption, from surviving two cancer diagnoses to his transformative work as a police officer and pastor. Hear the impactful stories of how God orchestrated life-changing connections, turning trials into blessings, and providing hope in the darkest of times. Tune in to hear inspiring testimonies, including that of Eddie Rodriguez, and the miraculous ways in which faith intersects with life's most challenging moments.

Collateral Blessings Book: https://a.co/d/7WyVqqO

https://midwest.church/

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

So in between my first and second cancer diagnosis, God led a man to call me who was diagnosed with cancer. His 14-year-old daughter was coming to our church and when he gets terminal cancer and he announces it to his family, obviously his family was very devastated, but his 14-year-old daughter who was saved now, the way that she responded, touched dad's heart and that kind of led him to call me. He learned that I had cancer at one time and he had religion, but he didn't have this, this relationship, this faith, this hope like his daughter. And he wanted that. Two hours later, he's in my office and I lead him to Christ and God just poured a, a grace upon him, and although he had this terminal cancer, once he got saved, he had such joy. When he got baptized, he said, I'm in a win-win situation. Because I believe God can heal me, and if he does, I'm gonna keep serving him and spreading the gospel and serving my family. But if he doesn't, I'm gonna be with him.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Mm.

Speaker: 1:09

It's one thing to say that when everything's going good in your life, but to have terminal cancer and to have that kinda hope, that real hope, that real presence of God in your life, like he had it, it inspired a lot of people and, and he began to win people to Christ and his circle of influence. And a couple weeks before he, he went to be with the Lord. He was in hospice at, at home, and I was at, I was at his bedside and he was very, very weak. His voice was very hoarse and he tells me, Marco, pastor, I, I know I look bad from the outside, but I want you to know that on the inside it's well with my soul. And you know, when I wrote the book, I share in the book that I believe that's a greater miracle than my physical healing. The hope that he had the assurance. That he had at that moment, the fact that he knew he was saved, that the presence of God was with him, and gave him hope and joy and confidence in, in that state that he was in. In fact, salvation is the greatest miracle, right? That's the greatest miracle. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:33

From the city of Chicago, a city most recently known for its crime and violence from this podcast. We will be sharing stories of redemption from individuals raised in the tough streets of Chicago and from around the country. Some of them were gang members, drug dealers, incarcerated victims, and perpetrators of violence. Listen to my guest as they share their experiences, struggles, trauma, but also the strength, hope, faith, and perseverance these have developed in them to keep pushing and moving forward in life. Tune in to hear how their lives have gone, from darkness to light, and from wrong to strong. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of From Wrong to Strong. I'm your host. My name's Omar Alveo. Uh, and tonight you guys are in for a treat. I got Pastor Marco David with me tonight. I got a short bio that I'm gonna read. Um, pastor Marco is, uh, the lead pastor at, uh, Midwest Bible Church in Chicago. He is the author of the book Collateral Blessings Before Stepping into Full-Time Ministry. He served for 20 years in the Chicago Police Department, uh, bringing a unique perspective on redemption and real life faith. He's also a two-time cancer survivor whose testimony reminds us that God can turn trials into what he calls collateral blessings. He's been married to his high school sweetheart, Elizabeth. They have four sons serving in law enforcement. And a Pastor Marco's story is one of faith and resilience. So man, I'm excited to have him here. Of what? Of. Welcome to, to the podcast pastor.

Speaker: 4:14

Thank you for having me, Omar. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 4:16

Oh, no. For, for, for, for sure. Uh, uh, uh, uh, pastor Marco, David, uh, uh, I guess we're connected. I gotta, I gotta say this. Uh, I, I think I, I mentioned that earlier when you got here, is, uh, a, a, a Pastor Manny Mill, uh, house, uh, national Ministries. Uh, they basically, it's a prison ministry, uh, there throughout the state of Illinois Cook County, and they also serve, uh, in different states. I know they go like to Angola Prison in Louisiana. Uh, Parchman, I believe they're in, uh, Mississippi. Uh, so it's an awesome ministry that meets in Whedon. Uh, but that, that's, that, that's, uh, how we connected there. And, uh, I also had a chance to interview Albert Burials who, uh, is part of your story, and I know you're part of his right. And we'll get into that later. But, uh, man, I, I'm, I'm excited to, to have you here. Yeah,

Speaker: 4:58

I'm excited to be here. And, uh, I have that similar connection to Manny too. He is been a, a, a collateral blessing in, in my life and the way God connected us. At a very critical time in my life, which led to a lot of other, uh, a lot of other surprises, uh, unexpected blessings.

Speaker 3: 5:17

Amen. Amen. So, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get into that. Yeah. Get there. But, but, but you know what, let, let, let, let's, let's go to the beginning. You, you know, I, I was, if I was even iffy about sharing your bio. Because I don't want to give it all, all at once, you know?'cause you got awesome testimony like, man, if I share this, they're gonna, they're gonna know what it's about, but at least, hey, at least they know what it's gonna is gonna lead to. But, uh, let's go back to the beginning. Uh, uh, how was life for you, like growing up? Uh, where did you grow up at and could you describe those first early years of your life?

Speaker: 5:45

Sure, sure. Uh, I grew up on the near Northwest side by division in Damon. Uh, it's kind of on the borderline of, uh, Wicker Park. Ukrainian Village, Humboldt Park, kind of in that area. And so I, I grew up there. I was born, uh, uh, by a division in Damon and I grew up in a Puerto Rican family, two parent home. And, uh, but kind of dysfunctional.'cause my father, although he was a great provider, he had a, a crazy temper. He was an angry man and he, he, he would lose control a lot. And, uh, was very abusive to, to my mom and, and to, to, to my siblings and myself. And so it was kind of volatile growing up. Mm. In that home. Although he was a great provider. Yeah. But he didn't really know how to have a relationship with his children and express love. I do believe my dad loved us. He just really didn't know how to express, he wasn't a believer. He couldn't control his anger. And that led to a lot of destructive, uh, destructive stuff. Yeah. Uh, and so, um, I came to know the Lord. Uh, when I was 17 years old.

Speaker 3: 6:50

Mm.

Speaker: 6:51

Um,

Speaker 3: 6:51

how, how, how, how, how, how, you know, before you get there. Yes, sir. Uh, uh, what role did faith, uh, play in your family, your immediate family? Like growing up, like before, before 17 years old?

Speaker: 7:00

Yeah, great question. So, my, my, uh, parents were professing Catholics, although they weren't really devout. Uh, you know, I think we went to church on Easter Sunday, you know, sometimes. Uh, and, uh, so my parents believed in God, but. You know, they really didn't know, know the Lord, and, and, and God didn't have a transformative, uh, you know, effect in our, in our lives or in their lives. Yeah. Uh, I believe my parents prayed, you know, when, when they were in trouble. Yeah. But they, that they, they didn't really have a relationship with God and Yeah, they, um, and, uh, you know, because my, my home was, was, was dysfunctional and, you know, I, uh, I didn't wanna be home, you know, and, um. I never got into gangs or anything like that, even though they were always nearby. Um, but a, but I did get into the drug scene.

Speaker 3: 7:54

Oh,

Speaker: 7:55

okay. And, and, um, I never got into it too heavy, but I was on that road. I was on that road and um, and I had a brother who I looked up to, his name is Eric David, and he was. Um, had a lot of aspirations and he was, uh, a very studious guy and, and did well in high school and, and in college. And, but he was also kind of dabbling with, with drugs too, during the same time. And then he experienced a, a series of, of major setbacks, uh, things that could have really launched his career. And he, and he fell into a, a deep depression and, and just began to try to figure out, you know, what's life all is, is all about. Kind of started, started him on a journey, but he really didn't know what he was exactly looking for. Okay. Other than meaning and purpose. And, and around that time, he's 25 and I'm 17 at this time. Okay. And, uh, a God brought a man into his life. Um, uh, who knew our sister-in-law, pastor. Okay. And we, we, he met him at a picnic. At a picnic and, and that man took interest in my brother, his name is Joseph Pagan, took interest in my brother and saw that my brother had questions, but he was still kind of a skeptic. Yeah, he was still a, a skeptic and, uh, but that man continued to pursue my brother and continued to pursue him. And, uh, one day I was, uh, I slipped over my brother's house. We woke up in the morning. We were kind of hanging out and, uh, I forget exactly what time it was, maybe around noon or so. It was a knock on the door. And, and it was that preacher Joseph Pagan. And, uh, coming after my brother wanted to share the gospel with him, talk, talk to him about the Lord. And, and, uh, I don't think my brother was expecting him, but he let him in. Yeah. He came in and, and I was not pursuing God. I, I, again, I, I was kind of on the wrong road. I did have, um, uh, a girlfriend at the time, her name, her name is Elizabeth, who's my wife right now. Mm-hmm. And, and I kind of was madly in love with her, my high school sweetheart, which is still, still Lauren. Yeah, I was, I am Save you there. Save you. Yeah. Make sure you edit that out. And, uh, yeah, I was crazy about it, which kind of slowed me down in a way. Got, I kinda used that because I was hanging out. With the wrong crowd. Yeah. And, and the drug scene and all that. And, and then meeting her, you know, it was all about her from that point on. Although we did get into a sefo relationship too, you know. Yeah. Uh, you know, we weren't married or anything and, and we were getting really involved in many different ways. Uh, uh, and so, you know, she was my girlfriend at the time, uh, when. Pastor came to see, see my brother. And I was not pursuing the Lord, but, but God was pursuing me. Amen. And um, so as he shared the gospel with my brother, I was listening and, uh, my brother received Christ as his savior. And they weren't realizing what was going on in my own heart. Uh, I was all ears, God, you know, the, the spirit and, and, and the gospel captivated me, drew me in, and I was, I was. I was paying attention and, and my brother didn't realize that needed the pastor. And, and, uh, and I also came to know Christ as my savior along with my brother. And that was in 1987, April of 1987. And our lives have never been the same

Speaker 3: 11:21

man. Well, what, what would you say, uh, you felt like at that time, or, or, or what started to change, like eventually?

Speaker: 11:27

Right, right. So one of the things that the, that the pastor shared was that. Uh, we can have a, a real relationship with God that, that Jesus, uh, came into this world 2000 years ago to live the life that we couldn't live, uh, and to die. The death that we deserve to die in the cross. So that we can be saved. And an important part of, of, of that gospel presentation is that the salvation that Jesus came to bring is not just saving us from something, but saving us to something. And that is a relationship with God, uh, through Christ and the forgiveness that he provides on the cross because he paid the penalty for our sin. Uh, we are reconciled to God. Sin separates us from God. Uh, the blood of Jesus, uh, makes it possible for us to be reconciled to, to have peace with God, to have a real relationship with God. And I stress that a lot, that salvation is more than just a, a ticket to heaven or, or get outta hell. Free card, uh, salvation is, uh, the God of heaven, uh, comes to, to live with you. And your body and the, and the person, the power, the Holy Spirit. Amen. And the spirit of Christ. And that changes everything.

Speaker 3: 12:38

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. So, so you experience that and how, how does life look like, like moving forward?

Speaker: 12:44

Yeah. And so, man, right away, you know, the Bible says second Corinthians, uh, five 17, any man be in crises, a new creation. And, and, and again, salvation is not just, uh, you know, a ticket to heaven. It's a, it's a transformation from the inside out. God began to, to transform me from, from the inside out. And, and I, I, early on I developed, uh, a real hunger to know the Lord, uh, hunger for the word. And, and, uh, you know, the Bible says that man shall not live right, right alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And I had a longing for the word of God and just loved being in church, loved being under the preaching and, and teaching of the word of God. Just couldn't get enough. And, and, and then also developed, um, you know, along the way, just developed, uh, um, just a desire to, to know God for myself, to have a, a personal intimate that we talked about earlier, intimate relationship with the Lord. Um, and then, you know, we talked about this earlier, the more, the more you know Christ and, and the joy of salvation, you can't keep that to yourself. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:57

Gotta gotta share it with her. Yeah. I know we were talking about, uh, like, uh, I know I shared like speech impediment or being shy, introvert, but when you, when God starts working in you, like, man, that. That's right, in a sense, goes out the window. Man, I, I gotta tell That's right. I, I, I, I, you know what comes to my mind? I know there was a story in, in the Bible where I, I believe Jesus healed somebody and then he tell, I forget where it's at. Exactly. And he tells him, make sure you don't go tell nobody. And what does he do? He just went and started telling everybody like, that's right. That's right. How, how, how, how can we hold, hold back, like what he's done, man, I'll let the world go.

Speaker: 14:33

That's right. That's right. And I, I have a similar story, Omar, in that I. You know, I wasn't an an eloquent person. I started to, and, uh, in fact, you know, people close to me used to make fun of me. Yeah. Uh, because I kinda mumbled sometimes, and I probably still do from time to time. But, uh, and I was kinda shy and introvert. Um, and, and in some ways I, I still am. But, but man, when, when God gives me the opportunity to share, I, I, I, I, I have to share, I have to share. Uh, not only because people need to know Christ, but how can we keep the, the hope of Christ and, and what he's done for us? Yeah. How can we keep that to ourselves? And, and people need to know. Yeah. And, and, and so God early on began to give me that, that, um, you know, that desire to, to share the hope of Christ with, with others. It started in my circle of influence, right? Mm-hmm. With my, with my family, and then friends and then coworkers. And, and you know, people, people say, I don't really see it, but people say, I have the gift of evangelism. I, I, I don't know if I have the gift of evangelism. I just, I'm just excited about Christ and yeah. And uh, and I can't help but tell people, yeah, that's evangelism what it does for me. I, you know, God can do it for you. Yeah. God can redeem you. God can turn your life around. And then, and we'll talk more about this later, by his grace, I don't deserve this, but I, I feel like I has. Just giving me like a front row seat and opportunities to be used of him to impact people's lives that others would've given up on. And, and, and I had a chance and opportunity to see God transform people's lives, including people's lives, including mine.

Speaker 2: 16:17

Yeah.

Speaker: 16:17

And that just gave me even more, uh, confidence. Amen. To, to share. Okay, so the gift of evangelism, man, you just wanna share, share, uh, Jesus with others. And you, you impacted, uh, uh, you said those close to you. You, you mentioned even a coworker. So, so at this point, uh, what, what are you doing for work at, at, at this time? Right.

Speaker 2: 16:36

So, um, you know, when I, um, when I first got saved, I mentioned earlier that I was, you know, I was involved in a relationship with Elizabeth, my high school sweetheart, my high school sweetheart, who's my wife now for 37 years. And, um, and so thankfully two weeks later, uh, she came to know Christ too and we got married short shortly, shortly after that. And, um, and we're, you know, we're not supposed to be married 37 years later. We were way too young. Uh. She was pregnant, which is one of the, one of the reasons why we had the, the blessing of our parents to, to get married.'cause they wouldn't have been for us getting married that young. Yeah. And, and again, we're, we're supposed to be a statistic, but God redeemed our lives and, and he became the center of of our relationship and God, us going in the same direction. Amen. And, and 37 years, uh, later we're still married. We love each other more now than ever. I'm making up for what I said earlier. No, but that's the truth, man. Yes, same. We're we're we, we love each other more now than ever before. And so, man, I had to grow up quick because we got married young and so I, I started working in a factory for a little bit and, uh, but in high school I had a, I had, I had a. I had, um, a desire, an interest to, to, to go into law enforcement and, and when I was 19 years old, God opened up that door.

Speaker: 18:06

Yeah. What, what, what give you that desire. Anybody around you? Yeah. You a class. A

Speaker 2: 18:09

class. Uh, it was a career, uh, class that was called a career, career development class in. Criminal justice and law enforcement kind of gave you a little taste of what that field and, and, and those, you know, related fields were like, and, and we went on trips, you know, to courthouses visited the FBI visited different law enforcement agencies and, and that's kind of what gave me a, an interest right in, in it. And, and, and, um, and when I was 19 years old. I got, opened the door for me to become a correction officer and I was pretty young. Right. To be a correction officer. And that, that was that at where at, you know what? I ended up becoming a correction officer and working at Joliet Correctional Center. It's closed now. Uh, but it was an old prison.

Speaker: 19:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:04

And not too far from Statesville. And, and, and so I, I landed a job there. Which was, uh, a blessing.'cause not only did I want to go in law enforcement, even though that was a hard job, that was a real difficult

Speaker: 19:16

Did you you wanna share maybe a Yeah. A little story or something of the hard Yeah. Mean what, what, what made that job hard?

Speaker 2: 19:23

Yeah. Well, I was young for one, and, you know, the, uh, the inmates, they're gonna test you, you know, and,

Speaker: 19:30

and this is a maximum security. This is a maximum. It was security. They

Speaker 2: 19:33

had the East house and the west house. And the East House was like a processing place. The receiving, right. The receiving. I, I, I, I was there. You were there? Yeah. In 97

Speaker: 19:41

I was there. It had to be in 97. Yeah. February 97. So yeah,

Speaker 2: 19:46

I was there in 97. Oh, no way. Get outta here. I was

Speaker: 19:50

so Wait, wait.

Speaker 2: 19:51

I'm sorry. I take that back. I wasn't, no. I, I wasn't, um, so I started in 89 and I left there in 94. So actually, yeah.

Speaker: 19:59

Yeah. You missed, wasn't there? Yeah. Yeah. I, I was there. I think they kept me, that man, man, I don't forget. Maybe less than a month. Did you just sit there until they find out where they're gonna send you?

Speaker 2: 20:08

Right. That was the East house. Yeah. Yeah. And then the, the west house was general population and it was an old prison. And, but it, it was, you know, it was, it was a dangerous place to work, man. And, but by the grace of God, I was already safe. I remember, man, uh, that made a big difference because, you know, it gave me, you know, it gave me a security knowing the guy was with me and the guy was watching out for me. And, and I, I believe God gave me favor. God gave me favor. I, I, I treated the inmates with respect and fairness and, and consistency. And, and they also knew I was a Christian and, and that kind of, they kinda respected that. Mm. And uh, I used to do things like, uh, uh, when it was chow time, you know, in that old prison there was this crank box where you cranked it and all the cells opened up and everybody went to chow. And then while everybody was in chow and I was waiting for them to come back, which was chaos, when they're coming back, trying to get them to go back in their cells, you know, a lot of crazy stuff happens. I would go into the to this bathroom and get on my knees and pray for God's help. God's favor. And man, I experienced God helping me a lot. Wow. Days. And also op also opportunities to share the gospel with some of the inmates and fellow officers too,

Speaker: 21:24

man. Amen. So, uh, okay. So you said all the way to, uh, 94? Yeah. So

Speaker 2: 21:27

I landed that job in 89, and then in 94 got opened up a door for me to become a Chicago police officer. Yeah. Which is kinda what I really wanted to

Speaker: 21:37

do. Okay. But a a, a lot of times in that field, you, you almost gotta start somewhere else, like to go into that. Right. It

Speaker 2: 21:43

helps, it helps, you know, it helps.

Speaker: 21:45

I know some people do like, um, um, military and then they Right. Try to get into that can help.

Speaker 2: 21:50

That can help too.

Speaker: 21:51

Right.

Speaker 2: 21:52

That can help too. And,

Speaker: 21:53

and, um, so let me ask you, so, so, so you become a cop. Um, I know it's probably gonna come up later when you, when we talk about what you eventually became, but as a Christian, as a cop, how, how, how is that in Chicago?

Speaker 2: 22:06

You know, I get asked that question a lot and I think it's a great question. In fact, um. Sometimes the reason people ask me about that because they think it's some kind of like, some kind of contradiction. Like, you know, how can you be a police officer and a Christian at the same time? But I think being a Christian made me a better police officer and, and, and so, and actually, and being a police officer, I, I think helped me to have a, a, a certain perspective. You know, as, as a, as a minister too. Uh, so I kind of, they, they both kind of work together in a u unique way to help me to be, you know, uh, I think more useful in the ministry. In in, in what sense?

Speaker: 22:53

Like in what are, like in what are problem Yeah. Practical ways, I guess, like, right.

Speaker 2: 22:59

Yeah. So, so for a while I was a bi-vocational pastor, and, and. So I was still, you know, working the beat, working on, on, on, uh, working the streets. And that gave me a, a front row, you know, front row seat and into all the crazy stuff that was happening out there. Man, this is a needy world. This world needs redemption. People need hope. And so I, you know, as a police officer, you know, you get to see that firsthand. You, you get a front row seat to evil, to the need to the. To the hopelessness it, depending on where you work. Yeah. Too, you know, because some neighborhoods and districts are, are, are more challenging than others. And, and I, I worked in the Homer Park area so. I got a taste of. Yeah. You know, and also I, I, I started in, in, uh, I hit the street in 95 and there was a lot of crazy stuff going on in the home park area in 95 that, that I was, I think there was almost a thousand murders that year.

Speaker: 23:59

I was in my prime in 95. Yeah.'cause I ended up getting locked up in 97, so that was when we were like wild. Right in the middle, mid nineties. Yes.

Speaker 2: 24:08

Right. And so, you know, when you, when you become a full-time pastor, let's say you could end up in a Christian bubble. Kind of detached a little bit.'cause everybody around you is a Christian. You're, you're, and, and you can maybe lose touch and sometimes you have to be intentional for that, for that not to happen. And, and you know, um, I heard somebody say recently, the reason that I Christians today don't reach a lot of people for Christ is because they don't have a relationship with non-Christians. We can end up in, in right in a Christian bubble. And we gotta find ways to, to, to have relationships where people don't know that don't, that don't know Christ.

Speaker: 24:49

Amen.

Speaker 2: 24:50

You know, whether they're at the gym or at work, or you know, your neighbors. We have to be intentional Yeah. To, to build bridges to people who are, who are, who are not saved. So, man, being a police officer put me right in the thick of it. You know, officers that, by the way, being a police officer is hard. It's hard. The culture is very difficult. And, you know, seeing what they see day in, in day, day in and day out and dealing with, with, with all the stuff a police officer has, has to deal with it can, it can affect you and, and, um, you know, in a negative way. So that, you know, being, being, being in, in, in the, in the center of that gave me opportunities to administer. Police officers. Yeah. You know, I, I, I let a police officer once to Christ ride in the squad car. Wow. Yeah. At once, you know who was going through something Yeah. In his life. And, um, yeah. And, uh, you know, God gave me opportunities, you know, to, first of all, we have, you know, I had a job to do. Yeah. Right. And, and by the way, the Bible, um, you know, the Bible teaches that God ordained government and, and God. Is, is all for a society, having some kind of criminal justice system so that we can have a civilized society. Yeah. We have to have that. Romans 12 talks about how God ordained government and, and, and, and authority to, to, to, uh, restrain evil. Yeah. And so that, and

Speaker: 26:14

for, and for us also to submit to that authority.

Speaker 2: 26:17

Right? Right. And so that, you know, that that is a god ordained thing for the good of society, even though there is no perfect government. But, um, you know, or perfect, you know, yeah. Law enforcement system, right. Uh, but it, but God ordained it. And, and, and, and it supports, you know, God's justice and res restraining evil. So I had a job to do and I had to do my job and, and, uh, but I also, you know, did it with integrity and with, with, with my eyes open to opportunities to, to share the gospel when God gave me that opportunity. And, and I remember a time, for example. Where I, I was, I was, uh, working inside for a little while in community policing and I had this role where, where I was kind of playing, uh, um, uh, I was kinda like a liaison between the police department, the. And parents who had juveniles or, or children who got arrested. And so typically what would happen is, uh, a youth detective would deal with that, and if it wasn't serious, mom and dad would be called or in, and, and, you know, usually the kid would get signed out, maybe have a court date or something like that. And so when that was happening, I was, I would come in and, and talk to, to, to the parent. If there was a parent or the care caretaker and, and interview the, the kid and, and try to offer them some kind of resources. So I was, you know, I did some networking in the community and the, you know, the community where I worked and try to, you know, help give these kids, you know, some alternative. Yeah. And, um, so one particular, uh, scenario, a kid. Who was 14 years old, got arrested for drugs and uh, and mom, mom and dad had immigrated from, from, uh, from Mexico. And, and, uh, dad had a great job in Mexico, but he had some setbacks and he ended up coming here first, and then he was able to bring his family and, and they, they were not like, uh, streetwise there. This is a really good family. And they moved into a gang infested neighborhood. When their son was 11 years old.

Speaker: 28:29

Mm.

Speaker 2: 28:30

That's very challenging, right? Yeah. Yeah. So by the time he was 14, this kid was, you know, dealing drugs for the gang on the corner and mom and dad had no clue what exactly what was going on. And so, so when he got arrested, mom was like panicking and I got to talk to her and I kind of informed her what was actually happening. And man, she asked me for more help. I ended up telling I'm a pastor, you know, I, I could visit you and talk to you a little bit more. Can I come visit you on a Saturday with my pastor? And, but I was a, I was, uh, not the full, the senior pastor at the time. Yeah. And so, uh, this is kind of an example what Yeah. Did when I was the police officer. Oh yeah, that's good. And, and, uh, and I did, I visited her and her family with my pastor, and we ended up leading that whole family to Christ, including that 14-year-old. A young teenager who was gonna be eaten up live. Yeah. And he was getting eaten up live and, and you know, you can't just walk away from a gang. And so we actually were able to, um, um, speak to a family that lived in, in a Christian family that lived in Indiana. And that kid went to live with that family in Indiana for a little while. Man, look

Speaker: 29:41

at that.

Speaker 2: 29:42

You know what happened? Yeah. Uh, you mentioned that you saw me doing an interview on Yeah. On that cable network. Yeah, yeah. Uh, everlasting Love. Yes. Uh, after a while I lost touch with him. He saw me on that program a few years ago and reconnected with me.

Speaker: 29:57

No way. Yeah. That's interesting. Look at that. That's gonna play. He was still

Speaker 2: 30:01

in Indiana and he ended up reconnecting and, and getting back in church'cause he kind of fell away from church even though he is working full-time job and trying to support his family. But, uh, he ended up coming back to the Lord years later. Look at that. Yeah.

Speaker: 30:14

From, from you sharing your, your story, your testimony, and then reconnecting with somebody that, that you impacted, which is gonna tie you in later on to when you talk about your book about, I don't want to get there, but, we'll, we, we'll get there eventually. Alright, so you're doing both police officer pastoring, you mentioned at this point you're just an, an associate pastor, right? So can you take us what, what, what, what, what's next in life during the season? Like,

Speaker 2: 30:36

yeah. Yeah. So, uh, just one more thing. Yeah. Yeah. That. You know, I mentioned being a Christian, how that helped me, I think, be a police, better police officer, and, uh, and then being a police officer helped me to be, you know, a, a better minister because it kept me connected and, and gave me a front row seat to what was really going on. But as a Christian though, you know, my heart didn't become callous. It stay tender, right. Uh, you know, when, when, when you're a police officer dealing with difficult things, man, how do you, how do you do your job and deal, deal with the emotions of it all? Uh, and Chris Fabry, uh, he asked me, you know, can you tell me of a time when something you saw as police officer really impacted you? And I mentioned that, uh, what was still with me is arriving, uh, to a scene of a drive-by shooting with three teenagers were shot, and, and I got outta the car there. All three of'em were shot. I think two of them were, were were teenage girls and 1, 1, 1 young man. And they were dying right there in front of me. That was, you know, very, very impactful. And, and you know, how do you, how do you, how do you do your job as a police officer and deal with, deal with that, deal with all that emotion. And so well, police officers try to do is kind of shut that down a little bit, shut that down so that they can do their job. But then can you turn it back on? Can you turn it back on? So it's a real challenge.

Speaker: 32:04

Yeah,

Speaker 2: 32:04

it's a real challenge. So again, being a police officer, I'm sorry, being a police officer and a Christian allowed my heart to, to stay tender and, and, and, and not be shut down permanently, emotionally, or, or partially because I

Speaker: 32:19

know you coming callous, right? You, me, you mentioned at that point you had to go in the squad car, I believe, remember?

Speaker 2: 32:24

Yeah. I had to. I remember having to go to the squad car man. Take some deep breaths.

Speaker: 32:29

Yeah. You, you, you know what I, I, I talked to, uh, um, there was another, uh, former, a police officer here and he mentioned, he said a statement that really like, I guess put things into perspective for me. He said as a police officer, he said, uh, how do you say? He said, your worst day, like when you're going through your worst day, that you gotta pick up that phone and call the police because something terrible is happening. He said, that's our every day. And that really like. It's true. Like, you know, where people, what a perspective. That was

Speaker 2: 32:59

really a interesting way of putting that because wow, it's, it's, it's like a roller coaster ride because you could be patrolling the neighborhood, everything could be quiet. You could see kids, you know, playing. Then all of a sudden you get a drive by shooting somebody's shot or somebody's getting robbed or somebody's burglarizing. Everything changes. Yeah. On like, on the drop of a diamond and you. I mean, you go from high to low, high to low. It's, it's really something. And, and again, being a Christian, having a relationship with God and having a church family and, and, and having that support, you know, kept my, again, kept my heart tender. Here's another thing about it that the Bible talks about putting on the armor of God because we wrestle not against flesh and blood. So think about a police officer being on the front lines of evil, but not having on their physical bulletproof vest, right? Yeah. The Kevlar, but not the armor of God to protect your heart. You know, it could, you know, it's not easy, man, and, um, but me, but being able to have the armor of God when I was out there doing my job, man, made all the difference.

Speaker: 34:20

Yeah.'cause unfortunately those that don't have, uh, coping mechanisms like you, you go to God to prayer. That's right. You have a community. Uh, I know, I know. Like to the ones I talked to before, some officers go to alcohol to try to That's right. Cope, cope, push down those emotions. They don't want to think about what they just seen through the day. And it is nice. It's not a good, a lot of

Speaker 2: 34:41

officers develop great coping mechanisms. Um, but I think. Faith is the ultimate. Yeah. And it's more than a coping mechanism. It's, it's, amen. It's what we were made for to have a relationship with

Speaker: 34:52

God. Amen.

Speaker 2: 34:53

In fact, the truth is that if you don't have a relationship with God, if he's not meeting the deepest needs of your heart, doesn't matter really what you're doing. It's never gonna satisfy, right? Yeah.

Speaker: 35:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:02

And you're never gonna ever have the true contentment that we were made to have in the Lord.

Speaker: 35:07

Amen. Now, uh, I, I want to get to,'cause okay, you're a police officer and eventually that, that changes because you get, uh, I don't know how it came to you, whether the church came to you and ask you to do this, but you, you wanna talk about that?

Speaker 2: 35:18

Yeah. So as I, as I was a police officer, at some point I was, uh, helping the pastor a church. Then by the providence of God, I ended up becoming the pastor of this, this small church, uh, bi vocationally. And that wasn't easy'cause, you know, trying to pastor a church and work a full-time job. I'm married, I have kids. How many kids do you have? This We have four sons. Okay. And, uh, believe it or not, all four of them are Chi cow police officers. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I tell this story that, uh, none of'em became pastors. And I say that. Not, not, not yet. Yeah. Not yet yet. God. God, they're writing their stories. Yeah, that's right. Um, but, but, uh, man, they're hardworking, hardworking young men and, um, that do their, their job, uh, take their job serious. And, um. And, uh, I, I, I say that, uh, maybe I told'em too many war stories, not enough Bible stories, but anyhow,

Speaker: 36:14

yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:15

And, uh, yeah, so, uh, you know, just trying to raise a family and pastor church wasn't easy and, and man, um, I don't have time to tell the whole story, but God, uh, opened up some doors for this small church that I was pastoring to merge. With a, with a, with another church, Midwest Bible Church, uh, and mid Midwest. Bible Church is an historic church in the city of Chicago. In fact, just, uh, I just recently we celebrated 90 years, so that's how long the Yeah. The church has been around. And so my, the little church that I pastored merged with Midwest Bible Church and I became an associate, and that happened in, in oh six. Okay. So I was 36 years old, had about 11 years on the job, and, and then, um. In 2013, the, the pastor of that church, uh, a good man, a good pastor, re resigned. In 2013, since I was the associate, um, I, I became the interim pastor, kind of by the default. Yeah, yeah. You know, you know, it's like, uh, all my life, God just, I never really like, campaigned for things. God just put it in front of me and, and opened the door for it and sometimes I, I surrender to the call of God a little, little with some, you know, with some, uh, knees knocking. Yeah. But knowing that. That God was going help

Speaker: 37:38

me. That, that, that's, that's the walk of faith. That's the walk of faith up there with you. That's the walk of faith. That's like, um, the same thing, like, I don't, like, I don't raise my hand for anything, but it seems like, like God calls you for something. You just gotta. Say Yes. Yes, Lord.

Speaker 2: 37:53

Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right. And, and you know the truth is that God's strength has made perfect in weakness. Yes. It's when we get overconfident and prideful. God resisted proud, but he gave grace, grace to the humble. And those are people God uses.

Speaker: 38:08

There there's a story, uh, Charles Spurgeon told, he said about a young man that went up to preach. He said, this young man was man, studied the Bible, he was. So he said that this young man went up to the pulpit when it was his time to preach. He said he went up there with his head high, just oozing with confidence, got up there, started preaching and just bombed, like went terrible from, he said on the way down from the pulpit from the stage, he had his head low. Walking with his head down and Charles Spurgeon said, if only he had went up the way he came down.

Speaker 2: 38:40

How about that? That's good.

Speaker: 38:42

That's good. Like, go up there in a reverence. Amen. Of God.

Speaker 2: 38:45

Like, man, God, praise the Lord.

Speaker: 38:46

Yeah. So that, that, that story always stood out to me like, we may

Speaker 2: 38:49

lose that. Yeah. The militant dependence upon the Holy Spirit

Speaker: 38:52

and the fear of the Lord. Something you talked about a little earlier, don't think we talked about it during here, maybe beforehand, but have a reverence and a fear. Amen. And a respect and honor of God like. I go up there and God, like, you have your way through me. Not, not me. Like, look what I could do. Look what you could do through me.

Speaker 2: 39:08

That's right. That's right. And another story about sper gen. Yeah. As, believe it or not, even though he was known as the, you know, the Prince of Preachers and, and, and this great preacher, uh, I read, I read a, uh, a testimony where every time he would walk up to the pulpit, he would say to himself, I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit. And that was way to remind himself that he needed to depend on the spirit. Mm uh, to do what only God can do in the hearts of people as he was preaching.

Speaker: 39:38

Amen. Yeah. That, that, that, that's powerful. Like Yeah.'cause yeah, you're right. That was his title, the principal preachers, he was mighty and the pulpit, but what, what, what, what made him mighty? The, the mighty one in him. Right? That's right. Amen. That's right,

Speaker 2: 39:50

that's right. So, you know, we merged with Midwest Bible Church, the pastor resigns. I become the interim pastor and I'm still a police officer at the time. And, uh, I end, I ended up doing that for two and a half years now. The church did. Put together a search committee to find another pastor, but that, that never happened. My name kept coming up and then in 2015 they officially called me or asked me and I prayed and sought the Lord again. You know, with some nervousness and some doubts and yeah, and, and you know, second guessing myself, I, I dunno if I can do this, Laura, are you sure you want me? You know, that kind of stuff. But God always. You know, confirms and, and reminds me that, that you know where he guides, he provides Amen. You've heard it before. God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called yes and God reminded me of those things. God reminded me that his strength is made perfect at weakness. That, uh, if I depended on him, that he would give me what I needed. And so, but I also knew that I, I, I couldn't keep doing both. I couldn't keep being a police officer, so, and, and, and a pastor at the same time. There was just too much going on and I was already feeling kind of burnt out by, by the way, and there

Speaker: 41:11

was trying to manage both. Yeah. To both

Speaker 2: 41:13

us. I have family, you know, I have children. And so, so, uh, on top of accepting the call, I also re retired early from the police department. So at, at, at that point, by the providence of God, I had 20 years on the job. I was planning to go another 10 years retire with a full pension. The guy had got, had God had other plans.

Speaker: 41:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:40

And, and uh, and even, you know, letting go of the security of that was a big decision too. And again, God, I'm with you. Could, could I ask you what,

Speaker: 41:49

what, um, in, in practical terms, what, what kind of financial, uh, thing was that, like a difference I guess? Like if you would've stood there for the full pension, like,

Speaker 2: 41:58

right. So just, I'm sure that was part of the consideration, right? Just given an ideal. Um, and that's a great question because, um, something, some, some, some amazing unexpected things happened, you know, shortly after I retired. But, um, but I'm 55 now, so that I was 45, so that was 10 years ago. So if I would've stayed on until now, I would've retired with a full pension and great benefits enough to be able to live on it. My wife and I live comfortably without having, without having to work.

Speaker: 42:36

Right. You know, so that's that. Oh yeah. So back then when you were wrestling, that feel that part of the consideration? I wanted that. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha.

Speaker 2: 42:45

You know, but ultimately, man, our security's in the Lord. Amen. Right. Our, our securities in the Lord and. And, and, uh, he, he's a better provider than a pension and in so many ways. Yeah, in so many ways. And, and, and just to get into a kind of a, an example of that, so I retired in 2015 and hit the ground running. You know, I'm the senior pastor. I had, I had all this excitement and, and, and, uh. Just, uh, a lot of hunger and, and vision to see God do great things. And six months later I get diagnosed with, uh, colon cancer. Yeah. Six months later. And, but you know, be honest with you, at that time I was so kind of focused on pastoring the church. Uh, the doctor told me it was stage two and, uh, so that, that,

Speaker: 43:40

that's early, right? Yeah, that was kind of

Speaker 2: 43:42

early and. And I was like, okay, you know what, what, what do I have to do? Because I got, I got work to do from the Lord. You know, what, what, what's the surgery? Let's get it done. Let's do the chemo. Whatever I have to do, I, I want to get past this. Yeah.'cause I got work to do for God. That was kind of my attitude. Yeah. And, uh, and so. You know, I, I went through, uh, surgery and did some chemotherapy in 2016 is when all that ended. And I thought that, you know, okay, you know, I'm good now and let's get back to, you know, let's get back to working for the Lord. And which I did for, um, a couple, uh, two more years and then the cancer came back and, uh, this time it was terminal cancer. That happened in

Speaker: 44:29

terminal cancer where somebody that doesn't know what, yeah. So what does exactly does that mean? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:32

So, so originally in 2015, I, I had, I had a tumor, my colon, and, um, that, that didn't spread. And they said that they can get it out and do some chemotherapy, just, just to make sure that, that, you know, that there was no rogue cells floating around. And, and that's what I did in, in 2015 and which brought me to 2016 after six months of chemo. But then again, in, in, in, in, in, um, was it 2018? Yeah, 2018 is, is when it came back. And this time, uh, it metastasized. To my liver. So I had, I had 11 lesions on my liver cancerous lesions, and then I had another tumor in my stomach. The, the part of your stomach that's called, it's called your dual deum, it's an essential part of your stomach and your digestive system. And then that tumor was also on the head of my pancreas. So that was a grave diagnosis. In fact, the, the, the first surgeon that, that opened me up. Close. Close me back up. Close me back up. Told my family in the waiting room that nothing could be done.

Speaker: 45:40

Did, did it give you a time at, at that point, like a, like a

Speaker 2: 45:44

you, you know, not like a time limit, I guess In a sense, yeah. You know, from talking to him in different interactions that I had with that doctor, it seemed like just only a few months. Yeah. Can,

Speaker: 45:54

can I ask you somebody that's watching this like, yes. Yes. Ca Cancer shouldn't hit a pastor a, a man of God who's serving him that shit. Right, right. You know, like, what, what, what, what kind of God is that Somebody that's, that's that might, that question might come to their mind. That's what, what would you say?

Speaker 2: 46:11

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I would say that, that I understand that question because this was a big surprise to me. I wasn't expecting that. In fact, I was kind of confused. I have to be honest, Lord, you called me to be a pastor. I retired from the police department seeking you, seeking your will, and, and father, I really believe you, you led me to do all these things and, uh, but now I have cancer and so none of that made sense to me.

Speaker: 46:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:48

And, and you know, I think it's important to acknowledge that, especially to someone that yeah, that, you know, that might be listening. That sometimes we go through things in, in life, man that are hard to get our heads around it. And, and that doesn't necessarily make us a weak Christian. Life is hard and, and God's ways, not our ways. And we can't always understand how, how God works. And not to mention that we live in a fallen world and in a fallen world, you know, difficult things happen like that. Uh, but God is sovereign over it all. God is sovereign over it all. And by the way, that's why I ended up writing the book. Collateral Blessings and Collateral Blessings means that God can bring unexpected blessings through difficult times when we continue to clinging to him. You know, in faith and, and, and, and it's important to also kind of talk about what that faith looks like. Yeah. You know, and, and, and in a difficult time. Um, but, uh, but first, you know, I wanna say that kind of being confused and asking questions doesn't necessarily mean that you don't, you don't have faith. It's important that when we're feeling that way, that we talk to God and, and share with him our raw feelings. In fact, that's what you read in the Psalms, right? We have, we have, uh, psalms that are called Psalms of lament. What's a psalm? What's a psalm? Of lament? Of lament? It's someone who's going through a difficult time and doesn't understand and doesn't get it. It doesn't seem fair, it doesn't seem just, but they keep talking to God. Mm-hmm. Right. They bring their, their pain and their anguish and their confusion and their doubt. They just, they bring it to the Lord. And, and, um, so, so it, it's okay

Speaker: 48:47

to, to vent, it's okay to vent to God those feelings.'cause a a lot of people think, man, I, man, I, I, I, I, I can't talk to God like that. That's, that's, that's not a sign of faith. What, what would you say?

Speaker 2: 48:58

Right. You know, I, I have, uh, someone that I know who wrote a book, uh, about Lament and, um, his name is Mark rgb, and I forget the title of the book, uh, but maybe you could bring it up later. Yeah, yeah. Later. We, we, we'll put it on the show notes, you know, show, show notes and, uh, you know, that's an interesting word, vent. And, and, and I think that's a, it's a, it's a, it's a good word to kind of describe crying out to the Lord. Yeah. Um. But it, it's not, it's not exactly venting. It's, it's because it's, it's, uh, it's how you really feel. Um, you know, it's not just random things that, that, that you don't know what you're saying. It's really how you feel. So I would say, uh, lamenting is, is a cry from a place of pain. Mm-hmm. Life is hard. You know, before, before I came here, earlier today, I was visiting with, uh, um, a sister in Christ who just lost her husband of 30 something years. She's in pain and she doesn't know if she can move on. She's in pain, she's in deep grief, and, and I didn't go there and, and tell her. You're not supposed to feel sad. Yeah. What's the matter with you? Uh, you know, where's your faith? That would be the wrong thing for me to say, you know, feeling pain and feeling grief because of a loss or the difficult things that we go through. That's not necessarily a lack of faith. Yeah. Life is hard. Jesus wept too. And from the cross, he cried. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because that's a cry from a place of pain. Amen. And, and we need to be raw, raw, and real with God. But, but, but here's what I would wanna say to the audience. If that's where you find yourself, just don't stop talking to God. Talk. Keep talking to God because lament. Is a cry from a place of pain that turns to trust because when you keep crying out to God, he draws near to you. Right. He reminds you that he's there and you begin to experience his presence. Not that this happens overnight.

Speaker: 51:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:26

But you keep crying out to God and he meets you there.

Speaker: 51:29

Amen. Amen. That's good. You, you. You know what, um, if I could share a quick story, um, uh, I, I. I tell my wife that I feel like, you know, like life hardened me and I always pray to God, like, like soften my heart, like make me more, uh, show more, uh, uh, empathy more and, uh, at, uh, on service on Sunday. And there's a brother that just lost his sister to, uh, to cancer. So he was in the midst, uh, he was worshiping, he was leading worship. Wow. So I'm there and he's singing. While, while, while he was singing, I just looked up real quick and I looked at him. He was singing with all his heart. And just in that moment I told my wife that something hit me. Like, and I just started crying. Like I started weeping and it's almost, uh, I'm trying to explain it'cause I, I never, I never like felt that it's almost like a transfer. That I felt like, I don't know if the spirit of God just transferred some grief or like what he was feeling, but not showing it. It was almost like, how, how could he be worshiping in the midst of just going through this? Wow. But it was, uh, and I just, man, I don't know. Like, I just felt like the grief hit me. Like, and, and I, and, and I, and I say that'cause I'm not one to cry and even my wife knows that like I'm, I, I don't easily like cry. And then. The following day, I went to a meeting at a church and they're praying. It was just a prayer meeting and God just hit me again. And it was one of those ugly cries, like, yeah, I felt, I felt kind of embarrassed. I had like snot running down my nose. But I, I feel like God's almost like, like softening my heart that's in, in the season, which ties into the lamenting and, uh, the uh, uh, uh, uh, empathy that we should be. Feeling or like sharing with, with others and for others.

Speaker 2: 53:30

I read this to to, to the widow that I, I was ministering to today. This is Psalm 1 0 3 verses 13 and 14. As a father shows compassion to his children as a father, shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. So when we, when we go to God with our doubts, he doesn't say, what's the matter with you? Why are you doubting? What's the matter with you? He understands we are finite creatures. And he, and, and, and he doesn't get mad at us when we come to him with our pain and our confusion and our questions. In fact, the fact that we keep coming to him, even though we have all this confusion, is a sign of faith in itself. And, and the fact that we believe that he, he will hear us even though we're doubting because he's a god of compassion and mercy. It, it's trusting in his character. Yeah, and, and, um, you know, this is kind of near and dear to my heart, uh, because when I was going through, um, you know, through that, through the terminal cancer. It was about, uh, three months where, you know, that was the diagnosis. I have terminal cancer. There's nothing could be done. And I pretty much, pretty, pretty much be honest with you, kind of resigned to the fact that I only had a few months to live and, and I was really grieving that I was grieving, grieving the loss of my health. Uh, grieving the fact that, you know, my. My sons are not gonna have a father. I'm not gonna see them get married. I'm not gonna see my grandchildren. I'm not gonna marry them. My wife's gonna be devastated, my family's gonna be devastated. I was feeling the weight of that. Yeah. And, and um, you know, I never lost my faith. But I was grieving. And again, grieving doesn't mean you're, you're, you're, you're losing your faith. Life is hard. And, and, and in fact, grieve grief, you know, a lot of preachers often say it, it's, it's connected to love. You know, we grieve because we have love in our hearts.

Speaker: 55:45

That's good.

Speaker 2: 55:46

We grieve the loss of people, you know? Um, you know, I was grieving because I love my family. I love, you know, you know, I love the Lord, but I, I love my family too. And, and God allows for that. God allows for that. It's not a lack of faith. So I had a pastor come visit me during this season that, that I was sick. I was, I was undergoing chemotherapy. Um. I was just going through a lot, man. I was, I was going through a lot. It wasn't that season of. And, you know, and you know, I say in my book that I, I didn't lose my faith, but I wasn't feeling it too much. You know, during that time, just feeling a lot of, lot of, lot of sorrow man. Mm-hmm. And, um, you know, there's a place in in Philippians where, where, where the Apostle Paul talks about how Yeah. The Apostle Paul is, is. Grateful that that his cold laborer, I think it's Paphitis who was on his deathbed, recovered, and he says, man, I'm so glad he recovered because I would've been overwhelmed with sorrow. Mm. This is the Apostle Paul who later said, you know, for me to live is Christ and to die his gain and, and to be with the Lord is far better, but even though to be with the Lord is far better, that doesn't. You know, minimize or, or detach us from feeling the, the, the, the, the pain, you know, of Yeah. Living in this fallen world and experience loss. Yeah. He felt it too. Yeah. And so did Jesus. So I had this pastor come, come visit me during that season, and, and he, he, he was, he was a good friend of mine and, and in fact he was my accountability partner.

Speaker: 57:24

Okay.

Speaker 2: 57:25

And, uh, so he comes to my house and he sits down and, and man, I was, I was weak. I was sick, I was nauseous, I was going through chemotherapy. I was in bad shape. I looked bad. And he asked me, how are you feeling? So I told him I was raw and real.

Speaker: 57:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:43

And I also had insomnia. During this time I wasn't able to sleep.'cause I think a, I think one of the side effects of the chemotherapy and you know, when you don't sleep for a while, it could affect you, man.

Speaker: 57:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:53

So I was just down, man. I was down and I told him I felt, and he paused for a moment and he says to me. Marco, what's the matter with you man? Where's your faith? You, you're supposed to be strong for your, you, you need to be strong for your family. And uh, when he left, I kinda was glad that he left, but I was more discouraged. You know, I was more discouraged. But you know, when he got in his car, he told me this. He knew he had said the wrong thing. Mm. And he said he wept for 20 minutes. Wow. I would've been served better if he would've wept with me for, for 20 minutes. Yeah. Just wept with me. And sometimes, you know, we feel like in a situation like that, like we have to say something. And you, you talked about empathy. Mm-hmm. And how God is working in your heart. And, and you're, you're your guy has brought you to a place where you're able to enter into like the pain of others.

Speaker: 58:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 58:49

Right. You're able to to sympathize and enter E and empathize and em, empathy is like entering into their, their pain and feel it, and, and, and sometimes that's what a person needs. Yeah. They just need for you to cry with them and tell'em it's okay not to be okay.

Speaker: 59:05

I think about Joe's friends, I think wasn't there for like seven days. Everybody got money. Yeah. They cried

Speaker 2: 59:09

for seven days.

Speaker: 59:10

They, they just sat next to'em. Yeah. That was the

Speaker 2: 59:11

best thing they did. As soon as they opened their mouth, that's when everything went downhill.

Speaker: 59:15

That's the key. They just sat there, didn't say nothing, but they were present without talking. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 59:19

right. You know, when I went to visit the widow again, having gone through what I went through, right. The Bible says that we comfort others with the comfort that we receive from the Lord and, and, and, you know, going through stuff. Uh. You know, that's one of the collateral blessings that I feel God has, you know, brought me to a place where, where I, I could, I can sympathize and I, I could enter into, you know, what people are going through and, and, and, and they also know they can relate to me because sometimes people feel like you, you don't know what I'm going through. And, and so I, I kind of, I'm, I'm in a unique place now where, where, where people kind of feel like they can talk to me because like I understand. Yeah. And, uh, but, you know, um. One of the things that I've learned is what you just said, Omar, is just listen. And I sat there with the widow and just, I just listened to her. Cry out man. Yeah. Cry out about what she was feeling and how lonely she felt and, and I just listened

Speaker: 1:00:17

and out there just

Speaker 2: 1:00:18

me listening.

Speaker: 1:00:19

The Ministry of listening. That's a ministry.

Speaker 2: 1:00:21

That's a ministry that's really important and people have to get out what's inside. Yep. Share it with someone that will listen

Speaker: 1:00:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:30

Will care. Yeah. And not say, what's the matter with you? Where's your faith? What a terrible thing to say.

Speaker: 1:00:37

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so okay, you diagnose and then, uh, basically you're looking at an expiration date in a sense. Yeah. To put it, yeah. Yeah. But what, what, what happens, obviously Yeah. Something happened.

Speaker 2: 1:00:51

Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm still here, right? Yeah. And so, um, wow. Uh, we could be here all day. Omar, I know you gave me a time limit, so there go.

Speaker: 1:01:01

Yeah, we're, we're hour, we're, yeah. Yeah. 59 minutes, but up. Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:01:04

So I have this, you know, 2018, this terminal cancer diagnosis, and you remember that I said that, that the first time I was diagnosed with, with, with cancer was just six months after I retired from the police department to become the full-time. Pastor of Midwest Bible Church. That was a little confusing at first, but I, I had all this adrenaline, like, let's get this over it.'cause I got work to do for the Lord. Yes. But the second cancer diagnosis kinda hit me different. It hit me different. Um, I was just really confused and, and not understanding why this was happening and, and again, even resigning to the fact that maybe God's calling me. Home, but I really didn't understand that.'cause I felt like I still had so much work to do for God. But, you know, I did trust the sovereignty of God, but that doesn't mean we, you know, we, we understand it.

Speaker: 1:02:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:02:04

And, and I, I really didn't understand it. And so it's amazing because there was decisions that I made including retiring. That if I wouldn't have made those decisions, I wouldn't be talking to you right now because for example, in fact, I'm gonna, I'm gonna back up a little bit more. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Because God is sovereign and he's sovereign over all the things that we go through, he's in control and it's so important that, that we don't lose sight of that. You know, we might not, we might not be able to. Understand his hand. Like your pastor. I've heard, I heard your pastor once say, sometimes we can't understand God's hand, but we could trust his heart and, and we can trust his heart and we can trust that he's sovereign and that, that this might, you know, this might surprise us that things that hit us might be a big surprise to us, but it's not a surprise to God. In fact, God knew it was coming. You know, way before we did. Yeah. And, and, and, and we can trust that, that, that God can bring unexpected blessings through the difficult things that we go through.

Speaker: 1:03:26

Amen.

Speaker 2: 1:03:27

And not that we get to that place right away, we just keep crying out to God and keep clinging to him. And so, so anyhow, uh, years before, years before. I even became a pastor, God, God gave me this opportunity to visit a young man in prison named Burt Burials, who you interviewed not too long ago. Yes, and now I'm going back to the first church that I was pastoring. Okay. As a bivocational pastor and his mom and dad, Cecilio and Ilda, uh, began coming to our church and that was the providence of God. And, and again, we'll be here all day. If I tell you all these ways that God was orchestrating and working to bring. Uh, you know, redemptive blessings, you know, to, to our, to, to our lives and, and the lives of people that are connected with us. And so God brought them to our church, Awilda and Cecilio, and as they started coming to our church, they made known to our church and to me that they had a son in prison. In fact, at this point, he had been locked up for 10 years. And as you know, Burt went to prison for a drive-by shooting. Yeah. He received a 40 year sentence. And, um, so we began to pray for him. Mom and dad wanted us to pray. You know, they're, they're learning that, that God could redeem. Amen. Uh, reverse and redeem. We talked about that earlier. Oh yeah. It could be before off camera. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You know, the, uh, the, the resurrection. Of Jesus from the dead proves that, that he can turn things around what seems like the worst thing, that he can turn it into, the best thing that could, that, that, that, that could ever happen to us. And so they started believing that. And they started praying for their son and asking the church to pray for him. And then one day dad asked me to visit him and in prison. And now to visit someone in prison, you gotta be on their visiting list. Yeah. Now at the time, I'm a police officer. Okay. And Burt wasn't too fond of police officers back then as a hardcore gang banger in prison. He wasn't found a police officer. So, so when dad told him, Hey, put, you know, put my pastor who's also a police officer on your visiting list, he was very reluctant to do that. And fact, uh, as he tells the story. He told his father, why you bring that cop up in here? That's what he told his father. But outta respect, he did have a lot of respect for his dad. He put me on on the visiting list and it takes about a month. Right. For all. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:05:54

Right. The paperwork. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. All that process,

Speaker 2: 1:05:56

you know, and you know, during that kind of like that waiting period, it occurred to me and as he tells the story, it occurred to him too. You know, this is crazy to, to, you know, to get our heads around the way God works. But I was actually, uh, involved in the case that led him, that led to his in, in arrest and imprisonment. So I was on the beat when a call came out of this drive-by shooting. In fact, my partner and I were on the way to that scene. But then we get a call from the dispatcher that there was, um. Uh, a gunshot victim at St. Mary's Hospital. So we went there and that was the, the victim in, in Burt's case. And we did the paperwork and notified the detectives. There was a, a car, the car that he was shot in was in the parking lot. We, that became a crime scene. We, and, and so eventually we turned it over to the detectives and I think three days later they ended up picking up Bert, but I was involved. Yeah. Isn't that's something.

Speaker: 1:07:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:01

And now here I am, 10 years later. A pastor and dad wanted me to go visit him, and then he finds that out too. So now he really doesn't wanna see me.

Speaker: 1:07:09

I know he mentioned something about looking at his paperwork and seeing your name. That's right.

Speaker 2: 1:07:13

Remember that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, but God opened that door, man. God was providentially working and just an amazing way. Yeah. Right. Bringing two unlikely people together. At, at a visiting, in a visiting room. And so here am I sitting at this, at this table with Bert and, and in a visiting room and um, man, God, uh, just. I began the work, and I remember Bert, when Bert tells a story, what he remembers is me asking him, are you hungry? Let's, and go. Me going to the vending machine and bringing him some burgers, I think that softened them up.

Speaker: 1:07:57

They say the way, that's a lot of man hearts to the stomach. But you know, there's,

Speaker 2: 1:08:01

there, there's even, you know, a, a biblical principle there about meeting people at, at, at a table, right? And breaking bread. Building that bridge and, and having a relationship with that person. That's a, that's, uh, there's someone who wrote a, a, a book called the Gospel comes with a house key and the hospitality and that, and it

Speaker: 1:08:25

is very big. Jesus

Speaker 2: 1:08:26

sat right with, with tax collectors and sinners and, and, and, um, and he got criticized for that.

Speaker: 1:08:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:08:34

And uh, by the way, I was a police officer and. And that could, that could be from the pound two of me.

Speaker: 1:08:39

Oh yeah. Doing that right. I was it like you really, like technically or legally speaking, not really supposed to do that. Right.

Speaker 2: 1:08:45

I think I kind of got away with it.'cause I was also a pastor too, so you had to So I'm there as a pastor. Yeah, yeah. You know, but it was still kind of a conflict of interest in some people's eyes and, and, uh, but anyhow, so, um. Anyhow, but, so I'm there and, and God opened the door for me to, to share the gospel with him. And he came to faith, and, and there was other things that happened. Like, for example, two weeks before that visit, he ended up going to seg and then seg, uh, he, he began to read this bible that somebody gave him for the very first time. The, the, the timing of that. Yeah. Two weeks before my visit,

Speaker: 1:09:23

his timing.

Speaker 2: 1:09:24

Right. And that kind of began to break him down. Yeah. And, and prepare his heart for the, for, for the visit.

Speaker: 1:09:29

There, there's something that happens in seg. I, I told this, I was locked up for three years, but two and a half years into it, I told a story that I got caught getting a tattoo, so they threw me in the hole. And s so I was, and, and I, I tell it this way for two and a half years, I, I held it together. Like, I didn't cry, you know, I didn't show no weakness. Like, oh, I miss my family. Like I was, I was good because I was around other people playing basketball, working out, playing handball. But as soon as they threw me in there, like it hit me like, man, I'm locked up. And you wanna talk about softer in your heart. It only took me two weeks and I started crying. I broke down because I'm, it finally hit me that I was behind bars. And I think about that scripture that says it. It's not good for man to be alone, and something happens. I, I believe that's like providential too. For him to have been there. And just the word of God. God

Speaker 2: 1:10:15

knows how to break us down, right? Yes, sir. God knows how to break us down, man. So God was breaking down a, a real hardened, uh, you know, hardened man. And so man, at that visiting room, uh, when was that? It was 10 years into his prison sentence. I forget exactly what year that was. But, but he came to know the Lord, man. He came to Christ. And his life began to turn around. The guy did a lot of other miracles. Yeah. How he was able to get out of the gang in prison. That's almost impossible.

Speaker: 1:10:49

Right. You, you know what? I'm gonna put a link to his testimony. Yeah. He, he can tell that, uh, the title is, uh, arrested and Redeemed and I think the under title was like, this will be your Last Time, but his name, uh, uh, bird Berry. Right, right. I'll put it under there.

Speaker 2: 1:11:02

Yeah, that's right. Because he remembers hearing that. Yeah. When he was doing the drive-by shooting, and then I was, as I was witnessed it to him. I said something very similar. Yeah. He said you told him the same thing. And I said, might this could be your last opportunity, you know? And uh, so man, that all clicked for him. Yeah. God used that. Well, man, he, Bert began to just immerse himself in the word of God and, and, and grow in the Lord in that prison for the next 10 years. And then, you know, I kept visiting him. Other people in our church began to visit him, and he was already kind of part of the church family before he even got outta prison. And then when he got outta prison with Manny, you know he has that thing meet them at the gate. Yeah. And so we met him at the gate man, and he's been with us ever since. He's never turned back. And um, and he's doing great. He's married as a kid, he has a house. He, amen. He works for the HVAC company and he got trained to do that in prison and he's doing real good. He's a deacon in our church.

Speaker: 1:12:01

Right. Look at that. That's, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:12:04

You know, but

Speaker: 1:12:05

yeah, go, you know,

Speaker 2: 1:12:06

it's amazing, you know, after I wrote that book, collateral Blessings, that testimony is in the book. And, uh, some prisons chaplains and, and, and through Manny, his connections, uh, you know, prisons got prisons and chaplains became aware of that book and which has open, which has opened the door for Bird and I to go back in prisons together. Oh, wow. And tag team and share our testimony. And, uh, we did that at Sheridan. We did it at East Moline not too long ago. Oh, no way. And then we're also, um, uh, distributing, uh, free copies of the book, collateral Blessings, which is about again, how God can reverse and redeem man Amen. Through the gospel and what a powerful thing. Right? Yeah. And I didn't orchestrate any of that. Right. And, and, and, and so, you know, God connected me with Burt. Um, and that, that, uh, put me in, in, in contact or, or allowed me to meet Manny Mill because Manny was already ministering in that prison. And he also began to minister to Bur, and then the CO Nilda became aware of, of who Manny was and, and started going to RTO, um, his ministry on Thursdays. It's like a a, it's almost like a church service. Yeah. It's a, a radical time out. They weed in.

Speaker: 1:13:25

Uh, what's that church? Uh, compass. Compass Church. Compass Church. Compass Church in Whedon. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:13:30

And,

Speaker: 1:13:30

uh,

Speaker 2: 1:13:31

you could put that in the show notes. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 1:13:33

So Compass Church wheen, uh, Thursdays 6:00 PM six to seven

Speaker 2: 1:13:37

30. That's right. He has a heart to minister to the families who have loved ones who are incarcerated and the incarcerated. Yeah. Just a tremendous ministry man. Amen. That just, uh, display of the love of Christ. Yeah. And, uh, so I got to meet Manny. Uh, through all that, through that connection. And then when I retired in 2015, now that freed me up and I already knew Manny, and he asked me to be on his board, on the board of Cornier house. Okay. So now I'm, I'm, I'm on his board and I got to meet, you know. People that he knew, just wonderful people. They go to RTO. And I met a man, uh, who was a regular attender to, to RTO. His name is Scott Feline. And, um, almost from the moment that I met him, he, man, he. He had this heart for me, which I don't feel like I deserve it, but he just, just, I had favor with him and he had this love for me and this desire to pray for me. In fact, he felt that God had assigned him specifically to pray for me. Like he had a divine assignment from God to pray for me, and he actually told me that. Hmm. And so, uh, fast forward. I get diagnosed with terminal cancer and Scott fell is in my life, and he would've never been in my life if all these other things hadn't happened. These faith decisions. Yeah. Meeting Bert, uh, meeting Manny at, because I met Bert and, and, and obeyed God and went to visit him to share the gospel with him. Right. And so, so I know Scott and, and Scott, man, he never stopped praying for me. He never, he never, I mean, like. The, that terminal. I mean, you know, he, he felt the pain of that'cause he loved me and he loves me today, but his faith like never wavered man. He had a faith that I didn't have. Mm. And sometimes we need to have friends in our lives that, that have, that, that, that have faith for us. Like the four men that carry the right, the, the lame man put him down through the roof to get him to Jesus. Amen. And that was Scott in my life. And in fact, he actually told me. That he, he believed that, that God had given him, um, a faith to believe that I was gonna be healed. And again, I didn't have that faith, but, but God gave it to him, man, and he just kept praying. And would you believe. That this a fervent intercessor. And other people were praying, I I have a wonderful church, man. They were praying for me. Other people were praying for me, Manny and and RTO and people all over the country were praying for me. And um, and, uh, but there was a special way that God was using Scott Feline. And he's, uh, he's a pilot, by the way. Okay. And he flies a, a plane for, uh, a private plane for a gentleman, a wealthy man here in Chicago. Um, and I had, I had met him before'cause Scott had introduced me on another occasion to him. And, uh, so he knew about me. And so when Scott was flying his boss somewhere, he told him about what I was going through, that I had terminal cancer and Scott's boss told, uh, Scott. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. But listen, Scott. My wife and I have a friend who's a renowned transplant surgeon, a world renowned transplant surgeon. Told Marco to go see him and three days later they, they, they helped to set that up and I was in the office of a renowned transplant surgeon. And, um, it's a long story man, but, but, uh, that, that. That transplant surgeon, his name is Dr. En Rico Betti. He works out of UIC. He's the chief of surgeons there. He looked at my scan. He says, what you have is great, but I think that I'm able to help you. And that was kind of the first glimmer of hope that we received. Scott was there in that office when that happened and my wife was there. I was there, uh, uh, my secretary was there as Jackie. She was there and uh, and he. You know, I call'em the Michael Jordan surgeons because nobody else would touch me. I had already had all their opinions. Oh yeah. And nobody was gonna touch me, but he was willing to, to take a chance. And, and he performed two major surgeries, one's called a Whipple surgery, uh, that involved cutting a part of my stomach and cutting part of my pancreas where the tumor was cutting that out. And, um, you know, none of this was a guarantee that it was gonna work. And, and there was still a very high probability that the cancer would come back even if they got it all out. And so after he did the Whipple surgery, then he did a liver resection, uh, which involved cutting half my liver.'cause most of the lesions were on one side. And then the part of the liver that remained where there was two more lesions on there, he burned them off. It's called an ablation. Uh, it, it is, it's, it's crazy what, what the, the surgeries that he did on me, and then again, there was still a 80 to 90% chance that even after all that had already came back once that it could come back again. Well, that was seven years ago and it never came back. Praise God. Yeah. And again, I would've never met Scott who connected me to that doctor if all these other faith decisions hadn't happened even years ago. Years ago, and that's why the book is called Collateral Blessings, right?'cause God can bring unexpected blessings in difficult times through our faith decisions and, and our obedience. You know, the, the, the faith decisions that we make today could bless us today, but could also have these, these ripple effects of, of redeeming grace. Not only blesses us, but others too. And even right now, right? Yeah. Around here because of what God has done and, and, and I have no doubt that people hearing this testimony today are gonna be encouraged to keep trusting God and clinging to him even in a difficult time.

Speaker: 1:19:36

Amen. Man. That's. Just man, get my mind. I'm, I'm putting the, the connections together. How, how it all works, uh, from a cop to a criminal to, you know, being in imprisoned, then visiting'em when you technically shouldn't be. And then the, the, the collateral blessings that follow that, that's amazing. That's no way we could orchestrate that. Oh, that's, that's only the hand of God and anybody to who, who still doesn't believe in God, or, oh, it's coincidence, man. Come on man. Like,

Speaker 2: 1:20:05

and there's so many more, um. Co later blessings that happen through all this. That may be another time you'll have me on.

Speaker: 1:20:12

Okay. Might, is there another one? I know we're at one 19. I know you gave me a time limit, but, uh, man, any other one that you wanna share that comes to mind that you, you feel ties in to, to what you Sure. I

Speaker 2: 1:20:24

have a couple more? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go, go ahead. And, uh, but I, I'll, I'll share one more. Uh, when I had, so in between my first and second cancer diagnosis, God. Um, led a man to call me who had, who was diagnosed with cancer. His 14-year-old daughter was coming to our church and she had gotten saved, and when he gets terminal cancer and he announces it to his family, obviously his family was very, you know, devastated. But his 14-year-old daughter who was saved now the way that she responded, touched dad's heart. His name is Eddie Rodriguez, and that kind of led him to call me. And it's a long story, but Yeah. But he called me to tell me that he has terminal cancer and he, he, he, he learned that I had cancer at one time. Now I'm, I'm in between the diagnosis. Yeah. Yes. And, and he felt like I could relate to him. But he also saw this faith in his daughter, this real relationship that she had with, with the Lord. And he knew, and he had religion. He was a deval Catholic actually, but he didn't have this, this relationship, this faith, this hope like his daughter. And he wanted that. And he was like, how can I get that? Two hours later he is in my office and um, and I lead him to Christ and God just poured a, a grace upon him. You know how the, how the Bible says God's strength is made perfect and weakness. And when, when Paul was going through a very difficult thing, remember in in Corinthians where he begins to plead with God, he prayed three times about it and, and, and God didn't really take the thorn in the flesh away from him. Remember that? Yeah. Uh, but God gave him a grace. Yeah. Uh, that kept them dependent upon God and useful and hopeful, and, and God gave Eddie that kind of grace. And although he had this terminal cancer, once he got saved, he had such joy when he got baptized, uh, in his baptism and, and his, uh, testimony, uh, during his baptism, he said, I'm gonna win. I'm in a win-win situation because, you know, I believe God can heal me, and if he does, I'm gonna keep serving him and, and, and spreading the gospel and serving my family. But if he doesn't, I'm gonna be with him. And you know, it's one thing to say that when everything's going good in your life, but to have terminal cancer and to have that kinda hope, that real hope, that real presence of God in your life, like he had it, it inspired a lot of people and, and he began to win people to Christ in his circle of influence. And um, and then. I get diagnosed with terminal cancer too. So then the God flips the script and God begins to use him to, to minister, to minister to me. And uh, you know, he did go to be with the Lord. And um, a couple weeks before he went to be with the Lord, he was in hospice at, at home, and I was at, I was at his bedside and he was very, very weak. His, his voice was very hoarse. And he tells me, he says, Marco, pastor, I, I know I look bad from the outside, but I want you to know that on the inside it's well with my soul. And you know, when I, when I, when I, when I wrote the book, I share in the book that I believe that's a greater miracle than my physical healing, the hope that he had the assurance. He has, and that he had at that moment, the fact that he knew he was saved, that the presence of God was with them and gave him hope and joy and confidence in, in that state that he was in. In fact, salvation is the greatest miracle, right? That's the greatest miracle. And so I, I didn't write the book, uh, as a formula that if you do everything that I do, you're gonna be healed to. Yeah. Um, but. I wrote the book with the goal that there's redemption in Christ. And, and when you know him, you have hope in this life and for all eternity. And you truly are in a win-win situation no matter what happens in your life. Amen. And that was his testimony. And now get this, that I preached his funeral the night before my first major surgery. And the title of my message was, I'm in a win-win situation. And we shared his. Video testimony when he got baptized

Speaker: 1:25:02

at At the funeral?

Speaker 2: 1:25:03

Yeah, at the funeral. Bunch of people got saved that are still going to my church to this day.

Speaker: 1:25:11

And it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't. It almost like if death was a seed being planted. Right. In a sense, not really dead.'cause you know how they say a seed gotta be buried Right. In order for life to come out of it. So it was almost like. A lot of life came out of a, a tragic situation, right?

Speaker 2: 1:25:28

That's right. That's right. Um, um, he ended up leading his, um, his brother-in-law to the Lord before he passed away, and he had just gotten divorced. Uh, well, his wife, ex-wife ends up getting saved and I ended up remarrying them. Okay. And, and he went to be with the Lord and, and, and, uh, and even. Even though he's with the Lord, the ripple effects of his testimony of the hope that he had, that he had in Christ is still,

Speaker: 1:26:03

yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:26:04

it, it, it is still creating these, these, these collateral blessings. Yeah. Uh, so not too long ago, uh, his brother-in-law's, uh, daughter Brittany and her fiance, uh, got saved and, uh, baptized and I, and I recently married them. You know, so

Speaker: 1:26:22

the, the generations that follow Right. It's not just right.

Speaker 2: 1:26:25

That's right. And, and again, that's the greatest miracle right there. Yeah. Because what does the prophet, if you gain the whole world, you lose your soul. You know? Uh, you know, everybody that, that, that Jesus healed during his earth, during his earth ministry ended up dying. Yeah. So, so the greatest miracle is being born again and putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That's the greatest miracle. Amen. And having hope in this life for far eternity, not just receiving a physical healing like I had. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:26:53

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:26:54

You know, so I, I wanna make that clear. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that,

Speaker: 1:26:56

that's the most important, that's the most important thing. Like healing in a sense.'cause it is a healing, right? That's right.'cause we're sick. Uh, sins sick. Right,

Speaker 2: 1:27:04

right. Can I say this last thing? Yeah, yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Um, one of the things that I say in the book is that. It's important again, that when we're going through hard stuff, that we continue to talk to God and wait on him, but not just wait on him to do what we're asking him to do because waiting on God in the Bible is not just asking him to do something and then waiting for him to do it, but it's actually putting our trust in Him is coming to him in prayer, is worshiping him. It, it, it, it is putting our faith in his character and our trust in who he is, and that's what waiting on God is. And yes, when we wait on God, God can deliver us, you know, and, and in, in, in ways that, that are miraculous. God delivered me. But sometimes Omar, the greatest miracle is not God delivering us from something, but sometimes the greatest miracle is what God does in us, in, in the waiting as we're waiting on him, the way that God works in us and refines us, and brings us closer to, to him and, and gives us an eternal perspective. You know, when I had terminal cancer, my perspective on, on a lot of things change the things that don't matter material, that that was nothing. Souls mattered. My faith mattered more to me than anything. Um, and, and, uh, again, um, God can deliver us from things, but he also delivers us through the stuff that we go through as we wait on him. And sometimes that's the greatest miracles, what He does in us as we wait on him.

Speaker: 1:28:45

Amen. Amen. A lot of times, like I know thing we were talking before, like we don't see it until we. Right.

Speaker 2: 1:28:51

That's right. Sometimes life only makes sense in reverse, but God is working. You could be, you can count on that. He's

Speaker: 1:28:57

working. Amen. Uh, real, what was it? Oh, what was say? Uh, going back to the book, uh, where can people go to, to, to, to, to buy it, to, to read it.

Speaker 2: 1:29:07

Right, right. So you can, um, get a electronic digital copy on, on Amazon, but uh, you can also get a hard copy through Country Pines, uh, dot org, country pines.org. You put that in the show notes. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker: 1:29:23

Yeah. Yeah. If you send, send me a link or whatever links you gimme, I'll throw under. Yes. And I also, uh, what, what, what church again do you pastor in case somebody's in the Chicago land area? Maybe, you know, maybe you're not plugged into a church or you just want to, uh, visit. WW where could it go? I,

Speaker 2: 1:29:37

I, pastor Midwest Bible Church. It's located at 34 41 North Cicero, uh, Cicero and Addison between Belmont and, and Addison. And boy, we would love to have you, uh, we, we are a hospital for sinners, not a club for saints. Jesus came to seek and save the loss. And we would love to, to minister to you. We would love to minister to you. God bless you all. Amen. Amen.

Speaker: 1:30:00

And, uh, you, you know what, uh, a, any final words I always, uh, give an opportunity, anything we didn't touch on that, that you want to, uh, share? And then if you could close us out in the prayer.

Speaker 2: 1:30:10

Sure, sure, sure. Uh, well, I say this in the book, um, that, that sometimes God's providence hides in hardship. And if you're in a difficult time. Uh, I just want to assure you that, that God is working, God is working. It, it, it might catch us by surprise, but it hasn't caught him by surprise. And he can al, he can deliver us from, but he could also deliver us through. Maybe you're already saved and if you're saved, keep clinging to the Lord. God's providence, highs in hardship. Look for God's blessings there. There are unexpected blessings that God brings through difficult situations as we clinging to him, uh, in, in in faith God. You can, you can count on the fact that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And, and maybe you're not saved, maybe you've never put your faith in trust in Christ as your Lord and Savior. That's where Eddie was. Eddie Rodriguez when he called me. He realized when he had terminal cancer that he needed more than anything else, even more than healing, was to have a relationship with God. And he found that relationship with God by putting his faith and trust in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. And that's what I wanna plea, uh, with you to do. If you don't know Christ as your Lord and Savior, he died for you. Uh, he went to the cross. It paid the price for our sin. And he rose again to prove that he can give eternal life, eternal hope to all who put their faith and trust in him. Turn from yourself. Rule. Put your faith in trust in Jesus Christ, and that will be the greatest decision that you ever make.

Speaker: 1:31:57

God bless you my name. Amen. And if you could close out in a prayer. Yes. Yes. Amen.

Speaker 2: 1:32:02

Oh, father, I thank you God. I thank you for, uh, being a God who, who we can trust. Uh, you are a God who is sovereign over all things. Uh, you are, you are on the throne, and sometimes in our lives things seem to be outta control, but there are never out of outside of your control. Oh God, you are. You are sovereign, but not only are you sovereign, you are a God. Who is love and you demonstrated that love on the cross of Jesus. Your word says that while we were yet sinners, God demonstrated his love toward us. And that while we were at sinners, Christ, uh, died uh, for us. And so, God, I pray for anyone who may be listening today. God, I pray for them. I pray that if they're going through a difficult season in their life, if they feel like their situation is hopeless, oh God, that you will shine your light, and that they would look up to you and they, and that they would see that you're not only a sovereign God, but that you're a loving God who made a way, uh, for us to be saved through Jesus Christ. If, if, if someone who's hearing me right now doesn't know Christ a Savior God, I pray that today will be the day that they would trust Christ as your Lord and Savior. And again, those who are saved, oh God, I pray that they will continue to wait on you. And, and to believe that you can deliver them from whatever they're going through, but that you can also deliver them through what they're going through. Uh, that sometimes the greatest miracles that you perform are, are, are not only what you deliver us from what, but what you deliver us through as we continue to wait on you and talk to you Lord, and, and cling to you Lord. And so, uh, father bless those who are who. Who are hearing us today who are listening to this, uh, podcast. Bless them. Encourage them. Strengthen their faith, strengthen their hope in you. Draw near to them, oh God, as they draw near to you. God, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Speaker: 1:34:04

Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, pastor, for being on here. Amen. My pleasure, man.

Speaker 2: 1:34:08

Thanks

Speaker: 1:34:08

for having me. No, yeah, yeah. Has been a honor and a blessing to, to hear your story and I know it's gonna bless many. Uh, so with that, we're gonna get ready to, to, to sign off. Uh uh, Matthew four 16 reads, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned alongside Pastor Marco. David Am Omar Calvio. And we are wrong, too strong.