Mail Call Podcast Episode #5: Miracles & Big Doubts || Victory Church

What's up, Pando friends? Steven Hadaway here. We are back for another episode of Mail Call, where you've been sending us your letters. We love to read over them, pray over them, but also respond to some of your questions. I have with me my friend Jason that you've seen before. How you doing? I'm doing great, man. How are you? Wonderful. Let's start off with a non-biblical question at all that I know people are asking. Okay. LeBron just got swept. He's out. Playoffs are gone. This was supposed to be his last year. Supposed to be. Is he going to leave like this, or he's going to sign up for another season? What do you think? He's got too much pride, man. At 42 years old, if I was still able to make $50 million playing basketball, I'd go for it. No, I think he's got too much pride. He wants all the fanfare, the pomp and circumstance, the retirement tour, the whole deal. I think he's coming back.

Where he's going, I don't know, but I think he's coming back. It's a lot harder for people to answer that question. Who is the GOAT when you finish a career like that, right? Yeah, yeah. As long as he doesn't go play baseball, right? For sure. Don't follow that trend. Yeah. All right, so for those of you that are asking us questions, because you do ask us questions outside of that as well, we love kind of giving you a little peek on all the cool things that are happening all around the world. But you also gave us probably one of my favorite testimonies that we've read in a long while. Tell them what happened. Yeah, so got a letter from our friend Joseph, and he writes and says, he wants to say thank you for listening and following after the Holy Spirit. About a month ago, he was watching our Thirst Worship and Prayer Night on the app, and Pastor Summer called out that the Lord wanted to heal specifically a protruding disc in the spine. And as God would have it, our friend Joseph has been dealing with a protruding disc in his spine for 15 years.

And he says that God miraculously healed him in that moment. And so I love that for a lot of reasons. I love the fact of him talking about Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals. I love the fact that there's no limit on how and where healing takes place. And I'm really impressed just by his depth of gratitude. I can imagine something that dealing with for 15 years, you probably reach a point at some point in there, like, is this ever gonna end? And just the fact that God sees Joseph, he loves you and he healed you. Just a beautiful testimony, man. That's super encouraging. It is very encouraging because it just reminds us that God sees every aspect of what we're going through. And the thought that in that moment, God spoke to one of our pastors on stage, specifically, I'm sure for him, right where he was at. And he was able to listen to it, whether it was a week or two or three weeks later, but just by God's prophetic grace, was able to meet him right where he's at. And so if you haven't ever been a part of one of our thirst services before, it was the first time we ever put that on Pando. We actually debated about it. Like, would the guys appreciate this? Because it's not a message. All it is is worship and time where we just cut

some moments out to say, God, what do you want us to pray about? How do you wanna minister to us as we minister to you? And it's not a short service either. How long do those services usually last? At least a couple hours. Yeah, that's right. So the fact that you had a chance to listen to that, and even to that point, is awesome. I encourage you, if you haven't been a part of one of those services, look it up on our page, Carson Timeout, and say, God, I wanna hear what you have for me in this moment. And not just what he has for you, but how you can bless the Lord. You know, there's times where we minister to God. We don't show up in prayer and worship because of what we can get, but because we want to bless him and thank him and invite him to do whatever it is that he wants to do in our life. And that's kind of what the thirst services are all about. Some of my favorite, and it is like, we actually take chairs out of the auditorium because it almost turns into like a dance stage. People are jumping up and down. It really is a blast. So check that out, and I'm sure it'll bless you as well. I can't wait to share that with Pastor Summer. For sure.

That's gonna be something that's gonna really be encouraging to see how God's been moving like that. So thank you, Joseph, for just sharing that testimony. That's awesome and super encouraging too. Yeah, very, very encouraging. In fact, there's this passage that talks about how we're able to provoke other people into righteousness when we talk about what God has done for us. So I bet people are listening to this right now thinking, bruh, I want my healing. Like if God did that for Joseph, I want him to do that for me. And that is a good, godly way of provoking somebody to righteousness. I've seen bad provoking with my kids where they just irritate each other like crazy. God forbid I buy one of my kids ice cream and not the other ones. That's that. How many boys you got? I got three. So you gotta get three spoons, man. That's exactly. I got three boys as well. And if we all can't participate, then none of us is. is unless you can keep your mouth shut in case your brother's fine. Anyway. Okay. We've got another letter. And I love this one. This one is by Anthony. This was a topic that I feel like is going to bless a lot of people because he has a really, really interesting perspective of how he grew up in another faith. And now that he is locked up, he's been learning about Christianity and what it looks like to learn more about Jesus. And it has really been stirring something inside

of his heart. But Anthony, you're a little bit, uh, at an impasse where you're, you're one, you're concerned about, um, converting to Christianity and how your family would respond to that. Then you might be shunned. They might completely reject you, which would already be really difficult in the season of life that you're in right now. But also he had another point where he said, what if I commit to Jesus? And then I found out later that that was wrong. And I was right in the first place. I'm really like nervous about, about what to do here. Here's what you put down. If you could please give me your insight on this matter, it would be, uh, of much appreciation. Well, one Anthony, thank you for asking that because I guarantee I know this for a fact, a lot of people are, are struggling with that. One, how are my family going to receive me if I make this decision? And two, how do I know if I'm making the right one and how in the world do you even move forward when you're feeling something like this? I love that thought because it shows me that God is one moving in your heart. The very fact that you're wrestling with that is because a Holy spirit is working inside of you, drawing you closer to himself. That's a supernatural work of God moving right now in your own life. So we do have some recommendations, some things for you to consider the balls in your court, but this is really kind of up to you in the steps you could take. First step is to know that, uh, this is a journey only you can take. Like we, no one else can make this decision for you. And it's really, I think really kind of easy to do. It's very simple. Jesus does not make a complicated. He said, come to me if you want, if you're weary, if you're burdened down, I want to give you peace. I want to give you rest. So first step, go to Jesus. And there's some really simple ways to do that, especially if you're kind of wanting to learn more about him. The best book to start in the Bible is the book of John. That's where I send everybody that's wanting to know more about Jesus is the book of John. And how much time do you think you should spend a day reading that book? Man. I mean, if you can commit 30 minutes, if you can commit 30 minutes a day, I think you'll start to see fruit produced from that. Um, just as a great starting point. I love John because it, it helps you see the person of Jesus through a different lens than maybe even some other books. I think it gives you some clarity, um, on ways to proceed. Uh, I got a 62 year old friend that I work out with. And he told me a few weeks ago, he was so excited. He bought a Bible for the first time and he's experienced some serious hardship. And he said, Hey man, I plan to read from the front to the back. And I said, yes, you can do that. Um, but my recommendation and, and my

commitment to you, what if we start in John? Oh, that's great. And he said, why? And I didn't expect to hear that from my friend, but I was like, because I said so now, no, but honestly, I was like, I think that's a phenomenal starting point where the, there's a visual, there's an understanding of Jesus that comes alive through those 21 chapters of, of John. And so, like I said, man, 30 minutes a day, uh, to take time to really sit with it, process it, read, engage. Um, I think that'll be a good starting point. Uh, I agree. I feel like the book of John was written by one of Jesus's best friends who hung out with him probably the most. So he really had great insight on his heart, his character, understanding, um, who Jesus is. And you said something else that I also want to encourage you with this, Anthony is your friend that you're working out with, by the way, like, can he bench more than you at 62? No, not really. He actually swam much farther than I can. That's good. That's not bad. So if, if this friend was wanting to read the Bible, you actually said, Hey, let's start the book of John together. So I want to encourage you to maybe find somebody, um, where you are that you would say would be, um, a great example of a strong Christian and ask, ask them, Hey, would you go through the book of John with me? I'm really trying to understand who Jesus is, what Christianity is about, but I'd like to kind of walk through this together with somebody. And there's a guy out in Atlanta. He suggested I find somebody and I love it. if you can maybe go through it with me. Because I feel like being able to talk through what you're reading with somebody else makes a big difference. Now if you don't maybe have that option, then send us a letter with your thoughts. Read a couple of chapters and send us a letter so maybe we can respond in the future as well to kind of maybe answer a question that you have as you're reading through the book of John. I feel like questions are amazing because it shows that you're learning. So if you have some questions,

we would love to be able to maybe respond to some of them in the future. Also, you found us on Pando. Right now we are in the middle, kind of at the beginning actually-ish, around that, of the book of John where our pastor is reading a couple passages and explaining the chapter to us. We're all going through it together. There's questions that you can read over and think through while you're reading. It feels like the perfect time for you to be going through what you're going through right now, these questions that you have. And specifically, I wanna ask you to do this as well. I wanna keep it very vague and generic because I know there's a lot of different kind of religions that are in the prison system. So I'm not gonna name the one that is your background because I feel like there's a lot of people that need to do this next step. Secondly, go on Pando again and then search the title of the religion that you grow up in, that you feel like you're feeling called to step away from. I did that with what you had mentioned to me and there's lots of great content on there to help you understand more of the background of the religion that you grow up in and some things that you probably need to know about it, but really how it compares to a relationship with Jesus

and understanding why that religion and Christianity are extremely different. Now think about this. Jesus said, in John, the book we're asking you to go to, chapter 14, verse six, that I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, no man comes to the Father but through me. And I feel like that really gives that ultimatum that Jesus is the way. Because your question was, what happens if I go to hell if I come to Jesus? Actually, Jesus said, I'm the only way to eternal life. So you're making the best decision ever. I love this question, friend. I love that you guys are writing us these kinds of things. We read them, we would love to respond even more. Be on the lookout for some more content that are coming your way. But before we wrap up, any other thoughts before we log off? I would just say, even to tag along to that, we talked about questions. Something that we work to provide somewhere there on the app is small group discussion questions. So as you're reading, as you're processing, there are questions there to help guide you through some things that may come to mind. So those might be good things to spark other thoughts with you, with other people that you're connecting with. So take advantage of that as well.

That's a great resource, I think, that would be super helpful to you in your journey. Brilliant. In case you didn't know, Jason works specifically with our small group team here at Victory. So they do their best to create content to help those kinds of questions and discussions to understand what it is that we're reading along in the scriptures. Thank you again, everybody, for hanging out with us. We hope you enjoyed today. We're gonna make some more content. We'll see you soon. Thanks, take care.