Overcoming Infidelity: A Conversation With Carl & Laura Lentz // Michael & Natalie Todd

for the conversation we're about to have. Today is all about overcoming. Now how many people watching this right now, show of hands, even if you're by yourself, I need you to raise your hand if this applies to you. How many of us are overcoming something right now? That's me, that's you, that's everybody around you. And today, we get the privilege of having a conversation with a couple who me and Natalie have personally walked with in overcoming infidelity. As a matter of fact, they've written a book about it. And this book right here has literally transformed tons of people's lives and is about to transform even more. Today, me and Natalie have the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with our friends, Carl and Laura Lentz, and how they navigated overcoming, not just infidelity, but hurt, pain, frustration, lost. And today, I believe God's gonna do something in your life through their story that allows you to see hope for tomorrow, lift your head, and walk in transformation. Get ready for this amazing conversation and be ready for transformation. - Hallelujah. Today, we have something super exciting for you. - Exciting. - And I wanted, that was cute. Today, me and Pastor Natalie wanted to help people practically understand through a conversation how God can transform your bloodline.

One of the things that we decided as a church that we were gonna be humble, open, and transparent, that we weren't going to play church and then act like what's going on in real life, ain't going on in real life. How many people dealing with some real life right now? Like some, okay, we're in the right building. And so we decided that for every person that wanted to transform their life, we would have experiences, but then we would have moments to actually dissect how to actually walk it out in real life. There's too many people that have great praise moments and don't have any practices that have great experiences with God and can't execute and be obedient. And so after we did this whole bloodline conference and we heard Pastor Travis Green preach probably one of the best messages I've ever heard in my life, I literally texted him this week. I was like, wow, in like 50 emojis. - 10 messages in one. - Yes, it was powerful. But then how do you actually change the trajectory of your life, your bloodline? When you're in a valley, has anybody ever found themselves in a valley before? Okay, can we be real honest? How many people are in some type of valley right now? And okay, I love my church.

'Cause we're gonna actually talk about it. And today we wanna do that. The experience we had was V5 conference and I just wanna put this note in there for those of you who desire to be with us June 16th, 17th and 18th. They told me that early bird registration ends tonight at midnight and over half the tickets are already sold out. Okay, so if you wanna come to conference, text V6 to A2, A2, A2. Even if you're a pastor or a leader watching this, it change your team by getting them in an atmosphere that'll transform their lives. I want you to be a part of that. Today, I thought it would be so beautiful if we had a real conversation. And that you're all about the real. Like you're all about like, that's a great praise Jesus. - Make it make sense. - Make it make, she sells that to me all the time. Make it make sense. - It's like being in a class and you're hearing from the professor, but then you find a tutor and they're like, oh, that's what they were talking about. I wanna know like what? No, how do you do that in real life? - And today we're gonna do that. And I thought it would be really cool to frame the conversation about overcoming. Today, I think that there's some people in here who have done some things, done some of the work,

decided I don't wanna live this type of life no more. Now you gotta figure out how to get over what has been in front of you. What if by this time next year, you are over what's in front of you right now? Come on, let me just set some vision for you. You are over financial trouble. You are over insecurity. You are over fear. You are over. What do you wanna be over? - Or not even over. Say it doesn't technically change. If your situation is something that you cannot get rid of, say if it's a family member, or say if it's a incurable disease for the season, it's something that you're now going through, but you're not going through it. It's not as heavy as it was before. You have different practices and things that you have with you. You have different people around you to where, it's not affecting you the same way that it was. - And so today, we wanna title this conversation the opportunity of overcoming. If you need a sermon title, it's the opportunity of overcoming. Where in your life do you have an opportunity to overcome? And we thought there would be no better couple to come and talk to us about the real nitty gritty of overcoming than somebody that me and Natalie

have personally walked with for the past four and a half years and watch them overcome public scrutiny, mistakes, sin, failure, frustration, learning a new path, being submitted. I've watched this couple literally in real time live this thing out. And today, we wanted to have a humble, open and transparent conversation in front of the world, but really our church family to be able to help somebody else overcome. Transformation Church, would you stand to your feet and help me welcome our very own Carl and Laura, lips to the stage. (crowd cheering) - Our friends, let's go. - I haven't got to hug you this morning yet. Hey girl. (crowd cheering) - My brother. Y'all take a seat. Today, we're going to do what most churches don't do. We're going to tell the truth. (crowd cheering) - That's serious. - Yeah, yeah, we're going to tell the truth in, before we get started, number one, thank you. Thank you for doing this. Number one, when we talked about this idea of overcoming, and I got, I was like, we got tens of thousand people that literally are changing their bloodlines,

and they want to do this thing, and your whole thing to me was like, oh really? They really about that life. Carl's kind of like, he's not white, he's like vanilla, with a little, I don't know what it is, he's got a-- - What is it? Like a, yeah, like a-- - It's got some milk chocolate in there. - He's talking with a lot of creamer, but he's talking to me, you know? - But he literally said to me, he's like, are they about that life for real? 'Cause he said, you know overcoming takes work. - And I love that the book is called Overcoming Infinite, not Overcame, or we did it. - The people don't know there's a book. - Oh, sorry about that. - So what I'm telling you, is-- - Spoiler alert. - Part of-- - I mean, it's right here on the desk, I mean, come on. - Matt, but you have to set things up, if you don't set it up, then-- - I'm going to say this, I don't do this often. - We see. Part of, part of why this is perfect timing is because this Tuesday, in every bookstore around America,

Carl and Laura are releasing Overcoming Infidelity. Come on TC, go crazy. Now, if y'all knew the miracle of this, it's crazy. - Oh, we're gonna talk about how this is a miracle. - Yeah. - For anybody to make they book title, those two words, it means that God did a work that could not be by man's doing. It took man's participation, but literally their testament out of the fire is a book not just for themselves. They could have literally, he had to be like, we're whole, we're healing, and we're gonna do this, and no, they said we're gonna use what God has done in our lives to transform somebody else's life. And so today, just as we would support Pastor O, or just as we would support Pastor Charles, I want you to go out, this is TC's very own, and I want us to help get this book into every person's hand that needs it, and may need it, and don't know they need it. - When I tell you this couple has nuggets, I mean, God has given them things that I just heard you just spill out, just on the fly, and I'm like, oh my God. - But they earned it full price. - I mean, scars, to be there, you can't lie about it. I mean, the truth is the truth. - So we're gonna let them talk. - Yeah, we are, okay.

- So, Carl, Laura, why overcoming infidelity as the book title? - Firstly, thank you for having us. This is really special. - We love you. - Oh, one, this is the first one. - I'm good, I'm good. I'm good, I'm solid, it's our church family, and our lives were radically impacted here. In so many ways, and you guys are just really, My daughter's, you know, we're able to-- Lord Jesus, help me. They were able to find a fresh touch of God's grace here. And we were able to heal here. Thanks, babe. We're able to heal and continue to heal because of this church family. And so thank you from the bottom of my heart. We love you. It's a real honor to be up here today. Surreal, in many ways. I think we called it overcoming infidelity because it is something that we're learning. There's some things in life. You're not going to get over it. And there's beauty in that because of Jesus. We can overcome this until the day we see him again. And that gives you space to be able to heal appropriately. No, trust me. I had marketing ideas.

And at the end of the day, it was like, no, let's just call it exactly what it is because this isn't a self-help book. This isn't a how to have a great marriage book. This is how to overcome something that should destroy you. And the principles can help anybody. But I wanted to have something cool, like coming out of the darkness. Or a new day has dawned. And then that's working out. You're like, no, this ain't that. If you want to overcome this, here's some things that we found. And it's a way for people to heal through something that is just awful. And it's a credit to this woman next to me, the bride of my life, the woman that has stood next to me. She did not have to do any of it. I'll get there. It's just not lost on me, especially today. Because if you go through this, anybody who's ever gone through it, that's not the one that you ask for. Anybody gone through this? [LAUGHTER] You, she didn't ask for it. She didn't deserve it. She didn't have to stay with me. Doesn't have to stay with me. I'm still on one day contracts every day. [LAUGHTER]

But to not just go through it and to hold the humiliation of my actions that I put on my family, to stand and see what God might do. And then to start to heal and then choose to bring it out again, because it's not a great-- it's great, and it's not great. It's not a great thing to talk about all the time. And it's a beautiful responsibility that I have. I had to get permission from her to be able to say, babe, if you don't want to do this, we don't have to. We'd be happy in some respects just to go into whatever sunset there is. But Jesus, there's a thing about your testimony. And you don't have the right to curate it. As much as I would love to, you got to talk about it all. And this is a part of our testimony. And if it's true, we believe it is that God uses testimonies to help other people see Jesus better. There's an obligation to share not just the winds, but some of the ugliest losses. Because in there, there's winds that you can't see. So that's why I would call it that. And it's a credit to my wife, and I love you. Grateful that we did it. We feel good about it. It is what it is. At the end of the day, we're going to try to help as many people as we can with this. What you're doing is you're living out Revelation 1211. That says, we overcome by the blood of the Lamb.

But there's another part to the equation. It's the words of our testimony. The huge thing about that scripture is you don't get to tell somebody else's testimony and see the power. And the testimony comes once you've done some work. It's not just telling what I'm doing right now and how much it sucks or how I'm validated for what I'm feeling or going through. But once you've actually started doing some work, you can't help but want to share it. And today, as we get into the story of how God can use a horrible situation and allow you to overcome into a place of wholeness, healthiness, steel, dah, dah, dah. Like God's still doing the work. But you do not have to stay where you are. The one thing I want everybody to hear me say is the deepest value you think you're in right now. It is not cemented. It is not final. There is hope through Jesus Christ. And today, we want to share with that. But let's come up for a second because some people right now is like, oh, you going to talk about it? I want to do some hot questions real quick because these people-- we know y'all. But some of these people don't know y'all. So I need y'all to both answer some of these questions that will let us be able to-- So they know y'all are real people, okay?

Real quick. - This first one is questionable because it says basketball or football. Now, Laura, football is soccer. So are we saying football or are we saying soccer? - You asking a question? - Okay, basketball or USA football? - Basketball. - Oh, we do. - What about you, Carl? Basketball. - Of course. - Yeah, Carl used to be a hooper back in the day. - And don't say today, hold on, stop it. - The medical tends used to be. - I told y'all he was coffee with a lot of cream. - He did hoop with a lot of people. Okay, let me ask this question. Rugby or basketball? - Rugby. - Now the Aussie. (laughing) - Laura, what's going on? - What's going on? - Really? - What's going on? - Laura's from Australia. So that is kind of rugby. I don't even know how the game works. So we'll just keep going.

- What is OA, OA? I seriously wanna know. My kids wanna know. What is that? - Yeah. - It's just like, yeah, OZ, OZ, OZ, OA, OA, OA. - Just the name. - It's just something we do. - So you don't have a definition? - No, that's my definition. - Okay. - You gotta be it to know it. - Okay, cool. Okay, 80s rock or 90s hip hop? - 90s hip hop. - 90s hip hop, but a close second 80s rock. - Okay, okay, I got you. Okay. Coffee or tea? - Tea. - I've never had tea in my life. (laughing) Okay, this is gonna be a hard one. New York or Virginia? - New York. - I'm from Virginia. (laughing) And God called us to New York. So it's a tough one, but I'm from Virginia. - Okay, last one.

- 757, land of the greatest. Hit makers, beat makers. One of the most. If you know, you know. For real, Timberland. - Yes. - Betty Riley. - Missy. - Missy. - Wow. - Yeah. We'll talk about it later. Jesus was from Virginia Beach. - No, Jesus was not from Virginia Beach. (laughing) Bethlehem. Okay, here we go. Chelsea boots are tennis shoes. - Tennis shoes. - Chelsea boots. (laughing) - Carl's foot is shaped like this. - Yeah. - I mean, it is molded. I love it. I think that it's cool to be able to find out real things about people, but if nobody's ever heard of y'all, like give me a cliff note version of what God has done and what has happened in the last decade of your life.

The only reason I'm saying this for anybody that doesn't know is it's hard to understand what you overcome if you don't put it against a real backdrop of the real thing that's happening in your life. And so give us the cliff notes of who y'all are and what has happened. - Oh, you could give that one to me. Thanks, love. I mean, a long story. Never can be short. We were called to New York City to plant a church and we did. And it was the most beautiful thing in our life. It was a real revival. As nothing like it before, it won't be something like it after. And to see God do what he did was beautiful. We went there with three little babies and we raised our kids there. And it was awesome to see God move. And the fruit of it, you can't question. You know, when God moves, he moves. Meanwhile, the couple running it was 50% solid. And on my end, I made choices throughout that cost us dearly. And it's never a backslide. It's just a slow erosion. And in my life, I had things I was not honest about. And I began to lie about things

that simply needed to be in the light. And the lie is really not what kills you. It's the lies you have to tell after to manage the lie you told. And over time, you lied to yourself and you lied to the people you love. And I broke every vow that mattered to my wife, broke every vow that I made to God as a minister. And there comes a day where God will rescue you from that. And some people have looked at our story and said, "Oh, it's a crash and burn." I say, "Well, unless you're us." It was an airlift from a wreckage of my consequence. And over the years, God has given us an opportunity to live again, to breathe again, to find hope again. And there's a chance that everybody gets to make. That's the beautiful thing about Jesus, is that the moment you put your hand up and surrender, you get to do that all the time. And so our story has been one of me, we've had different journeys to heal because Laura did nothing, but do everything she said she would. Kept every vow, kept every metric that we put out there that means healthy. And what you don't own, God cannot heal. And there's a moment when you look around your life and the consequences of your actions, the sin that you have kept hidden, and you have an option.

You can point, and you can deflect, and you can almost try to rationalize, or you can say, "This is on me." In that moment, I think God says, "Now it's us." And I think there's healing there, and that's just been our journey of just trying to cut off whatever it might be, whatever it might be said, whatever this might look like, because someone told me a long time ago, you can't save your life and your face at the same time. Which will it be? - Adding some bar, say it one more time, 'cause somebody needs to write that down. - You cannot save your life and save your face at the same time. And it's very tempting, because when you are broken and your whole world is burning down, you want to defend some things. You want to snap back at some things. You want to deflect some things. Or you can try to save your soul and let God renew what he's done in you, because any energy you spend explaining, rationalizing, or defending, that's energy not being spent on healing, dependence, surrender, and to it can't be either or. So we by the grace of God had the strength to just focus on one. We're gonna try to have God renew us. And we're not gonna, our face is gonna. Reputation that we work so hard to build, shatter,

family humiliated. What are you gonna do with that? And that might not be your story, but everybody comes to those moments where you're holding something that's not ideal. What are you gonna do? - What are you gonna do? - Yeah. - Laura, let me ask you this question. He just said it, you did nothing, except everything you were supposed to do. Obviously there was hurt, obviously there was damage. How did you decide to stay hopeful? Or how did you decide to even want to overcome? Like some people when it comes, it's like, I didn't do nothing, this ain't my fault, this happened to me. God bless you, go work your own situation out. What is a decision to overcome for a woman who has been hurt like you were hurt in that situation? - And also speak into, not loading you up, but also speak into that whole stereotype of like, if you do decide to stay, you're getting judged by other women and other people of what strength and power that actually takes, like speak to that as well. - Yeah. - It took a choice, it was a choice for me. And I really had to weigh that up because he had made these decisions that ruined our life.

And then I had to stand there going, what am I gonna do now? And when you're in that moment, it is absolutely devastating and humiliating. But I went to this amazing place where I was able to get some incredible help and therapy pretty early on. And I came back so ready and strong in myself. And I stood in front of him and I said, I hope you go and get the help you need and you heal. I'm going to stand here and heal and I'm gonna do my work to become the woman that I know I am. And I will see you here or not. 'Cause I was just like, I am so decided that, 'cause I did not want to become a woman who grew angry and bitter and hard-hearted. 'Cause I'd seen that a lot in my past. And I just said to God, I don't wanna be that woman. I wanna do the work that I need to do to heal this. I wanna work on myself because, and this sounds funny, but I don't wanna save our marriage. It's not about our marriage. This is about me and about him, but it's about two healthy people going into this. When you are healthy, you will choose the right thing. And that was to stay together, but it took a long time for us to get to that place. - Oh, 'cause I'm a point man.

When you're healthy, you'll choose the right thing. I need everybody to stop. I need you to pick up right where I left off. But I need you to hear this. This applies to every area of your life. You're choosing wrong 'cause you're unhealthy. (audience groans) When you were unhealthy, you choose right financially. - You're choosing based upon your deficiencies. - Yes. - So, wow. - That right there, kid, What you spend your money on, who you answer the phone for, what, when you are healthy, your decisions change. And so you decided that, hey, whether you get healthy or not, I'm gonna get healthy. And what did that practically start looking like for you guys? - Before you answer that, how did you decide I'm gonna go to therapy? Like, a lot of women may not even think to do that. Like, it's your problem. You did this, and like, I'm shutting it off, I'm out. Like, was it someone you talked to, or? - Yeah, early on I had just this amazing woman just reach out, you know, when everything went down. And she was the first person I'd ever talked to in therapy. Like, I'd never, it was never a thing like, back when we were pastors, it wasn't really like what you did. That's for like people that really need work. - People that are crazy.

- Yeah, that's for really big heart. And so I never, it was never an option. And when you were in our position back then, I'm so grateful it's changed. I'm so grateful that landscape has changed now for pastors. But for us, we just didn't really know it was an option, but she said some really practical things to me first up and was just like, you need to just sleep and eat. Don't forget to eat. And don't make any life-changing decisions right now. The first 30 days, because your body is in shock. And that saved me, I think, because then I decided I'm just gonna take this one day at a time. And he is gonna have to prove to me that there is gonna be evidence of change. And he did that. This man went straight away and you know, there's two ways that this can go. It's either he goes and keeps doing what he's doing, or he humbles himself, he gets the help he needs, he reached out to certain people, and he got the help he needed right away. I didn't have to do anything, and he did that. So that was the moment where I was like, okay, I see that this man is broken. And I also love this man. I've been married to this man. We have three kids. We've been together for 18 plus years at the time. And I was like, I've got this chance right now

that I can walk away, 'cause that's hard, or I can heal, and that's hard too. There's no easy option in this. And so I chose what I chose, and I saw that this man was broken, and there was parts of his humanity that had never been dealt with before. From a little boy, there was some things there, and we talk about it in the book. But he was able to go and start to heal these little, these broken pieces of himself. And that was where I saw the beauty in his healing, and that was the evidence I needed to see change. - That is so beautiful. - Good. - I need to tell everybody real quick PSA, at this church, we believe in theology and therapy. You should give yourself a Christmas gift. Go to counseling. And I'm talking about like, if I say, give yourself a Christmas gift, go get a massage, people would start shouting, and praising, or go get a staycation. But the truth of the matter is, there's places in you that need to be healed. Watch this, that you don't know, you have permission to actually heal. And nobody's coming back to do it, except you. We can have three claps for that, but you will still walk around in cycles that nobody will be able to pray off of you.

- Right. - And so what I want you to know is that as pastors, as leaders, as people who have seen God move in miraculous ways, their deliverance did not come in a prayer meeting. It started in a prayer meeting, it started with people believing for them, but it took actual work. And I just want to say like, the work is worshiped too. I'm gonna say it one more time. I just want to worship God. Then you have to actually do the work. - That's the hard part. - That's the hard part. She has to listen to this lady that was sent back to me. Had to be humble enough to submit and to do this. And so from my church, anybody that's watching that's not from this church, God bless you, everybody, you have six months to get in counseling. Like you need to go talk to someone. Even if you sit there and be like, I don't know why I'm here. - Which I did for about three years. - Four years. (laughing) - How dare you? - This is true, it's the truth. The reason I'm saying that is what you don't watch this, what you don't allow to be transformed, it transfers.

- I know this conversation is getting so good and we're going back to it. I need to let you know. Overcoming infidelity is out everywhere right now. This book is literally a testimony. We've said it, but we overcome by the way. that lasts, He has somebody write it down. That's why we have the Bible. That's why we have a Constitution. That's why we have certain books that will outlast us. It's because it's the testimony. And today I want you to go and purchase from Amazon or anywhere books or so this beautiful book because I first hand watch these two people overcome. Not just infidelity, but heartbreak, troubles, challenges, and they are on the other side walking and healing and wholeness. And maybe you need this message. So right now, go ahead. If you got YouTube, keep playing and then like do the screen thing and go to Amazon and order it right now and tell them how somebody sent you. This book is going to transform your life. Now back to the message. And I'm just telling you, I have seen God do a work in our lives and their lives and so many others who decided I'm going to do something that's uncomfortable. If my miracle is coming through a therapist or counseling, would I accept that? And if you would decide that, it could transform your entire life. I want to, what you got? I got, okay, you said the lady told you not to make any life-changing decisions for 30 days and that was speaking to your, what we had said earlier, but it triggered the thought of when you're in a traumatic situation or something kind of big trauma happens to you, if you're in a car accident, right then you don't need to decide, you know, major decisions. You have just been impacted in a major way by something and so your decision making is not going to be sound. And the other thing was the statement once a cheater, always a cheater. And I remember even in our story when relationship goes, don't bring me into this. This is about Carl. Okay. In part of the book in relationship goals, before we was married, before we were married, okay, listen, picture face, because the hurt was still the same, okay? I'm just playing. Hello. Okay. No. But one thing that I know, or that I really wanted to, at least for me, when I talked to younger girls, because I've been with Mike since, you know, you said you've been married for 18 years, but you guys have known each other years before that. And so, me meeting Michael at 14, and then they're like, you know, I got this 18-year-old, she was like,

well, you know, some sort of just happened with my boyfriend and I don't know, like, but it turned out this way for you guys. And like, I hear once a cheater, always a cheater. And my response to that is really it is based upon what they do. And so, when you were saying the choices that Carl was making helped you decide what to do. And I remember crying out to God and saying like, I will leave, I will leave this relationship if you say so. And if I don't see the changes happening in him, and it's got to be self-motivated by the offender, whether that's male or female, it has to be self-initiated. And I just wanted to speak to that because a lot of women and even men have that same stigma. And it is not the truth if you see the work. If you don't see the work, then you've got to hold another conversation to happen. That was my two cents. Can I say something too? Because I think it's also very true a lot. Well, that's true. What's the attic always an attic? I get you. Here's what I mean. It's also very true. And I think what I saw Laura do often was, I mean, you told that story very sanitized. When she came back and said, I'm going, I will never be here again. So, I mean, still, I can still remember it. And the switch that she told me she made was, I'm not going to get healthy, so that will be okay. I'm going to get healthy because that's what I am owed. And that's who I want to be. I hope you make it. I was like, well, matter of fact, I'm headed to read out. And you have to unattached from these outcomes because there's a lot of people, even in the man's position, like, I'm going to do all this. But if you don't stay with me, well, what was your motive? It's still backwards. And so on my end, which is much different, this is the same conundrum of like, well, I got to get healthy. And there is zero guarantee that I'm ever going to, you know, be with my wife again or ever be able to look at my kids in the face. I mean, you got to make these decisions outside of outcomes and say that Jesus is the thing that's certain. Yes. So, I'm going to choose this. And that's when you start finding out what you really trust. And I just saw her do that and just say, I'm going to, I'm not going to wait to see what you do. And then she got great advice, which is don't just hear words. The words matter. I'm sorry. It's show me the money all day every day evidence that you can see that you can measure that you can track and whatever It is on that that's what I have to provide What is it there's the evidence and that's what saves? I think a lot of people from getting caught in that cycle of once a cheater always a cheater

Well, there's also another reality once a cheater God renews God heals the brain rewires patterns can shift. Yes. It's very dangerous. It's very risky It's not all that common Unfortunately, and God is incredible. Yeah, Jesus is a healer He's the lifter of our head the Holy Spirit is what can be in dial in things that therapists could never do an expose a Documentary can never show you want to talk about healing. I Don't I mean I know people do it without Jesus. I just don't know what that road would look like Yeah, and so I think I just want to speak to her bravery because it's not like it's okay I'm I'm in this. It's like no. I'm here and we'll see And we always had that funny phrase. We could always get divorced next week. So on the way there Let me just see what what you got going on over there. That was really Laura's posture Like I'm definitely gonna do this, but you know, I'll think about it did her strength and her coming to this resolve and Continue to grow and go to therapy did it challenge you in a positive way, you know But it challenged you to like oh, I got to stay on top of my stuff because absolutely I mean absolutely it puts the right kind of pressure on a man Because there is something about this what we've learned I mean we've been put right in the middle of this lane. We'll be there for the rest of our life We didn't ask for it. It was never like someday. Let's be really good at talking to people about infidelity It's like thank you. It's not on the vision board, you know, you're 23 But some of these things have to be clarified very quickly in the pressure you feel of a wife that is going to heal with or without you right It it it gets you it gets you in a different space as a man for sure So what it as a man what about hearing that statement that I've heard that you know that the trust or whatever is lost in Buck, it's getting back and drops. How is a man? Did you? Come to terms and the internal battle of like these drops are slow as heck And is it even worth it and so she has a bad day and she's like I don't even want to see your face today And you're actually trying so what we're gonna have right of those days. Did you Mike? Let me say I'll say something that's very profound. It's very viral. What camera? I'm just kidding. I Think there's something a lot of things struggle with you. You know what the key to overcoming infidelity is

Keeping your marriage vows That's the key Don't ever deal with it It's that simple faith faithfulness is actually very simple Sin is complicated lying is complicated Excuses are complicated and we make it like it's hard marriage is so hard. It's actually not hard Humanity and sin that's difficult So just needs to be said the best way to overcome infidelity is to never go through it And you can do that by just doing what you said day in and day out now if you miss the mark like I did I can relate That's just needs to be said because it's like and there is a there is a rhythm You can get as a couple where you realize I cannot control what she's gonna do with the man I'm gonna become so my life is real easy I don't know if if me becoming the man I say that I am in front of you will be enough for you to Trust me again, and I'm gonna do it. Anyway, and I did tell her after a while I was like hey if you do divorce me, I respect that just know wherever you go I'm gonna get a little tint and I'm gonna live right there on that block So whoever this next guy may be he's got to walk over me every day to go see my people And I'm gonna do it respectfully, but just know there's nobody else from yeah I'm so good. Where did you where did that come from cuz I'm who say even to you and some other friends like where does In a man where it comes to like Whether I'm doing these or whether you're showing me Approval or giving me claps for what I'm doing. I'm I'm here. I'm sticking with it. What? Got you there? It there's there's either shame or there's ownership in my shoes. There is no middle ground and There's a lot of men who maybe even in this room. I mean, no, no, but not in this room there is someone watching online who knows what it feels like to fail and On the outside looks like you got an over it, but inside you live with shame And it even found it even seems holy There's some Christians who shame on you and shame is appropriate For a moment. It just was never designed to be a home and and we we He's the one that takes shame off.

And I had to get a revelation as a man where it's like, for me to live in shame any longer is another selfish act. - Wow. - Because everything about shame, think about what it does to your body posture. Your eyes go down first. Your soul drops, and then your energy leaves. So let me get this straight, I've humiliated my wife. I have put my kids in a vulnerable position that they did not ask for ever. I've wrecked a lot of our, and now I'm going to be in shame. What's that going to do for anybody? And guess who's the star of that story? Me, again, conversely, I felt shame. This is awful, what's happened, it can never be undone. I'm going to own my role in this story, which is all of it. Therefore, God can use me to build back this. And you live here every day, you get up every day. I'm not, I don't know if she's going to trust me. That's not my job. She doesn't owe me that. But I do know that I got one job today. It's to be the man I said I was going to be. - Come on. - It's a very simple life. And after a while, hey, I'm just going to keep doing that and keep doing that. And if you look up and you believe me, thank you. Awesome, I love that. And if you don't, I'm going to do the same thing tomorrow.

And the same thing after that. And we say healing seems like it takes forever. And then it happens all at once. And then it seems like it takes forever. And then it happens all at once. That's transformation. That's what God said. Renew your mind. And then, no one talks about that horrible in the middle of when your mind is being renewed. It's like we talk about renewing and then the end product. But most of the Christian walk is the weirdness in the middle. Like I'm being renewed, I am. Okay. It's like when you see somebody's been, you know, working out hard for like months and they just see themselves. And then you haven't seen them. You're like, man, you're in great shape. They're like, I am. That's kind of what it's like when the Holy Spirit is building something and you may be nobody else can see it, but it's an inside job. And that's been our story. I mean, you've got to say it before you see it, before you feel it. You have to say the truth is I am overcoming this. Come on. That's what she did first. I wasn't there. I'll be honest with you.

I was like, I'm not overcoming any of this. This is over for me. So let me ask you this question because you guys decided to overcome and again, the opportunity of overcoming is a decision. You have an opportunity. You guys decided to overcome. Take the steps of crazy faith in the midst of being able to be offended all the time. How do you overcome? Because I know people, they're literally trying to overcome, but they're hearing the words of their family. They're hearing the words of people that may not know the whole story. They're hearing words of people who justifiably could have an opinion. How do you overcome when offense is available everywhere? How did y'all do it? Because if somebody makes a documentary about me. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Not only are these real emotions you're giving for any couple outside of people you don't even know. Yeah, I want to help people practically. How do you overcome when you could just be offended, mad, angry, frustrated? How do you do that? You first love. We'll say, how are you overcoming? Yeah, I think you really have to choose again. It's a choice to just, I mean, we went real inward for a few

years and just we focused on ourselves and our kids and our healing honestly. And it was really hard because I had people reaching out to me all the time and giving their opinion on, like, you should leave, you should, and of course I should. This is not for every woman either. We're not out here trying to be like, everyone should stay in a crappy marriage. Correct. That is not what we're doing. So I don't think every person should stay. But I, again, it was just one of those things that I had an assurance in my heart that I had to give this everything. And then if it didn't work, then okay. But I had no other, I didn't see anything else. It wasn't like he was still doing all of these things. He was actively changing and actively, you know, becoming a better man. And thank God for, you know, God's help. But that's what I fell in love with when we were in our 20s. He was that person. So that's why I still had that little, little bit of hope and faith that he was going to do that again and try to be that person. So yeah, you probably have a better answer. Did you get offended by anything? Did you say like, okay, I just wanted to be. (laughing) - Lori, I don't think it's hard to even articulate

the transition you have to make. And for us, we didn't have a choice, but it's at some point, you gotta weigh up people's opinions and then ask yourself, what's God's opinion of us? Do we believe that or not? And then you can start to make this shift when you actually can gauge your health on how weighty the opinions of others are. And that's why this book exists, by the way, because when you're broken and you're hurting, you ask questions like this. Like, why would we ever write a book? Why would we ever do this? And then as you heal, that shifts to, why would we not? Like, we've been through all, I mean, honestly, we've lived a life that has been relatively public and I'm familiar with a couple of opinions about me over the years. But it gets to a point when you made it through this, where you wanna look at people and say, it's not a callus, I don't care. We definitely care about what people think. I don't believe people when they say they don't. But it's how we care. So it's like, I hear you, I need you to know as well. Do you know what we've been through? Do you have any idea? So I appreciate it. But maybe that opinion is better served going somewhere else

because over here, I promise you. We are very clear on one opinion. What God says about us is a couple. And we believe that about ourselves now. We believe what God says about us. And that opinion is the one that gets you through the fire. So someone else's opinion might feel good today, might feel bad tomorrow. That's a tough way to live and I did live that life. As a young pastor, I thought I was doing a good job of holding opinions, turns out that wasn't the case. And it would eat away and you try to live a life to be explained. You try to live a life to make sense to everybody and it can wear you out on this side of the tracks. It's like we've got people that we trust. Their opinions hold major weight. Outside of that, it's like we appreciate you. We hold it with honor, but access, I'm sorry. - It makes me think of Romans 831, like at some time if you're gonna overcome, you're gonna have to say if God be for us, who can be against us? And I don't know, there may be somebody that's dealing or struggling with deciding to, you know what, I'm gonna overcome this. There are other people that may say, I need to do something else, but I want to see who I can be, healed. I wanna see who I can be.

And that sometimes comes down to you just saying, God, if you're for me, if you want this for me, it doesn't matter who's against me. And I've watched you guys walk this thing out in real time. And so, you got something? - Practically some things that I know that I saw you guys do is social media was like at a halt for a while. I feel like TV, for that matter was probably at a halt. - There were sacrifices. - There were sacrifices. There was places you guys moved for your privacy, for your children. - Listen, let's go there. How did you get to Tulsa? - How do you dream home? - Your dream home, the gathering place. - Tulsa, Oklahoma. - I love Tulsa. - Tulsa's wildly underrated. It is. - Tulsa's amazing. We would still be here in Tulsa. You do what you need to do sometimes for your kids and for the sake of what I went back to Virginia Beach where my family is to be with my family. - But Tulsa's awesome. - So how did you get to Tulsa real quick? Because I want to give everybody this title, the environment of overcoming. Some people right now are trying to overcome

in the same situation that the problem was made in. - Yeah. - In the same home with the same situation. And there's an environment that God strategically moved you guys into to actually overcome. How did Tulsa, how did Transformation Church, how did that-- - That applies to everything. - This is what I'm saying. - In anything. I mean, even thinking about-- - That's why I said it. - Yeah, even thinking about MJ, even thinking about MJ, the environment that we decide to have in our home who, what access I decide to have to my brain about what I'm listening and hearing, all that stuff actually, it matters not just to this specific topic. But back to what you're saying. - Yeah, that's why I say what I say. - I'll go first on this. I think a couple of reasons, Mike, but I will say, I will say you need to be around people that can still see you. They don't absolve your consequence. They don't endorse your choices, but they still see you long enough for you to find you again.

And maybe you can't move states and you can't have the resources to maybe make a location change, but you can get around some people who can look at you and say for right now, I understand what comes with you. That's really important because if you don't have that, it doesn't matter what people say, they're still thinking of you as what you did, rather than who you are or who you might become. And you need those people in your life. So for us, being you have been friends for a long time, we came here to visit. And really, we had written off church largely for a while. We're like, we're just gonna take a couple of decades off. I mean, church is beautiful. We gave our life to it. And it's painful right now. We couldn't. I respect the office. I respect the pulpit. Made decisions that put that in jeopardy. And people are right to wonder if that's real. I get that. But I know for me, it's if you're a chef, and you go to a restaurant, you see it differently. And that's how I feel about the church. I was like, I can't, I mean, our family, we tried to sit in church a few times early. And it was like, I looked down the road.

I'm like, I gotta get out of here. I don't know if my kids are, I mean, it just, everything in us, it was tough. And then we came here, and it was like, God opened up a different cloud of heaven on us. It was just different in every way. And a lot less white people that helps at times. And I love us as a people. (audience laughing) And God used this church in particular to help us go, you know what, it's so right for us. And as we came back from a visit, she looked at me on a plane and she's like, "Hey, I think we need to move to Tulsa." And I was like, "Do ya." And I looked over and she's looking at houses. And when my wife said something, she does it. Yeah, it's for better for worse sometimes. You know, it's like... That was like the first visit, right? And we found a place here and we came and just thought the most important thing is the health of our family spiritually. And if we keep going on this route, I don't wanna put my family in that position to feel like, 'cause God never failed us. Also, the church never failed us. The church is undefeated. It will remain undefeated. And I know we live in a day in age

where people wanna pick that apart. They're picking apart humans. It's not the church. The church is beautiful. And the church has been beautiful to us. There've been some people who have not been, but the church is the reason one of the things that God has done is use the church to help a family like us, you know? And we're no different than anybody in here. When you fall on your face and you go through some stuff that's really hard, that's when the church should rise. And a lot of it was, y'all representing that part of the church, but that's why we came because we didn't wanna play around with that. We needed to be in an increasingly, you know, encouraging atmosphere where we could get better. - Yeah, Laura, there's emotions coming up when we talk about that. What are those? - Well, yeah, because, you know, my church family that I grew up with, it, you know, going through infidelities real lonely, 'cause not everyone understands it. And, oh, and when we found this church, you guys were so supportive and so openly encouraging to us after, you know, a few years

of just being ridiculed by, it felt like a lot of people. And you guys stood up, you know, side by side with us. And with our kids, and it was the thing that changed our life. This place changed our life. Like the gathering place, Tulsa, it changed our life. And I will forever be grateful for that. And I think this is what Jesus wants the church to look like. This is what it should be. When people fall, this is what it should be. So, yeah. - Also, at the environment as a mom. So, I wanted to know. - Hold on, for you go there. I gotta say this. I told Carl when he came here for my birthday in 2022 that I'm okay getting blood on my hands. I said, if it's for my brother and the blood of Jesus covers us all, and you're bleeding right now, I'm okay. There's a blood that's stronger than that. That's on us, and I told him and Laura, I was like, I'm gonna stand with you 'cause when I read in the Bible, like when it says restore those gracefully, like less you be one to fall. Like, I just see, I saw all those scripture and I was like, like, either we're gonna be about that. stuff and it was like it was so odd to me that like when your brother falls, a brother would go protect his brother and again like you said don't condone all that other stuff but

see the kill and I just would ask the church like if we're actually going to see people radically transformed, they're going to need space to transform, especially if they're trying and I'm grateful that God chose us, I've never said this publicly but I'm grateful, people left the church, people did all kinds of stuff and it was like that's cool because that wasn't my assignment at that time, my assignment was to stand in front of and surround this team, I told our executive team, I said we're about to have some people come here and I need y'all to act like it was me, I need you to put all the equity that you would put on believing in, wanting to see this on them and to see what God has done because of this church, I want to thank you Transformation Church for never making this weird. No, I want to thank you, because of that, the fruit that's about to come from y'all's life is literally about to make hell be robbed of marriages that the enemy thought he was going to, y'all I need y'all to hear me, this message is literally going to transform lives because you guys decided to do the work and today I just want to say publicly how proud I am and again we're supposed to be talking about other stuff and we're going to have to do a part two conversation of this but I want to say that they came here and submitted to me as their pastor and it wasn't lightly, I mean things happened but we had a conversation to come in agreement because it's their family and it's our family, their kids are going to end up going the same school that our kids are going to go to, they are so concerned about their little babies, I'm concerned about my little babies and so we had to come to agreement and then elders of the church, our oversight, our executive staff, we had conversations with everyone and everyone was on board and bikes felt such a burden and a yes from God that anyone that we say that doesn't feel comfortable and you feel like this isn't what God has called you to, you can leave, we'll pay you three months as you go and find your way but this is what God told us to do. The reason I say this is because standing with people is going to cost you and the church is really good at praying from afar, sending prayers and sending well wishes but there will come a time where God is going to ask you to stand with somebody close enough to get their smell, their blood, their situation on you and I am grateful and the reason I have to say this is just because I want it to be known and I don't know when we're going to have this opportunity again.

Carl and Laura, I'm so proud of you because you didn't come here as who you were. You came here as broken people and you submitted. There were times that y'all wanted to do things and I said no and me and Carl had definite conversations about it. There was sometimes the conversation I was like, you said that to him, like not you but like he said, I was like you said that to Carl because I was sent here to protect somebody that was unhealthy at the time and getting healthier and needed to have somebody who could see up and around the corner and I can tell you that every time I said no, which was probably about seven times, like solid seven, maybe nine, but a solid seven where I was like it's not time for that yet, don't do that. This is nothing, both of them are older than me. He submitted to what I say to every single time because I was his pastor. He didn't come here as like, bro, you know I've been doing this longer than you've been alive or any of this thing. It was a humility and I want to say this because people who want to actually transform, you have to embrace humility daily and I watched you guys come here and say whatever you tell us to do. I'm doing this without the approval of what God is doing and now after a four year process of transformation under the scene, under the, just protection of what God did, there's beautiful fruit that has come from this. This book is one of those things and I'm telling y'all I speak this over you guys. The next five years of your life are literally to tell you in the back, but God said, "Say it now." There is an acceleration coming to your voice that God is going to restore the years, the enemy thought that he stole from you. He's literally going to put your voices and your story. This is just, this had to get done, but this is not the end of your story. This is not what you're going to talk about all the time. God's about to open up a vault of wisdom that's literally going to pour out of you with such ease because you did what most men and women won't do.

You humbled yourself under the mighty hand of God. And today, as your pastors, as a church, as people who love you, I just want to tell you how proud we are, it's going to be easy. It's going to be easy. Lord, it's going to be, it's going to be prophesied on the side. No, I'm just saying it's going to be easy. It's not going to be what we did before, because I know that's not your heart. You don't want that. I know you don't. And just because you don't want that, wouldn't God be just crazy to not do the exact thing in a different way? If it's podcasts, if it is a group of two women or two men. If it's preaching again. If it's not, God's going to do it, it's going to be easy, and it's going to feel good at the end of the day. He cares about your hearts, you know? You guys are awesome. I think, share a scripture that we were talking about this earlier, and I don't know what anybody's going through in here, but I do know if you claim to follow Jesus, they call it the farewell discourse. And Jesus, he's already had the Last Supper, he's hanging, and most scholars believe that he went on a walk to tell these last things to his guys. And God typically says the hardest things on the move anyway, and he says, "Take heart. Take heart. In this world, you will have trouble, but I've overcome the world." And I didn't see that until this side of the tracks, because I thought, "How epic and gangster of Jesus." Just in case you think some things are possible to get over, but not that thing, Jesus just drops by the way. Have good cheer, which he always said before he did something awesome, by the way, before

the people saw the miracle or whatever, he'd said, "And even in this situation, guys, take heart, pick up your heart, get courage, I've overcome the world. In this life, you will have a loss, you will have betrayal, you will have personal failure, you will have, but just in case it feels like it's going to suffocate you, please remember this, I've overcome the world, therefore, there is nothing that you could ever face on this side of eternity. If Jesus is running your life, it has to have the final say, no matter what it is, and it might be somebody's day, I mean, that's why we're sitting here, it's like, "Be cool to move on. I get that." And just as a living reminder, if you've ever been humiliated, so have we, if you've ever been through decisions so bad where it could have ripple effects throughout generations, I relate, and take heart. So when you get in that space, just remind yourself you're a Jesus follower, because of what he did, if you've given up, you don't have the right to give up. You lost that right when you became a follower of Jesus to give up. If you've been an addict for 10 years, today is day one. If you have wrecked five marriages, today is day one of you being a healthy man. I don't care what it is, how long it's been, take heart because I've overcome the world. There's power in that, and I've had to sit in that thing. Because sometimes the biggest thing that I've overcome is the image of yourself. And that's a battle every man, every woman has to fight on their own. Nobody can get you out of that one. God's giving you the power, but you've got to leave a service like this. You've got to leave a failure like that and look in the mirror and say, "Because Jesus said this." Okay, I'm going to say it too. Before I see it, before I feel it, I'm going to say it. I will overcome this. This person left what I will overcome this.

And because that's true, one foot in front of the other. One day, stack it on the next day, stack it on the next day. We looked at each other the other day. We just, after like, it come quite a long way. Who would have thought? Yeah. I tell you who would have thought. Somebody say I will overcome this. Come on, say it with faith. I will overcome this. Can we thank God for calling the Lord, sharing soul? Oh, come on, y'all. This is beautiful. Let's stand all over this place. Come out here. Grab the hand of somebody next to you, please. This is a beautiful moment. We're about to leave in just a second. I pray that whatever God is doing in your life, one day it will become a testimony. We could have talked for three and a half hours. We didn't even start to talk. I have seven pages of questions, and I asked three. Because this really is not just about Carl and Laura overcoming. This is about us overcoming. And the opportunity we have in God would think so much of us to be like, yeah, I'm going to interrupt the normal schedule program and give you an opportunity to face what may be you've been ignoring. You know, a mountain could be on this side, and you just never look at it.

Some of us have been looking away from what hasn't moved. And maybe in this conversation, you might have the courage to turn towards it and say, you know what? I actually can overcome this. I can overcome depression. I can overcome this feeling of loneliness. I can overcome needing somebody all the time to feel peace. I can overcome this addiction. I can overcome people pleasing. I can actually, whatever it is for you, I can overcome living in debt. I do not have to be living paycheck to pay. I can overcome whatever it is for you. Maybe you've thought this is just a part of my story. And today, the reason why we brought this topic to you is because infidelity is one of the hardest things statistically to overcome. And if these two came, we've seen Bree and Erin do it. That's going to put me in the category too. And if we have, not just like, I just, God's no respect of persons. Today, what do you need to turn to? Before you turn to that mountain or to that thing, can I invite you to turn to Jesus first? Because that literally is the word repent. Repent means to turn. And a lot of times we turn to things before we turn to the king. What I'm saying is the only one that can help you overcome the mountain is the one who made it. The one who knows how to navigate it. So you dealing with loneliness today? Turn to the king first and say, God, this is the mountain we got to go over.

And he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all about that mountain. The reason why we can do this, we don't serve a high priest that does not associate with everything that we went through on this earth. In his 33 years, he went through every human emotion so that he could know how to relate and help us overcome. He knows the past we have to walk to get over what's been in front of us. And so today, I want to invite anybody that doesn't know Jesus watching online in this room, maybe a friend invited you, maybe you've walked away from God. You need to turn to him. Today, I want you to invite him into your heart and we're going to pray. Carl's going to pray for us. And he's going to invite you into a relationship with the only one who can change you. And then after he prays, I'm going to pray for anybody who needs to overcome something. And then we're going to go home and we're going to overcome on some food in the name of Jesus. Yeah. But today, I want to introduce you to the bread of life. His name is Jesus. Carl, would you just lead us? His back head all over this place, unless you're ready to make a change today. So I don't know where you're from, I don't know your background. I'll tell you this, we've made salvation complicated. It's the acceptance of the grace of God. you don't have to go fix yourself up and then make this decision two years from now. So right now, wherever you are, if you're ready to accept the grace of Jesus Christ, it's one change of mind. The way you've been thinking about Jesus, change it right now and just imagine for a moment that it's true what is said about this man. He is the bread of life. He is the Messiah. He is the chainbreaker. He is the one that can lift your weary head. He's the one that can forgive your sin in the blink of an eye. Will you accept his grace? Not will you work for it. He work for it.

Yes. Not will you prove it. He's proven it. Right here, will you just accept the gift that is the grace of Jesus Christ, salvation? I'm going to count to three. That's you. Just lift your hand real high so I can see it. I'm going to pray for you. One, two, three. Where are you? Lift your hand all over this place. Shoot it up. Let's see it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You can put your hands down. Church can give these people a huge hand for the biggest decision anybody could ever make in life. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. And then if you will pray with me, just for one more second church, just bow your head wherever you are. I'm going to lead you in a prayer. Keep in mind, this prayer is not what saves you. The grace of God already has. This prayer just starts to align you right now with the God that just changed your whole world. To say this with me, Jesus, I accept your grace. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for forgiving me. It is a new day in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Come on. Let's give God some praise on this place. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Oh, come on. You can do better than that. Heaven is rejoicing right now. As we stand here, the last thing I want to pray for is if you're overcoming something right now that is in front of you, and you know that you need God's help, would you just lift your hands all over this place? Yeah. I knew this was the right conversation for today and those who are online. Father, I pray that you would touch our ability to trust you. Like the truth of the matter is God, if you've overcome the world, that means our situation is nothing for you. Today, God, let us trust you for real. Help our unbelief. You really can do something in our situation. Let us hope again that I'm praying for everybody under the sound of my voice. Something that was said in this conversation or in this moment would spark transformation for them. I declare testimonies to erupt in this house, not because we wished for them, because we did the work, and we worshipped, and we waited. We did the work, and we worshipped, and we waited, and as we did that over and over consistently, God, you did something that no man could take credit for. Today, lift up the heads of your people. Lift up the heads of your people. You are the lifter of our heads. Today, we're here at this altar, wherever we are in our car, in this church, wherever we are, it's an altar today. God, we're asking you to take whatever is not like you, and rewrite our story. Have your way. Jesus name. Look at me, everybody, real quick. I heard God say that while I was praying, and I want you to pray practically through that. He said, "I want you to do the work. I want you to worship, and then I want you to wait." This is something that practically you can take to overcome. I want you to do the work that may be

signing up for counseling right after this service, that may mean talking to a pastor or a leader, that may mean signing up for a small group, a tribe, and actually going to it, because we're good at signing up for stuff, but it won't show up. Sign up and show up. Come on, let's be for real, and maybe that's the practical step, but then I'm going to worship. God, I've not changed yet, but I worship the God who can help me change. And then I'm going to wait on you. The reason I say wait is because a lot of times we try to rush what takes time to be able to actually do and do well. Nobody rushes a heart surgery. Nobody rushes me replacement. Nobody says, "I got to be somewhere at three o'clock and y'all hurry this up." Why? Because you know it takes time I haven't left you on working on you. Well, God, I thought by the end of the years, stop using these man-made metrics to be able to quantify of God's doing a miracle in your life. Today, I just want us to do the work, worship. I want us to wait. Thank you, Lord, for what you did in this place today. Thank you for continuing to do the work. Thank you for transforming our lives. In Jesus' name, somebody say, we agree. We expect a man. Transformation Church, can we thank God for Lord and call, being so vulnerable and helping us overcome. [MUSIC PLAYING] (logo chimes)