Radical Transformation From Crime and Addiction to Ministry | You Are Loved Podcast

stories in the hopes of encouraging you to keep going no matter how hard it is and to show you how loved you are by your heavenly Father. This week I have the honor of sharing with you Ben's story. When Ben was a child it was prophesied that he would be a pastor. He enveloped that calling, he dreamed about it and planned for it but then the church began to disappoint him and he blamed God instead of people. He knew he was supposed to be a pastor but because of the pain from the church he ran from that calling. When Ben no longer had the thrill of seeking God he began looking for other things to satisfy that need. Ben started using drugs, joined a gang and committed crimes that took him in and out of jail many times. He pushed his loved ones away and surrounded himself with people who further corrupted him. He lost who he was and forgot about the man that God called him to be. After many years Ben felt like an empty shell alone and considered ending his life but God wasn't done with him. In desperation he cried out to the Lord not knowing if God would answer but instantly the Lord did and didn't bring up Ben's past only his future. Watch to see how Ben was redeemed and what his life is like today. So tell me a little bit about yourself. Well my name is Ben Irvine. I am a pastor with True Purpose Ministries. I guess my title would be Campus Pastor so I kind of bounce around to all of our campuses and sort of just do whatever they need me to do at different campuses but I spend a lot of time teaching class. I teach about six hours a week so three three two-hour sessions of class a week and then I spend a lot of time counseling. So I get to work a lot of one-on-one time with the men that we minister to at True Purpose. It's awesome. It's awesome. So I'm married. My wife Paige also is works at True Purpose as the women's executive director and so we get to do ministry together and her and I are also the founders of a ministry called Exodus Ministries which is a ministry towards global missions, training in the five-fold ministry giftings and deliverance. Awesome. Wow that's amazing. So tell me a little bit about what your old life, your life before all of this happened, what that was like. So I like to start at the very beginning because my testimony sometimes feels a little

different than a lot of the men and women that we administer to at True Purpose. A lot of those people that come that we minister to have never grew up in any kind of background with training in church or any kind of training in the Bible or know really who Jesus is. A lot of them don't but but that wasn't my story. I grew up in a Christian home. I had two godly parents who loved God. We're determined to take our family to church. Anytime the church doors were open, have a long heritage of actually many preachers and pastors and people in ministry in my family. Matter of fact my great-grandmother was an ordained minister in the Wesleyan church and she rode horseback every Sunday to three churches and preached three different churches every Sunday. So and she kept a lot of those churches alive during hard times in the country when a lot of churches were closing and dying in that time. But anyways that's kind of a legacy that was that's been passed down through my family and I remember as a young boy I specifically remember at five years old knowing that God had a call on my life that God had called me into the ministry of five. I remember hearing his voice to tell me that he was gonna use me and I remember growing up my parents would always tell me about this time when my when when they had taken me to church as an infant to dedicate me to the Lord. It was a baby dedication service and my great-grandmother who was the ordained minister prophesied over me. They talked about how she held me up like like Simba and the Lion King and over her head and talked about how God was going to do these great things in my life and I would even even preach the the gospel and other nations and things like that. And so I knew as a young boy that God had a calling on my life and I remember in kindergarten even like other kids standing up and talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up and all these things they would say astronaut, NASCAR driver, police officer, but I said I'm gonna preach the word of God. I knew that as a young boy but what happened is that along the way I think a lot of people have these similar things happen to them is that I began to get hurt. There was a lot of hurt and pain that happened in my life. A lot of it started even with people in the church

church that did things. of that are too important, but I did something that I know that a lot of people I've seen do what I did, and they made the mistake that they began to, or like I did, I began to attribute what people were doing to me to God be in that way, because these were church people, even pastors, even people who were elders or important people in the church, and they did things, and so then I began to, as a young person, begin to think, "Well, if they're like that and they represent God, they work for God, God must be like that." And so, and that was a deception, that was a lie from the end of me, but I believed it. I began to believe that in myself, and so as I began to allow this bitterness and this hurt and anger to harbor inside of me, it began to push me, I began to push myself really away from God, and I remember when I was, I don't know, somewhere around 14 years old, something had happened, and I just said, "God, that's it, I'm done, I don't want nothing more to do with you anymore, because I'm just tired of this hurt, and the church just keeps on hurting me." And so I said, "I'm going the other direction, God. I remember saying to God, I know that you have called me, but I'm going the other way. I'm going to go as far as I can in the other direction." I've kind of always looked at my life as similar to Jonah, because Jonah had a call on his life, and he knew what God had told him to do, but he said, "I'm not going to do that." And I could relate to that, because I did it, and Jonah, it went to the farthest place that he could go that was opposite the direction of where God had called him, and that's sort of how I made up my mind, that I was going to go the opposite direction. And so when I did that, it didn't take long for my life to start to spiral out of control. I began to hang with the wrong people, because I stopped going to church and the youth group and the friends and the things that I had there, and I began to hang out with people who had no godly upbringing, no desire to follow God. And the Bible says that a bad company corrupts good character. And so when I began to spend time with people that were bad company, it began to corrupt who God had made me to be, and I began to be more like them. And I started getting involved in drugs and alcohol pretty early on.

Pretty innocent, I think, is what most people think it is, innocently trying, maybe smokes a little bit of marijuana, drinks some alcohol, smokes some cigarettes, and that's all stuff, all seemed fun in the beginning, you're just partying with your friends, everybody in schools doing that. But before I knew it, it started leading to more and more things, and where those things didn't seem to satisfy them, those things lost their thrill. I was chasing for something else, because I no longer had the thrill that came from God in my life. I was looking for something else to satisfy me. And also, there was an aching nagging pain in the background there that I had never let God really heal or satisfy in me, that had come from these things that had happened to me and things that had been spoken over me, things that had really hurt me. Even things that, even though my parents were godly parents, even things that they had said and done, they didn't intend to wound me, but none of us are perfect, no parent is perfect. And sometimes they can say even the best parents can say things that can stick with you the rest of your life, that you never forget those words. And there were things like that that were going on inside of me, and those things would feel the desire for me to want to get high or to get drunk so that I wouldn't feel the pain from those things. And then there was also, because I was running from God, there was also always in the background this sense that I was a failure to God, like I was letting God out, and I knew I was in rebellion to God, and I was not doing what, so I felt guilty over that even though I was also angry at God, I still felt guilty for not doing what I knew I was called to do. So by the time I reached 18, I mean, I was, as I became an adult, I was in full blown into this lifestyle, and I had all these friends that had nothing to do with God, and pretty much everyone I had surrounded myself was completely different from the people that I had at, say, 13 or 14. I had completely separated myself from the godly people, and I had nothing but ungodly people around me. And I ended up joining a gang.

And it started committing all kinds of crimes and going to jail, and for the next 20 years in my life from the time, well, basically from the time I was completely addicted to drugs and alcohol. I was like what they call a career criminal. I was in and out of jail all the time, incarcerated more than I was free really during that 20 years. And I did all kinds of things that the younger version of me could have never imagined that I would ever do. And I've heard it said that I preach or said I don't remember who it was, but he said one time that sin will always take you further than you want to go and keep you longer than you want to stay. And I can say that that is true for my life, that I never imagined that I would ever go down that road, and I didn't ever imagine that it would keep me so long. And one thing that I tell our men at True Purpose a lot is that none of us, just like when I was in kindergarten, and I said I wanted to be preach the Word of God, none of us ever when we're young want to stand up in front of our schoolmates in our class and say hey when I get older I want to be a drug addict and a career criminal. Nobody says that. But a lot of people end up having those that experience in life, but that's not what they want to be. But choices along the way steer you down a path. And so I remember just realizing one day how did I get here? Why does my life look like this? Am I ever going to get out of it? I remember sitting in a jail cell and I was just for such a long period of time just staring at the concrete wall every day after day after day and I just remember thinking to myself this is my reality. It's all my life is ever going to be because I can't seem to stop coming back here. I'm going to be always be here looking at this concrete wall. And that begins to put a seed in your mind that you're hopeless, that you have no hope

and you begin to lose any sense of how can my reality ever change. You know, along that way of addiction and committing crimes, all the things I was doing being involved in the gang and all that stuff that goes with that life. All along that time, I just begin to lose who I was. You know, I began to forget about the man that God had called me to be and I began to become like an empty shell of a person. There was a body there, but it was a shell that was just so empty inside and just didn't know who I was and I was longing and crying out for help. But I was very prideful to actually go to somebody for help, but my actions were saying that I was crying out for help. And I remember feeling very, very alone. Even though I always had all these people around me, I wasn't really a person that isolated. I was kind of like the life of the party really. I was always like a super friend. I'm an extroverted person, but extroverts can very much be alone inside. And I remember feeling that way because the people that were around me all the time weren't really, were not really my friends. You know, I thought that they were, now I say there's a few of them that are still my friends today, but most of them were just there for what I had to offer or what they could use me for or get out of me. But they weren't my friends and I think that even though at the time I thought that these people were my friends and I wanted to be around them, I think I knew even then in the back of my mind that they really weren't. And that's why I felt so alone, that there was nobody I could really count on, nobody I could really talk to, nobody I could really confide in the things, you know, the secrets in my heart that I wanted to tell someone. And I had the things that I was involved in, the things I was doing in that life had pretty much caused me to ruin and destroy every single relationship I'd ever had. I pushed all my family away, they were just done because I had lied so much, I had stole, I had betrayed their trust, I had flew off the handle and said, I mean, just everything

you can imagine, they had given me time after time. So many chances and I just kept on disrespecting them and abusing their relationship to where everyone was done and I had nobody left. And I kind of always look at that story, Jonah, and think about the time when it finally says that he said, what that must have been like When they did throw them overboard it said the storm stopped this ship sailed on and There's Jonah just floating in the sea by himself and that's how I felt. I Had been thrown overboard And then the ship sailed on and there was nobody there anymore to save me and that's the place I found myself when I was about 36 years old There's floating in this sea of sin of regret of addiction of a life of crime of loneliness of Not really ever knowing how to love anybody not loving myself just extremely selfish I mean all those things that go along with that life and I remember thinking There's nobody left to turn to Even though I knew God was there I thought well I can't turn to him because I already told him I didn't want nothing to do with him. Yeah But God was not done with me God Did not say he didn't want anything to do with me even though I told him I didn't want anything to do with him he was still there and I remember being in that place and crying out for help and my sister had called me and I had been in the basement living in the basement of a friend's house for a couple weeks and and And I had I mean I was completely alone. I had nobody else except this one guy who would really

Do anything for me and I was living in his base and I had planned my suicide. I was gonna kill myself And it was it was the day that I was going to do that and And I had this encounter with Jesus and He came into that basement and began to speak to me about who he said that I was and And in that moment as Jesus began to speak to me there were so many emotions and so many thoughts floating through my mind simultaneously to this encounter I'm having with him that I would go all the way back as he's speaking to me I remember going back to the times that I was growing up and my parents home and how they would talk to me about the Lord And they would tell me that the Lord had told him this or the Lord had said this or and I remember thinking about how angry Furious I would get inside when they would say those things to me because I thought that they were making that up I thought they were lying. I thought that they were just saying those things to try to basically trick me or convince me to Be to be a Christian that you know God says these things and speaks to you, but I had never heard God I didn't think he really spoke to people But I remember when he spoke to me that day in that basement my mind went back to that of all the times I've been so furious thinking that they were making that up and and now I'm like thinking no here he is speaking to me and it was Jesus Christ and People say well, how do you been? How do you know that it was Jesus that was speaking to you in that moment and there's only one thing? I know to say to that the only way I can put any kind of terminology or language to it is that when the king of kings and the Lord Lord speaks to you, you know, who's talking to you You know, I didn't really know Jesus on a personal level. I'd heard about Jesus. I grew up around Jesus I'd even thought that I was a Christian because my parents were But I didn't have a relationship with him, but when he showed up that day and spoke to me. I know exactly who was speaking to me That's right. I think it was kind of similar to that To a Paul on the road to Damascus. He encountered Jesus and and he knew who was talking to him Yeah, it was a powerful moment. Right. So in that moment the Lord began to speak to me about How you had this plan for my life? And I began to go back to my memory in that moment would go back to the things that I knew as a little boy And it was like he was reminding me of all these things and and I remember thinking in that moment. Wow I never thought God would talk to me

But I guess I kind of always thought in the back of my mind that if he did ever talk to me that he would be just Couldn't wait to tell me all the things I did wrong and how I'd let him down and how I'd Disobeyed all of his commandments and and he would be just waiting to judge me and to smite me You know with his judgment for all these things that I had done wrong, but but Jesus didn't say any of those things He didn't even bring any of that up the only thing he said about any of that was he said to me Ben You have thought that all these things that you've done in your life have caused me to give up on you But actually it's caused me to pursue you even more Wow, and I remember it Just being completely wrecked by that and then Jesus began to talk to me about being a son. He said you're my son And I've always had this plan for your life I promise you that we together we will make something out of this life together. I Will turn it around for you. Wow So I didn't know really know what to do with that. Yeah, I had dug such a pit That I just it seemed impossible to get out of I I had all these things going on in my life And there's so many more details I could go into but I don't really have time to go into it today Or really want to go or those things that I did but I mean my life was such a wreck that they're just in the natural It just seemed impossible. There was no way to ever come back from what I was going through But the Lord said that he was going to turn around so I said, okay, God. I said Jesus if You can do this Then you're gonna tell me what to do because I have no idea what my next even step is from here I was planning on into it at all because I was so completely hopeless And and Jesus said just trust me Well, I remember kind of coming out of that encounter with him and I mean literally within minutes the phone rang my phone rang It was my sister. I had my sister. It hadn't talked to me for a long time. My family had reached out as they were just done with me But my sister reached out in that moment Right after Jesus had just spoken to me and she said Ben. I Just got a meeting with our with our whole family And we talked about we want to get help you get help and she said there is a girl that I went to college with Who she was my roommate in college and her dad is the president of a of a recovery center in Indianapolis And we can get you in there right now if you're willing to go get help

And I knew I love that that was Jesus Answering literally just minutes before that he said he was going to tell me what to do if I would trust him And here she calls and tells me so I knew that was the path He was setting me for me and I said okay So I called the place and I set up the appointment went and ended up going into this recovery center and I didn't even make it. I don't think even a week before I gave my life to Jesus because I was so broken Yes, I was so broken. I was ready. I was just sick of the life I was in and as I went in there it was just like It was like the word of God came back to me because I grew up around it I had said in countless hours of sermons and pre-underpreachers and Sunday school and all these things even though I never really made it personal I still heard all that the seeds had already been planted and it was like I went into this program and I was so broken and It was like okay, I'm hearing the same stories, but yet this time it was ministering me in a completely different way because I was I actually saw myself as that broken individual who needed to hear that that story or that lesson and I remember I was sitting in the class one day and it was second Timothy chapter three was being taught on where it says in the Last day men will become all these things right in the lovers of themselves boastful pride, you know haters of good and lovers of bad and all these things that it listed off all of it And I remember sitting in there in the class and thinking God I'm every one of those I am every single one of those things that you just listed off in there And I just began to weep and cry and I said, well, I need you to save me I want to give my life over to you and I asked Jesus to come and save me and and Set my feet on on solid ground You know because it had been such a such a crazy road that I had been on and he did he did and and the next so I stayed in that program for for the next I think seven months that I was there after that and Man, they just poured the word of God into me similar to very similar to the program that I now work for and I just I just ate it up because I was so hungry I was so hungry for something and God began to show me that he was the answer to every problem in my life that I was having That every that every emotion that I was searching for something to counteract He was that Jesus was the answer to that emotion that every hole in my heart He was the one that would come and feel that he said he came to bind up the broken heart

Yes, they began to bind up my broken heart He began to heal me from all the things that that no substance that that no woman that no material thing could ever heal Jesus began to begin to become that for me while I was in that program So after I finished that program, you know, I came out a different person of course and I went home Back to my hometown and I started You know, I was a felon and everything so it was hard to find a job but I had this man who who was a good Christian man who was in my life and and he owned a painting business and he Gave me a job and I when I went to work for him And I and I was working for him for a few months and one day he just showed up And he never hardly came to the job sites. He would show us what to do. And then you wouldn't see him again until the job was over. But this day he just showed up, which was kind of strange. And I wonder what he's doing here. And he came over and he began to talk to me. He said, I was praying this morning, Ben, and the Lord puts you on my heart before me. And he began to speak to me about you. And he said that I was to take you to this meeting that I'm going to today. I have this meeting I'm supposed to go to, and you're supposed to go with me. And they said, the Lord said that there's someone there you're supposed to meet. And so I was kind of really shocked by that, because I wasn't used to people talking like that to me. I was always the guy that they said, stay away from. Take him with you and go meet people. So I said, OK, because I felt-- I really felt that God was on.

What he was saying was on that. So I went-- and I remember we went downtown to-- this time I was living in a town called Warsaw in New England. And that's where I was from. And we went downtown to this restaurant, and it had a banquet room in the back, and we went in. And I remember walking into that room, and it was just full of all the important people in the community. It was like the mayor was there, the judges. There was cops, the sheriff. I mean, lawyers, and just all kinds of people. And I remember immediately, I felt so nervous, because I'm like, what is this? And I sat down, and I'm really feeling anxious, because I had no idea what I was at. And then this man came out and began to talk about a program called True Purpose Ministries. And this man's name was Jeremy Graham. And I remember listening to him and thinking, who is this guy? Like, everything he's saying is so anointed. He's not even preaching a message. He's not even really talking about God, per se. He's talking about a program that's a faith-based program. But his words had such an anointing on them, that I was like drawn, like hanging on every word he was saying. And I remember afterwards, I said, I got to go find out who this guy is and meet him. And I went and talked to him, and we talked for like three hours

in the alley behind that restaurant. And I remember thinking, I don't know what this is going to look like or what God has planned here. But I feel something so strong on this that I just want to do. I just want to help this guy get this going in our town. And so I told him, I said, whatever you need me to do, I'll do, I don't care what it is. I just want to help see this get this going, because we have a lot of people that need this program. I needed this program, but there was nothing like this here. I had to go away to get help. And so he said, here's a bunch of brochures, here's business cards, just pass them out and talk to everybody you can about it. So that's what I began to do. And he would come up once a month, and we would have these meetings. And I would try to invite people to come to hear about it. And so he was talking to the community about getting this program started. But really what God was doing more than that was he was-- Jeremy was in my life and started fathering me as a spiritual father. He began pouring into me and helping me to understand things about the kingdom of God that I was struggling with. I was reading my word, and I was praying. And I was not understanding everything that I was feeling and seeing and hearing from God. And I would go to him, and I'd say, man, I'm hearing this. And he would help me understand what I was hearing,

what I was reading. And he just became a spiritual father. Now, at that time, I didn't even know what a spiritual father was. But he was that to me. So when was that? So that was around 2014, and 2014 gets. And so as the time would go on, I think about a year past of him coming up every month and doing that. And he would stay for two or three days every time, and just spend all the time with me pouring into me. But he started coming up, and he would start saying things to me like, man, I really think God has a place for you in this ministry. He's wanting you to be involved in this, more than just what you've done, but actually part of the staff. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, you're missing it on that. You got it wrong. You don't know, really know who I am. And I've ruined my name and my reputation in this community. No one would ever receive this if they knew I was involved in it. You don't want me. I've always failed all these people in my life. You know, those are the things I would say. And he's like, no. He's like, I'm telling you, God is saying that you really have something to offer these men that are going to come.

And then he began to say things like, it went from just being involved to like, I really think you're going to have a real role as a teacher in this program. He started getting very more specific with the things. Then he would say, I think you're going to be a counselor. I think God wants you to counsel these men to share what you've been through in your life. And so every time he would come, it was like it would go a little bit further, or stretch a little further of what God was saying. And I would go back and pray about that. And when he would say it, I would-- God would show me and I would be like, "Okay, maybe I can actually see myself doing this." - Yeah. - And so one day he came and he said, "Ben, the Lord has said that you are my guy here, that you are to be the program director over this program." That was like really, really hard for me to accept because I didn't even have a college education. I hadn't had any training to do that. I had no idea what it looked like to run a program. And I was just like, no, there's so many other people that are so much more qualified than me, that you've got to be missing it on this. He said, "Well, once you go and pray about it and see what the Lord says." And as I began to pray about it, I began to hear the Lord confirm that, that is what He was wanting me to do.

And He said, "Don't worry about your qualifications because I'm going to qualify you. I'm going to teach you." He said, "Did my Holy Spirit not say in the Bible that the Holy Spirit can teach you all things?" And I couldn't argue with God because when I went in the red, yeah, right there it is, that He will teach you everything. And so I began to go to what I would say. It's like the school of the Holy Ghost, that I just began to pray and spend time with the Holy Spirit and He began to show me things that were opening my eyes to see that I could do it and what I should do and that it really wasn't going to be as hard as I thought, that actually everything that I needed to do the job, He had already been depositing inside of me and all the things that I had been through in my life were actually part of the training that I needed to do this. And so eventually I said, "Okay, I'll do it." I was scared to say yes. - It should be scary if God's calling you to it, right? - Yeah, yes, 'cause it's outside of our comfort zone 'cause we need His strength to do it. - 'Cause if I was comfortable, I wouldn't need Him. - That's right. - But I said yes. And so we started True Purpose Ministries in 2015 up in Indiana and I ended up being the program director there for almost seven years. And to 2016, I took another step here,

here comes Jeremy again with another level. Like saying, I think you should consider getting ordained, going through an ordination process and becoming an ordained minister. And so I did that in 2016, I got ordained and it's just been a wild, a wild journey game since then. That's been, I mean, gosh, eight years ago, since I got ordained and the things that the Lord has progressively walked me through and allowed me to come into in that time period. It's just so true what God says in 1 Peter 5.6, He says, "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you in due season." And I made that resolve inside myself that I was going to live that verse. I was going, I said, "God, I'm going to humble myself under your mighty hand. And when it's time for me to do whatever you've got for me to do, I know you'll do it." And that's just been every season of my life. Sometimes you have to kind of humble yourself again and sort of feel like you're starting for a new season and he, but he exalts you in your due season, in your time. And I've seen that in everything that God has ever promised me up to this point. I've seen it, I've seen it come to pass. - It's amazing. - Even though you tried to run from it. - Even though I tried to run from it, you know. And just in the last couple of years,

I have traveled the world. I've been to Costa Rica twice. I've been a Dominican Republic twice. I've preached in Haiti. I've been to Wales, London. I've been to Cambodia. I've been to Australia, Singapore. And, you know, when Haiti was the first place I actually preached in another nation. And when I was about halfway through my message, I, all of a sudden it came back to me, my grandmother holding me up like this. I was just a baby, but the Lord gave me that vision and her and her voice saying, "He will preach the gospel in other nations." And I thought, I lost it. I almost couldn't finish the sermon because I'm like, God, you have brought my life from there to now you're fulfilling the prophecy that my great grandmother prophesied over me when I was an infant. - It's amazing. - And this is where God brought me to. And I've got so much more things that I know God is saying that he wants to do in my life. - You're just getting started. - I'm just getting started. - Eight years, you're just getting started. - Yes, I'm just getting started.

I'm gonna keep humbling myself under his body hand. - That's amazing, wow. I love that. 'Cause it is different than most of the stories that we hear. Most of those people didn't know early on that there was a call on their life, but we know that God desires for every man to come into repentance and to know him, right? But then what? Then share the gospel, right? And so how beautiful that you knew that, even though you ran from it, like God never let you get. when him fixing everything meant, suddenly everything was easy. But in one moment, he answered you. Yes. And there's, here you go. Here's the plan. Yes. And set you on the right path. Exactly. That's what I would say is that it wasn't that he fixed it on the moment, but he changed my trajectory. Yes. In one second. I went from this way, it pointed in this direction. Yes. That's a good, yes. That's, that's so awesome. I love that one. I, I, my pastor always says you're one, one good decision away from changing your life. That's right. Right. That's exactly right. And you just made that decision. Okay. And the phone call came and that's so cool. I love that. I've always said this, Katie. I've said, you know, I've never met a person who regretted giving their life to Jesus Christ, but I've met a lot who regretted not doing it sooner. Yes. Yeah. And I can say that's true for me. I don't regret it one minute ago, but there is times I wish I had been in law sooner than I did. Yes. Yes. Well, we get that. So you deal with a lot of people. I do lived that lifestyle that

you used to live. I love that God uses our pain for purpose and that like you said, that was training ground for you, even though that wasn't his perfect plan for your life. He can take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for good and turn it into the education that you didn't get at a college, right? And train you and how to how to reach these people who are still living in that lifestyle. And I know a lot of people who watch these videos are feeling broken and feeling lost the people in the prisons that these go to feel like they've they've just gone too far. God can't use them. What is the number one thing that you would like to say to them or that you say to the people that you counsel when they're feeling that hopeless? I would say to them that that that I guess in my own life, I look back and think that the source of a lot of my pain and a lot of my suffering, a lot of the brokenness and hopelessness was the that I didn't have the understanding that that who I really was. That that was the plot or the scheme of the enemy for all people, for even Adam and Eve from the very beginning was to get them to not realize who they were created to be to take them off a different path than that. And even though God I shared about how God had spoken all these things to me as a young person, the enemy did a real good job of taking me around a road of deception where I forgot that. I forgot that I was a son of God. And that's what all humanity was created to be were created to be God's sons. Yes. And we're created with a purpose and a plan and a destiny to walk in. He told the Prophet Jeremiah that before you were even formed in your mother's womb, I already called you as a prophet to the nations. And so then we look at that and we look at the scripture that says that God's no respect or a person. So if he says that to Jeremiah,

he's saying that to you and me. That's right. None of us were an accident. None of us were a mistake. No matter. I don't care what your parents said, whether they they said, Well, you were a mistake. We didn't mean to have you. No, God meant for you to come into the earth. You weren't a mistake. You know, you didn't let God down. That's that's one thing right there to Katie is I used to think I let God down. But then there's a song that says I was never holding you up. So how could I let you down? It was never my job to hold God up. So how could I ever let him down? That's good. God understands our humanity. He understands our weaknesses. We have a high priest in Jesus Christ, who says in Hebrews that he can sympathize with all of our weaknesses. And he knew my path. He saw the failures that I would make along the way. And yet he still chose to call me anyways. Rome. I think it's Romans 11 29. It says that the giftings and callings of God are without repentance. That when he calls you something, he's never going to repent and wish that he didn't. No matter what you do in life, he's still gonna say that's who they are. Yeah, that's good. That's good. And I didn't know that. But I wish I would have known it sooner. It's like Gideon, right? He called him a warrior before he done anything. He called you to preach to the nations before you'd done anything. Yeah. And as far as you ran, it didn't matter. Now you're preaching to the nations. So I would say that to the people that are watching is that why true purpose is so near and dear to my heart is because the title of the ministry is actually what God wants to do. And other people that come to us is shown that they have a purpose. They have a true purpose. Something that you were actually created by God to fulfill in this earth. And when you find that and you step

into it, there is no feeling that man or anything could ever give you that can even go hold a candle to that. That's good. So so one last question. We talk in every interview about love, because I think the world has a very twisted understanding of what love is and they're seeking love, but they're seeking the wrong love or they're looking in the wrong places where they don't know what true love is. And so today how you would describe love? Well, you know, I thought I love people. So I think I guess in that life before I really knew Jesus, love to me was a feeling. It was an emotion when I feel good. Being around a person or doing something for a person that caused a good feeling inside me, I thought that was love. But really, once I read Jesus, I realized that that's not really love because love is not about what it does for you. But people think that, well, if I do that, if I love this person and I give them something, I feel good because I gave them something that's loving them, no, the good feeling that you get out of it is not really love, okay? Love is selfless, so sometimes loving somebody won't feel good, but that's sometimes the most loving thing that you can do for somebody is to do things that are very hard and to obey God. And so the difference between now between love now and then was I realized my love then was all based on what I was going to get out of it, what it would do for me. Now I've realized that the love that Christ has for us, for the church, was all based on selflessness. Not what he was going to get out of it, but what it was going to do for everybody that he was going to serve when he ultimately died and gave up his life. He didn't want to do that, and it hurt and it was painful and it was hardest thing that a probably human being could ever go through, but he didn't define the love by what am I going to get out of it.

That's good. What am I going to do for them? Yes. And I've learned to love differently now through Christ. I used to be the most selfish person on earth. I used to do nothing unless I could see what it was going to do for me. But now because God put a different kind of heart inside of me, and I've gotten to know Jesus, that I can actually look to see what is it that I can do to serve somebody, even when it's hard, and that's actually love. That's good. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing your story. I think there's going to be a lot of people that relate to those feelings that you went through for so many years, and so to see how the Lord has used you, how you've overcome and to know that they have that same plan and purpose for them, I think is really going to be impactful. And so I just want to say thank you for sharing. Thank you for having me, the honor and privilege. Wow. What a story. I love how God redeems and restores our lives when we surrender to his plan instead of our own. We also love how Ben recognized that God was the answer to every one of the problems in his life. Friends, he is the answer to every one of your problems as well. Ben is no longer running from his calling, but he is embracing it. He's involved in so many areas of ministry today. He talked about how he works for True Purpose Ministries, which is an organization that helps men and women lead lives of lasting sobriety as they discover their God-given purposes.

Ben is also the founder of Exodus Ministries, which leads people out of spiritual bondage and into freedom. He and his wife Paige carry the heart of our father to see his sons raised up in their five-fold ministry callings. They have seen hundreds of people set free from demonic spirits. They've seen healings and transformation that comes through deliverance. They carry a compassion for those in bondage and understand firsthand the need for deliverance ministry. For more information, check out their website now. Join us next week to hear another encouraging story, and be sure to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode. Most importantly, I pray you know that no matter how far you or someone you love have run from God, it is never too late. There is always hope because you are loved. [BLANK_AUDIO]