From Party Life to Presence: The Moment God Broke Him

we'd get super high on Coke and a party would get busted by the cops and like yo where are we meeting oh let's go to the river bit so we' go to the riverbed and we'd be chilling like coked out of our minds and I just would like start preaching I would start telling people about God I shut my Bible and I went into my room and I shut the door and I got on my hands and knees and I Cur up my hands like this and I got on the end of my bed and I just started to do what I thought was praying right and all of a sudden the holy spirit filled my bedroom yeah and I start weeping just like my very first encounter with God yeah and I'm weeping and I'm experiencing God I'm encountering the Holy Spirit his presence his power yeah and I just like I'm so sorry I was like Lord I'm I'm done I just started to say I'm done I'm ready to live for you hey thank you guys so much for jumping on to another episode of rebuilding life after addiction really appreciate yall on hanging around the channel following along everything that we're doing to bring hope to those struggling with addiction that's the mission right we want to put hope within reach of everyone struggling with addiction and I'm excited to jump on here again and have another conversation I've got Blake cotita with us and I get it right yeah yep got it we are here at the harvest table and we'll talk about some of this here in a few minutes but man Blake man thanks so much for taking the time to sit down and chat this evening man I really appreciate it for sure man how you doing asking me doing really good yep amazing yeah doing really good sweet so let's let's Jump Right In man the whole purpose here is I like to connect with folks who are on the other side of addiction right we talk about the battle with addiction and I think a lot of times we see people pulling themselves out of this Rock Bottom moment and some sometimes it's hard to get a vision for what the future of Our Lives looks like and so you maybe to jump into this whole conversation man would you be well just share a little bit of your journey some of your story we're here in your coffee shop you guys have another business you've got a family you've got kids but I'd love to hear some of the origin story you before all of that happened yeah before this was even I wasn't thinking this far right yeah so I grew up in Los Angeles California my mom actually grew up in Virginia she moved to California when she was 18 she had me and my sister and my dad is originally from Pennsylvania okay yeah I grew up coming to Virginia coming to visit and so I was familiar with the East Coast a little bit familiar enough that I was like I can't stand it right you yeah just because Growing Up in Southern California you feel like you had everything you really didn't need to leave the state there was no state that or place that could compare to it so I just didn't enjoy going anywhere else cuz I skateboarded then I got older and started smoking weed and then I couldn't get the weed that I couldn't get weed anywhere so that was also an issue you could get California weed in Virginia I couldn't get Cali weed right couldn't get that chronic I'm just kidding but yeah so I grew up in a Christian home I grew up on in the youth group doing all the stuff being told the way that I should live my life and I played instruments with the in the church and but I never knew God for myself and my relationship wasn't very good and as I got older I started to see that more clear that it was very sneaky there were things my dad would do to try to figure things out about my mom and my mom was just very much did her own thing and yeah there was a just a pivotal moment that really shifted my life but leading up to it I was involved in sports I grew up in I grew up in a good area I had a really great childhood me and the boys met up outside every day there was like six of us each one of us were A different race Hispanic Portuguese Korean black and we all were different and I grew up just with I felt like my childhood was really good I enjoyed hanging out I enjoyed being around people I would be considered extrovert whatever and everyone had brothers so the brothers were typically into stuff probably they shouldn't have been so then that was opening a door to some things but yeah I started to get a little older and just wanting to be in with the cool guys and doing the things that I probably shouldn't do and things started to be really corny and as I got older but there was a let me rewind a little bit when I was really young I was four I had a I don't know why I'm going here so just follow me yeah for sure I had a sexual encounter with a woman at four years old and I think from that moment I feel I felt things and did things that no four-year-old should ever do right or feel and so it did something to me it set the course for a lot of things for me so like growing up in the church and going into the nursery or whatever you want to call it the kids Wing I always thought the kids were corny like I always thought like you guys were lame and I was that moment that I had with that lady it the Bible talks about not Awakening love before it's time right it stripped my it took my innocence from me yeah so it really it started because that happened it really opened a door to things that I shouldn't desire right and I didn't know how to deal with those things it ended up getting addicted to porn as I got older porn was not really a thing on the internet until I was probably in I want to say probably 8th grade maybe like how old are you I'm 36 okay yeah so it's hard to even it's it's even crazy just to say that like how far we've gone with tech technology but we came across a magazine maybe as kids but there was no internet maybe someone there was channels that was we had access to but it was through the blurry lines right night try to CCH right three weird yeah I turn my head to the left I can yeah so yeah so that really impacted my life so yeah I was in the youth group started dating a girl by then my parents relationship is not going well and yeah there was a divorce that ended up happening in my home I'm trying not to go into too much detail and I saw why what I had to call my dad and tell him some things that happened cuz I was firsthand to see it and my dad was actually out of town and so my whole life growing up my parents were telling me what to do and pretty strict on my life I wasn't really allowed to go to the movies and with my buddies because they were afraid of us getting into trouble and and plus I wasn't super old enough and mature to do that stuff anyway rightfully so so but they told me not to do these things but then it wasn't modeled right you're trying to give me these rules but like you tell me I can't watch these movies and but like when we go to bed we hear the radi our movie on the TV right and so it was like so that moment that my parents cuz I was already starting to dabble in marijuana and things like that and drinking and the girl that I dated at the time they were heavy like it was like a Portuguese Community they were pretty heavy everything they did was party right like there was Church events you would go from the church to the bar like it was just it's just part of it's just ingrained in the culture with the Portuguese so it started getting heavy in that and then just it because of my Brokenness that was really drawing me those things were really drawing me like I was Finding fun in my Brokenness it was like an escape yeah now at that time did you on you talk about the incident that happened when you were four right were you aware some of that was driving at the time you didn't have no clue okay no yeah no clue it wasn't until I was aware of when I had my encounter with the Lord and God just reveals those things you understand what Brokenness is what and so yeah so my parents end up getting a divorce and that was the moment that I said cuz I was really angry at that time that was the moment I said now I can do whatever I want and I'm going to do whatever I want because I knew they were going to have two different homes they weren't going to be strict on me anymore now I'm I can make my schedule no one telling me what to do so I would go from my dad's house and my mom's house depending on who is at work who wasn't at work and just floated and did what I want and so then I got introduced to heavier drugs I ended up getting introduced to cocaine and my buddy's dad was in and out of jail and one day we dropped him off somewhere he needed a ride and he jumps out the car and pulls out a pistol and this sack of coke and he goes here thanks for the ride and runs down the street with his pistol like full Sprint I'm like what the heck just happened right now yeah and so here we are sitting with this rock of cocaine yeah and like I can feel the darkness I was aware that this was like a threshold almost right yeah and I'm like man I just inside tell me like there's nothing in me that should be doing that right now but like don't be a wussy like let's let's move past that and so we ended up doing it and man had the high had high of our life and felt like you were Superman and so now I got this new thing added to my list of things to do like I can do cocaine every once in a while and then it progressed started I got introduced to ecstasy and went to my first rave and for anyone who doesn't know what a rave is they're they're called radical audio visual experience and there's like usually like I don't know nowadays but there was like five different stages that you can go and each stage played a different type of electronic dance music and everyone there was high on ecstasy yeah and it was a whole another world so now I'm living for these experiences I'm living for these Raves and they're very spiritual was this all on the west coast still all on the west coast they have them at Lakers Stadium right they were having them at the Anaheim you name it they were just they were hosting them at stadiums and they're still going on now yeah and so they had these main main Raves every year there was like four or five main ones and we always like prepared for the next one and so at this point my jobs I'm just I'm keeping jobs just for the weekend and then I get tired of it and I leave so I'm keeping jobs for like 2 weeks longest maybe a month so I've had a ton of jobs man just couldn't keep jobs I wasn't stable I just wanted to party I have a good time to be with my friends and I was broken nobody can tell me what to do and I'm liveing soon as I wake up in the morning I'm like who can I call Let's get high and have a good time and so yeah couple there was a couple very wild experiences like I saved a dude's life one day that he to he had like taken two pills at once and I was always afraid to do that like there was always like a threshold in my life that I felt like there was always thresholds right that I knew like all right if I do this one I feel like it's going to open a door to something else yeah so I always was like I was always faced with these moments where I just didn't I was too afraid to go that far and and one of those things was taking more than I should drug wise did those you mentioned since we started talking you mentioned the progression from pot cocaine ecstasy so like did those thresholds I guess increase over time did you kick the line out a little bit further and what was that like what was that process mentally I guess that you were going through what I'm saying when you decided to make that leap right here's a big sack of cocaine just Dro into my lap and what whe there any catalytic moments if you will that like push that or was it just in the moment enem in your face and the flesh just takes over for in those moments yeah so like I'm a firm believer that walking with the Lord the enem is walking right alongside you the entire time and everything that God does Satan wants to twist pervert manipulate destroy John 10:10 the thief comes to steal kill and destroy but I have come to give you life and give it in abundance so you have these two parallel opposing things constantly going on so I think every time I would enter a new phase or chapter of life or a new job for in instance for instance coming out of high school 18 years old I finally get my license I end up working at this restaurant I'm feeling this Freedom my parents are divorced and I have a car and I'm working at a restaurant and all these guys are like partying like hey yo you got to hang out with us and like have you ever tried this have you ever tried that and so that's how that ended up being and because of where I was I'm like let's go let's do it you I don't want him to look think and also there's a level of pressure not wanting them to think that I wouldn't do something like that absolutely yeah so that's I was really presented it came gradually and so ENT interesting how we get there man cuz I remember my line in the S was always no needles for a long time until it wasn't yeah it's like until somebody I remember the first time I got shot up by somebody dude shot me up we couldn't get math and he shot me up with it was like some pain pill okay and L left me in the apartment like I blacked out I don't know for sure but I think I almost died like that night and I remember waking up hours later and then instead of it being a moment for me like oh I should never do this again it was like okay it's on it was crazy how the enemy works and there more like you cheat death and then it's like okay let's keep rolling yeah there's a thrill to it there's this sense of like I'm doing something with my life yeah there's a journey yeah we all want this Purpose Driven journey and sad like that we can be driven like as kids you want to play hideand-seek there's something about being hidden and hiding and not being found like yeah that's good we adapt that it's just in us as kids and then as we get older there's still that level of secrecy and yeah so going through those years how long did that lifestyle last for you and then what was the culmination of it ending like there's some people use the term Rock Bottom Spiritual Awakening whatever it is however you described that like what was that catalytic moment that made you realize like I can't do this anymore something's got to change yeah so something that would happen and I don't know if because I was in the church and the Word was in me planted seeds seeds were planted I would like we'd get high man and like cocaine will lead you doing weird things at night because you're you just want to be high it doesn't matter you can be under a table right with like five people under a bridge and so we would either we'd find a place we could stay all night or we end up somewhere that we can low-key hide all night right and one of the spots we would go to it was called the riverbed and that's like where the it's like a storm drain where all the water goes out to the ocean so we would skateboard them ride our bikes on them but anyways we'd get super high on Coke and a party would get busted by the cops and like yo where are we meeting oh let's go to the riverbed so we' go to the riverbed and we'd be chilling like coked out of our minds and I just would like start preaching I would start telling people about God and like so you're one of those people that would have freaked me out CH used to read her Bible when she was smoking a meth pipe I'm like I thought I was going to get struck by lightning she was doing it but go ahead well it's it's so weird how you connect on a spiritual level yeah and like it because I was exposed to Christianity and the spirit realm in that way I could I was connecting a level of understanding with my emotions like man can you think about God like look at the stars like and everyone that wasn't grown up everyone around me that hadn't been grown up in a Christian home was just like whoa dude like that's like serious like it was the eye openening stuff and they were like you're going to be a preacher one day dude you're going to be a preacher one day and I would go home at night high and I had to sleep with my light on because I was so afraid because I started to feel presence dark presence around me and so I was experiencing and keep talking a spiritual presence that was I was becoming more aware of the reality of the spirit realm without knowing it yeah and so there was like I said like I was being led up to like culminating moments that were leading me to do more things it's all free will I was making decisions the devil wasn't forcing me to do anything right but it was but also at the same time the Lord was doing something and so let's see I ended up getting a DUI had my license taken away at this point I'm just couch surfing I'm I'm also at my parents house I wasn't a complete low life but I was what yeah and being a couch Surfer has a different meaning than it does in Virginia like if you're surfing couches in Virginia dude you got everyone's going to tell you dude it's time to get your but in California it's like almost normal especially at the age we were and so anyways yeah we were fighting every weekend we were getting fights and guns were getting pulled out buddies were getting stabbed and things were getting worse like the we were always pushing the envelope everywhere we went we were doing like six to eight pills a night of ecstasy and just and so I was at home one day and I was making a CD for a party we were having that night and I ended up coming across some worship music and I don't even remember why or how but I ended up downloading some of the songs and I give one of the songs a listen and I'm sitting there and all of a sudden she starts to sing these words and I start to weep and I felt the Holy Spirit fill my room wow and I used to tell myself for years like you can't cry like there's something wrong with you like your heart is so hard like there's moments I'm like you need to be shedding a tear right now and there was nothing in me that could right and so when I started to cry like weep I knew who had walked into my room yeah wow I knew what was going on I knew that was the Lord and so the I'm sitting there I'm weeping and I'm feeling this presence that is so pure I'm feeling this presence that is so clean and I'm feeling like I'm I'm taking like a spiritual bath and simultaneously I am telling the Lord I'm so sorry like I can't believe all these things that I've done it's like I could see everything I've done up until this very moment and like I can sense that God had been with me all the way up until that point yeah and I just like I'm so sorry I was like Lord I'm I'm done I just started to say I'm done I'm ready to live for you and interesting thing is there was no Pastor in the room right there was no leader in the room telling me what was happening the Holy Spirit was leading me in encounter with God and so I literally was a completely different person based on the encounter with God and so I took the CD I ended up going to the party or maybe I didn't even finish burning the CD I don't remember honestly ended up going to the party that night we had a big old fire and I'm just sitting at the fire and I'm like the way that I felt the closeness that I felt with God in that moment and the renewal of who I was in that moment I felt like I could have sat there for a thousand years staring at the fire wow literally I felt like I had nowhere to ever go again ever again I was so intent I was so at peace I didn't even desire drugs I didn't desire to go snort Alana of cocaine and my buddies were telling me come on dude let's snort real and I'm just like no man I'm done like yeah whatever later on you're going to why are you even like messing around yeah and so sure enough I ended up doing it but I had no Enjoy enjoyment from it I actually felt like dirty yeah like I can put context or words to it now but I feel like I was breaking the Lord's heart yeah yeah wow and so from that moment Rose the question like God what do you want me to do yeah like what am I supposed to do now so for 3 months I kept asking the Lord God what do you want me to do and so my grandma who lived in Virginia she called me and she wanted to surprise our Granddad for his 70th birthday and she said we want to fly to Virginia you and your mom and your sister and surprise Granddad and I heard the holy spirit inside me say that's where you're moving wow and so was that the last time those few times in those few months leading up to the going to Virginia was those the last times that you used is that where it stop yeah I heard somebody say a long time ago that it's when the Lord gets a hold of you it's not that we don't have the ability to sin anymore right he doesn't stop us from doing it but like the pleasure goes away in it yeah and that conviction starts to show up right that's the difference of the regenerated heart the heart that's been made new in Christ is that now the sin is pleasurable for a season but that Joy starts to and that conviction starts to speak to you and it's so palpable like you just said and then that transition so you end up in Virginia the Lord speaks to you and he starts to uncover his will for your life and go into that a little bit more yeah so I moved to Virginia I didn't know what I was doing I didn't tell anyone that I was moving we came I packed my guitar on my skateboard and just like a usual trip and I was looking for jobs in the paper and which is so not me like number one I'm looking at the paper right number two I'm looking for a job right already my life's changed like that's a testimony right you weren't checking out the r scene or anything like that not that there is any in Virginia but like the fact that he even had the mind to do that my mind was not wired that way like before I got saved I never read a book because I couldn't read a book yeah I would try to read sentences and nothing would register cuz I was just not focused but so yeah I came to Virginia and found a job in the paper the day before we were supposed to fly back to California I told my grandparents I found a job I was like will you give me a chance to stay here with you guys live with you for a little bit and get my own place they're like all right we'll give you a shot we'll let you stay around that time my aunt owned a bar in Harrisonburg called The Pub okay and it was a super College bar I'm I'm at this point I'm still drinking I'm not doing drugs but I'm drinking I'm not drinking all the time I have a job and yeah so I'm not really I wasn't really connected did in a church I think I went with my grandparents a couple times I think they went to a Pentecostal Church things like that my encounter my experience with the Lord I wrote on that for a while that one experience and it carried me yeah because it was so life-changing and I knew he was with me but I didn't know a whole lot I didn't know anything at all and so I lived I by rules I set rules for myself that I broke 247 but I tried to live by them so I was really depressed right not drink don't do drugs I'm still addicted to porn and I'm still addicted to smoking cigarettes I still had those two addictions like I like everything else but these no like I need these are going to take time right yeah and so we've had more people leave our PR prog over the years because of cigarettes because we don't allow people to smoke in the program oh wow and we've had more people leave over that particular stronghold like clean off heroin they've done come down 3 4 days done the DTs done all the rough detoxing but well man it is fighting words no stuff is a stronghold we've had a serious some serious issues with addiction to Tobacco just within our family and it's caused like a break like just it's it's serious it's addiction is serious it doesn't matter what it is but for some reason cigarettes are just it's a major stronghold yeah so anyways I for a long time was just trying to get live right and winter hit my buddy from California actually ended up coming and moving in with me I found an apartment 6 months later and we the we talked the guy into giving us a six months lease and it was Hunter Ridge right across the street from JMU yeah Hunter full-blown I had no idea I was just like go 650 a month yeah we I can split this me and my buddy so I had two jobs at this point I didn't have my license I would walk from one job to the other and then I would walk home or catch the bus if I could and I like to walk though and so at this point it's winners coming and I'm like trying to follow these rules from myself and my whole apartment complex is Raging right partying like crazy and I'm like my identity is bound up in what they're doing right yeah and so but I'm not trying to be that person anymore yet I don't know who I am still right so I found myself going into depression and we had a couple Crazy Nights the first two nights we moved in we had two fights I threw a party and we got into a fight and then we went to another party and got into a fight and a gun pulled out so that was my last sh with drinking in Virginia I was like I'm done yeah and so I was still smoking cigarettes still addicted to porn still broken really wasn't involved in church about 3 months in I meet a girl and I start to feel like this Joy like this excitement like life's coming back and she is a lot in of her where she was at in that moment was where I was at she was done with some things and she was ready to live for God and the language we used was very we had no idea what we were talking about right and so we start dating we're together now she knows I'm trying to refrain from Sex the whole thing yet I'm still addicted to porn like how's that even possible right yeah and we ended up falling into sin together I ended up finding out she was minite she was changing her clothes and coming and hanging out and she would change her clothes back and I'm like what's going on like and then that took me into another Spiral of like right I can't take on your stuff I got enough stuff like I'm I'm going back toal like my go my plan was to go back to California MH so we were Rocky in our relationship I knew I was going back to California so I really wasn't get trying to get too attached to her California rolls around it's time to go back and I'm like man I can't fall back into the same group of friends it's time like I need to get serious about this so my grandfather he's a minister he's been he traveled the world and planted churches and he's a prophet and I get a hold of him I was like where should I read in the word like I don't even know where to start he was like start in the gospels he said read John and then Matthew Mark and Luke yeah and I'm like okay so I get back to California and I'm like Lord I was like I do not understand anything I need you to reveal your word to me CU I would read the word and it was like not it made no sense to me whatsoever and so I remember open up my Bible in my house and my dad was at work I'm back living with my dad again and all a sudden it was like I can understand everything I was reading yeah W it like a light went off yeah and it was like everything I read my what was inside my stomach was confirming what I was reading like I knew it already for a thousands of years right I was just like yeah I was like it was like this confirmation of the spirit in me yeah it's so good and so I came across Spirit testifies with our spirit that we his children right that's exactly right so good yeah so I'm I'm encountering the word yeah and I come across a spot that says when you pray go into your room and shut the door where no one's looking and I was like just I don't remember what I did but nobody was home right so I shut my Bible and I went into my room and I shut the door and I got on my hands and knees and I CED up my hands like this and I got on the end of my bed and I just started to do what I thought was praying right and all a sudden the holy spirit filled my bedroom yeah and I start weeping just like my very first encounter with God yeah and I'm weeping and I'm experiencing God I'm encountering the Holy Spirit his presence his power and my I'm changing and but I still have my life was still compartmentalized like this is my time with god this is my sin this is my this is my that but this is where I meet God yeah and so I was still had muscle memory of certain things my thought patterns were still and I wasn't super involved with church but when I started encountering the Lord like I wanted to go back to the church I came out of so like I went all the way back to the church I started getting connected with them a little bit so was that conversation with your grandfather then cuz you talked about different encounters that had happened up to that point uhhuh was that like the beginning of your discipleship Journey would you say was that like cuz I think we have a lot like the encounter with the Lord isn't phenomenal but then we both have I know from yall's an experience that are very passionate about discipleship right and seeing that so would you say that was almost a kicking off point that initial conversation for you discipleship continued from there told hundreds of people where to start in the word now because that's what my grandpa told me yeah and I had experience of if you're going to start anywhere you start with Jesus Salvation And so it's good yeah so I man I just I started to get I started to be changed like my desires I wanted his presence I wanted his word and I wanted to live for him yeah and so naturally in me like I would I didn't have a job but I'd get on my skateboard I'd pack my Bible in my backpack and I would just skate and I would stop at a Starbucks and sit outside and wait for someone to ask me a question or like get an opportunity and I would just share Jesus with people yeah I just we was just coming out of me I didn't really want anything else and I started gravitating to some of my friends not all of them and they knew how I was living and I was really trying my best to impact their life with my life and all this has happened within a month since I've been back from California my life's completely changed I'm on another level with God like I'm like looking at trees and I'm like I can not believe God created that tree like the sky I was like it is so blue the grass was so green like I was looking at life from a different lens a different perspective good yeah it was like Jesus is the way he's the truth and he's the life and when I had the life deposited in me I was now able to enjoy what God created for me to enjoy and so sin had kept me away from it all those years yeah my Brokenness everything blinded me and that was the enemy was trying to if I would have stayed on that path for another even just 3 years I probably would have been dead yeah I would have been way more addicted to drugs yeah so it's just that life is just only going to was only going to destroy me you talked earlier about how you're trying to live life in the rules right and how and I shared this illustration a few months ago in a sermon I had a camera or had this really nice lens and I dropped it m and the mirrors inside of the lens got all jacked up and so anytime I put it on the camera the on you couldn't see anything picture was all blurry and I thought it was the camera at first took me a while to realize that it was the lens had gotten broken and it was crazy cuz I went finally went and bought a new lens put the new lens in the camera and everything was fine and the Lord showed me in that illustration that's like the old Covenant to the New Covenant it's just a whole different lens we start to step out of that rules-based religion which creates things very blurry and it's you can't seem to find your way through that and that new lens gets attached and it's like everything opens up again it's like relationship I'm not doing this because I have to but I'm doing it as out of love like I'm loved and driven in that it's him yeah it's him because you realize from the beginning when he created man and he created life and existence he gave man and wom the responsibility subdue the Earth multiply in it yeah and they had Harmony and fellowship with God and Satan was so mad about that yeah he was so ticked off about that yeah and so he's he's been trying to destroy our Oneness With God all along SE bring separ he just wants separation you see it in the home like he's trying to divide the home and Jesus came as a baby into a home like it's it's so it's family is so I'm gon segue to that because I'm G to be respectful time too it's quar till we think we went like what 30 minutes so far I'll edit some of this out but just want to segue to that right fast forward now married you've got children how many kids do you guys have we have three you have three okay and so how has your like I'm always as a parent myself always interested to ask this question how was some of the stuff that you went through as a kid I shared with somebody earlier that I was interviewing for the podcast I grew up in the early internet era I'm 38 so I had on computer in my bedroom right and we had 56k modem am Miracle online Napster on the computer was burn in the CDs took four minutes to download one picture of a naked woman and just that whole process my parents didn't know that wasn't even a thing at the time right and so they let it roll they didn't really weren really on time of it cuz they didn't even really know to look for it and so they did the best they could but now as a parent all these years later my experience from back then it shapes the way that I parent we're very intentional with our kids on devices I'm on them cuz I know the access to that y so I'm just curious how has like some of your past shaped how you do fatherhood now and if there's any anything from your history that's adjusting how your raising your own kids yeah one thing I'll say my son he's 14 now and he's mentioned a girl to us and that's new a girl like he's in eighth grade and but I want to be real with those cuz when I was growing up I was ashamed to bring a girl to my parents because anything surrounding a girl to me felt wrong because of what happened when I was four yeah wow so I never put those two together but like I was always ashamed to even talk about relationships or a girl or anything like that because of that moment and so we're in a new thing to be able to discuss like I'm I'm really trying to you I don't want them to feel ashamed and I realize like I'm like dude you don't need to feel ashamed about it and he's like Dad I'm not ashamed and I'm like yeah oh yeah you didn't go what I went through it's a whole another thing but also like want to be completely open and transparent with everything yeah trying to be open with that but is that how we break generational curses though cuz it's realizing that right it's it's unknowingly we project that stuff onto our kids not realizing they didn't go through the same things we did but then we can if we're not aware of it if we haven't done the work and we haven't been honest about the pain from our past then we start expecting that they're going to react the same way we did yeah but yet their circumstances be by the grace of God and everything that's happened are wildly different than what we went through it's good it's it's incredible yeah but we try to we definitely I tell my kids like I told you that my parents would say hey don't watch this and then when they go to sleep they're watching it right I tell my kids if I tell you not to watch something especially like a movie or a TV like pure entertainment I'm not going to sit in front of something that my cat my kids can't sit in front of that's my decision right language and there's different things with ra Rider on movies have nudity like I'm not trying to look at that stuff like PG-13 is even tight these days we tried to watch a movie with our girls the other night and I was just the amount of f bombs that's right and a PG-13 movie I like it's now the crossover is not the f bomb it is nudity okay I think the nudity is now R but like you can say the F word in some PG-13 movies and some of them are off too because I've I was watching movies that said they were PG-13 and they were not PG-13 so I was confused on like the ratings but anyways we we definitely set the standard since they were really little and have brought us sensitivity to right and wrong yeah and so when they come across something wrong it's they're sensitive to it yeah they can't just like Let It linger it bothers them that they had seen something yeah and I actually had a moment with my son my youngest son he's seven now but we were there was just some games that they were downloading on their Kindles it wasn't even iPads it was Kindles right and I was sitting with my son I downloaded Uno on the iPad and the Uno gave us a ad the Uno game gave us a ad I'm laying on my son's bed we're playing this game and it's an ad of a cartoon girl completely bent over in front of the screen with like an enormous OV exaggerated butt with really short shorts on and it's bouncing and this was Uno and I'm laying in my son's bed and it like I got so angry in that moment yeah and so even with games like where they don't have Xbox they're not playing Call of Duty like I grew up playing Call of Duty right it was my wife was super against it so that help helped me with my decision because all they are doing is killing let's let's let's be real that we should be sensitive enough to like who dude you just shot that dude in the head like right and but we're not we're desensitized so we've really tried to make be sensitive before the Lord like what hurts him should hurt us and so but yeah so my youngest son had a whole moment with a he was playing a game and he started to confess it to me he's like Dad I had this ad and then I like swiped and then he went Inward and he was so ashamed that he saw it he wouldn't tell me and I'd like for like an hour was like dude you have to tell me and he's balling and yeah I didn't know how to handle theu situation but I'm like you can't keep this from me you're not you're he was probably six at five maybe at the time I think he was probably five and he ended up telling me a little bit to know that in the game there was a girl that would stand in front of it was an ad the girl would stand in front of you but you can slide your finger and remove her clothing yeah and this was the ad yeah and so when he told me that he started to cry but there was such a sensitivity that he knew that it was wrong yeah and so we've tried to be very careful like our son doesn't have an iPhone we're not against iPhone but like we there was just too much access for him yeah with certain things we really trust our oldest son but we just felt like we just feel like we need to keep them sensitive enough for a period of time that when they do get older enough to they're going to have to like I'm not going to I can't control my kids to make their decisions but when it comes time they're they've they've worked that muscle enough yeah where it's like I don't want to do that like that doesn't feel good yeah and I think modeling it is huge yeah that's why I said like man I don't I'm not going to tell you don't watch this movie and I go sit and watch it's one thing if I'm watching like a informative thing and it's maybe it's about X Navy SEAL or something and or sometimes that stuff can be a little bit obviously too much for kids but like pure entertainment sitting down watching radiar movie like I'm not ever yeah I'm not going to do that's just me yeah and so that has helped our kids because I knew growing up as a kid that I felt like if I would have saw it modeled if I would have saw my parents praying if I would have saw my family in the word like active and like operating in their faith throughout the day like laying hands on people praying for people like I didn't really see that yeah and so now do your kids I know you had you guys got married had them after all the addiction lifestyle was past that right and so do they know your story at all your oldest does he know okay yeah he does I don't know about the detail but he definitely knows he's heard me share my testimony I don't when I share my testimony I don't get into detail right I don't like I used to think like man people need to know the funk right and that way they can see where I came from like no like I much rather share about how good he is but the testimony is a testimony is powerful so I don't usually go into Super detail sure with my testimony but no even into my marriage man I was still struggling with porn Okay I kept it from my wife I was still struggling with tobacco the Lord really Set Me Free of that in two 2017 actually okay wow so my encounter with the Lord was 2009 and so it was years of like Desiring to be healed but didn't know how it was had such a shame around it but so I it wasn't until 2017 man where I got set free from it that's awesome man yeah so let's on I want to wrap up man cuz I know we're we're getting close and you've got a party to get to but I want to ask you a question so I'm I'm 22 right I'm trapped I'm in this isolated alone feeling man just like struggling with identity maybe there's been some stuff that's happened in the past that's shaped that but like I'm battling addiction feeling trapped and I don't know what to do next right and you encounter somebody like myself on the street and man what are you saying to somebody like that just off the cuff like to give them some direction on how to move forward yeah man that pretty that's pretty loaded I guess it all depends on the person and that moment but like God is good yeah God is really good and if you get anywhere alone in God's God's God's creation whether it be in the nature and you just listen and look you see that God is good and the people the evil in the world is from man it's not from man but it's it's from an enemy an adversary the devil yeah and I would say that there is hope's a real thing and there Life's a real thing like you're you feel the hopelessness and the Brokenness now but man like there's nothing that can't be fixed yeah nothing that can be fixed yeah so I somebody told me a long time ago I I was having a conversation with one of our former Teen Challenge students and I'm I'm going to turn this into a question in a second but he they were always calling saying pastor Justin we really admire what I'm saying and I'm like at the time I didn't see it I didn't see why I'm like well what do you mean like I'm I'm just doing life my wife and I we just try to be obedient to the Lord I'm really nothing special what I'm saying M and he said he made a statement to me that floored me he said pastor you're living the life we're all dreaming about and it really I never saw it from that perspective right and so Blake how do I get from this point of coming out of addiction like to sometimes I think it's hard for young men to see they see somebody like yourself doing well on the other side of all the struggle right and and sometimes it's it's hard to see that like man that's that's just a pipe dream I could never have that and yet we were talking earlier and you're like I never saw any of this coming what I'm saying and so I guess what has been the consistent consistency in you that's allowed you to continue to pursue the Lord and then be open to the Lord blessing you wife kids you guys have the businesses you're you've been to Dubai missions trips we were just talking offline about opportunities in another country and all of that stuff and that seems like such a far distant future for Blake in 2009 right yeah to Blake in 2024 and so what's been the consistent thread through all of that yeah so consistency number one staying the course seeking the Lord I know I'm probably talking to people that never met the Lord before right yeah and he's a person yeah he's real and he stepped into Earth and gave his life up to us and modeled a life for us to live showed us how to walk in Purity showed us how to treat each other and the disciple says teach us to pray that was the one mystery it was like the one question Lord how teach us to pray yeah and it's a mystery but until we do it we'll never learn how to do it yeah and I say this for any religion that is says their God is real or they believ in God and every Rel religion is the same unless you're truly seeking God right and I've said this I feel like something the Lord's put on my heart recently because there's always this well what about the Muslims who have been taught a certain way they really believe God and I'm like there was the Pharisees in the Bible who put Jesus on the cross they believed in God yeah but what happened was Jesus proved that they really were not they really didn't care about God right because they were more worried about the image they were more worried about the tradition but I think anyone who truly is seeking God will meet Jesus will have an encounter with God yeah that's good I believe that 100% yeah God will never ever it says anyone who knocks the door will be open anyone who seeks will find yeah anyone who asks will receive yeah he's a very giving God he gave his life yeah gruesome life gruesome death on the cross and so I forget what your last question was yeah no you hit it head on and that's on that's that's the part right there I think sometimes I'm a fan I'm a big believer that this recovery freedom from addiction thing is like the statement we have at TC is that Jesus is the program mhm like that's it you get a hold of Christ you pursue a life of discipleship amen all the stuff is going to fall off mhm it's not it's it's really not a lot of s more complicated than that and so sometimes it's hard to hear that especially if we're caught in bondage and we've been resistance or we've had some poor experiences with religion or all of that in the past but what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing of your life is just been this it's not been perfect right from the first encounter but it's just been this consistent Pursuit and going back and and so just so we up man how can people connect with either your businesses or whatever wherever you're at how can folks connect with Blake my Facebook is Blake cotita okay I have an Instagram Blake CTA we have some things we're trying to do I know it social media is such a huge thing now and it's a huge way for people to connect but we don't have some of those things developed yet harvest table Dayton that is our Cafe through you if someone wanted to reach out to me yeah sweet well I appreciate it man thanks for taking the time to chat this evening and I will drop those links into the description thing below and man thank you for watching and joining in rebuilding life for another conversation and Blake thank you again if this is your first time here please hit like subscribe to the channel but also you have any questions feedback maybe you're struggling with purpose don't hesitate to drop those in the comments or shoot us a DM and we'll be happy to connect with you God bless you guys