Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone, this is Chris. I'm Ryan From the Uncommon Path podcast. The scripture, Revelation 12 11 says and they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Our hope is that as you listen, you will be encouraged in the Lord. This podcast was created as an avenue to share people's raw and unfiltered journeys with him. We hope this brings breakthrough and intimacy with Jesus through their testimony of what God is doing through their lives. Today we are in the house with Nate Howell. Nate Howell is a dear friend of me and Chris and Warren's. He helps lead worship at our church. But you have a pretty fascinating story, kind of roots with Pennsylvania and then moving to California, with Pennsylvania and then moving to California, and so I'm going to let you kind of start from the beginning but before we get there, just want to say really appreciate you coming. If you don't know, nate, there are a few people who are as humble as Nate is, who have a spirit of humility about them. Really appreciate that about you. I feel like that's in every. I really appreciate that about you. I feel like that's an every interaction I've ever had with you. That's a quality you carry. Give us a fact that few people know about you.

Speaker 3: 1:39

Well, hey guys, it's really great to be here and I'm honored to spend this time. Hmm.

Speaker 1: 1:46

There are a lot of them.

Speaker 3: 1:48

Well, I think you guys would know this, but I come from a very, very large family, and so I have nine siblings, same mom, same dad. My parents had one child, my oldest brother, ben. Uh, he's a sweet and dear brother. He has down syndrome and they weren't sure if they were going to have any more kids. And then they had nine more.

Speaker 3: 2:14

So, um so, yeah, that that was always a you know a fun fact growing up and even today. Um so, seven boys, three girls, and I think that's pretty unique in a, in an American culture.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Where do you stack up? You're in the older end, right?

Speaker 3: 2:32

I am number three, numero tres, so two, two older brothers above me in the age range, and my family is 20 years, so 20 years of having kids, if you can imagine that sounds like torture right so bizarre?

Speaker 1: 2:48

yeah, I'm at 13 and I'm done yeah that's a long time

Speaker 3: 2:53

yeah. So I guess a little bit about me, starting from the beginning. Um, pretty interesting background, I say so. Really large family, my mom's side, very, very long lines I'm talking like 500 years or more of Mennonite and Anabaptist believers. So my grandfather, my mom's dad, was a Mennonite preacher. So for those of you who don't know what that is, so Anabaptists were a sort of a reformation or like a revival movement. That happened over in Switzerland and very persecuted people group by other, unfortunately, christians, and so many of them came to America and oftentimes are in farming communities and wear a dress head covering. A more extreme version is Amish, where you see people in horse and buggies don't use electricity horse and buggies don't use electricity but overall a very hardworking and God-fearing, god-loving group of people. So that was sort of the lineage on one side.

Speaker 3: 4:14

And then on my dad's side, very different. He was from, I would say, a family that were culturally Christian and he was from the Midwest. His dad was a space engineer for GE. So that's how he ended up in Philly area where I'm from, and his dad died of cancer when he was like I don't know, 11 or 12 or 13, pretty young, wow, but didn't really grow up in, like you know, night and day difference, the two different sides, and so my dad really came into the faith when he was 18. He met someone who led him to the Lord, baptized him and he came up out of the water speaking in tongues. So that was kind of his conversion experience. So an interesting blend of cultures that I grew up in within my direct family. But that's a little bit about me from like a historical perspective. And, yeah, I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, in a town called King of Prussia, um, and my mom, she homeschooled all 10 of us and, uh, still maintained a lot of the Mennonite roots, and so that was that was pretty interesting as well.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Um, do you, do you ever go back to Philly now?

Speaker 3: 5:43

I yeah, I would say I go a few times a year. Most of my family still lives there are the philly cheesesteaks really that good? Very greasy. So if you like extremely greasy food, um, you definitely should try, like a Pat's or a Geno's or, uh, you know, those are the two, two main rivals. I would say, try Jim's, which is a little off the beaten path.

Speaker 3: 6:11

They're a little bit better, but yeah, it's a lot of cheese. You go with whiz or without whiz. That's like the cheese whiz they dump on top and it's basically a you basically a very greasy, tasty, cheesy cheesesteak sandwich. But they're definitely. Yeah, you got to try one.

Speaker 2: 6:34

Yeah, I got to try. That Sounds good.

Speaker 1: 6:36

It sounds like it's a pureality right.

Speaker 3: 6:39

Could be a heart attack in a bun, but it's definitely worth it.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Yeah, heart attack and a bun, but it's definitely worth it. Yeah, so, in all of that being in Philly, being having nine siblings, having in your probably stories from carried down from your parents speaking in tongues and stuff, what was God like for you as a kid?

Speaker 3: 7:06

down from your parents, speaking in tongues and stuff. What was God like for you as a kid? So I remember from a very young age experiencing a very profound sense of peace, praying to God as I fell asleep in my bed, and so that's probably the earliest memory I have of any kind of connection to God. But what's interesting is, following that memory, I was terrified of God. I was very afraid that I would go to hell. God was a scary person to up in a very trying to find the right word legalistic home my whole mom's side. If you know anything about Anabaptists, there's a lot of legalism there.

Speaker 2: 8:24

Is that kind of a branch of Baptists? Anabaptists would be like.

Speaker 3: 8:28

Mennonite Amish Brethren.

Speaker 2: 8:31

Okay.

Speaker 3: 8:31

So, like within the Mennonite tradition, it is pretty legalistic, okay. And then my grandfather, who was a preacher, started conversing with someone who was an evangelist from the Church of Christ, which is another sort of sect, also I would say legalistic in some ways, and he ended up embracing the Church of Christ view of baptism, which is you're saved upon the act of water, baptism, and so he took that back to the Mennonite church and basically got kicked out because it wasn't their belief or their view. And so I ended up growing up within these pretty closed home churches.

Speaker 3: 9:22

So my parents had a home church church and then we ended up going and meeting in my grandparents barn, actually, for this like barn home church and there were maybe, you know, 10 different families that were a part of it, but it tended to be very legalistic and focused on these are all the right things that you need to do in order to be saved, and if you don't prescribe to this very narrow viewpoint of theology, then you're probably not saved. And so I think that led to a lot of fear of God, as I fear of God as I started getting a little bit older, um, so, yeah, my my earliest memory, this amazing connection with God peace, love but then it got twisted pretty quickly, um, as a child, into this huge fear of God and fear for my salvation. And am I saved? Can I be saved? Will I be saved? And so Wow.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Wow, so like the hell fire was like.

Speaker 3: 10:34

Yeah, it was real Looming. It was looming.

Speaker 2: 10:37

It was big, wow, it was big. And like take us into, like after, as you got a little older, in your adolescence and teenage years, like did did that only loom more and more? Or?

Speaker 3: 10:52

yeah, it did. It did so, um, I, I would. I would break it down like this I grew up in an area similar to to the Raleigh, so there were a lot of rules in the house growing up, like I wasn't allowed to play sports.

Speaker 3: 11:09

I wasn't allowed to wear shorts. Women, girls needed to wear dresses, head covering. We were homeschooled and so that brought a lot of attention to our family. A lot of people in the area would call us Amish and we were just very different. We looked different. We weren't really integrated into the culture around us. Culture around us, we were much more so integrated into this, this subculture, which was this home, home church culture of families that had very similar beliefs and prescribed to like like a similar, a similar version of christianity was that was that common or were you a rarity.

Speaker 1: 12:01

Rarity, but there were some other families that were kind of like that.

Speaker 3: 12:08

Yeah, but we were sort of in this home fellowship with. So, yeah, it created a lot of scrutiny, it created a lot of hurt, actually, because there was resentment I started forming toward my parents because we weren't we didn't have a TV, we weren't allowed to do all the things that I saw, as you know, table stakes to being a part of, like, the, the culture around me, um, and and the friends around me, and so I would say that at a pretty young age, I started wanting to distance myself from my family, uh, their, their way of living, um, and even created some, uh some some distance in my relationship with God, and so I can think about when I got some distance in my relationship with God, and so I can think about when I got baptized. I think I was 11, I was just terrified of hell. So, like I got baptized, so I wouldn't go to hell, not because I like was falling in love with God, and it was a December day and my dad took me down to this local creek and baptized me in this ice, cold water and it was awesome, but the motivations of my heart at that point were very much rooted in fear, and that fear slash wanting to be a part of the culture around me.

Speaker 3: 13:43

My friends in suburban Philadelphia. Not wanting to be a part of the culture around me, my friends in suburban Philadelphia, not wanting to be different, led me to start living this sort of dualistic lifestyle. It's like on Sundays I was going to this barn church in the country where everyone was wearing head coverings and dresses and this sort of subculture of Christianity, and through the week I was very much trying to distance myself from that, to be like my best friends in the neighborhood, which was a really interesting way of living and it just continued to diverge over time as I got into like adolescence and then my teenage years and then ultimately, I think was a big catalyst for me jumping ahead a little bit, totally leaving the east coast and moving to the West Coast, which I did when I was 18. But let me stop there.

Speaker 2: 14:51

Yeah, what made you move out there?

Speaker 3: 14:53

Between the time I was like 11 and 18, where I moved to California. I really made it my mission to well a couple things. I think one event that happened in my life which really sort of wounded my soul, I would say, was there was someone that was part of the extended family, who was a foster child, who was older, who sexually molested someone who I was very close to in my family, sort of pulled myself and a few siblings and a few cousins into some, you know, just perpetrating the experience that they had, which was really tragic and I didn't know at the time and that really, I think, created like a deep wound in terms of, like, my sexual identity and I was pretty young and that drove a lot of shame and brokenness within me. And so I think that experience, along with really wanting to be a part of, to fit in like with my friends and the culture around me, having come from such a different background, led me to continue to double down on things I probably wouldn't have done. So I became very promiscuous with girls. I started drinking and partying very hard when I was in high school. I continued to try to build this alternate identity. So you can imagine this is hilarious to me now. But I'm going to this barn church with a bunch of very, very strict and rigid and very sweet, amazing people that are not going to be watching or playing sports, dressing a certain way, looking a certain way. And then you know, I had this job at Abercrombie, where I was, you know, like trying to get jacked and look a certain way and you know, like dating all these girls I was working with, and so it was just such a such a.

Speaker 3: 17:39

There was so much duplicity in terms of who I wanted to be and who I was becoming, versus like where I came from, and so got really into partying, looking a certain way, got into like a promiscuous lifestyle, and ultimately I decided like I want totally out, like I don't really want to be associated with my family, I don't really want to be associated with the memories that I have here. I'm out, like in my tickets, california, and I got accepted to my dream school, which is a school called Pepperdine University. I'd never been to California. It was, you know, a bit of this inflated idea in my mind of this awesome, beautiful school with amazing people on the beaches of Malibu, california, but I'd never been there.

Speaker 3: 18:34

I never stepped foot on the campus until the day I arrived my freshman year, but for me it was a ticket out. It was like this way I could go, create and continue to build my own identity, which was distinctly different than the rejection I experienced from sexual abuse and that really damaged my soul deeply and my identity. Times and uh, you know, finding myself a beautiful girlfriend and having cool friends and looking a certain way and uh, all these other lies I'd bought into at that point in my, you know, 18 year old life how did your parents deal with that sexual assault like issue like?

Speaker 3: 19:41

I don't think they knew how to deal with it. Well, yeah, looking back and I love my parents are amazing and this is not to um say anything other than that but it was a bit of a let's talk about it and move on. Yeah, and I don't think they really understood the impact that had, or maybe even had the tools or the experience to know how to to navigate that so I don't hold it against them, but I frankly don't think they knew another way yeah yeah, yeah did it feel like you had these?

Speaker 1: 20:21

obviously you're like living this double life. Yeah, were you was. It was keeping up appearances like really important, or like did your one community kind of not know about the other one? Yeah, you're keeping them totally separate and hidden yeah, and then you just get fed up and you're like I choose the world.

Speaker 3: 20:43

Yeah, pretty much okay, because I think when I embraced alcohol, uh, specifically alcohol runs really deep in my family, on my dad's side. So, um, my dad's the one sibling who really embraced christ and, uh, the rest of his family for the most part became alcoholics. Oh, okay.

Speaker 3: 21:06

Yeah. And so for me, I'm like, okay, I know what I'm doing is wrong, but the right path is not bringing me freedom and it's impossible. And it's impossible and I feel great if I'm out and I get drunk and I feel free in a certain way, that I don't feel otherwise, and so it was this vicious cycle of really wanting a relationship with god. But god was this scary condemning father figure where I didn't know if I was saved and it was impossible to meet these, these measures of the law. So I might as well just throw in the towel and experience some level of of freedom and a totally different way, which I know is wrong, but I felt like at the time it was giving me life.

Speaker 1: 22:02

Did you find because I've talked to people in the past about this kind of same thing did you find more acceptance and grace in the people of the world than in your own church community? Yeah, for sure because I was accepted. Because you're accepted and like I think it's something. As christians, we need to face up to this idea that that can be true.

Speaker 1: 22:29

Like you can, the world can actually be a very accepting place yeah now they might not, it might be very conditional and like it's not where ultimately we should be, we should should have a Christian community. That is the place everybody wants to be, because that's where the life is.

Speaker 3: 22:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:50

But if you get into religion and legalism and that performance-based relationship man, the world can look very enticing to somebody that's caught up in that.

Speaker 3: 23:03

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 23:06

I resonate with a lot of your story.

Speaker 3: 23:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Very similar. How did your parents handle your rebellion and were you kind of the only sibling that was kind of doing that? Like obviously they had to have known about you having a job at Abercrombie. But like I'm just I'm trying to figure out, like, did you like change clothes when you came home? Was there, like, did they recognize that you were like changing and were just like trying to be patient, or were there times where y'all kind of had it out?

Speaker 3: 23:43

Yeah, I mean we would have it out. No, I wasn't the only one. So my older brother, who was really my, my best friend growing up, we were like in, in, in cahoots, and so, um, you know, I remember we used to smoke weed in our basement uh like we had this little crawl space under our house and we would be downstairs in the crawl space smoking joints and making, like you know, bongs, and my parents were upstairs.

Speaker 3: 24:16

I remember one time my mom confronted me because she found a joint in my room and she was so upset and she was like, what is this room? And she was so upset and she was like, what is this? Um, you know, I, she, she used to stay up and we'd come home at odd hours of the night and, you know, just reeking of alcohol. Uh, so I think my parents had a lot of really sleepless nights. Because we are just at a certain point, the rebellion kicks in. You're like, yeah, I'm sorry I don't prescribe to this anymore and you might not like it, but this is what I'm gonna do and that's basically the, the point it got to. Um, I would say I I still tried to keep the peace and hide it, but, um, yeah, my parents, my parents, had a lot of sleepless nights. Um, and we're kind of crazy, you know.

Speaker 3: 25:10

I remember, you know, one one, one story comes to mind where, you know, I was going to like college frat parties when I was in high school because some of my brother's, uh, friends were in college and he was a little bit older than I was and, um, and we would do really dumb stuff, like I remember. I remember we were at like a frat party and my brother jamming a slice of pizza and one of their DVD players and throwing a brick through a BMW and you know, outside the frat house and there were fights sometimes and you know we definitely got into a lot of trouble and we also had, you know, looking back, like there were these really fun moments, like exciting and because it was. It was like this level of of freedom and being unrestrained when your whole life is about being restrained. Um, but yeah, we put them through, lord, in college or out of college.

Speaker 2: 26:33

How many years were you in California until you really encountered?

Speaker 3: 26:38

Jesus. So what's interesting is, I think that, because I grew up in the church, I always had this conviction to like go to church and to say that I'm a Christian and at some level, I really wanted it to be true, because I think that, even though I was very broken, I always had a desire to know God. God was a scary person for me, god was a scary being for me, but I knew, I didn't doubt, that he was God and that his ways were the right ways and that I wanted to be on his team. So you know like I would cry out in my brokenness to God and I would consistently try to find him and connect with him and I, um, so I would say there was always a relationship.

Speaker 3: 27:47

It was just very dysfunctional and so, um, you know, for example, I had a, I had a college girlfriend and I was living a promiscuous lifestyle and I remember coming home my freshman year and going to, like, the local Church of Christ that I was connected to and it's a very reserved type of culture where they don't have instruments and it tends to be a very intellectual crowd, and I felt very convicted that I was being promiscuous with my girlfriend and I went up front and I broke down and I started confessing at the end of service. And so there were these moments where I was wanting to know God and there was something in my heart, deep within my heart, that longed for a healthy connection with God and I would continually reach out. But it was very dysfunctional. So I wouldn't say that I never had a relationship with God, it was just very dysfunctional. My image of who God was, my image of who I was, and the bar that I thought that I needed to reach to ultimately please him. So you had an understanding of.

Speaker 1: 29:12

You had a belief in God, a faith in God, For sure, you had an understanding of his holiness it sounds like yeah and that's something. Those communities really get and convey.

Speaker 3: 29:20

Yeah, of his holiness sounds like and that's something those communities really get and convey. Yeah, I knew my Bible and I would read it and I would go to church on Sundays throughout this Wow.

Speaker 1: 29:28

So it was grace. Was it grace that you were missing?

Speaker 3: 29:31

Yeah, I would say, I would say for sure, and I would have probably told you if I die right now. I don't know if I'm going to heaven, I'm probably not. But there was still something in me that was continually like longing for and reaching toward god, even though in my mind he was scary and this bar was impossible to reach man, your story is like bringing language to like my experiences, too, that I've never actually been able to articulate so fascinating yeah, like what I'm seeing is this old tracks yeah, the cross bridge, the chick track like they like you know I'm talking about that tracks you get on like it's like you have you, you.

Speaker 1: 30:17

The wages of sin is death.

Speaker 3: 30:18

Like, yeah, you knew that you got to give those tracks out for sure like you, so you understand his holiness.

Speaker 1: 30:24

You understand that, like all men have fallen short of the glory of god. Wages of sin is death. You, you've tried to be holy on your own. You kind of gave up on it so like, when did you? You just needed Jesus right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 30:42

So I think I made a mess of my life, like I did a great job of making a mess of my life. You know, on the surface it looked pretty cool. I was living in Southern California, I was dating beautiful girls, I, you know, I had a good group of friends, but I was really broken on the inside and I um, I would get like blackout drunk, like I would party so hard I remember drinking like an entire bottle of pop-offs with like one of my buddies before we end out one night and I would just wake up places and not even know where I was or what happened. And so it really got dark and I would say, toward the end of college, I was feeling very broken. I had a lot of ambition and I went to this school with. So another thing I didn't mention is we grew up pretty poor, so my dad was a house painter and my mom stayed home and homeschooled us, and so there were definitely many occasions where my dad needed to borrow money from family to like get the rent paid that month, or like people were donating food or clothing, um, and so there was always this, this mentality of like, yeah, like my parents will get us the clothes that we need from, like, the local thrift store. But if you want like those Nikes, like you have to go get a job and earn that, because we just didn't have money for anything in addition. And so, like, I grew up working pretty hard, I grew up working for my dad, and I suddenly entered this world of like extravagant wealth when I went to Pepperdine so it's a school of like 3000 kids, and I went to school with I'm not making this up, but like, not kids that were from millionaire families. Actually, some of my friends were from billionaire families.

Speaker 3: 32:59

Um, and so, to suddenly enter this world of extreme wealth, um, where there was no lack, there was no limit, one of my best buddies, his dad, had a Learjet, and you know it's like, and my dad and our household, like our household, like, like we, we had no idea what that was. And so, um, I, you know, I thought, okay, like I've, I've had all these experiences. Um, you know, it was glamorous. I remember we used to party at one of Larry Ellison's houses and he's the founder of Oracle, and these parties were just so extravagant, or Ryan and I were chuckling about this, but you know, partying on the beach with Matthew McConaughey, and it was just this world of like Malibu which was the intersection of like wealth and a lot of like people in my school were very international, so like different cultures all combining around.

Speaker 3: 34:03

Um, this, this very affluent part of the world, just led to a lot of these really almost out of body experiences for me, coming from you know, like a lower class income family in in Philadelphia, and so that just really opened my eyes to you know, like you can rent your own ticket, and because I was so broke and I was very interested in continuing to try to find fulfillment away from what I grew up with, so to me that looked like my looks, a successful career going after success in the form of money, because that's what I was around. And so I was in my senior year I had an internship lined up with a hedge fund. I really wanted to get into finance and be a part of, like the high world of finance. My friend's dad was a well-known venture capitalist in Northern California and had like a hedge fund, private equity fund, and he lined me up with an internship there and I thought, you know, this is really great. Like this is the next step. I'm really broken and you know, and I would say I was maybe like a functioning alcoholic at that point in my life I was also very addicted to like pornography and you know I had some sexual addiction again very broken. But I knew how to like produce and I knew how to keep up appearances and so I had this job lined up I was really excited about.

Speaker 3: 35:56

Um, I was going to stay in California and I partied really hard. It was my, my, my final uh, semester in college and I failed a class for the first time in my life and because of that I had to stay in Malibu for summer school to retake the class and because of that I lost the internship, oh wow. And in parallel I hadn't renewed my registration on my car, so my stickers were expired and two of my younger brothers had come out to like come visit and I wanted to show them all around. So I took them to Beverly Hills like we want. I want to show them like Rodeo Drive and we had skateboards and we're like skateboarding around, and I came back and my car was towed.

Speaker 2: 36:55

Wow, and I was about out of money.

Speaker 3: 36:59

So a buddy of mine is like, well, you can just leave it at the impound. So, lost the job, lost my car, ran out of money, had to stay for summer school and I was like, okay, like doors are starting to slam really fast here, because up until that time I was able to like through I don't know, like maybe God was opening these doors, but there were always doors that were opening for me, and now doors were starting to slam. So, to fast forward, I end up on a plane temporarily to go back and stay with my parents in Philly area to figure stuff out. It was after I like wrapped up my summer school class. Um, and I was planning on staying there maybe a couple of weeks.

Speaker 3: 37:57

Figure it out, go back to California, bang open a door. Maybe a couple of weeks. Figured out, go back to California, bang open a door. I left all my stuff at a friend's house in Malibu while he was in commercial real estate. He had flown to San Francisco that weekend and a massive fire came through and burnt his house to the ground, his car, everything, all my stuff. So now I'm like and now all my stuff is burned up, so lost my car lost, all my belongings lost this job, ran out of money. It was like door after door after door getting slammed in my face.

Speaker 2: 38:34

Your stuff literally gets burned up, Toasted like burnt to the ground, nothing left.

Speaker 3: 38:46

And at that point I was tired. I was tired, I was depressed, I was lost. And uh, that's when I I think I really sort of came to the end of myself and I I was like, okay, god, like you're, you've been speaking, but now you're like yelling, you're like shaking me, like okay, like this is not going to happen, you're not going back. It was pretty clear at that point I was just okay, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Speaker 3: 39:18

And at that point in my life I decided I'm just going to surrender, surrender my life to God. And I don't know what that looks like. There'd been bits of some surrender throughout, but that's the point where I was like I'm going to be all in and, frankly, I should probably be living with my parents because I need rehab and I can't think of a better way or a better place than here. Because, even with all the rigidity, there was still something in my parents that, undeniably, I kept coming back to, and that was the Lord, undeniably like I kept coming back to and that was the Lord, because they know him and they knew him and, even though there was a lot of religion baked in, they really know and love the Lord.

Speaker 1: 40:27

And they'd also changed a lot over the course of time.

Speaker 2: 40:28

god to keep, you keep a early 20s borderline alcoholic, broken person from going right into like hedge fund.

Speaker 3: 40:31

Hedge fund, no kidding yeah because that could just be, catastrophic. Yeah, there's no way I could have handled that yeah no.

Speaker 2: 40:38

No way.

Speaker 3: 40:38

Yeah, it would have just perpetuated like that world.

Speaker 1: 40:41

Yeah, that world. Yeah, you weren't ready to handle it probably Wow.

Speaker 2: 40:49

What was so when you gave up control? Was that a cognitive choice and, like the Lord, slowly changed your heart? Or was that like an instantaneous God showed up in a moment and things changed?

Speaker 3: 41:07

No, it wasn't the latter. It was a choice Because, like I said, I always knew I didn't doubt God. I didn't doubt Jesus. I didn't doubt that he was the way, the truth and the life. It was just again like a bar I couldn't press and the version that I grew up with was something I didn't fully buy into. And so, yeah, it was definitely a choice. And then it was a pretty long road to, I think and I'm still on this journey but understanding who God actually is and how good he actually is, yeah, and how close he actually is.

Speaker 3: 42:02

So, from there, an older brother my older brother who, you know, we were best friends, him and his wife invited me to come on a trip with them to India. And I'm like, okay, I have no money, I have no job, nothing else going on right now. I don't have money. Can you guys like pay for me to come with you and I'll pay you back? And they were like, yeah, absolutely. So we went to India together. They were actually supporting a ministry there, an orphanage, and they'd built this relationship with a guy named Simon, who he was Indian, but he and his wife, uh, had this children's home, and so we stayed with with him and, uh, I stayed on. I stayed for like a month and, uh, while I was there, we, uh, my brother and I, we we talked a little bit about me getting into business with him. Uh, he had started a landscaping company when he was like 18 and we were a year and a half apart and, um, I always thought it was sort of beneath me, like I wanted to go work in a hedge fund in San Francisco or something, and I was the first one in my family to go to college and I fought to like figure that out and open doors. But at that point I was really in a place where I just again was like all in on God and I felt like that was a door he was opening. And so I ended up partnering with my brother and, for the next number of years, building that company up and starting another company with him.

Speaker 3: 43:50

But I think, like back to the God topic, I was very much on this journey of learning how to hear from the Lord, this journey of learning how to hear from the Lord, and, um, there was a lot of healing in those years that were very foundational in who I am today, as a 39 year old. And so, um, there was a guy named Greg who, uh, worked for us and he knew that I was looking to actually get my own place. I'd been at my parents for a couple of years. It was sort of like rehab for me. It was actually very good.

Speaker 3: 44:30

I, for the most part, stopped excessively drinking. I stopped, you know, hooking up with girls. I was at their house, so there wasn't a whole lot of temptation to do all the things that I was doing when I was a teenager and then, especially like when I lived on my own. And so there was a point in time where I was looking to move out and he was like, hey, I have a buddy named Ben who is looking for a roommate. And so I connected with this guy, ben. He actually happened to have a landscaping business as well, and we ended up getting a place together and his story was so different than mine story was so different than mine.

Speaker 3: 45:26

He grew up in a home of non-believers and he shared that he had been, like, demonically oppressed and God totally set him free and he would like fast and he would spend, like, all of this time in his room like fasting and praying and reading books about Smith Wigglesworth and these charismatics and I thought the whole world of charismatics was very off base and offensive, but I couldn't deny the fruit in his life and it's like a light, like like a bomb went off, like suddenly I found myself surrounded by people who, like, knew the holy spirit wow and at first I didn't realize it.

Speaker 3: 46:17

Um, I started connecting with a guy named Rob and he had a home church and he was very spirit-filled and at the home church there were women speaking and they were speaking in tongues and doing all of these things that I thought they're doing it wrong, they don't have the right theology.

Speaker 3: 46:36

Because I still had in the subconscious mind, even though the way I grew up was really difficult, countercultural and it was so narrow, Like we did have it figured out, Like that was the right way and so. But I couldn't deny the fruit, so I would go to these like home church meetings where there were like prophetic words being shared or all of these things to me that were like not correct theology, but there was so much life, I just I started finding life and I would go home and I was sharing a house, like you know, like an in-law suite on this house, with this guy, Ben, and he had all these. You know, at the time he was going to this little fellowship hall. It was before these guys were famous, but it was like Todd White and Dan Moeller and they're from Pennsylvania and he was going to this like little fire fellowship hall at like this firehouse with these guys and I'm like what is this?

Speaker 3: 47:49

and, um, like I couldn't deny the life. So I kept leaning in and I would say that's when I really started getting to know the Lord and hearing His voice. And this guy, Rob, he really poured into me and he's the first person I really shared about the sexual abuse in my childhood.

Speaker 3: 48:13

It was just something kept so tight and it really like the first time you shared it with anyone yeah, wow, outside like very close group of people in my family that were involved and, um, I remember just going into this conversation like he's going to totally reject me, but I have nothing to lose. And it was quite the opposite. He really loved on me and spoke identity to me and that's the first time I really opened up in that way and it started setting me free and I setting you free from what depression, self-hatred, like a lot of lies I'd been believing for years.

Speaker 3: 49:06

Um, and then he's someone who started really discipling me and I also shared with him about some of my addiction around pornography and masturbation and sexual addiction and he was like you know, god can totally set you free from that because he did it for me.

Speaker 3: 49:25

It was the first Christian that ever told me that was possible, because most people I would talk to they'd be like oh brother, I'll pray for you, just like grin and bear it yeah kind of kind of message we all deal with, that he's like no man god can totally set you free from that and this was, like you know, a very long history of of of not being free in this area. I didn't think it was possible.

Speaker 2: 49:50

Wow.

Speaker 3: 49:51

He prayed for me. God totally set me free, and that was maybe 13 years ago, and I haven't struggled. I haven't dealt with pornography once.

Speaker 2: 50:01

No way.

Speaker 3: 50:03

In like 13 years, and I say that like with all glory to God, because it was a total God moment, a miraculous moment where God just reached down and ripped something out of me that had ruled my life for like well over a decade, and so I started really experiencing the love and the power of God in that period of my life where, you know, three or four years earlier I said I was all in, but for a long time it was like, well, just work really hard at building your business, because this is something that's productive, you can spend your time on.

Speaker 3: 50:43

But I was still very broken inside and I was really trying to get close to God through disciplines, like if I read my Bible, if I don't drink too much, if I pray, like if I hit this checklist and that's. You know, this is kind of my life now and honestly it kind of sucked. I was like man. You know, in some ways it feels like my best years are behind me, even though I was really broken in college. At least I was experiencing, you know, some level of euphoria and freedom and adventure, even though it was a broken version.

Speaker 3: 51:18

But, yeah, you know, fast forward my mid-20s and it's like God just started exploding in all of these different areas of my life in terms of, like, the people I was surrounded by and, um, the experiences that I was having with him and being introduced to, um, people who actually really knew and loved God and were hearing from him in ways that I didn't really know were possible, and then started to experience that in my own life. So, no, we just covered a lot, but let me stop there.

Speaker 2: 51:53

Was that interaction with when you got freedom? Was that after the first time, like, was that in the same time that you shared that stuff for the first time? This was just okay.

Speaker 3: 52:04

No, it's like layers and layers and layers coming off.

Speaker 2: 52:07

Wow.

Speaker 3: 52:09

But it was in the same season.

Speaker 2: 52:17

Wow, that's so wild. Did you feel a release of peace when?

Speaker 3: 52:18

you shared that for the first time. Yeah, I was. I was so undone. I was so undone by the weight off my shoulders of like, just like letting this secret that I thought I was going to take to my grave and was leading to so much shame and self-rejection and depression and like very poor life decisions. Uh, to like be able to share that with someone I loved and respected and to really experience Christ, like the true love of Christ, the empathy, the compassion, speaking life, speaking identity, like just the way he navigated that. It was very much one of those times in my life that were life-changing.

Speaker 2: 53:12

Whoa.

Speaker 3: 53:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:15

Was that your first encounter with like the power of God, like the Holy Spirit, moving in a manifest way?

Speaker 1: 53:25

That's a good question, if not the first, like a really key moment yeah yeah because I'm curious like how that, if that became like a thing, because obviously now you're a man who prays and seeks healing and yeah, you know it listens to the voice of the. So sounds like in this season in India started. Okay, what's, what is it God actually saying? Yeah, like God had to slam some doors, like I always view that as like very low level God. God speaking to you is like he changes your circumstances.

Speaker 1: 54:09

What's interesting about-, but then you start listening and you're like okay, now what is god actually saying to me?

Speaker 3: 54:14

yeah, what's interesting about india is I really experienced the demonic side of the spiritual world. Like I remember feeling very terrified a few times when I was in india and experiencing these very dark spiritual forces, but I don't know that I experienced I'm sure God was working and he was at work and I was praying and worshiping and whatever, but like I don't remember experiencing any real sort of manifestations of God in India, I do remember experiencing some really dark and scary manifestations while I was there. So like to me the spiritual world was very real, but it wasn't until probably the season fast forward three or four years where I was really experiencing very real and meaningful manifestations from the Lord.

Speaker 3: 55:15

This is that season of being discipled by this guy, and this is that season of being discipled by this guy Rob, and being, you know, housemate with this guy Ben. And there were just all of these other people that were just out of the blue, like in my life, that were walking with the Lord. And you know, I went to some deliverance prayer sessions with these old ladies that just like loved the Lord and there were like additional measures of healing that happened, these just like intercessor prayer warriors, and all of this to me was so new. I didn't know if I agreed with it, I didn't know what to think about it, I had a lot of judgments but at the end of the day I'm like there's so much freedom here and I'm like there's so much freedom here and I'm desperate.

Speaker 3: 56:10

I was just desperate for um to really like know God. I'm like if, if it's him, I'm good with it.

Speaker 2: 56:20

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 56:20

If it's him and it doesn't make sense to my brain I'm willing to try. And uh, and that actually led me back to California because I had this friend, ben. He went to a school called Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry and he came back and he was so changed that again I was like man. I think Bethel's weird. I've been told it's a cult.

Speaker 3: 56:55

I have heard so many negative things about this, but I can't deny the fruit in this guy's life, and so I was just really hungry for anything that was God. I wanted it, regardless of whether it was offensive to me, regardless of whether people disagreed with me, like if it was God I was in. And so I ended up feeling like the Lord was calling me to leave the business I was a part of, without a plan B. God led like Carrie into my life, who's my wife. We're married, we have three daughters and a fourth on the way, and she's amazing and there's so much there in our relationship where God just miraculously brought us together and just showed up in such cool ways.

Speaker 3: 57:54

But anyway, at that point in my life I was just all in and felt like the Lord was leading us to Bethel, to Redding, california and, prior to that to Afghanistan for almost four months, and so he's had us on this journey of laying everything down to pursue him, and that's how we ended up. I don't know where to go from here. Actually. I feel like I'm really speeding ahead, but that's ultimately what's led us here to Raleigh just really learning how to lay down our own goals and dreams, to pursue Him above all else, and he's been so good, he's been so faithful and he's so much better than I could have imagined, especially as a kid that kid that was really afraid of God and was so afraid that I was going to go to hell and you know, like, yeah, and, and did so so much in my life, to, to, to try to find peace.

Speaker 1: 59:16

Was the going to Bethel? Was the motivation like God has something for me there or I'm going to get equipped for a life in service to him, or like some mix?

Speaker 3: 59:31

I think it was a mix. So I was cautiously optimistic that there was a lot more of God that I wasn't experiencing and I wanted to be in a culture that was going after all that there was to experience with God. And the more I learned about this church, bethel, and had some friends that went there, I had reason to believe that this was really a group of people going after the Lord and weren't willing to just stay in the status quo, and there was a school that they had where it was all about equipping, but I think part of it was for kind of selfish reasons. I still was dealing with a lot of brokenness at that point in my life and I felt like it was almost a place of Sabbath where God could really do some heart work in me and even more healing and deliverance.

Speaker 1: 1:00:45

I was going to say. You know, one of the co-founders was on this podcast, tracy. Yeah, did you ever get to interact with her while you were there?

Speaker 3: 1:00:55

she spends a lot of time overseas. Yeah, I heard her story a couple times when I was there and it was always really impactful. Yeah, but I never knew her. Really cool, really cool story.

Speaker 2: 1:01:10

What to bring it to kind of present day. What does laying your life down and pursuing Jesus look like in this season of life for Nate?

Speaker 3: 1:01:24

Yeah, surrender. I think really surrender is a key theme for me, continuing to surrender my desires. I have a really strong will, I have a very strong work ethic and drive for drive for, uh, I'm very competitive and so I I think that for me it's it's just continuing to trust that God has a good plan for my life and and and prioritizing my relationship with him over all the stuff that I want to do with my life. And I think one key thing that he's really highlighted for me in this season is, um, to trust him to. He's the one that can make it happen so much bigger, like have more faith in what he says and what he's doing than the doubts, the fears, the, you know, the anxiety that can creep in. And so, you know, a big theme in my life is just learning to hear from him and trust him, and trust him so much with my life that I don't live with fear, I don't live with anxiety, and that's been a lifelong battle and I think that I've seen a lot of victory. But that's a theme I feel that he's really highlighting to me again in this season how much we trust him and to truly trust him and put our faith in what he has for us in terms of what he's calling us to do.

Speaker 3: 1:04:01

It really requires being able to speak to the storms in our life.

Speaker 3: 1:04:08

So I've thought a lot about Jesus in the boat and it's like you can only command the storms that you can sleep in, and so I don't know if that makes sense. It's a bit of a ramble, but that's something he's really been speaking to me about a lot lately, and what that's looked like practically is continually stewarding and listening to prophetic words that have been spoken over my life, getting into the word and really asking that the Lord speak to me through his Word, getting to a place every single day in the morning where I'm not jumping into my day until I've really experienced His peace in my heart, and then continually I don't know if you've heard of a book called Practicing the Presence. It's like this little book by Brother Lawrence that talks about carrying the presence of God throughout the day, really being intentional about stewarding his presence throughout the day. So those are some things that he's really put on my heart lately and I feel like he's speaking to my heart to continue to grow in.

Speaker 1: 1:05:37

But yeah, I know you have given me some good counsel over the years about anxiety.

Speaker 1: 1:05:44

Yeah, and one of the things that you helped me understand is you have to be able to like, abide in a in the corporate or worldly culture that expects X, but you're over here and know that your value and who you are and everything is over in this totally other world. And that living in that tension I think you can use that word like that phrase like living in this tension of like I'm in a sales culture with public goals and marks, I got to hit and that's all stuff that's real and my job depends on it but, yeah, but that's not my source of life, it's not my source of identity and that that's very hard. If you don't, if you've never done it, you jump into that world. You can sink a little bit before you learn to swim, and I for sure did, and you helped me out with just understanding that. But it's interesting to hear that you're still taking ground in that area and fighting for new levels and you know and you'll be, you'll coach more people through it.

Speaker 3: 1:06:55

You know all that ground you take yeah, and you know, I think about david right, like he had to learn how to fight and kill a bear, and it took like a certain level of fearlessness. And then he had to learn how to fight and kill a lion, and that took a certain level of fearlessness. And then he had to learn how to fight and kill a lion, and that took a certain level of fearlessness. And then he had to learn how to fight and kill Goliath, which then was another level of fearlessness and courage, and it's like the ante kept going up and up and up. And I believe that's what he does in our life, like as he matures us. We're equipped if we, you know, if we learn our lessons and don't keep going around the same mountain over and over again and we don't get stuck on one lesson for 40 years. Hopefully, like you know, the Israelites did in the wilderness like he'll continue to stretch us, because if we're stewards of what he's teaching us now and we learn the lesson, then we'll grow and we'll, you know we'll we'll reach that next level. And it's funny, you bring up sales because, um, that's the one career I never wanted to do, ever, and I'm in sales and um, so I made a, a pledge with myself I would never do sales.

Speaker 3: 1:08:14

In fact, um, when I was in California, there was a guy another guy who's been such a father to me and just such a mentor. His name's Rick and he had a very successful career in corporate America building very high growth revenue organizations at public companies, and I really wanted to work for him and I really wanted to learn from him. And he had this startup in Reading, which is where Bethel is, and he said you can't come work for me unless you do sales. And I'm like that's the one job I'll never do. And it was a job that I was afraid of. It's a job I thought I wouldn't be successful at because it requires getting very uncomfortable, and it was a job I had no interest in and for the last 10 years of my life, it's the career God's given me.

Speaker 3: 1:09:19

And it's just funny how God will sometimes put you in the position you feel the least qualified and the most uncomfortable and he's like nope, that thing you said you won't do. That's the very thing I'm calling you to, because unless you get really uncomfortable to the point where you're like God, if you don't show up, I'm going to self-implode. That's oftentimes the one place he wants you. So I think it's funny you bring up sales, because that was the one thing I said I would never do and God's given me almost a decade now in this line of work that I felt so incapable, fearful of and, frankly, had like no interest in doing. It's just funny, it's like heavenly comedy.

Speaker 1: 1:10:20

You clearly articulated what I've felt many times. Actually, what's come up on a podcast with Gary?

Speaker 3: 1:10:28

Gary you can go listen to that episode.

Speaker 1: 1:10:29

Gary Mayer. He was like in sales his whole career and he was like not a salesman not a sales guy. I'm in sales, I'm not a sales guy I've. I joked on that podcast. I was like my dad gave me a sales aptitude test and was like I would never, never, hire you for sales.

Speaker 3: 1:10:46

My mom, the other day literally texted me. She's like like hey, I want you to talk so-and-so about sales because he has a lot of the qualities that you do, which I thought would make you never successful in sales, but you've been very successful there.

Speaker 1: 1:11:01

So I have hope for this guy too.

Speaker 3: 1:11:03

But you know.

Speaker 3: 1:11:05

I was like OK, all right all right, uh, but you look, a lot of this has felt heavy because the the story has had a lot of of pain and um, but the future is very bright. The, what god's done in my life has totally transformed me and like man, I, I look back and I'm like that that's not even me Like who was that person? I'm so different now and there's so much joy and so much life and so much freedom and I'm just so grateful for how God is so patient with me. He was with me in, you know, in those nights where I could have died because of really foolish things that I was doing, and he saved me over and over again and he brought me to this place of victory and freedom and healing. And now I get to father four beautiful daughters, fourth on the way in April, to a father four beautiful daughters, fourth on the way in April, and he's given me this beautiful wife who loves the Lord, and he's given us a beautiful, intact marriage. He's given me so much purity of heart and so much confidence in him and so much excitement for the future.

Speaker 3: 1:12:28

Where I used to be so depressed, I would think about suicide and I'm like, but I can't do that because then I'll go to hell, like and uh, you know, I'm just amazed at him. I'm amazed at the life that he has, he has provided and how, um, you know, he, he just kind of reached down into this grimy pit that I was in and pulled me out and he's put me on unstable footing. And so I do want to highlight, you know, what's different and how he's really transformed the way I think and the life I get to live, and I wake up almost every day really excited and passionate and full of hope and vision. And that wasn't me. That wasn't me, and so many of the vices in my life have now become positions of strength. Positions of strength.

Speaker 3: 1:13:34

I was addicted to porn. I was, uh, addicted to alcohol. I am free from porn for 13 years and I have three daughters, fourth on the way, and a wife, and that's like a, a position of, of breakthrough and strength that he's given me and I could have never done that on my own, um and, and I'm, I'm living in purity of heart and I have three daughters and I'm like man, and a fourth on the way. Like 10 years, 15 years ago, I've been like like I could never be a father of daughters. Look how broken I am from you know, like, uh, you know, just just from a like identity and broken sexual past perspective.

Speaker 3: 1:14:13

And he put me in a career that I love, like I love every day of what I do. I wake up passionate every day and it's like the one thing I said I would never do and I'm like I could never do that and I have no vision for that, um, and I don't think I have the skillsets and and I think that's just what he does. He takes our weaknesses, he takes our brokenness and when he lets us, when we fully yield to him or we do the best that we can, he heals us.

Speaker 3: 1:14:50

And then he makes our greatest losses, some of our greatest strengths, and I just love that about God. I just love that. He's so good, that's a great like ending point. It is Nate Howell. Thank you for sharing your story. Man, thanks for having me. It's our fault, thank you.