Life in the City: God’s Work in Darrius’ Life

This is a mostly uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting, please check the audio for accuracy.

00:00:02

Hey Antioch, we’re excited for you to hear today’s Member Spotlight episode with Pastor Darius.

00:00:08

Before we begin, we do want to make you aware that today’s episode does mention sexual assault.

00:00:14

We understand that there may be some listeners who may find portions of today’s episode to be triggering or that may need to use parental discretion.

00:00:22

Like listening with little ears around, but for all listeners, we hope that despite some heavy content contains in today’s episode that you’ll be able to hear a story about God’s redemptive plan at work and the lives of his people.

00:00:39

Welcome to the life in the city podcast from Antioch Community Church in northeast Minneapolis, where we explore what it looks like to be a loving family inviting all people into the life changing way of Jesus Christ.

00:00:51

We’re glad you’re here.

00:00:57

Welcome back, everybody.

00:00:58

It’s you.

00:00:59

Another edition of the life in the city podcast.

00:01:01

I am Coley Waataja.

00:01:01

Je and I’m Rachel.

00:01:03

Love and we are back this week with another member highlight with our own Darius Hubbard.

00:01:12

Pastor DEOGG.

00:01:14

The last man standing.

00:01:16

Old faithful.

00:01:18

Yeah, yeah.

00:01:19

We got a lot of.

00:01:19

Nicknames just D sometimes.

00:01:22

Uhm, junior twin, I think right now.

00:01:25

The child is surpassing me.

00:01:28

And he’s very proud of it.

00:01:30

So proud of him.

00:01:31

Well, this is kind of the first you by now we’ll have heard our interview with Ryan Mauer.

00:01:40

Where we got to hear a bit of his story, but that was more of a ministry highlight.

00:01:43

Yeah, this is more about Darius as a person, not a position.

00:01:49

So we just feel like a lot of people haven’t heard your story.

00:01:54

I have, but I’ve been around for a decade and.

00:01:57

1/2 you know so.

00:02:00

And we just think that.

00:02:02

You have a lot to share that can be encouraging and challenging for people, so.

00:02:06

Uhm, let’s just start with did you want to say anything before we start?

00:02:10

No, this is good member highlight one, number one of the antiok body, yeah.

00:02:13

Never mind, number one.

00:02:14

So if anybody else is interested in doing this like we would.

00:02:18

Reach out.

00:02:19

Well, we would love to chat with you.

00:02:20

And it’s not so much about like we want to hear your stories so we can go, wow, that’s your story, you know?

00:02:27

But we want to be able to hear how God has worked in peoples lives.

00:02:31

And how he has used maybe the unexpected stories.

00:02:36

To bring about his glory.

00:02:39

And you’re good.

00:02:41

So let’s just start at the beginning, Darius.

00:02:44

You have not always been Pastor Darius in Minneapolis.

00:02:48

When you were just like little Darius, I don’t know.

00:02:51

We’re gonna steal little guardians.

00:02:53

Yeah, you’re you don’t have the nickname of.

00:02:53

Like little earth.

00:02:55

Pastor D at age 50? OK, just checking.

00:02:59

So yeah, where what’s your what’s your background?

00:03:01

Where did you grow up?

00:03:02

Yeah, so pull.

00:03:04

I was born in Harvey, IL, a small town, and then we moved.

00:03:11

We left.

00:03:12

Harvey moved to Chicago for a little bit.

00:03:14

Wasn’t the greatest, and so my mom moved to Minnesota.

00:03:19

Her and her sister moved to Minnesota just for better opportunities and something new to get out of the.

00:03:25

The Illinois area.

00:03:27

And so I grew up with my mother as a single mother and then two older siblings.

00:03:33

So I’m the youngest of three.

00:03:35

Oh, I have a or old.

00:03:36

The oldest is a girl, my sister and my brother than me.

00:03:40

And so I think we’re all about but about two years separated from each other in a row.

00:03:45

Like to keep her ducks in a row.

00:03:46

She was.

00:03:46

Parents neurotic with that and so, but uh yeah.

00:03:50

So I came to Minnesota when I was.

00:03:54

I think it was approaching my 7th birthday.

00:03:58

But I went back home a lot.

00:04:00

I didn’t like Minnesota.

00:04:01

And so every summer I will go back home to be with my grandparents to Illinois and go back home for a little bit and and spend my summers there.

00:04:11

That didn’t last long ’cause I wanted to stay.

00:04:14

I actually got the opportunity to stay for a whole year.

00:04:16

My mom didn’t like that, so she made me come back.

00:04:18

Oh, wow.

00:04:19

And so, but yeah.

00:04:22

For the most part. And so I spent the most of mine now going on 36 years here in Minnesota.

00:04:28

So not born here originally, but spent the majority of my years living in Minneapolis, the greater Minneapolis area.

00:04:35

So as acute we were poor but just having a single mom and so we moved around a lot so.

00:04:41

Majority of my childhood has been in the Minneapolis area.

00:04:46

And you said your mom was a single mom.

00:04:48

Did you know your dad or what were the like male influences in your life?

00:04:52

Yeah, so I think the biggest influence was my grandfather, and that only lasted.

00:04:59

He ended up passing away suddenly from a heart attack when I was about 11.

00:05:03

And so it wasn’t many years with him, but they was very significant in my life.

00:05:07

And so I looked at him as a father figure I knew of my dad.

00:05:13

And but it was rarely that he spent any time with us either.

00:05:18

When he was around, he was out roaming the streets, or when he wasn’t around, he was in prison and so he spent the majority of.

00:05:27

The good 20 years of my life in and out of prison.

00:05:32

And so family dynamics then.

00:05:34

Obviously it sounds like you lived with your mother who was hard working to raise you guys, but you have siblings.

00:05:40

What did you and your siblings find yourself like filling your time with?

00:05:43

What were family values, things that you did together growing up that you can look back on now?

00:05:48

Yeah, it.

00:05:51

I think one of the biggest thing was like hard working.

00:05:54

But being with a single mother comes with its challenges too.

00:05:58

My mother came from a history of a family man, family, her.

00:06:03

I think he was her grandfather, maybe, or her great grandfather.

00:06:06

One of them was a pastor, but I I think one of them was the preacher.

00:06:10

And so, but my grandmother got passed alcoholism down to her and they end up getting passed down to my her children.

00:06:19

And so she had three children, my mother, her older sister.

00:06:24

And her older bro.

00:06:25

Other who?

00:06:26

Which is part of the reason why we end up leaving Illinois.

00:06:29

So the brother end up getting stabbed in the heart by a jealous ex of his girlfriend.

00:06:35

So I think that was part of her sense of like, I need to get out of here and move on and give my children something better.

00:06:41

But you know, your problems don’t always leave because you leave the town and so.

00:06:45

Right. Yeah.

00:06:46

So it was, I think, but one of those values was hard working.

00:06:49

My mother had her.

00:06:50

She had her issues and her challenges, but I think one of those values she always showed us like.

00:06:55

Uh, most uh among her issues and challenge, she was always hard working to be a single mother.

00:07:01

She always had a job, but she had her vices on the on the weekends and.

00:07:05

Outside of that.

00:07:06

Work but and so that percentage is challenges growing up as especially for me.

00:07:11

Uh, as?

00:07:13

Outside of my siblings, I wasn’t as outgoing as a kid.

00:07:17

I was the youngest, I was small, and so I was quiet.

00:07:21

And so I always tried to do the right thing, be in the right place, make sure I’m kind of.

00:07:26

Seeing kind of seen, not heard like in the background.

00:07:29

I played a lot of background please so and that came with his, with his challenges for me navigating life and just always carried a sense of like do people know me?

00:07:39

Do people see me and, and especially as a kid not having a father?

00:07:44

Well, there was always this longing.

00:07:46

But like is for I want to do something that gets approval from some male figure in my life.

00:07:51

And so like can I do these things or be in the right place to get this approval from this male figure?

00:07:57

I wanted to be known and seen by a father figure and so and that was present.

00:08:04

And I did all those things.

00:08:05

I got that affirmation from my grandfather, and he always made me at least feel like I can do anything.

00:08:12

And so I think part of me, that sense of me having that stability, was crushed when he passed away.

00:08:19

And so there was a lot of pain that came with that and a lot of like searching for that info.

00:08:24

I went in all of the wrong places and some of that was from my brother.

00:08:30

Uhm, because as we came to Minnesota, my sister got introduced to some mails that was in the gang, and then they kind of recruited my brother.

00:08:40

And so as I grew up, I grew up watching my brother do these things and hang around these people and and since, you know.

00:08:49

You know, certain things are not good and certain things are wrong, but like you want that approval from these people because in since for him there was a sense of family and fatherhood by these older men that he didn’t have and I didn’t have either and so.

00:09:03

I think it was up into.

00:09:07

I kind of stayed away from that area and try to stay a good kid, getting good grades in school and doing the right thing.

00:09:14

I would say up until the age of.

00:09:17

13 about 13 I decided to skip school with my brother and ’cause I had this sense of it was this pool within our family as well.

00:09:27

My brother and I learned it from my mother.

00:09:30

Later on we had conversations about it.

00:09:32

Like, she’s like, I was a good and quiet kid.

00:09:34

Like, I didn’t need as much attention because I was a good and quiet kid.

00:09:38

It was like my brother always needed these things because he was always acting out and doing these and doing these things that required for her to get involved.

00:09:45

And she was like, he just needed so much attention.

00:09:48

And that created something.

00:09:50

Oh, kind of like a rivalry between us.

00:09:52

Yeah, and at the same time in his green animosity.

00:09:55

But I kind of looked up to him at the same time, so it’s this weird mixed feeling.

00:09:59

But so I was like, I’m gonna be cool like my brother.

00:10:02

He gets to skip school.

00:10:03

So why don’t I skip school?

00:10:05

And so we didn’t know my mom was coming home that day and so together caught us and kind of late.

00:10:11

Be sure your sins will find you out.

00:10:14

You know when I tell my kids that like I’m.

00:10:16

Going to find.

00:10:16

Out eventually, I sound like my mom.

00:10:19

And So what?

00:10:20

We all do, eventually.

00:10:21

We all sound like our mother.

00:10:22

And so.

00:10:24

But she came home and she was like, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you better get to school.

00:10:28

I don’t care if you walked to school and school wasn’t there for like, you guys get to see.

00:10:32

So and.

00:10:32

But was it uphill, both ways, trapped, checking in the snow to get to school?

00:10:37

It was. It was it.

00:10:38

Was still summer, so it was.

00:10:40

Fine. It wasn’t too hard.

00:10:42

And so but.

00:10:45

I decided, but he decided after she left.

00:10:47

Like I’m not going to do it.

00:10:48

I don’t have.

00:10:48

To do it.

00:10:49

And so like just he can get away with those things.

00:10:52

And so I still had to go to school and so at that time I.

00:10:57

I didn’t know at the time I end up walking to get to school and there was a neighborhood predator.

00:11:05

And so, you know, you teach your kids not to talk to strangers, but I think people have.

00:11:12

They know what they’re doing.

00:11:13

They’re called predators for a reason.

00:11:14

And so.

00:11:15

Uhm, long surgery.

00:11:17

He ends up introduced himself and he knew where I went to school and actually knew some of my teachers, and so they end up being offered.

00:11:24

So coming by and I was little at the time, 7th grade, I probably looked like 1/5 grader. And so I I let him give me a bike ride across the river into well across the street going towards the river and that bike.

00:11:35

Right.

00:11:35

Ended up me being molested at 13 and so.

00:11:40

I think after that it came with a sense of like, not.

00:11:42

Knowing who you are.

00:11:44

Yeah, like you get it.

00:11:45

You get a sense of that, which it was already some of that losing my grandfather and not having a father figure.

00:11:51

And so I think after that of.

00:11:55

Being so young, like there’s just like, you want to tell people what you’re afraid of, like it kind of turns in turning like, well then what was my fault?

00:12:03

I should’ve knew better.

00:12:04

You should never done these things like you should have been.

00:12:06

So you go to like blaming yourself and so and then.

00:12:10

Since you were just seeking friendship at that time, seeking some communities, seeking to know who you were, and that was.

00:12:17

That was taken in all the wrong ways and now there is a shame.

00:12:20

But like well, maybe I was wrong and all this this is my fault.

00:12:24

And then there was a sense of like a shame of like.

00:12:30

I didn’t have nobody.

00:12:31

I felt secure with that.

00:12:32

I can share that with in a sense like.

00:12:35

Who can I share that with when they’ll blame me?

00:12:37

I came.

00:12:37

Home and I.

00:12:38

Was I was my leg was bleeding from from from it and.

00:12:43

And so I’m.

00:12:44

I lied.

00:12:45

I came up with a lie and said I got.

00:12:48

Ran into somebody buy buy a bike and then so, and I was so old.

00:12:51

What did you do?

00:12:52

Why did you let that happen?

00:12:53

So like, well, if I’m getting blamed for getting ready to buy from bike, I’m not going to share anything.

00:12:57

And so I think at that point I was like I started searching for more and and crying out for something and.

00:13:07

The easy fix was to start hanging out with my brother and doing all the wrong things.

00:13:11

So at that point I started drinking, doing drugs and kind of got lost into I didn’t officially like join the gangs, but having brothers and.

00:13:22

My brother and then what they call big homies, other brother like people into it.

00:13:27

I never really needed to initiate and be initiated.

00:13:30

I was already in draft and drafted into it because of family members and so I’ve probably spent from the age of.

00:13:39

13 to about 18 in that world of like mixing in that world and like drugs and like.

00:13:46

This sense of like I want to be still.

00:13:47

Like a good?

00:13:49

Kid in a sense, but like I had these things that was weighing on me and hard for me to process and deal with.

00:13:54

And so I was.

00:13:55

I seeked out something in a bottle or thinking about something in drugs.

00:13:59

And, uh, I had a friend in 9th grade.

00:14:03

I’m in 9th grade.

00:14:06

We used to hang out together and he was a church kid.

00:14:10

He grew up as a way to pass their family and church kids have their issues.

00:14:15

And so we would hang out and drink together.

00:14:18

And you always hit me up.

00:14:20

Like, you need to know this guy named Jesus.

00:14:22

Like, like, you know, I’m like.

00:14:24

Don’t talk to me about Jesus as you passing me a.

00:14:26

Bottle of liquor like.

00:14:28

And it was like if you grew up the way like you and then grow up the way I grew up, if you grew up with a single mother.

00:14:33

Or like if you grew up with like facing these hard things, like there is no God.

00:14:38

Like like there’s no God that exists.

00:14:41

Like there’s no one that loves me.

00:14:43

And so but.

00:14:46

For four years he like didn’t give up, like telling me about this.

00:14:49

And then at the best times, like it wasn’t like it wasn’t like this big like convincing approach that he had with it.

00:14:56

But I think it was a it was a weighing me down and like it was like the right person in the right time in my.

00:15:01

Wife and so.

00:15:05

So that happened for about a couple years straight.

00:15:07

Ah, he was telling me about him and I’m inviting me to visit his church and.

00:15:15

When I went in about at 18 at 12th grade, I end up.

00:15:22

Partying at a party.

00:15:24

And got.

00:15:26

Too intoxicated and uhm, end up being.

00:15:31

Taken advantage of by a woman at this party.

00:15:34

And so that brought me and that just drove me to think about the first one when I was 13.

00:15:39

So I dive deeper into drugs again and kind of relapse deeper into that.

00:15:44

And and.

00:15:46

And it left me gonna last for a while for a little bit.

00:15:50

And so he invited me again and I think at that point I was just so empty and so tried to pour it.

00:15:59

And I had already over the years tried to commit suicide a couple times and and didn’t work out and so I think I was at that point.

00:16:06

I was so empty.

00:16:07

That I needed something and so I.

00:16:11

I visited at his church and I remember.

00:16:14

That the pastor was.

00:16:16

He was talking about how God is loving father.

00:16:20

And he was, it was a confliction ’cause I was so mad.

00:16:22

I was so mad about hearing it.

00:16:24

I was like, this cannot be true.

00:16:26

Like I have no experience of what that’s like.

00:16:29

And but at the same time he was appealing.

00:16:30

It was something about that that was appealing.

00:16:33

And so I had made an appointment to like and at this time I was living.

00:16:39

At the gang member House, I was living there. I had moved out of my own, out of my mom’s house, and I was living at the gang member house with everything, and I called it the Sodom and Gomorrah house.

00:16:50

Like any anything like you say when someone like their depravity reached the heavens and guy had enough.

00:16:56

Like if I’m sure that place was going to get.

00:16:58

Burned down at some point.

00:16:59

The things that happened there and so, uhm.

00:17:03

It was just this.

00:17:03

The world that I was living in was so dark and I needed something.

00:17:06

And so hearing that, it was like something appealing about that at the same time.

00:17:10

And so I.

00:17:12

I visited and I made a point like I’m going to come again.

00:17:16

And so I think hearing hearing about God a couple of times, like I knew something wasn’t right about the life that I was living.

00:17:25

And so I we had these.

00:17:28

You have like these.

00:17:29

You look up to these older dudes because it’s like a sense of family.

00:17:33

And but then you have younger people that’s kind of like looking up to you as you look into.

00:17:37

So I decided to like bring some of these younger guys that was to the church with me and visit with me.

00:17:43

It was sort of like a year or two younger than me and so.

00:17:48

I brought them with me, and the church that I was visiting at this time was in a rival gang neighborhood in South Minneapolis.

00:17:57

And so, uhm.

00:18:01

Not knowing better being young.

00:18:05

You don’t have any protection.

00:18:06

You don’t have any backup.

00:18:07

We drove past, we left the church, and we drove past.

00:18:15

This corner where all the gang members were hanging out, the rival gang they were hanging out and they said yelled out some slurs to them outside of the window.

00:18:23

And we got probably.

00:18:26

A block away from that house that we was living at at the time and uh.

00:18:32

Isub pulled over and blocked me off at the stop sign.

00:18:36

Pulled out a fully automatic pistol and shot up the entire car.

00:18:41

And so at that point I’m seeing bullets fly through the window.

00:18:44

What I perceived?

00:18:45

Was a bullet that hit me in the head.

00:18:47

And the car pulled off and no one is hurt. You look at on the outside of the vehicle and you see whoever’s in there is like they’re dead. They have to be dead.

00:18:59

You look on the inside of the vehicle and there is no evidence besides the shattered windows of where the bullets are and then passing through the only the outside of the doors and I I called my friend.

00:19:12

And he tells me that was God saving you for a reason and for a purpose.

00:19:17

And from that point on, I committed to going to the church.

00:19:21

I didn’t give my life to Christ.

00:19:22

It was I was still living in this Dark World, and I had my 1 foot in this Dark World.

00:19:27

But I committed to like regularly attending the church, like there was something that I needed to change in my life.

00:19:33

And so, uhm, and probably about.

00:19:37

Six months into that is uh.

00:19:41

Where I end up, I invited my girlfriend, who was my wife now, and her mother, and about six months into that, we all gave our life to Christ there at that church.

00:19:56

I did not know much of that, so thank you so much for your vulnerability and sharing.

00:20:03

Yeah, I don’t need to comment a whole lot more other than God is good.

00:20:06

Yeah, and he brings good things that are brokenness, and I think your life is a testament to that.

00:20:12

Uhm, so a question I have then is.

00:20:19

How I know many people at Antioch better in the church family right now know that there are some physical ailments that you have as well.

00:20:30

Can you give us a little recap of that and how has God used?

00:20:36

Brokenness. Both.

00:20:38

Emotionally and spiritually and physically in your life to draw you closer to him.

00:20:44

Yeah, I haven’t always been.

00:20:47

This is a real person that I am now, but yeah, so I gave my life to Christ in 2006, the fall of 2006, and and then probably the fall of 2007 is when I started noticing within my body like that something wasn’t right.

00:21:08

I started getting pains and slowly started to lose the ability to walk and see.

00:21:17

I was working, I was working downtown at the Federal Reserve at the time. And so I just started getting pains with like every step that I took to it eventually got to the point or I end up being in a wheelchair and end up losing so much sight that I was legally blind. And so it just and it started in 2007.

00:21:38

By the the fall of 2008 I ended up that way and so.

00:21:45

It was a.

00:21:47

It definitely was a wrestling.

00:21:49

We were like I.

00:21:51

You know, I gave my life to Christ.

00:21:53

And now all these good things was gonna happen.

00:21:55

Like go out like this.

00:21:55

Thank you.

00:21:57

It’s gonna be a bunch of rainbows and Bunny rappers, like from this point on and so and it it wasn’t quite the story, it was.

00:22:04

It was a uh by win from some physical suffering before Christ, and a lot of emotional suffering up to now is like physical ailments, suffering.

00:22:18

Once I gave my life down and.

00:22:21

I remember after.

00:22:23

Being sick and for the first two years I was.

00:22:31

Late at night.

00:22:33

I was taking a shower and I just said.

00:22:36

I can’t do this.

00:22:40

If like, and this is what it’s like to follow you, I prefer that you just kill me now.

00:22:45

Like I cannot take another day of suffering this much.

00:22:50

I heard it clear as day, as a as God said.

00:22:54

I will heal you when you accomplish what I.

00:22:55

Have for you.

00:22:58

For me, I was like, can I get more details from that?

00:23:00

Like is that gonna be like on this side of glory or like the other side, like can I get a little bit more than that?

00:23:05

Like, I mean I’m gonna need a little bit more than that.

00:23:07

And so it’s really.

00:23:09

Has been.

00:23:11

And from that, really from that point on, 2nd Corinthians 12 has really been a testament over my life of like, I suffer, I have these suffering, these things going to have prayed for years and pray had people pray for me for years.

00:23:24

And God has really told me, like, my Grace is sufficient for you like.

00:23:28

I want you how are you gonna both in your weaknesses and your insults in your in your suffering that people not see your shrimp on my strength in that and it has really been God using.

00:23:41

My physical suffering to really show a picture of his strength and his glory and his peace come really of like this enduring peace that has been.

00:23:51

Placed in my life through this suffering that really allowed me to grow our relationship with the father that knows me well, like I always longed for that and I wanted a father who knew me well and come through this suffering.

00:24:04

I have been able to really work on my relationship with Jesus and be secure in that.

00:24:10

Uh, first, Peter talks about suffering as as Christians and really being like, how do you do that well, and you do that well through a secure relationship with Jesus and.

00:24:23

I think God has allowed me to develop a relationship with my father that I didn’t have growing up, and that has made me and enabled me to endure suffering, endure pain because I have a piece that I didn’t have before.

00:24:40

So you’re not.

00:24:42

You’re not.

00:24:44

Physically in a wheelchair.

00:24:46

And you’re not blind now, So what was the journey of that like, you know, the the miracle of medicine is part of it, you know?

00:24:53

But what kind of things have been going on with the physical aspect of your mysteriously injured and and blind and now you’re not?

00:25:03

Yeah, it’s kind of been like a long, a long process.

00:25:07

So I the things that keep me out of wheelchair and up and see why.

00:25:11

So I have three UM internal implants, I have two spinal spinal implants and I have two implants, one in each eye.

00:25:20

That helped me correct?

00:25:22

Degenerative eye disease that I have.

00:25:24

I have a nerve disease and a pain disease.

00:25:28

And so it really has been a journey of over like the last 12 years of being a medical Guinea pig.

00:25:35

And and so just different medical treatments.

00:25:38

If your medical doctors been moved away from my family for a while, I had to live out in Rochester at Mayo and go through physical therapies there and different things.

00:25:48

So it’s really been a journey of like different doctors, different treatments and really seeing how God has.

00:25:55

Really put those specific people in my life and specific doctors in my life.

00:26:00

Uh, to give me the right things at the right time to move me out of a wheelchair.

00:26:05

And so it’s really been really a journey of 12 years of different medical treatments and getting to this point and really.

00:26:15

Really seeing how God can move through medical treatments.

00:26:18

Like we always pray for.

00:26:19

Like we want that miracle fix like I want.

00:26:22

I just want to be healed and really seeing how was for me it’s been seeing like how has God has been working and I miss not being healed, miraculous.

00:26:31

Like, can I still see God moving in the midst of going through medical treatments and having these medical doctors?

00:26:37

I met people and been places that if I wasn’t sick I would have never been able to meet, I would never had opportunity to share.

00:26:44

God piece how you can have joy in the midst of suffering and so God has really used those treatments in places.

00:26:52

As not only to as a ministry to me, but also a ministry to those people as well.

00:26:59

You had mentioned before that you had met your wife and mother-in-law and invited them to church with you, where you all came to know Christ UM.

00:27:09

And now I’m years ahead on the other side, right?

00:27:13

And I see your wife and your mother-in-law and your five children coming to church with you.

00:27:19

And so.

00:27:20

I see your family life looking a whole lot different than what you described growing up up.

00:27:26

Can you speak to how God has shown up as you and your wife have now looked at raising five kids in the family dynamic and how God has been working through that to kind of maybe change that?

00:27:41

Some family rewriting.

00:27:43

Family history?

00:27:44

Yeah, I think.

00:27:47

I grown up in book going through what I never thought I would have. I would live long enough to have children and so, and now I got a bunch of them, like the whole litter and so, and it’s funny, most of them have four boys and one girl. And so it’s really like God-given me that opportunity to be the father that I never had.

00:28:08

I I remember which was different for a while.

00:28:12

Uh, when I ’cause I started having children about the first time I got sick.

00:28:16

And so in the beat when I got sick, that was hard for me because I I felt like I wasn’t.

00:28:23

I didn’t get the opportunity to be the father that I wanted to be because I couldn’t.

00:28:28

I wasn’t.

00:28:28

I couldn’t be active.

00:28:29

I couldn’t do these things.

00:28:30

I was watching my children grow up from a wheelchair and from a medical bed, sometimes being stuck in bed, being so highly medicated.

00:28:40

Uh, but even during that time.

00:28:42

Uh, my God allowed me to, you know, love on them.

00:28:46

Well, build, build character and then build values and then show them that there’s someone that loves them.

00:28:52

Uh, a godly figure that loved them and so.

00:28:56

He’s really has given me the opportunity to get everything that I longed for and a earthly father he’s given.

00:29:05

He gave that to me and him as a, as a, as a spiritual and heavenly Father.

00:29:09

But he also has given me the opportunity to pour that into my children.

00:29:12

And so to give them stability that I didn’t have, I we grew.

00:29:17

We moved around probably every year, year and a half.

00:29:21

And so to go from moving around every year, a year and a half to sometimes my bedroom being a closet in a studio apartment to now having my children grow for the last 15 years in one home.

00:29:35

And so it’s just been a blessing and sometimes.

00:29:38

Overwhelming to see how he has rewritten the story of my life for my children and where I’m able to provide for them.

00:29:46

And a bit of encouragement to you and your wife.

00:29:48

I see you guys stewarding your children and your family really well.

00:29:52

I mean the way that you instill service to others and your children in such a beautiful thing.

00:29:58

I think even like a year ago, I was pretty pregnant at the time and was talking to you one day about like, oh, I got all these leaves that are falling in my yard.

00:30:07

And it’s like the snow is already getting ready to come and you’re like, hey, I got 2 middle school or something to be put to work.

00:30:11

I’m going to send them over to rake your yard.

00:30:13

And you did.

00:30:14

And they came over and they loved my family through the active service.

00:30:18

Of breaking leaves in my yard.

00:30:20

And that is 1 super small example of the ways in which you and your kids serve not only our church family, but our community on a daily and weekly basis.

00:30:30

So I am so thankful that God has shown himself faithful in your life, but also you have been faithful too.

00:30:38

Stewarding your family come to be used for the service of others and for God’s glory, so thank you for just the ways in which you encourage those within our church family to do that as well.

00:30:52

You know as.

00:30:53

You as you tell your story, and I think about you as a little kid, and now you’re a little.

00:30:56

Man, but you know, like the only thing that hasn’t maybe changed is your physical stature.

00:31:03

And you know, you said you were.

00:31:05

Quiet and you know.

00:31:07

Maybe timid and you were just always doing the right thing, but mostly out of maybe fear.

00:31:13

How have you seen Jesus being in relationship with Jesus?

00:31:18

Or the nature of salvation, however you want to put it?

00:31:22

How? How has Jesus?

00:31:24

Turned you into who you are now, and I would maybe argue who you were meant to be.

00:31:31

As opposed to.

00:31:32

Like who you were before you knew him.

00:31:36

Like, I have this conversation sometimes when I’m being like.

00:31:40

God has already like written in part of our server like who he want us to be.

00:31:44

He just wanted to turn it and make the.

00:31:46

Take that glory away from ourselves and to others and put that glory to him.

00:31:50

So I think some of that, I didn’t know it at the time.

00:31:53

Some of those things was already written into my story, like he had for me.

00:31:58

We wanted to be.

00:31:59

They just need to be rewritten and changed around to give to him the glory.

00:32:04

And so I think.

00:32:10

I have seen him working me, a love for people and a love for him that I didn’t know of before.

00:32:19

But, like, ever since I was a kid, I always did things for others.

00:32:20

Right.

00:32:23

Like, I always been that way.

00:32:25

Like, I always served others.

00:32:27

But I don’t think I knew why.

00:32:30

I don’t.

00:32:30

I didn’t know why I had to love to do things for other or love to like be hospitable to people, but I think.

00:32:37

Coming to Jesus and having him then like, no, that’s something that I have put into you, like you get there from your father.

00:32:45

Like I didn’t know these things that I had gained from my Heavenly Father and know some of these things that he had already had created me to be.

00:32:53

And I think learning that learning who we are in Christ and.

00:32:58

Who has made us to be, has helped develop who I am now and come.

00:33:03

I think it’s a great picture when you can gain your identity in Christ like you know what you who you are.

00:33:11

Who, you suppose?

00:33:11

Because I didn’t know that as a kid.

00:33:13

I didn’t know.

00:33:13

Who I was and I I spent a lot of time searching that out into the in the wrong things and in the wrong people.

00:33:21

But I think when you know who you.

00:33:22

Are in Jesus.

00:33:23

It kind of gives you a better idea of what you want to be and who you and who you already have been.

00:33:31

It just was lived out in the wrong way.

00:33:37

So this question I I.

00:33:39

Wouldn’t necessarily ask everyone, and you can feel free to just not answer it or answer.

00:33:44

It very generally.

00:33:47

But we all, we all have places where the enemy.

00:33:50

Uh knows he has an opportunity and and so in your case, whether it’s like.

00:33:58

Just because of how you grew up or not always knowing Jesus or involvement with drugs, alcohol, gangs, whatever.

00:34:05

What are situations where or what’s in?

00:34:08

It may be an example of how the enemy tries to.

00:34:12

Get you to believe lies that lead you to.

00:34:16

To fear or.

00:34:19

Maybe, maybe not.

00:34:21

Leaning into what Jesus would have you do and how how does Jesus meet you there?

00:34:27

I think like off the top of my head, I think it’s a fear that I it’s kind of a fear from childhood, too.

00:34:33

It’s like I wasn’t good enough, like.

00:34:37

I think as a I think I still deal with that and know the enemy sometimes have that use on me like I wasn’t good enough to be loved as a kid.

00:34:46

I wasn’t gonna have to get paid enough attention as a kid.

00:34:49

And and I think sometimes I can because I tend to not be as boisterous as others.

00:34:56

I think sometimes I can still feel that way, like oh, I shouldn’t say anything because I’m not good enough.

00:35:02

And so I think the enemy uses that, but.

00:35:05

I think God if I once I allow God to speak to him like you are where you are, because I have.

00:35:11

I have equipped you.

00:35:12

I have put you where you supposed to be.

00:35:14

Like you’re good enough in my eyes.

00:35:15

And so I think that’s one of the things that I sometimes still battle with is knowing that I am where I supposed to be and because.

00:35:25

God has put me there and so, but that takes me making sure that I’m reading scripture, me making sure I have.

00:35:34

I have people in my life that pour into me, and so I think there’s things that I need, I need, in order to not listen to those lies.

00:35:42

That enemy I have to drown it out with with other things.

00:35:46

And so I think when I don’t do that, I’m more.

00:35:50

I tend more to listen to that.

00:35:56

It’s so interesting when you talk about the kind of the gang culture of, like, you’ve got the big homies and then you’ve got the kids beneath you.

00:36:03

It’s like, oh man, that kind of sounds like our disciplemaking structure.

00:36:07

They were this pipeline before you knew it.

00:36:10

Our big homie is named Moose.

00:36:14

That’s got to be a gang name somewhere.

00:36:16

So weird.

00:36:16

Maybe, maybe in North Dakota.

00:36:19

Sounds like such a Midwestern gang name.

00:36:23

Yeah, I think most Norwegian gang.

00:36:27

We learned about that this morning, actually.

00:36:29

Side conversation.

00:36:30

Sorry everyone.

00:36:33

But so I I feel like in so many parts of your story, there’s there’s hints of people searching for the gospel, searching for community, searching for fathers, searching for yeah, big and little brothers like wanting to give back, wanting protection, like all of these things that the gospel ultimately answers.

00:36:55

I just.

00:36:56

Maybe that’s not even a question.

00:36:57

It’s just kind of like, uh, praise.

00:36:58

God that you and your family have found it ’cause like Rachel said before, I think I now see this like Ultra direct trajectory of a whole crew.

00:37:07

And not to mention, the lives of your brother has changed.

00:37:09

And your sister and your mom, like, are all changed.

00:37:15

They’re different now.

00:37:16

Than before you met Jesus.

00:37:18

Before you guys all met Jesus.

00:37:21

I think that’s just incredible testimony.

00:37:22

Yeah, it’s.

00:37:24

Is interesting.

00:37:28

As I as I think about it, like how much time people.

00:37:33

How much time and energy you pour into these things that still leave you empty, like every day, you know it leaves you empty and that’s why you have to take up another bottle.

00:37:43

Like, I think it’s going to fill me up and I get some sense of satisfaction, but then it’s gone and then I have to repeat it and redo it no matter what.

00:37:54

That vices drugs, women, men, alcohol, whatever it is and.

00:38:00

And I think I didn’t know.

00:38:02

Until I met Christ, I didn’t know how free I could be.

00:38:06

Of those things, and for me, I was.

00:38:10

Unlike other people I was blessed to have, once I decided to give my life to Christ, I was free of a lot of those vices instantly, and that’s not the story for a lot of people.

00:38:18

Oh well.

00:38:20

I didn’t have to go to AA meetings and different things like that.

00:38:24

I got some miraculous healings in some areas, but others but.

00:38:30

There’s a joy in Christ.

00:38:33

That I didn’t know that there existed in life, and I don’t think that people know ’cause you don’t hear.

00:38:40

We don’t share our stories enough.

00:38:42

Like you don’t hear people certainly like there is freedom.

00:38:45

Freedom exists and it’s A and who sounds that free is you’re truly free indeed.

00:38:49

And so I think more of this needs to happen within the Community of God, of going to people and listening to their service and connecting.

00:38:58

It might not all look the same and be as dramatic as mine, but I think there’s pieces of all our stories that connect to one another and can.

00:39:05

Show someone that there’s freedom in Christ.

00:39:09

So what would you say to those that are listening to this podcast right now, hearing your story, and hearing about God’s transformative work in your life? What would you hope they glean from hearing this today?

00:39:21

I think for those, I think for those who are not believers, there are non believers that here I think there’s hope.

00:39:29

Out there, there is true hope.

00:39:31

I think we hope on these things.

00:39:32

We’re hoping that this man or there’s a woman or these things are going to make me happy.

00:39:38

They’re going to satisfy me when true hope only rest in Jesus and so.

00:39:44

My hope is that the that that see that there’s actual freedom and hope out there and interest in one one person and that person is Christ.

00:39:53

And I think to those believers I think that.

00:39:58

Is never not Share your story.

00:40:00

Never not ’cause you don’t know who that one person, you want to say something that appeals to them.

00:40:06

My friend, even though he had his issues like he kept inviting me, he didn’t know when was that one time that imitation was going to be needed.

00:40:16

That that invitation was needed and I think if I didn’t have that invitation, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

00:40:21

And so I’ll never not share Christ.

00:40:24

Don’t be afraid.

00:40:25

Be bold in your faith.

00:40:29

That’s awesome.

00:40:31

I think Darius brought us at church today, quite literally.

00:40:34

I mean I.

00:40:34

Know we’re at church recording this, but my soul has been brought to church today too, and preached too, so thank you Darius.

00:40:40

Really. Amen.

00:40:44

We wanted to start with your story because we already had you on the podcast and we referenced it.

00:40:49

We were like, hey, there’s a lot you.

00:40:50

All don’t know, and so we should cover that.

00:40:53

But I do want to clarify, we didn’t start with your story, not because it’s the most dramatic and it.

00:40:58

Makes for a good podcast.

00:41:00

But really that last question of like how or what your what you said there is.

00:41:06

That our stories encourage and challenge and.

00:41:11

Ideally, like bring others to Jesus, whether we’ve come to him before or not.

00:41:16

So I hope that all of our listeners feel that way too, and not just.

00:41:21

Uhm, oh wow.

00:41:22

There’s a bunch I didn’t know about.

00:41:23

Darius, that’s.

00:41:24

Cool to know.

00:41:25

But what is it about about your story that.

00:41:30

God wants to use to bring someone else closer to Jesus.

00:41:35

Or what is it about your story that?

00:41:38

That God wants to use in your own life to bring you to him.

00:41:43

And if there’s something there that you would be willing to share, oh, listener that you would be willing to share with the the family here at Antioch, we would love to, we would love to have you on as well.

00:41:55

Yeah, you can always e-mail us at podcast@antiochcommunity.org. It’s a great way to get in touch with us.

00:42:02

Let us know what God’s doing, what he has done, and how we can with you. Praise him for that.

00:42:09

Well, thank you, Darius.

00:42:10

Wood, thank you for having me.

00:42:12

Yeah, that was that was much shorter than you expected it to be so.

00:42:14

Yeah, like trying to condense.

00:42:18

If you have more questions for Darius, you can find him to darius@antiochcommunity.org, but I think we’ll leave it there for now. We’ll see you next time.

00:42:25

Have a great week, antiok.

00:42:29

This has been the life in the city podcast brought to you by Antioch Community Church in northeast Minneapolis. Join our worship service at 10:00 AM on Sundays in the Waterbury Building or contact us at podcast@antiochcommunity.org. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.