Intimacy vs. Imitation: What Men Get Wrong About Connection with God

Transcript

welcome to the Shameless podcast where I help Christian men kill shame stand strong and live on Mission I'm your host Ken F and I'm bringing you real stories practical insights and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin shame and live a life of purpose let's step out of the Shadows together and Into the Light of Christ all right men I am super excited for this new episode we got with you CU I got Eric Munoz here with me and today we're going to talk about intimacy versus imitation what men get wrong about connection with God and I am super excited because Eric he is the content creator for Valley of the heroic there's a podcast blogs his sermons and the whole goal is helping you find your voice in the valley so you can roar on the Mountain Top Eric welcome to the podcast man thank you brother yo shout out to you K cuz you nailed that thanks man you probably nailed that better than I would have bro to be honest you even got my last name right shout out to you bro hat off it's the it's the Hispanic inside me whenever I see a Hispanic name it just rolls off the tongue yeah bro as long as you didn't say munas or something like that we're good to I'm happy I love it I love it man well Eric before we get started we're going to talk about intimacy and obviously you learned about intimacy with God through a lot of trials in your life before we go into the messiness of your life and how God redeemed it just tell people a fun thing about you man fun thing about me okay so you know just like everybody else I don't really like talking about myself but I think a fun thing about me would be that um I started ministry at 12 11 12 years old so I've been in Ministry for most of my life what got you into Ministry so young bro funny story so we used to go to a small group yeah uh my mom and I and uh in the small group there was a bunch of different families you know it was a pretty big small group probably like 20 or so people you know the adults I think that they were in a place where they wanted to have more mature conversations during small group and they said hey let's just round up the kids and throw them in a room and who's the most mature kid out of all of these okay we'll give him a lesson and he'll teach it bro so um that's how that's my introduction into Ministry just like being thrown into there because they just needed something else it wasn't even like hey we see purpose in you and we're gonna build you up but they're like you got a post and your oldest yeah exactly literally that and so the funny thing about it was is that I started to bring friends it started to grow and they were like hold up it's like they realized it and so then they really started to build into me and give me resources and help me to grow and I had that uh small group for almost 20 years wow dude yeah that that's longevity right there man and just think about that from 12 and you're just inviting your friends hanging out connecting and bringing them to the Lord you know and discipling them that's got to be a fun ride yeah bro it was I have so many great memories there's obviously a lot of tough ones with Ministry and anything involving people is going to be difficult but so many great they used to like do so many fun things to bring people to Bible study we used to call it you know it it's a small group and we would just be like I remember one time there was these guys who we grew up in church together and we got them to come to small group because we said hey we've got PE pizza and Xbox and you know what 15y old 14y old boy is is going to say no to pizza and video games 100% yeah right so my mom was a genius with that one she was putting the money down but I'm screaming out of the car like we got pizza and Xbox let's go and we saw play basketball together but they never wanted to come and that day they came that's awesome man you know what's funny it reminds me of my times with my youth group back in New York City we would come up with all these things like the elaborate lock-ins uh you know where you're just in there and you're like we're going to have Xbox playst the whole nine you know you're just trying to get people in they ended up doing an indoor basketball court like they built the whole indoor basketball court because that was like a big Ministry of just trying to get people from the streets to come play uh and it was huge wildly successful you know but that's awesome man Eric I'm excited for you I'm excited for what God has done in your life and now we're here today and we're talking about you know we're going to talk about a lot of the ways that God molded you but there was also some heartache and some shame and some sin that you were struggling with all those times even while you were leading those Bible studies so walk us through a little bit of your testimony and how shame kind of gripped you a little bit Yeah man man I'd love to share a lot about that like I mentioned starting off in Ministry at such a young age it was definitely difficult for me navigating that because while I was thrust into a leadership role and I wouldn't change it for anything growing up especially going into High School it was tough to manage all of the different experiences and different things that were coming my way when it was just me and my mom my stepdad he was there but he worked a lot uh my relationship with my dad was uh strained he was far away I'd see him once a year uh not so strong of a relationship so I really didn't have male role models who were really building into me heavily and uh I was just trying to figure it out man I was a a 15-year-old kid in high school 16 17 uh who was uh lobbying attention from girls and trying to manage that while also trying to manage the small group and imagine you know me leading the small group and then eventually leading in church I started preaching at 15 years old and started to get really involved in the Sunday Ministry during that time but everybody that I was leading in my small group they were all my age they were peers and so they're managing their relationship with God and getting to know Jesus and at the same time their leader is this guy who's their age and then they see this leader that is their age and he's struggling with lust or they hear some story because everybody's gossiping in high school right man you had friends that gossiped I I didn't have any of those oh my goodness it must been amazing bro because it was much for me and everybody knew my crap everybody knew my mistakes everyone knew every time I I fell sexually or whatever there was different things that happened they knew about it and they held it against me but at the same time not so much because I'm a 15-y old kid and I really didn't know what I was doing and so for me what's interesting is that uh in high school and and actually to this point in my life I've never smoked anything once I've never drank alcohol all I've never struggled with a lot of things that my peers were struggling with but what I did struggle with was lust okay so how did that lust manifest you know while you mentioned some stuff there but like how did it manifest while you were still leading all these things great question bro the biggest way of course that is most accessible especially nowadays was porn and masturbation that was like you know that was just something that you turned to to self-medicate you know you were managing I didn't know I was managing all of these emotions emotions of Abandonment feeling so much pain in my heart feeling pain because I felt like my [ __ ] with my dad wasn't great and my mom had to work so much in order to provide when I was growing up and then my stepdad came and I had myad love for him but he wasn't around because he had to work so much too so I always felt like I was alone and I didn't know I was managing this deep loneliness inside of me that I would then turn to uh especially starting off early at an early age I think I was introduced to pornography in third grade wow right yeah so once you lay your eyes on something like that it just gets worse from there so you're just constantly chasing a new visual to latch your mind on to and and with the time that we were growing up bro you know that it became more and more and more accessible so it was a trap and if you're going and you're in a place of pain and you don't even know you're navigating this pain you're you're constantly turning to a way that is easy for you to self-medicate then you feel shame what is Shame Shame is pain so now you're in a cycle you're in this cycle of pain self-medicating shame pain self-medicating shame and in bits and pieces in between that you find Jesus and you try to latch on to him but you don't really know what to do and it took you a while before you found what Jesus was truly trying to offer you what was the point where all of a sudden you kind of hit rock bottom and you were like dang something needs to change bro I hit rock bottom mad times I hit rock bottom so many times like I was just at the bottom for a while started at the bottom and I was still there bro I was just I was chilling there for the longest and I think that you know aside from dealing with the the pornography and the masturbation then when I started when I lost my virginity and in high school I lost well in eighth grade I lost all this weight and all of a sudden all these girls had all this attention that they were sending my way and I didn't know how to deal with that and it was very hard for me because lust was running really rampant inside of me and I also now as a 35y old man I also realized that I just wanted to feel connection that loneliness that I was feeling that pain that I was feeling I was trying to find connection and like I said I hit rock bottom so many times because I deeply loved the Lord and I was in Ministry and I wanted to live pure I wanted to be able to wait until marriage so I was constantly right rededicating myself to the Lord begging him to free me begging him to help me to put porn down and put it away begging him to make me feel fulfilled Within myself and every time I felt like you know what this is the time this is the last time maybe a week or two later boom fell again because the lust was just too strong and as I was going going getting older going into my 20s especially I remember then it was just me trying to find a way to be successful you know oh let me read every young man's battle oh what's the next Purity book that I can read oh let me go do the conquer series with my boys oh let me find a new accountability partner and I was constantly trying to find a new thing and to answer your initial question that you asked me uh before this it came to the point in my 30s bro in my 30s so I'm I'm dealing with this all this time right yeah I'm in my 30s now right in my early 30s I get to the point where I don't know necessarily that I was at rock bottom but and it's interesting because I have a rock bottom moment after this but one day I'm in church and I feel the Holy Spirit put in my heart you are free out of nowhere wow now mind you what's interesting about this is and this is really the Crux of what I feel men need to understand but I I know we'll get into that more later is that this is the time that I was the most intimate with the Lord in my life this is the time where I'm really praying where I'm really spending time with him where I'm really getting into the word way more than I ever did before in my life I'm waking up early in the morning I'm spending an hour in his presence seeking him writing down what I feel he's leading me towards writing down whatever I want to pray for praying for people and it was just crazy and then it all culminates in this one day a Sunday in the middle of service nothing's going on my pastor was just talking into the microphone she might have been giving an announcements right out of nowhere you are free and I knew what he was referring to yeah that's one of those moments where you're just like oh man the Holy Spirit just pricking your heart you're like oh go and he was specifically dealing with lust with me during that time right and I hear you are free and I believe it now a few months go by I feel this Freedom the lust is you know it's always that element of it being there but it's dead I keep putting it to death right you keep subjecting it if you're not constantly aiming to control the flesh it's gonna rise back up again but it's there I'm I'm I've got it at Bay until one day I fell again and I said wait a minute God you said I'm free and the crazy thing about this time that I fell I fell maybe a few times afterwards a handful of times I don't remember how many but a handful amount of times and and uh my wife and I have a conversation and she asks me if I'm struggling and I had to tell her oh that's got to be the hardest part you're like the Holy Spirit Pricks you but then your wife that was the Rock Bottom because now you have to see the person that you love saying whoa I didn't know this side of you so shame comes back in and now I'm asking myself the question God I thought you said I was free and I remember there's always an emptiness whenever you're falling into sin but now the emptiness became even deeper because I didn't feel the um what's the best way to explain it it's like there's a driving force behind you when you are in a cycle of porn and masturbation or having sex outside of your marriage or adultery or uh fornication whatever there's this surge that kind of like you feel like you're being pushed and you feel like you can't control it although you can because the Lord doesn't put us in situations we can't bear right but you feel like you can't and this time I didn't feel that surge I feel like I made a decision because why because I was free because you're free and that's got to be the hardest part of the shame because you're like oh before you could almost make an excuse well it's my lustful desires that is pushing me to these things I can't help it quote unquote but now you were like wait a minute I made this choice to fall into this and I made this choice to hurt my wife and to not believe God that I was free exactly so how did you handle that bro it was the time of my life where I finally realized what so many people say that uh as scripture says actually that you need to walk out your salvation with fear and troubling I was saved and free already but I needed to walk it out I needed to live in in that freedom I needed to make a choice to live in that freedom and that's what I had to do bro I had to be uh in a place where I said you know what this has no control over me anymore I don't even want this anymore I'm done with it I don't want to go through the embarrassment of having to tell my wife again I don't want to go through the shame that I experienced afterwards I don't want to lose my connection with the Lord who I've put so many hours of tears and sweat and prayer to get close to him and this pulls me away from him I don't want to go through that anymore plus he told me I'm free so I just got to walk it out so then you started to take massive steps of you're like okay I gotta live in this truth that we're free right God has set us free and we are new children of God like he's transformed us the dead is gone the new the news alive Romans chapter 8 right like so once you started doing that what were the steps that you took to really get your your butt into gear to walking out that freedom yeah bro great question man for me uh and this is what I constantly tell any men that I talk to who tell me they're struggling with lust they're struggling with porn or whatever I tell them if you're not spending time in the Lord's presence you're never going to be successful that's what it came down to for me I realized that the only time I received free was not because I watched this amazing episode of the conquer series no shade towards conquer right cuz conquer is actually pretty dope right yeah yeah it was great um but it wasn't that it wasn't me trying harder which is what I did for 15 years just trying harder and harder to have self-control that I did not have within and of myself it wasn't any of that I only received Freedom when I started spending time in God's presence and then in order for me to maintain that freedom to walk into that freedom I need to continue to spend time in his presence so it came down to intimacy with God for me there was so many years where I loved the Lord but I wasn't willing to sacrifice my time my sleep my flesh's peace to put him first and while I wanted deeply for him to be first in my life that wasn't enough for me to make him first I needed to make a decision and once I made thatc decision I needed to make it every day it's very similar to marriage you know I know that as men we kind of think everything's in the bag once the wedding is over with and most women I hear they have this question inside of their hearts do you still love me would you still choose me which is why they want us to constantly show them that love to show them they are still wanted to show that they're I mean it's just the way to a healthy relationship anyways if you have your foot off the gas in your marriage then shame on you it's not going anywhere you know healthy shame healthy shame if there is any but all jokes aside like if you really want a healthy marriage you have to put in work yeah and if you want to have a healthy relationship with God which is the key to everything you have to spend time with him or it's not gonna happen and and that's what you know as I talk to a lot of men they're like you're right I don't have a deep intimate relationship with God but I have found this question many times with men and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it Eric is that they a lot of times are like it feels weird to talk about intimacy with God because when we talk about intimacy right we think about sex we think about pleasure with a woman and now you're like wait a minute I'm going to do that with God that that sounds weird so like how do you handle that type of conversation when you're talking to men about intimacy for me I mean it depends the guy that I'm talking to but it's mostly going to be centered around something along the lines get over it because that's what it really comes down to and depending on the level of sensitivity that that guy might have I might say it you know in a much lighter way but think about how many Road Blocks we put up ourselves in between us and the thing that we actually want if I know that scripture teaches me that all things that I want all the things that I need the best life that I could possibly live is with my Lord Jesus Christ why am I going to get weird about thinking about getting close to him just change the word intimate then right you don't like the word intimate okay say getting closer to him my one of my favorite scriptures is just how uh scripture tells us draw near to God and He will draw near to you and I remember uh in my teenage years I used to teach that uh I used to talk about that a lot and I would say imagine how wonderful it is that we actually have the power within our decision making to cause God to do something which is to draw near to us we take a step I and the way I visualize it is this if you'll permit me I feel like we take a step and he runs 100 towards us that's the God we serve we love him so much and it doesn't matter how much we could love him it does not even come close to how much he loves us he wants us to walk in us freedom he wants us to be able to live a life where we have self-control and discipline he wants these things for us so why would he withhold it from us he's not withholding it he's holding it and you're just not going to him to get it that's what it comes down to yeah you know Eric I was thinking about as you were sharing that story the story of the prodical son right where he's like when he was a far away off I think that's how the passage goes right in Luke 15 like he's walking he's taking a step but like God the father is running you know and back then that like the whole Parable right Elders didn't run right but he like in order to run he had to like pick up uh his I'm trying to remember what it's called now but like his clothing to be able to run and it's shame to do that to do any of that and he's like no no I don't care I'll take on this shame so that I can go be with my my son yeah and he gives all those promises yeah all level of theorum is Left Behind Nothing Else Matters my son is here yeah and and I love how you were talking about that because when we think about intimacy you know I remember a friend of mine telling me hey because I I used to think it was weird right like intimacy that sounds like sexual like my mind was so skewed because it was always just sexual but it was like Ken intimacy is truly and he had this little like verbiage he say like in to me see that God was see into me and I would be fully known I would be fully seen and I'd be fully accepted and I remember thinking that like do I want to be accepted by the creator of the universe yeah of course I do right do I want to be affirmed by him when I feel extremely lonely like absolutely when I started to see Intimacy in that fashion is not a sexual physical thing but this emotional and also spiritual thing that I get to connect with God and like you said draw near to him it radically changed my view I'm like yes I want God in all aspects of my life but it is really hard for men to do that right it is hard for men to just be vulnerable because they feel like they're going to be rejected so you Eric mentioned you had abandonment issues you had rejection issues when you were younger how did God start to heal you of those as you were entering into his presence yeah bro there's so many creative ways is that I feel like God was leading me to health there were times where the Holy Spirit I feel would speak to me and he would just be like go and do this and I'd be like why why am I going to to and it would be something small or it' be something big like go make an appointment with the therapist for this specific reason excuse me and then the going through that I'd realize things and find new breakthroughs that I wouldn't have been able to to have access to had I not been spending time with God and seeking the holy spirit's voice and so uh I remember one way early on I have this um I don't have it with me but I have a journal uh that is really uh precious to me it's it's a journal where I only take it out to journal very important moments in my life and I remember one day I was in prayer at like 5: in the morning I was spending time with God and uh and in that week I was particularly going through these like inner struggles where I was like feeling down on myself I was feeling like I had I didn't have value to who I was because I wasn't able to be successful in whatever way I was thinking of during that time and so I was feeling really down on myself there was a lot of Shame there was a lot of just feelings of inadequacy that I was experiencing and I'm bringing that to God and out of nowhere bro you're going to think this is so weird and some people might be like yeah that didn't happen but out of nowhere I feel the Holy Spirit tell me to write down some of the qualities of some of my favorite fictional characters and and that fictional character my favorite comic book hero is Batman bro I love Batman I'm a huge Batman fan so I'm writing down all these things about Batman whatever the the good things the bad things and then I feel the Holy Spirit say to me okay what things do you find in yourself that are similar to Batman the good and the bad make connections here so I'm writing them down and I'm like drawing on the sidelines I'm just like I don't know I feel like I'm wasting time but you know I'm just doing it because I feel like this is where the holy spirit's leading me it feels weird but this is where he's leading me and when I'm all th done I literally write down afterwards God why did you have me do this what was the purpose of this and bro one of the most pivotal moments of My Life One of the most difficult times in my life was uh second and third grade in second and third grade I went through an extreme amount of bullying it was really bad um in second grade specifically if I remember correctly I had only one friend nobody was my friend and I think that friend might have left halfway through the school year so that isolation and pain that I was already feeling because of my home life now was intensified during school and so second third and fourth grade every time I would Express something that I was interested in I would get made fun of for it like people would be like oh look at Eric so and make fun of me right and so as I grew up I started to hide myself I started to hide even to me not just outwardly I started to deny what I truly liked because I needed to put on a Persona I needed to put on a mask so that other people would accept me and I would be more quote unquote popular so now fast forward to that eighth grade experience where I lose all this weight now I'm playing basketball I'm playing sports and I'm masking so that other people will accept me and this is how I live all throughout my high school years when I'm really struggling I'm denying all the things that I love I'm I'm denying a side of me that I felt like it was unacceptable and now in this moment of journaling guys's like I want you to write about Batman and I say why am I writing this and he says I like what you like tears that's something you can only experience by diving into his presence that's something that you have to pay for for him to take me through this whole process to tell me I like what you like to tell me I like the way that this makes you smile my son in that moment he healed a part of me that was broken since I was a kid thinking that I could not be who I am because I'd never be ex accepted 20-year-old me would have never said on this podcast that I love Batman I would just never told you that yeah I would just thought oh Ken's gonna think I'm weird or his audience is going to be like bro you're a grown man you like Batman you still read comic books bro you're weird yeah I do now I could say now I could be like yeah I do and I have a whole bunch of other stuff that I do that's pretty dope too and it took God bringing me to that place for him to free me from something that was holding me captive that I didn't even know bro in high school I used to make fun of people who used to say I'm finding myself I should be like you're finding yourself how are you finding yourself You Should Know Who You Are meanwhile I didn't know who I was at that time either man Eric I you know it's so funny cuz I was on a podcast uh I had a guest on the podcast and we were talking about childhood trauma and um we were talking about when I went through childhood trauma one of the things that I would do is I would Escape through watching cartoons you and I are very similar ages so you remember Saturday morning cartoons right all the time you're just watching them and I remember telling that guy when I was younger I was like man I used to love Pokemon and Anime and all that stuff but As I Grew Older I was like oh I can't share that stuff about me like that's weird uh and then I remember the Lord just freed me it's okay that's what I like at the end of the day it's not sin it's something it's like any other thing that other people like right like books or shows like that's my jam and there was this like freeing moment to know oh that's just what I like and that's who got like God made me that way there's something about those shows that Draw Me Closer to him interestingly enough because there's a unique way that they reveal the charact like what we're designed to do almost right you look watch a lot of anime it's always like this Redemption story they're trying to redeem something and it's like yes that's what we as men are called to and I love how you're like man I loved Batman because that's what you feel like I want to help in Justice I want to do all these things I'm sure there's like the list of qualities but dude I love that about you so as you think about now helping guys who are probably wearing the masks how do you help them take the masks off bro that's a that's a layered question and an excellent one as well I think one of the saddest things that we had to experience Our Generation growing up I don't know if like gen Z and gen Alpha are going through this too I would venture to Guess that they are but there was this whole thing about how being nonchalant was cool like if you show that you cared too much people would look at you like what's wrong with this guy and I was the guy I'm mad excitable I'm super excitable that's how I was in fourth grade if I liked something I was diving into it completely I wanted to know everything and that's how I am now because I've I've recovered that aspect of myself and so it did not work well for me and that's why I had to hide that I had to hide this this excitedness that I had because I needed to be more acceptable to people I.E being more nonchalant being more cool about things like yeah that's cool you know yeah yeah I watched Power Rangers growing up that was dope but you know I don't watch that no more you know like it's like whatever you know there's this thing that we have to present for other people and I I would start off by telling men obviously I talk to them about the intimacy with God but on top of that right I think that we need to allow ourselves to have the freedom to be ourselves like we can't be afraid of how people are going to react like imagine just earlier I said I probably would have never told you that I like Batman and that whole story uh earlier on in my life and just sharing it with you now you said I think that's really dope about you right and us having this conversation even this conversation is leading towards intimacy between me and you we're growing in our relationship we're growing in our friendship we're growing to get to know each other and you're finding that hey I think this guy's pretty cool and I'm thinking in my mind I'm like yeah I think Ken's pretty cool too you know what I'm saying and we lose out on so many experiences like that even in our marriage yep because we feel like we have to maintain a certain presentation towards Society towards our friends towards our wife and you know what the sad part about this is that this is engineered into society it is engineered into society men are typically uh expected to not complain to not display emotion to you know be cool to be presentable at all times we have all these expectations that the world places on us and I think that one of the biggest indications of a healthy relationship for example or a healthy marriage uh if you're or let's say before the marriage you're dating this girl and you're not sure if she's the one well does she accept you for who you are can you be yourself in front of her that's intimacy yeah fully known fully loved fully accepted yep right that's true intimacy right there and if we could get to a place where we have the freedom to be ourselves like the first person that has to accept you is you and if we can get to that place I think we inch closer to finding the answer to that question like I said I think it's multi-layered but we inch just a little bit closer when we allow ourselves to have the freedom to be ourselves and to be in God's presence and to freely be ourselves in this world right to be ourselves in our marriages to be ourselves as parents not what everybody else tells us we need to be yeah who God says we are and you know what the cool part is that you can be more of yourself when you are being in his presence ex he gives you the freedom and then the the add-on to that too I would say is that as you become more of what God created you to be right as yourself you're actually becoming more in the image of him because if you're in his presence and you are being free you're going to be more like him and this beautiful cycle of just like growth is happening just like there was a cycle of Shame and sin there's this beautiful cycle of Purity and intimacy constantly of just like he's like hey what else do you want to release so you could just be out there I I'm trying to remember who wrote this book I think it was John Eldridge who wrote the book Fully Alive I'm trying to remember the quote but oh man I'm going to butcher it but in summary he was at the beginning of the quote was about talking about men when we are fully alive or when we are most like him and ourselves something like that I butchered it I'll find it I'll put it in the show notes I'll send it to you I'll text it to you it's like I remember reading that and be like oh yes like we are called to be a certain way but that starts with intimacy Eric you know as we wrap up our time together and then you and I could probably chat for hour hours you know if there's a guy listening to this and they're struggling with lust and they're struggling with intimacy and all the stuff that we're talking about what's like one practical thing they could start doing today that could help them to get one step closer to the intimacy that you had and the freedom that you've got received yeah I would say start waking up earlier wake up earlier right give God the beginning of your day I have a black or white approach I'm All or Nothing uh um I right now I'm more heavy I need to lose weight but I've lost 100 pounds before I've lost 50 PBS multiple times in my life that's awesome last time I did it I did 75 hard for 105 days straight like I was going nuts but it two workouts a day is not sustainable right but instead of having that All or Nothing approach I would say it's healthier for us to build small sustainable habits so when I say wake up earlier I'm saying set your alarm for 15 minutes earlier if you feel like that's the bite you could take right now and little by little build up to the increments that you that get you to the time that you really want to wake up if your work day starts at 9 a.m.

and you need to start getting ready by 8: am don't wake up at 7:55 wake up at se at 7 wake up at 6:30 even better right so you can start just get ready for the beginning of the the day and at 7 from 7 to 8 you can watch a sermon you can pray you can read the word and and don't let anybody Define for you what that time looks like sometimes you'll say yo I'm trying to get closer to God I'm trying to pray more and and you tell somebody that and they're like oh okay so are you on your knees with your hands lifted up for the whole hour if not it doesn't count no if you watch a sermon for that I was going to say my hands are my hands are going to be so dude it's like a workout every hour that's just another aspect of people trying to add rules to us and trying to add to us and make us something that we're not be true to yourself I tell people not just men I tell people all the time go to the things you gravitate to like I love sermons I'm a sermon guy I do like worship too but on Sundays I I want to hear the sermon so if I'm GNA spend time in God's presence and I have a choice between listening to a sermon or listen to worship I'm going to choose the sermon I'm not going to force myself to watch the worship because somebody else told me to lean into the things that you like and as you spend more and more time in him in his presence you're going to find that it's easier to do it you're going to find that you start falling in love with every aspect of him and it just it starts to snowball it's like Dave Ramsey with the with the snowball thing of for debt right you just it starts to snowball and before you know it you want to wake up every day at 630 :30 at at 5:00 you know to to spend time in God's presence so I would say the most practical thing you can do set your alarm for a little bit earlier build towards an ideal time that you want to wake up whatever works for you don't follow my rules follow the leading of the Holy Spirit but but spend the beginning of your day with him yeah and I would add to that if you want to wake up early to spend time with God it actually starts the night before like what time are you going to bed right if you're going to go to bed at midnight it's going to be really hard to wake up at 600 6:30 right like go to sit your alarm for 10 like work backwards what do you need to do and for a lot of men the place where you struggle and fall it's most likely at night time when you're alone by yourself right so if you could say hey you know what I'm just going to cut all that off by just going to bed at 9 or 10: I got four little kids so by 9:30 I'm like dude I'm tired I don't want to do anything else 9:30 is my time too bro I'm done for so it just becomes easier to say oh yeah I'm going to wake up at 6 right now my wife she's going to CrossFit and she goes at 5:00 in the morning so she's like waking me up at 4:40 I'm like gosh this is brutal so I'm like I have to readjust stuff but man when she does I'm awake and I'm reading the word before and then when she gets back I go to the gym so by the the morning I've read the Bible I've worked out and I'm like I'm ready to rock and roll I'm connected amazing bro yeah I feel great right so but that's the thing that most men need so Eric I appreciate that I I love that you're just giving that real practical step because it's super important for men who are listening to this and they want to know more about you and they're like dude I love Eric I I love his personality and they want to hear more about Valley of the heroic what's the best place they could uh reach out to you yeah bro thank you for that uh the best absolute best place is going to be my YouTube channel uh if you type in Valley of the heroic it should come up and then they can also follow me on Instagram Eric Munos Jr those are the two places that I really spend my time on YouTube man awesome man I'll put those on the show notes for everybody to find listen Eric thank you so much for being on the podcast I know that you and I have been connecting since before the holidays dude and uh it's been a blast uh texting each other just joking around I know you live in the east coast and next time I'm in New York City dude we gotta find a way to connect uh and just hang out dude all right thank you for having me on the show man it's really a huge thing that you're doing here bro and I really hope that a lot of men can find Freedom with you yeah appreciate that man all right man again if you want to reach out to Eric go to Valley of the heroic on YouTube or on his Instagram it's going to be in the show notes and for this week always remember keep continuing to kill shame stand strong and be on Mission hope you guys have a great day and God bless thanks for joining us today if you found this episode helpful make sure to subscribe and leave a review remember killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past it's about walking boldly into the future God has for you