Alright. Welcome back to The Covenant Eyes Podcast. We're so glad to have you join us. Karen here. We've got Rob kicking it over here on the left hand side. How's it going? It's been fun. And it's been a busy week. Yeah, a lot of noise, a lot of things going on. But so many great ministries, so many good people to talk to. Absolutely. And one of those great, amazing people has just joined us. Joshua Broome, how are you? I'm so good. It's always connect with both of you. And, man, it seems like it's been forever because I've known you guys, but it's only been like 4 or 5 years. But you're like family to me. I appreciate you guys so much. And always good hanging out with you, I think. Might. Well, you have been busy in the last, gosh, I don't know, six months or so, but you have a new position. You're doing some new things with the AACC, and we'd love to talk about that, because I know our listeners are going to be really excited. Yeah. I mean, the big thing is kind of taking, you know, the audience, the influence, the leverage that I've have and kind of pointing in a direction where, you know, you guys do a great job of saying, hey, you know, even when I had the honor last year of doing, Convocation at Liberty. So where I went to school there, and at the end of my talk, we invited the student body. Because you guys have a sweet deal. If you are at liberty, there's a sweet deal, that you can get covenant eyes at a discounted rate. For four years, right? But just saying, hey, at the end of this is great. You know something? It's great to feel something, but it's even better to do something. Yeah. But like. Yeah. So being partnered with AACC we've had, the P51 project, which is really infant and in stages versus building that. But, we really want to pour our efforts into how can we create systems and resources for the church and for people, to, to get rid of unwanted, you know, sexual behavior so they can walk in the calling that God has on their life. Absolutely. That's that, that p51 that really is going to be a curriculum correct? Yeah. It's going to be a. Whole series based out of Psalm 51 where David's saying, hey, search me. Oh, God, you know, know my, my, know my heart, cleanse me. And it's it's all like, not not so like, I just want to not do things. I want to be prepared so that you can do what you created me to do. And I think I love, Jay Stringer's book, unwanted. He talks about how, people are so less unlikely to do things they don't want to do if they can clearly articulate their purpose. And it's like, man, if you can get the obstacles out of your way, you can get some momentum and capacity going. And you're thinking about like Titus two talks about it. If you say no to ungodliness, you actually develop a hunger for righteousness, and all of a sudden you don't have an idle hands and idle mind, because man with 5.5 people that don't know Jesus, if you're a follower of Jesus, there's a lot of work to do. Hey. Well, Joshua, every time I'm on social media, I see you everywhere you are what busy guy you are going from event to event. But with that you are reaching and teaching so many individuals. So share with us like some of the most memorable experiences you've had recently and some of the events you've been at. Yeah, I mean, so this this up, I'm not sure when this will air, but next week, so ignite. So the men's ministry that operates under the umbrella of Arc will be gathering together at Thomas Road Baptist Church. 7,000 men and, I'm preaching a message where it's like Jesus is saying, do you want to be healed? And to the person that, if the blood is covered, your sin, what does it look like to walk in the healing that you have? You know, like, what does it look like to walk it out? So I'm pumped about that. Joe Theismann, Riley Leonard, Kirk Cousins will be there. Tim Timberlake, you know, just heroes in the faith and, super pumped about that. But I say in the last year or so that my book came out in March, so crazy is it's been it's a year next week. Wow. Yeah. In that book that I got to say, hey, if you want a solution, Covenant Eyes has a really great, you know, solution. You know, not there's there's no perfect solution because, you know, we are crafty. The internet is crafty. But, man, if you can put a barrier in front of you not doing what you don't want to do, I. That's it. But yeah. So like convo there and just, being part of Assisi and some of those events, we have an event, an e women event this weekend at ORU. So I'm actually leaving from here going to Tulsa, but, I, my mother in law and my father in law are staying with us this week, so, you know, so the for the person is last night house. Hope house. My wife, mom and dad are with us. So. Okay. Good. Need that support. She's good. And the kids are so good. You know, very parents there. So I hope so. I do well being so busy and with so much going on. You know what are some of the strategies you're using to really just keep yourself healthy and balanced because you know you are you're everywhere. You're doing so much to serve the Lord. So how do you keep that balance? Yeah. So I mean, having key people in my life that not only have access to my life, they have permission to speak into it. So, like Jonathan Pokluda, is one of my closest friends, is a mentor to me, and, it's it's great to have people little patch on the back, but he's he, I see you everywhere. How’s Hope, you know, how's your thought life. And how are you doing? And I'm in, and it's like, you know, if you if you crave constructive criticism, that's, you know, that's a healthy place to be. But I've got to be honest with him, you know, whereas, like, I'm coming out of the busiest year, my life and it was bruising for, for, you know, our marriage, you know, like not didn't make it rocky. But the reality I was at home 180 days. So for me, you know, sometimes I was like, hey, I'd rather take a hit on an honorarium and saying, hey, you know, Lee travels with me a lot. So, Alicia out there, a good friend of mine, I don't like to travel alone because otherwise, you know, there's, there's an enemy that wants to kill still and destroy these, you know, the enemy would love for me to have a moral failure. So for me, I need to have people in my life I need to constantly find, like, rest, I think is important because, you know, when when do we do things that we ought not do? Tired? Hungry? Yeah. You know, all the triggers. Oh, yeah. All the triggers. Yeah. And it's really about, I think you can't be obedient until you're self-aware. So, you know, being, you know, not. I haven't been doing this forever, but I've been doing it long enough where I've have people speaking into my life. It's like, man, as I understand, I need to rest because I can't pour out what I don't have and I need to have accountability in my life that's genuine. So there's multiple people that have access to my social media, there's multiple people that have, you know, access to my I don't even know how to get into my computer is I don't know the, the password. But again, that, you know, that that organizational crash that I have is a blessing at times. But I would say, man, you got to have accountability. You need to take inventory of your life. And the way that I find rest is multifaceted in that I need to literally rest at times. But at the end of the day, it all starts with, am I just spending time in Scripture because I'm preparing messages or am I sitting before the father and finding rest in him

33 I have told you all these things within me you can have peace. So peace is not attainable by trying really hard because you can't figure it out. You know that the health and wellness, you know, between diet and anxiety, they've made a fortune off of trying to provide solutions that only God can provide. Right? So, yeah, well. Those are such key facets for any person, especially men. I don't know if you saw a stat this last year from Barna said 84% of people who are struggling with pornography said they have no one in their life to really walk alongside. You talked about the accountability. I mean, when you got we've got that kind of stat. There's a real big issue there that we need to address. Especially in a westernized context. It's easy to fall into this victim mentality. It's wake like for me, I didn't grow up with a dad, and so it would be easy for me to say, well, you know, I don't know how to be a dad. Well, if you want accountability, you have to seek it out. You know, if you want mentorship, you have to seek it out if you want. I would say that that's why discipleship is I think it's getting better. I mean, for the first time, the New York Times posted an article today that said that for the first time in a long time, the church is not dying. It's growing. Oh, yeah. So what do you do by 22%? Bible sales are up. There's a hunger in the earth. Something's happening. But at the Saint, we're not there yet, right? We still live in a post-Christian USA. So the reality is, men, if you want something that someone else has got, you need to ask them how they how how what was a process? You know, it was like. Yeah, like I was in porn. I did all this stuff. But for almost 12 years I've been relentlessly pursuing how do I become better? How do I become healed? How do I become a whole? And those things, you know, only Jesus gets the, you know, not to nerd out, but like, only Jesus can use like the future. Like perfect tense, like in Greek, you know, is when he says to tell a story, he means it is finished, period. Right? So it is finished. Only he can say that, right? So he living is never not there yet. So regardless of where you are in your journey, you need accountability. You need to take, you know, an assessment, take inventory. What am I watching? What am I doing? What am I listening to? Do I have people that truly know me because I don't think this is a is problematic for women, but for men for sure. What I see every time I see someone that is operating in a high capacity, but their integrity, it doesn't match. More often than not, they don't have someone in their life that truly knows it. Because we live in a time where it perceivable. I'm known because numerically, you see, I have followers and and I'm, I'm, you know, whatever on social media. Well, but does someone like, truly know the intricacies of your life? Right. You know, do you know what I'm like in a bad day when I'm in traffic, you know? Yeah, yeah, I do. You know what I'm like on a Saturday afternoon? Because if you don't have the answer to that, if no one knows the answer to that, then no one truly knows. Yeah, yeah. I think you hit on a real key, though. I mean, for guys, a lot of times we can be passive. We can be into ourselves. You said you got to seek it out. Yeah, that's so key. But that's a tough one for a lot of guys. Yeah I mean I mean the Bible tells us that you seek him first and everything else will be added on to you, you know, and and I think like, you know, is, is is just people, you know, in Genesis were called like, you know, ready to rule and reign to work, you know, there's, there's if you can't, you know, if you haven't discovered your calling it, well, you need to work a job. You know, you you work at job until you find your calling. That's right. But I think, like you will not passively find anything other than and then proclivity to sin because like, we're we're not, you know, we're a leaf in a river we don't drive towards, you know, a better morality. We don't drift towards righteousness or holiness. We're drifting in the opposite, opposite direction. So you gotta fight for that. So invite people into your life. Seek people for that. You know, like, if you want to be somewhere. I love to find man. Find like, if you're plugged into a local church, there is someone that lives to pour into you like you're robbing them. Of of of what they're called to do, I think. I think it's. A good way to think of it. Yeah. Because, I mean, that was something I, when I was on staff at live church, 5 or 6 years ago, maybe longer than I, I don't know, but, they talked about, like, delegation, right? When when you don't delegate tasks to those you serve with, you actually rob them from the things in which they're called to. So how can you discover your gifts and talents and in the things that you love to do if you don't do it? So if you're if you're someone, if you have idle hands and idle mind, you belong to a church and serve, even if it's not doing what you think you ought to do, because maybe you don't know. What you do. That's right, that's right. What we discover our purpose when we're just out there doing the things that we need to do. Right. So I love that. Well, Joshua, you know, a lot of our listeners are familiar with your story. And, you know, they've been following you for years. What kind of encouragement can you offer to our listeners today? As you know, they're pursuing holiness and and seeking after God. And I mean, at the end of the day, we are not defined, as my wife said to me ten years ago, you're not defined by the worst thing you've ever done, and you're not defined by the greatest thing you'll ever do. So the way to not need approval is to understand that you've already been approved. And, you know, Levi Lusko says this a lot. When you know who you are, it doesn't matter who you're not. You know, in this world of striving. So men understand that the thing that you need most is to be close to your father, right? That your heavenly father. And as people, we crave intimacy. And I think like that's why pornography is so, you know, provocative and available and pervasive in our society because we're, we're a, a society that we crave, you know, to be needed to known. Yet we live in a way where we're not. You know, we we we want fast food. We want, you know, we want we want do everything fast. And I think it's so important for us to kind of put our stuff out there to do the work. So yeah, so to the person out there saying, I feel stuck, you don't know my story. I grew up fatherless. I was, you know, embedded in sexual morality deeply. For 20 years. I had a radical encounter with Jesus, but it started there. There needed to be unearthing,

16 talks about, you know, all scriptures. God breathed. And it's good for teaching, rebuking, reproof, reproof is this beautiful word. It means deconstruction in a healthy way. Right. There. There's lies that you believed about yourself that are not true, because there's a father of lies that have lied to you. And if you believe a lie to be true, you live as if it is so. Allow Scripture to uproot that lie from your heart rib, you know, rebuke it in Jesus name and cling to truth and and allow that truth to build a new foundation. Like that's my story. I, I committed to being part of a local church, to being being discipled. And then there's a guy whose name is Andrew that I talk to often. I used to be every Friday, but it's like, man, here, here's where I'm struggling, here's where I'm winning. And you probably can find someone that'll pass you on the back, but you need someone to kick you in the butt. Yeah, yeah, I was 27. So the wounds of a friend. Because often the if you allow someone close enough to you, they'll see you're struggling even before you did. Yeah. That's true. You know, so like, we we need that issue. You had where listeners get in touch with your book because I your book is amazing, by the way, and if our listeners haven't checked it out, they absolutely should. But how do they get their hands on a copy? And that's the easiest way either either Amazon or go to my website. So JoshuaBroome.me don't forget the E on the end of my name. So Joshua Broome.me. Go to my website. You can buy it there. But it'll probably just kick you to Amazon. So Amazon and if you have bought it man reviews help the book be pushed out. So please give it a real, review. I appreciate that so much. Awesome, awesome. Well, great. Well, Joshua, it's been so good to catch up with you. Thank you for everything you're doing, and best of luck with all of the new endeavors that you have. It's amazing that you are involved with AACC now. It's going to be. That's exciting. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us today. And to all of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Covenant Eyes Podcast. Take care. God bless.