00:00 Chris Grainger
Welcome to the lion within us, a podcast, serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders they’re predestined to be. I’m your host, Chris Grainger. Let’s jump in the scripture of the week. Psalm 1 39 versus 13 through 16 for you created my innermost parts. You wove me in my mother’s room. I will give thanks to you because I am awesomely and wonderfully made wonderful all your works.

And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hitting from you when I was in my made in secret and skillfully formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my formal substance and in your book were written all the days that were ordained for me. When as yet there was not one of them guys.

That’s a powerful scripture. And again, go back to the, to the spiritual kickoff that we did earlier this week. Really unpack that, that, that scripture, those verses gave you some insights, some things to think about. Right? So for this week I told you it was a big guess. I told you I was very excited. So who do we have?

We have Mr. Al Roberton that’s right. Mr. Al Roberton from Doug commander unashamed podcast. Uh, Doug dynasty, the, the beardless brother on that show, if you will, but Al and I have a wonderful conversation, guys. He unpacks a ton. We talk about defending the defenseless. We talk about forgiveness in marriage.

We talk about, you know, what that looks like for their family and this also what it looks like to run a crazy podcast that drops four times a week where they’re studying God’s word. So guys, this is a phenomenal episode. You don’t wanna miss this when Al just reveals so much raw truth. There’s just, just a genuine raw, uh, vulnerability type conversation here.

I pray. It served you well, guys, this has been a, a bucket list item for me to be able to have a conversation with Al. So I’m completely just blown away by this opportunity. I pray it blesses you. So without Fordo sit back and enjoy my conversation with Al

welcome to the line within us. I can’t believe I actually said those words, but welcome to the show, sir.

02:14 Al Robertson
glad to be here. Thank you for having me, Chris.

02:17 Chris Grainger
Oh, this is, this is the, the, I, I, I can honestly say it for my wife. She was. She was so excited. She’s like, you’re like a kid in a candy school store this morning.

She was like Christmas night. And she’s like, I’ll be so glad when you finally get to talk to Al. Cause that’s all you talk about. So I was like, all right, so this is happening. We’re here.

02:35 Al Robertson
And, uh, well, in her defense, it’s taken us a while to connect because we, we started this process a while back, but we finally got it all together.

Praise the Lord there. We got those schedules worked out and I’m here. So amen.

02:48 Chris Grainger
Amen. And, and, you know, as a, I can tell you guys, I, I, haven’t shared a lot with my listeners about the podcast that I listen to. I probably do need to have an episode about that, but I will say I’m a, an unashamed addict, uh, listen to you guys every week.

And I learn, I grow, you know, just by the way you guys connect. I just think it’s, it’s probably the best podcast out there. So if you’re listening and you haven’t listened on a shame, shame on you, get on over there and sign up on for that one. Cuz I tell you what, just the way you guys dig into God’s word.

And if you didn’t, if you knew to the show, you know, you guys kind of step all over each other, but I think that’s the beauty of the show. Cuz you just, you just, the holy spirit

03:26 Al Robertson
just guides it. Well, you know, what’s funny, Chris is so it all started cause we’re under dad used to have a show on blaze TV actually used to be called CR TV and then they merged with blaze Glen Beck’s organization mm-hmm

And so when they did that, then his show, which was called in the woods with Phil and we were producing this. So it’s like a video blog and we did 800 episodes, uh, spread out over, over four years. And um, and it was great show, just kind of a data unplugged in the woods doing what he does. Right. And uh, and so my cousin and I, Zach, we produced that.

For blaze, cuz we’d started a production company. And so about three years ago they were like, you know, it’s in the contract that we could do a podcast and would you guys be willing or would your dad be willing? And I said, well, yeah, I think, you know, he probably would, you know, what would we do it about?

You know? And they, well, we were thinking something biblical, cuz you know, they’re like a conservative, uh mm-hmm , you know, platform in terms of political. And so most of their host or you know, political commentators and you know, we, we dive a little bit into that as well, but you know, we’re, we’re like way upstream, you know, our deal is we, we want to take a biblical high view.

Right. And then try to change the heart and then we can get to the politics, you know, when we get there. Right. And so they, they said we, we don’t really have anything biblical on the platform. And would you guys be willing to do Bible? And I was like, Can we, are you saying you’re gonna pass us to do Bible?

And so, uh, but it was really weird because it started out. Nobody knows this. I, I, I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody in publicly, so this will be new news to your audience. All right. All right. Uh, when we started Jace, wasn’t a part of the conversation. Okay. So it was just, it was just dad. And then he was gonna, I was gonna get like some guys to kind of rotate through with him.

And so I kind of had a format set up and at first I wasn’t really, you know, part of it either. And then so more we talked, I thought, man, I don’t know that dad can just, you know, handle like ads and you know, all the stuff that you have to do around a podcast as you know. Oh yeah. And, you know, lead ins and intros and outros and all this stuff.

So I said, well, look, dad, I’ll just kind of be the host and you’ll you. And I’ll just talk about the Bible. And I said, then maybe we’ll just get a guest come in. You know, every so often. Cause we were only starting with one a week. So we, so Dan, Dan, the Euch is, is his name from dad, uh, which that’s a whole nother story, but he, uh, Dan is, he works for dad.

So he said, why don’t we get Dan on here? I said, well, I don’t know. Dan’s, he’s real smart, but he, he doesn’t say much. He’s kind of quiet, right? So this is, this is all about talking. And, uh, so we tried it and, uh, we did about 20 episodes. I now call ’em the lost episodes and we weren’t even calling it unashamed back then.

The original name for it was, uh, something about net, the fisherman’s net, I think. Okay. Cause we were talking about commercial fishing and we did a thing on the disciples. And so we just kind of started at Genesis and we’re doing a little bit of big and we recorded maybe 20 episodes and we still hadn’t like finalized the deal.

We were just kind of getting a feel for it. And uh, with Dan, me and dad. And then, uh, all of a sudden Zach calls me and he says, you know, uh, they’re talking to Jace, blaze is they want, he want, they wanted to be on the podcast. I said, really? I said, and he said he would I was shocked. And they were, he was like, yeah, think you, he wants to do it.

So we changed everything. We scraped the, you know, what we had started. And I don’t know if those episodes are around someplace, but one of these days we need to drag ’em out and look at ’em. So then we started and we called it unashamed and it was Ja and dad and I, and so I guess the rest is now history.

So we’ve been doing it for three years. And as you described, it’s really just kind of a Robertson Bible study. Yeah. And a lot of our audience at first, we’re kind of a little taken back, cuz they would be like, oh, people are talking over each other and you know, you’re arguing this, that and the other and Jace interrupts Phil too much.

And so we were getting all these complaints. Right. But it was like, we finally, the audience understood later. After being with us over this long period of time. Mm-hmm, that, that’s just the way we are in other words, right. We’re not being disrespectful to each other. It’s just the way we grew up. I mean, you gotta get your word in.

And so a lot of times we’ll have a fourth person on the podcast, a guest, and I’m like, look, you just gotta jump in there. You know, I’m gonna try to help you as much as I can, but you can’t be shy or you’re not gonna, you’re not get anything in that’s. Right.

07:58 Chris Grainger
But I do think it’s great though, because when Phil speaks as the patriarch, you know, you guys definitely defer and he, he gets to have his voice, but I just think it’s great.

The, the, the, the way you guys just really work off each other, that iron sharpens iron throughout every episode.

08:13 Al Robertson
Yeah. It’s really been great. And, you know, dad, I’ve been a little surprised because, you know, I mean, he’s always, he’s your dad, and of course we’ve always looked up to him and he’s always, like you said, he’s our patriarch, but it is the first time we’ve ever done anything like this together.

I mean, obviously we were on national television, but that’s more other people involved. And I mean, this is, you know, we’re driving the train of this podcast. And so sometimes I’ll see him as he’s sitting there and Jason I’ll be, you know, pontificating about something and going on and he’s just kind of marvels.

And then, you know, and of course he, sometimes he’ll say something on air, but a lot of times he’ll go home and tell mom, you know, I I’m just, so I, I get to listen to Al and Jason, he said, you know, I mean, I know they’re my sons, but them, two cats are sharp. You know, they know the book, you know, so it’s really funny.

And it’s been, it’s touching to me to know that we get to at this stage in our life. I mean, I’m in my fifties. And so is Jason here’s dad in his seventies. And yeah, we’re getting to do Bible study together and millions of people are going along on the ride with us. And so it’s just a very great blessing that I’ll always have to remember.

And when dad’s gone, you know, to just be able to remember all this and, and have it all where you can, you know, look at it again. And my, my grandkids can look at it.

09:25 Chris Grainger
I am curious too, you know, right now you’re going through Hebrews, how do you pick the, the books? I mean, is that, is that a group decision or you, I know you’re the host and you kinda lead that effort there.

09:36 Al Robertson
Uh, I do, but I, I typically, I, I like for Ja to be con dad will do whatever, you know, and I’m pretty easy to, and Jace is the one that’s a little more particular. So usually I’ll say, you know, when we get about where we are now, we got a few chapters left and he brings us, right. Have you thought about where you think we need to go from here?

And so he’ll think about it, we’ll pray about it. And then, so he, and I usually come up with that. And the so far the pattern kind of has been, we, we, we like to keep it Jesus centered. Mm-hmm, we try to stay away from just like church doctrine and that kind of thing. But sometimes when you’re in a text, you have to deal with it.

Right. And, uh, but I feel like we do better in kind of bigger picture books. That’s why I think Hebrews has been such a great study. Um, but I, you know, I would imagine we’re probably heading back to one of the gospels. We’ve done John, and we’ve done Matthew. Uh, I’m thinking maybe mark is, is my suggestion.

So if Ja like that idea, right. Cuz it’s a shorter one. Won’t take us quite as long. Yeah. But we, we like to keep it pretty tight to Jesus. We feel like the unashamed life is, is day in and day out. And we know our audience, which is, is a lot of different, you know, it’s across the spectrum in terms of aids, you know, gender, all that.

But most of our audience are young men. Right. And so we, we feel like our number one job is to try to help disciple those guys in their early walks. Some of ’em are brand new, you know, believers. And um, and so, you know, we realize that’s kind of our role is to teach Bible, uh, teach. ’em how to be men, how to be great husbands, you know, all those things that kind of come along with that.

So we try to be inclusive, but we know that’s our core. And so we try to, you know, pick things and pick topics and pick books that do that. And of course we’ve been blessed because, um, because of blaze and, and because of our show, obviously mm-hmm, , we, we get a lot, some high profile guests on as well. When they’re, you know, trying to push a book or whatever.

And so we’ve been blessed by some really amazing guests. Um, you know, Ben Carson was just on. Yeah. Yeah.

11:31 Chris Grainger
I was thinking

11:31 Al Robertson
Dr. Carson. Yeah. Oh man. He he’s just, he’s brilliant. And, uh, but he, he fell in love with us so much. So he came down, um, about a month ago and spent a weekend. He and, and his wife. Yeah. Candy with mom and dad and loved it.

And they had a big time and he spoke at our church and we had a community wide event and I was gone. I, I wasn’t even there, but, uh, he’s coming back to duck hunt for his first time ever. He’d never shot a gun before and he got to shoot a AR and he was so excited about it. So he’s gonna come back to duck hunt in December.

So, uh, when we do that, we’ll have em on the podcast again. Now we, now we, we’re gonna try to rednecky Dr. Ben Carson. So that’s well, that

12:11 Chris Grainger
was, that was definitely one of my favorite episodes. Just hearing him and, and I mean, hats off you guys, three episodes a week. I don’t think that. The listeners may not know as someone who runs a podcast and we drop three times a week.

I can appreciate the effort that goes in. I mean, that’s, that’s a big commitment and, and hats off to you guys, cuz you’re serving so many people with, with this amazing content weekend week out.

12:33 Al Robertson
Yeah. It’s uh, and I appreciate that. It is, it is a lot of work. Uh, we, we typically record too, and actually we’re doing four now.

Uh, we’re up to four a week. So we do, uh, we record two on Monday and two on Tuesday and then they drop those throughout the week. So you’re usually never over about four days behind our content because right. You know, obviously we still, you know, are trying to, uh, engage the audience in what’s going on in the world.

Uh, but we’re just trying to do it from a BI biblical narrative. So

13:03 Chris Grainger
absolutely. And I mean, and speaking of that, I know today we wanted to talk a little bit. Defending the defenseless and, you know, a lot of things have been happening in our country lately and, you know, Roe versus Wade fail. So now it’s back on the states and I’m just curious, now I know this is something you’re very passionate about from a, from a Christian man’s standpoint.

That is our, our audience here at the line within us, you know, what should we be doing to, to step up and stand up and, and start serving and, and, and defending the defenseless

13:29 Al Robertson
even more? Well, um, yes, you’re right. It’s, uh, it’s a big deal for us. And just so your audience will know cuz you, you read our book or one of our books, um, Lisa, my wife and we’ve been married 38 years.

And when she was 16, we actually had met and I was, you know, I had about four years of what I call my prodigal wandering years. Right. But when I was a teenager and unfortunately for Lisa and for us now, uh, that’s when we first met was when I was terrible. And she was actually a pretty good girl when I met her.

And so I was part of her corruption, the, the Y one used mm-hmm . And so then I broke her heart, went to new Orleans, um, you know, still just selfish and living a terrible life. And so when I did that, it just kind of sent her into a tail spin. And so for the year and a half while I was gone, you know, she just had a terrible life in west Monroe.

And during that time she got pregnant, uh, when she was 16 and, uh, the guy was older than her. I wanna say he was 20 or, or so. And, um, but he wanted her to have the baby and he wanted to marry her. I mean, he was in love with her because she’s only 16 still in school. And her parents, you know, just said, we’re not helping with this.

And they kind of believe the lie that has been around since all this, you know, has been going on since I guess the seventies that, that it is not a person it’s not, it’s not your grandchild. It’s not your daughter, it’s not your son. Right. And so they encouraged her to get an abortion and she did. And so, you know, that has been a part of her difficulty in life, you know, so you really struggle with that even.

So I came back into the picture, my life changed. I helped her life change mm-hmm and, you know, we got married and had two daughters ourselves, but she still carries this guilt and all this stuff from this child that she, she cuz then when she started, you know, getting older and Turing, she realized that that was, that was my baby.

That was, you know, right. And so obviously I had huge impact on her and, um, along with a lot of other problems and she pretty much just had what I would call a breakdown, uh, in her mid thirties and just, you know, had an affair with this person. I was working for the church. And so our marriage was just at the door, uh, right.

Of being over. I mean, we were ready to walk through that divorce door, but because of that being a part of her story, I think that’s made us very passionate now, uh, on behalf of the unborn behalf of the, you know, pro-life movement. And yeah, like everybody else, I kind of became, you know, politically aware in the eighties.

And so I was a Reagan guy mm-hmm and I was obviously pro-life was a big part of, you know, who I was, even though in the party Republican party, you know, it was kind of went, you had some that did and some that didn’t, but I saw the pro-life movement more angry and you know, a lot of times they would picket, um, these abortion clinics or abortion doctors and, you know, even some of ’em were killed, you know, they, and, and was all kind of part of the pro-life movement.

So, but it kind of soured me cuz I was just like, man, it just doesn’t seem like we’re impacting. We, we look like the bad guys and they’re the ones killing the babies, you know? Right. And so somewhere that changed. And I don’t know when, but when, when you started seeing less of that and you started seeing more pregnancy centers.

More right to life, uh, peaceful, you know, loving, let’s pray for people. Let’s try to help people. Let’s try to help these young women and, and young men mm-hmm who are going through this. And so I think when that happened, I think with the spirit changed in the pro-life movement. And I think that’s what you see today, which is why I think we finally had the success we’ve been praying for.

And Roe V. Wade was a big part of that, but, but it’s so misunderstood by most Americans because people on the left and, and pro I don’t even call ’em pro-choice cause they don’t even believe in pro-choice they believe in pro death mm-hmm but the pro death side, you know, they’ve just made up a bunch of all the Supreme court did was say, look, it should have been decided in states to begin with.

And so, you know, this thing about, Hey, you know, the go get the government outta my uterus or outta my body. And you know, all these chants you hear, right. That’s exactly what that was. I mean, the federal government said we’re getting out of this discussion. And so that’s the truth of it, but you don’t hear that very often.

And so now I think to your answer, your question, that was a long way around. I think that now people at the state level have to get really involved, whether it’s you get involved with right to life, uh, support pregnancy centers, um, whether it’s financially volunteer and, and just be aware, uh, do a little bit of digging a little bit of research about what’s going on because you can’t believe everything you see on the internet.

Uh, Lisa and I just went up to Kansas because what’s gonna happen now is you’re gonna have state legislatures that are gonna have to make decisions about, are we gonna make it amend our constitutions where you can’t abortion is not a, a, a civil right in this state. And so that’s, what’s happened with Kansas.

And so they don’t have that on the books. And so that’s the law they’re working on. So August 2nd, They’re going to vote on that. And so we went up and went all around the state, visited six cities, had rallies everywhere and all those people that were there. I mean, they were basically there to rally other canons to find out what this was about in their state.

And so I think that’s what states have to do. You live in a state, uh, that I would say is kind of trying to purple, you know, because you got a lot of, uh, influences from other states that are coming into your state. So those are the battle fronts to me now is you gotta make sure you let local representation know because now that the Supreme court has said, it’s the state decision, the states are gonna have to do something and for that to happen.

But I, I think it’s better because I think the people have a clear voice at the state level and the local level, the gov, the federal government is just a disaster zone, but, but they, they’re not listening. You know, the people go up there, but they’re not listening. But I think at the state levels, you know, you talk to a state assemblyman or in my case, in our state of state legislator and they they’ll listen, they’ll listen to what the people want to do.

And I just think at the heart of hearts, I know this, this has been a divisive issue for years in the us, but I mean, if you, if people know what an abortion really is and if they ever see it in some format or fashion, then I, it’s hard to be for that. You know, it’s hard to tear human beings apart and then say, that’s a good thing, right?

Amen.

19:58 Chris Grainger
Hey guys, we’ll be right back from a break.

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That’s the line within.us/habits and start creating the habits. You need to be the leader, your predestined to be,

you know, Al one thing, you know, I’ve been on, we never been through an abortion, but I’ve been in a quiet delivery room. Okay. So we had a stillborn in 2020. Yep. And to be there and to, to see the lifeless baby and to, and to thank my little girl, her name was faith, uh, right there, her due dates when she passed, um, you know, there’s some states where she could have been aborted.

Yeah. You know? Right, right then. Right. And, and I’m sitting there holding her lifeless, you know, just the worst trauma we could ever go through. I just can’t imagine how you can make that decision. And, and so, I mean, I’m so, so thankful for, for the, the decision, but now we need to start standing up this Christian men.

And take a stand and I love how you said, I’ve heard you say it several times. If you’re pro-life you gotta be pro adoption. Yep. You need to be, you know, you really need to start taking a stance. So maybe you can, you can share a little bit more on

21:27 Al Robertson
that. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, and thank you for bringing that up because the pro-life movement, this is the entire life, you know, mm-hmm and so cause what here’s, what happens.

So we’re, if we’re more successful in convincing women, primarily not to abort their baby, then we’re gonna have a lot more people that will need taken care of. Right. Because a lot of times these women aren’t in a position to take care of a child, which means you need adoption. And because we do have a lot of families that can have children.

Or they get to a point in their life where, you know what they’ve raised their three kids. And they’re like, you know what I mean? I feel like we could, you know, have another child in our family and, and it would be great. Mm-hmm and so a lot of decisions are being made and that’s, so that’s a big part now going forward.

I, I feel like in the pro-life is pro adoption and also pro foster because you may, and not everybody has that makeup. I mean, but, but there are a lot of people that do that can take a baby in and maybe have it just a few weeks, a few months, you know, because they’re in the system, you know, their parents in jail, whatever, and, you know, help kinda like Jace’s doing right now.

Exactly. Jas doing Jason, Missy. I mean, look, and they’ve talked about on the podcast. They’re 50 years old. I, I mean, I, I, I, I know it’s how bad it is for ’em and how hard it is, but they had a heart and God just, you know, mm-hmm, dropped it literally in their lap, this little boy. And so they’re stepping up to the plate and it’s not easy and it’s difficult, but now of course they’re hooked, you know, they love this little boy and they, they wanna make sure he’s protected.

And so that’s exactly the ki the type of things we can do. And even if you, you know, that’s not your thing, you know, that’s, you’re not, you don’t feel lead there, call there to adopt or be as a part of a, you know, foster situation, uh, be a supporter of those who are, I mean, one of the things that I always talked about in our church back home is cuz we have some, you know, foster families there.

Look, let’s let’s what can I do to help you guys? I mean, is, can I financially help you? I mean, can, can I help pay a bill? Can I help do something? Because these people are stepping out to make a difference. And so I wanna walk alongside them. We had a program in Louisiana back when, uh, Bobby G was our governor.

Cause we had, we had about, um, 800 kids, I think they were in the foster system. And so. This group that was there called Louisiana family forum. They said, look, we wanna make a push. And the governor has agreed to help us. He’s gonna cut red tape. We want to try to get every child in Louisiana. That’s in the foster system in someone’s home.

And we want him to be in a Christian home. And so they didn’t get all 800, but I think they managed 500 over the course of a year and a half. And mm-hmm , they did it by churches saying, look, if, if a family here will agree to take one of these children into your home, we’ve got five families that are gonna be there to help you support you, whether it’s financially to help watch the kids, whatever.

And so churches got involved with government and you know, you don’t see that very often. It’s not an Alliance. Yeah. You know, that usually works too well. But in this case we help kids because of, because of that. Right. So I, I think that for your audiences, you know, looking into it is, is whatever you can do.

To help, whether it’s life, whether it’s adoption, whether it’s foster, you know, whether it’s even, even a check, you send into a, a pregnancy center, even a, even a $30 check makes a difference, right? In someone in this movement, in the, in this, you know what we’re doing on, on the side of pro-life. So, uh, I, obviously you, as you said, I’m, we’re passionate about it.

We’ve been a part of it for a pretty good while we’re meeting a lot of amazing people, uh, Tim Tebo and all these other folks that, you know, have similar stories, um, you know, we’re banding together. You and I were talking before we came on the air about the Benham brothers, there are another couple of live wires for Jesus and, and their dad flip has been involved since, you know, he baptized Norma McCorby, who was, you know, right.

Was a Roe V Wade. So, uh, really great movement and great mind people out there, but we need support across the.

25:24 Chris Grainger
So maybe get some, uh, tips or some advice for the guys listening. You know, we’re talking to Christian leaders and, and guys that are just, maybe they’re serving in their church one way or the other, what can we be doing in our churches?

Or, or should we be asking our to, to try to step our, our churches to step up, to support the pro-life movement and specifically, cuz I know that can be tricky sometimes, but I’d love to get your input on, on what we could

25:45 Al Robertson
be doing. Well, one of the things that, where a couple of things, uh, one is churches need to be the main supporters of, uh, pregnancy centers.

And so if you’ve got one in your community, then churches should be lining up behind ’em what can we do to help your banquets? What can we, can you put the baby bottles out here? You know, all these, these creative people and they’re mostly women and a lot of ’em I’ve noticed have been. Post-abortive. And so they, they have had their guilt things a lot like Lisa, and then they’ve gotten involved and they’re the ones running a lot of these places.

And so they come up with some great ideas, but they gotta have people, you know, to be able to support that, to be able to make it happen. So I would say if you’ve got a pregnancy center in your community, make sure your church has asked them, what can we do to help you? Um, you know, because we wanna be supportive.

Another thing is there are a lot of new, uh, ministries in this area that are starting up. One of them is one called embrace grace. And, uh, it’s a, it’s a woman named Amy Ford outta Dallas that started it. And basically it’s your church connecting with the pregnancy center and saying, look, her church wants to help walk alongside unpregnant UN mothers.

And so what they do is someone, someone will have to be a volunteer and kind of headed up, but then they have small groups, they do a baby shower, they teach ’em the Bible, but that your church now, instead of just saying, well, man, it’s shameful that some, this person got pregnant. Now they’re saying we wanna help you deal with that.

We wanna help you deal with the results of that. And we wanna walk alongside you. So even if they’re giving the baby up for adoption or they’re gonna keep the baby, our church is helping that. So at our church, At any given time, um, we’ll have about three to six, uh, unwed mothers from our community mm-hmm and they’ve been guided to us from the pregnancy center.

They’ve obviously made a decision, the right decision, not to abort their baby. Now they need some love and they need some support. Yeah. And it’s a way for your church to get on the front line of this ministry. So, uh, that’s just one that I know of and there’s been some others. And so I think anything your church can do to engage people that have made mistakes, which we all do.

Mm-hmm , uh, then we’re on the front line of, of where we’re supposed to be.

28:01 Chris Grainger
And that one was just wanna make sure we got that for listeners embrace grace by Amy Ford,

28:05 Al Robertson
embrace grace. Yeah. And you can look it up and, and see what they’re doing. And, and a lot of, you know, that’s, that’s what they’ll do. They’ll and they’ll have, you know, they have a national thing that helps, but then they’re really at the root level at the, at the local levels, how they impact.

Okay. We’ll

28:20 Chris Grainger
we’ll, we’ll sync that up and put that into show notes for you listeners. If you wanna go check that out and support and, and find out more and take that to your church. Let’s I definitely highly encourage that. So, Hey, we’ll take a quick break. We’ll be right back.

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So Al you, you, you really covered a lot here on the pro-life, but I also know you really want, when we were talking about the things we should talk about, and, and particularly for our guys, we try to help ’em in their marriages. And we talked about forgiveness and you have a wonderful story. Actually, you have a, a whole book on forgiveness and, you know, so maybe for those that don’t know what your story is, maybe could you give an overview of what that looks like and forgiveness

29:44 Al Robertson
in your marriage?

Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to do that. Well, I kind of told you how Lisa and I met and, and yes, sir, how I was a prodigal and, and I guess she ultimately wound up being that as well, that we, neither, one of us had a relationship with Christ. Now I had known at one time.

I mean, when I was young, you know, the Lord and I were, you know, simpatico, I, you know, I love the Lord. He, he saw me through a, not a great upbringing because dad wasn’t, uh, converted to Christianity until he was until I was about 10 years old and he was 28. I was gonna ask you

30:16 Chris Grainger
how old you were. Yeah, I was 10

30:17 Al Robertson
about 10.

Uh, and, uh, so I saw a lot, you know, and, and grew up in a, in a non-Christian home, in a tough environment, but God had had his hand on me the whole time, because it was a preacher mm-hmm , uh, that lived across the street from us when I was a kid and he and his wife, they took me to their church and I got to go to VBS and learn Bible stories and all the things that would help me later in life.

But when I got to be a teenager, I, I left all that. I left my first love, who was, who was Jesus. Right. And then I wound up meeting Lisa and treating her terribly, but she wound up being my second love after Jesus, because when I came back home, I realized what a retch I was, and I was only 18, but I had had a lot of bad stuff in my life.

And so, um, at first I was just gonna like walk alone. I thought, you know, I’m gonna try to mm-hmm Jesus did it. Paul did it, you know, in the Bible and maybe I can do it. So they’ll ask it about two months. And I realized that wasn’t my gift, because you know, it’s just, you know, it’s a gift for some people, but not, not for me.

Right. And so I thought, okay, I need to settle down, but I gotta find somebody I can do life with. Cause I, I mean, I knew I was only 18, but I knew it was like, I, I have to be a structure situation because I’ll go, I’ll fly out. And so, so I thought about Lisa and, you know, I hadn’t no much about what happened after I dumped her.

And, but I knew she was crazy about it, that she loved me. And so I called her up I’m 18 and you know, she’s 17 at the time. And, uh, I’m about to be 19. And so I called her up and, uh, she was just about to graduate high school. And so I said, Hey, I said, I’m back in town. And she said, oh, I know I’ve heard, you know, cuz we grew up pretty close to each other.

And uh, I said, well, I’ve heard you’ve got some serious boyfriend. She said, oh yeah, of course. I think she was trying to make me jealous. She said, oh yeah, he’s asked me to marry him. You know, when we get outta school. And I said, okay. And uh, so, well you want to go out Friday night? And uh, she paused and she said, yeah so this poor guy, he never had a chance.

But anyway, so from that point forward, you know, I, I treated her respectfully. I told her about my lifestyle change that I had had right. Picked my Lord on now and I was following him and, and of course she was glad to hear it because her life had been such a mess too. And so we were gonna like get married in like a year.

At the time I was working for dad and we were just building duck commander, cause this is like 1983. And so we’re just kind of getting the company off the. And, um, and I was also going to college, you know, to, to get my business degree thinking one day I would run our business cuz I’m the oldest son.

Right. And, um, right. So we were gonna get married in like a year. Cause you know, she had, it was just the summer after she had just graduated high school and her parents didn’t like me at all, which is understandable. Cause I was so terrible to her. So they were not for it, us being together. And so it was kind of a strain, but um, so, but because we wanted to stay pure this time.

So , you know, the, that time kept squeezing down because the way I put it, Chris, my, my, uh, biology was overtaken my theology. And so I was getting myself that’s and uh, so finally one Friday night I said, I don’t know why we’re fighting all this. It was in November, 1984. I said, let’s get married. And she was like, are you serious?

And so I had bought a ring. I said, here’s your ring? Oh, she’s so excited you. I said, what are you? Is it a yes. She said, of course I said, yes. And so, and she said she started talking about next summer and all this. I said, no, no, no, no. I said, once I made decision to spend the rest of my life with somebody, the rest of my life needs to start as soon as possible.

So next Friday’s when I wanna get married. and she’s like, what? That’s crazy. She said, and she said, well, yeah, I would love to I’ll marry you right now. Well, of course that went over big. You can imagine with her family and you know, of course my folks were like, they didn’t care. And dad was like, that sounds like a winner to me, you’re doing the right thing, Al.

He said, I won’t be here. I’m selling duck calls in Arkansas. But yeah, he was out on the road selling duck calls. So yeah. So in my waiting pictures, this mom, my brothers, and then my cousin, John Kimber. But, uh, so we did it from one week to the next, the problem was that I didn’t realize at the time is that there was a lot of baggage and a lot of stuff, both from our individual lives.

But also even then in our lives things we needed to know. I mean, there’s a reason why that through the years now I’ve done a lot of premarital counseling with couples because there are things you need to discuss and talk about and figure out how they’re gonna affect your marriage in your life. But we did know that, right.

We just went into a purely blind and ignorant and, you know, within five years we had both of our girls and Lisa had had a miscarriage with the third one. And of course that come with the abortion that she had had before. You know, she had, we had all these problems with both girls. I mean, animals in the hospital, she was a prey weigh less than two pounds.

And so of course, Lisa is thinking this whole time that God is punishing me, you know, for this abortion mm-hmm . So again, she’s carrying all that guilt. And then we never really dealt with what happened when I, when I left her and, and, and what happened to her and Lisa boys that she were with and later men.

And so there was a lot of deceit in Lisa’s heart that she had never really dealt with. And so, yeah, you know, at the 15 year mark of our lives, now I’m in the church. She resented it because she didn’t want to be a preacher’s wife because she’s like, I mean, there’s nothing good about me, you know, my I’m terrible and the things she was thinking.

Right. And so finally at the 15 year mark, um, an old friend from high school, she was working for the company called to order some duck calls and they got to talking, one thing leads to another, and then that wound up being a 14 month affair. And so while this is going on, I mean, I’m, I’m the associate pastor at our church.

I I’m good at what I do. You know, people love me, you know, and I feel like all this pressure that I know something’s wrong with my wife, but I don’t know what to do or where to go mm-hmm to, to fix it. And so a couple of times I kind of had a breaking point and tried to pull in some other leaders, but, you know, she’s in denial and just, and says I’m crazy and jealous and controlling.

And, and basically let me take the rap, you know, for what she was doing. Mm-hmm until finally I got the proof and then it just was over just like that. And I was so empty. I didn’t think Chris that, that there was, we didn’t have any chance, you know? And, um, I told her I wanted her to leave, but she wasn’t taking the girls because everyone stay with me.

I didn’t trust her. I was like, you know, whatever you gonna do in your life, go do it. But, but I, you know, I’m done. I’m. And, um, so mm-hmm , and that’s where I thought we were. And so for, and my family basically was encouraging me to divorce her, cuz they were like, you know, she’s not gonna change out. She had had a similar thing happen at our five year mark.

She didn’t have a physical affair, but you know, there was an emotional connection. And so I thought it was over and uh, but Lisa went out back that we, we went at it all night to, for me to get her, to tell the truth. And when she finally did the way we describe it now, it’s like, when you read Psalm 51, you know, David, just like, we call it truth vomit.

It’s just like you go, you know, and, and all the ugliness comes out and that’s what she did that night. And it mm-hmm she told me everything and uh, and it was ugly and it was bad and it was, you know, obviously hurtful, but at the same time I wanted to know cuz I thought it was going. And so she went out back and she just, she says that if she could have dug a hole, she would have to go lower than the ground.

But she was just laid out in the grass in our backyard. And she said, God, I don’t know if you’re there. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but I have nothing left. You know, I’ve, I’ve now lost my husband. I’ve lost my children. I’ve lost all my friends because they were all connected at the church. And she was like, I got nothing.

And so, you know, God came to her in that moment and she didn’t really have hope, but she said, she just, she left that yard thinking God can do something with me. And so it started something in her. And so at first I was, you know, I didn’t believe anything. She said, I didn’t trust her when she walked out the door.

Yeah. But God began to work on me too, because I started realizing first we were separated about a month and about six weeks in, we start talking a little. And I was thinking you crazy guy, you, you still love her. You know? And, but I was like, how am I gonna do, how can I possibly live with a woman that I can’t trust when she walks out the door?

You know, because, and so I was like, a lot of people are, I was just in a paradox and I was stuck there. And so the almighty and I were wrestling mightily one night and I just said, God, I, I trust you. Don’t trust her, but I trust you. If, if I can forgive her the way you forgive me, will you, will you reveal to me if she ever goes down this road again, cuz I, I trust you to do that.

Mm-hmm and in my heart, I felt like the answer was yes, that he would let me know what I needed to know. Yeah. If I was able to forgive her, like he forgives me. And so that’s what I did. Right. And uh, I made a vow to God and, and I realized the Bibles really serious about vows. You know? It’s like, you better be careful there.

Yeah. Cause this is serious. You make a vow to God, right? When you become a Christian, you make a vow of your spouse, but you don’t make a lot of vows. And I said, you know what Lord, if if you give me the strength to offer and extend true forgiveness, then I will never use what’s happened in our past this affair, anything to hurt Lisa or to hurt us in the future.

And, um, I’m sitting here speaking to you 24 years later and I’ve held the vow because I trusted him that much. And so, as you can imagine, and a lot of people say, when they’re raw into, you know, a post affair or whatever, they’re like, well, how could you possibly do that and said, look, it wasn’t easy. I’m not saying it’s an easy thing to do, but that’s what God does for us.

He says, you know, I’m extending you forgiveness that I’m not gonna throw back up into the next argument. Right? And so that for me was what made it work and through the early tough days when I was still so mistrustful over the now 24 years, it’s amazing. We we’ve gone way past where we were before. What we now have is a relationship that’s so Christ centered and so loving to toward each other that we can now say and do that we would not change anything that’s happened to get us to this point.

And there’s a lot of bad stuff that happened, but, but you know what? It took all that for us to finally surrender fully to God and to Christ. And so that’s what allows us to be able to not only have forgiveness for each other, but other people. And so you can imagine what happened. You know, I work in a church, you know, and later became the pastor, but people were sending people to Lisa like crazy, cuz you know, they had had adultery or had infidelity in their relationship and there’s how did you do it?

You know, you’re saying, well, look, there’s no magic system. It’s just about forgiveness and trust in God because you don’t trust each other. Mm-hmm and I get it. And so I think people felt like when they talked to us that there was no judgment of where they were, where they had been. And it wasn’t because we had just.

Discovered it ourselves. And so we began helping a lot of people. And eventually we started doing our testimony a few years later that led to our first book called a new season. Uh, and then now the book you have is desperate forgiveness, which was our follow up, uh, to that first book, right? Because what’s happened is over 24 years now, we’ve been able to impact a lot of other people’s marriages and relationships.

And the couple that leads our marriage ministry back home at church are reengage at west bay road. Uh, they were a couple that were devastated by, you know, adultery and a lot of other stuff. Yeah. And we help them find the healing they needed from God and each other. And now they lead our marriage ministry and they’re helping people in our community.

So that’s what happens when you go all in because of what God’s done for you. So it’s the same, everything we have came out of failure, whether it was abortion into pro life, right. It was adultery that led to strong marriage. And so, you know, what God delivers us from is typically what we can help.

Kingdom wise the best if, if we’re willing to be used by God.

42:24 Chris Grainger
Amen. And that bro, Hey, when we take a quick break, we’ll be right back guys

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Now, I’m curious, you mentioned that your family was, was, was encouraging you to leave and to, for, to leave her. But I, I, you know, I know, you know, Phil and Kay had their issues that were prior to him getting saved. What did, what did miss Kay, you know, she, she had the ultimate forgiveness for him. Was she able to help you during that time at all?

I’m just curious what type of counsel you got

43:43 Al Robertson
for her? That’s very insightful, Chris, because mom was probably the only one in, in my family at that point. That was kind of more like, you know, I, I don’t know, you know, I’m not, so I’m not as sure as everybody else that, that, you know, she can’t change. Sure.

And she was much more sensitive and, and I think you’re right. I think the reason why is because of, of what she did and, you know, it’s really interesting because it’s a whole nother story that maybe I’ll come on your podcast another time and tell the story of Phyllis. But so we found out we had a sister.

Um, that is now in our lives. Mm-hmm and it’s, you know, almost three years, but the night that mom and dad, the night I told them I happened to be the one to te give them the information that this woman thinks. She’s my sister and, and dad’s daughter, right? Mom looks at dad. Now this, this, this woman’s 44 years old.

pH is 44. And I got this letter. She looks at dad. Yeah. And she says, Phil, you know, I’ve always wanted a girl. And there’s been one out here for 44 years, and I’m just now gonna get to meet her. Now you would think that a wife that just found out her husband has a kid that he fathered being unfaithful to her 44 years later would be upset with him situation or whatever, but she wasn’t.

And, and she was genuinely open. And what that told me, Chris was that when my mom forgave my dad 44 years earlier, when he became Christian of everything he had been involved in and she knew he was, was unfaithful to her. She really meant it mm-hmm because when something happened 44 years later, she didn’t go right at it and say, Hey, you stupid jerk.

You know, you did all this to me back then. Right. Instead she’s like, I can’t wait to meet my new daughter. And so yes, uh, mom was a big help for me. And then she was the one that really helped Lisa too, because Lisa, you know, obviously when we got back together, she was very humble through the whole process.

And that’s what you have to do. And by the way, if there’s in anyone that is listening to your audience, that has been the one that, you know, has had an affair or done something hurt somebody else. He said, well, how, how should I react? Keep your humility because that’s, what’s gonna help you get through this.

And so she wrote a letter to everybody in my family and basically said, look, I’m sorry, I hurt, you know, your, your brother, your son, you know your brother-in-law, uh, I’m sorry. I hurt you. I’m sorry. I hurt our. But I have now come to a relationship with Christ Allen and I are gonna try to make a run. I’m gonna try to be the best I can possibly be going forward.

Please forgive me. And, you know, that’s all she could do. And, uh, and one by one, that’s exactly what my family did. And you could ask any of ’em right now, if they were doing a, your podcast or shows, you know, who’s a woman, you really respect every one of them. My brothers, my sister-in-laws would say, well, we respect Lisa because of what she’s done to, to submit herself to Christ.

So it was really, you know, it, it, it got as good as it was bad for that short period of time later on to see that happen within the family. And she’s the go to, I mean, you know, all of my nieces and nephews and now great nieces and great nephews, they all love ain’t Lisa and will come to us with any problem because they know they won’t feel judged.

Right.

46:54 Chris Grainger
That is wonderful. I, I, I am curious, Dave, we got, you know, again, a lot of guys listening and. Sometimes when we come up with those arguments and things happen in, in our marriage or, or our relationships, we, we turn into historians. Yeah. And we, we, we keep bringing that, those, those stuff back, any advice on how we can, can let some of that go, that historical stuff so we can

47:14 Al Robertson
actually move forward.

Well, and I’m not saying this just to try to sell books because I didn’t write my books to make money. I wrote my books to help people, but if you, if you’re still in any of those struggles or have been through that and are still struggling with this, buy the books, I mean, buy a new season, buy desperate forgiveness, read them.

Uh, and you can do one. If you don’t wanna buy two, you can get desperate. Cuz we basically tell our story at the first of, and then tell you some more, but, and, and listen to what we did or what God did in us, uh, for, for ourselves. Because if you approach forgiveness as a momentary thing, instead of a lifelong.

It won’t work. I mean, it’s gotta be bigger than that. Mm-hmm and you know, God told us, he said, I, I will make a covenant with my people. I will forgive them their sins and remember them no more. And the reason he says that is because if you continue to go back to a place that you can’t get healing from, you’ll eventually lose the relationship, but here’s the problem.

So you think, well, you know, we just couldn’t make that work. When you go into your next relationship, guess what you’re gonna take with you all the baggage from the first one, it goes right with you, right? And you think you’ve learned, and maybe I married the wrong person and you know, all this stuff. None of that’s true.

It’s about commitment. It’s about a commitment to God, a commitment to your spouse and find a way to make it work. Jace talks about it all the time on our podcast. He said, Missy, and I should never be married in terms of compatibility and all the things, you know, you think make you a husband or wife. He said, we got married and we’re still married because of Jesus and how much we love him.

And that’s really it. And he’s right. They are as different as two people can be. But they were in love with each other. Yeah. They’ve raised a great family. Then I got their grandkids coming along, but it was because of Jesus. That’s how they did it.

48:59 Chris Grainger
Amen. And that, and by the way, that’s the, the best, the episodes I enjoy the most.

I know we’re taking a little tangent here, but when Missy comes on just to see Jay squirm, that’s the best part of Honora. I I’m sure you guys get a lot of

49:11 Al Robertson
positive. We do. And I’ve told you before, Chris, I, I personally love it because I’ve spent most of my life tormenting, Jace, you know, cuz he’s the next brother in line.

And so, and he, and I just, you know, we always sparked is it’s really interesting that we’re so close now, but we’re not close. Like you’d think we’re not like, you know, let me talk to you any hour that we’re not like that. Right. But we have a respect for each other. That’s amazing. And, but I do love to torment him.

And so when Missy makes him squirm, it makes my day. I mean, so Missy has a standing invitation. Anytime you wanna be on the podcast, you let me know. You don’t even have to tell Jay, you can just, he can just show up and you’re just sitting in the chair. And, uh, which makes it even fun.

49:52 Chris Grainger
that’s right. The, I guess the surprise, uh, appearance would be the best one, right?

well, I just think forgiveness, I I’m so thankful that you were willing to share your story, you and Lisa and, and, and, you know, feeling Kay. Share their story. And I just think your, your, your family in general, just the, the, the, the picture of forgiveness, I mean, and to go through what you guys have went through, as well as have the, the national spotlight that you had, and then unless I’m mistaken, you haven’t had any divorces or anything like that through your family.

You guys are just, are still completely grounded in Christ and he’s meeting.

50:27 Al Robertson
Yeah. We’ve, um, you know, everybody’s had problems. I mean, Lisa and I are probably, you know, had the most in terms of my brothers and, and their wives, but we’ve all had issues from, from different times. It hasn’t been perfect at all.

And then I mentioned to him about mom and dad, you know, all of their early life. Right. And, and easily, they could have divorced, you know, if dad hadn’t a, you know, turned to Christ, they would have I’m sure. Because he just, and he’d probably be. But, yeah, I mean, God has blessed us in that, in that faithfulness to him and we are still married to the same, you know, spouses and, uh, you know, now my kids are married and, uh, my, my oldest daughter, you know, shockingly to me is now been married for, uh, 19 years.

Next year will be 20 years and, uh, you know, wow. So to get to live and do life with them and, and my other daughter’s been married for eight years. Um, you know, it’s, it’s really incredible. Cause we were talking about, we had to do some kind of trip because Lisa and I on our 40th will be the 20th for my oldest and the 10th for my youngest.

And yeah, that’s awesome. And it’s, it is a legacy going forward of generations. Yeah. And so my grandkid. Or the most blessed because they have stability and they have people that love each other. And so my 16 year old, who’s my oldest granddaughter, you know, had some struggles last year and, you know, went through some tough times.

And, you know, I remember right what it was like when I was 16. So did her grandmother, you know, my wife, but you know what? We were able to sit and talk and cry with her and love her and forgive her and help her find what she needed in Christ. And now watching her grow through all that process, you do that when you’re together and you, and you’re making good spiritual decisions.

And so that’s how you do it, you know? Yeah. But remember it, humility is the key you can’t ever get started looking at yourself thinking you’re a big deal. Mm-hmm, one of my favorite pictures of forgiveness, right. Uh, comes from Luke chapter. Where the woman is just laid out at Jesus’ feed and she’s so broken.

And she’s so aware of her own sinfulness, but she knows he’s the answer, you know, and she’s crying on his feet and she’s washing him with her hair and she’s pouring perfume on him. And the thing that makes the scene even even more beautiful is that there’s a guy sitting over there, a Pari city, the guy who owns the house, looking at her and just mm-hmm, having straight contempt because of her pouring this out.

Yeah. And then Jesus, of course winds up rebuking him, but loving her. And he says an amazing line. He says in verse 47, this is how I sign all my books. Um, about forgiveness. He says to the person who has been forgiven much, they will love much. But to, to the person who’s been forgiven little, they will love little.

And he was talking about Simon, the Pharisees. He was like, the reason that you’re not a loving person is because you’re not embracing the forgiveness of God. You think you’re a big deal? This woman who’s pouring her heart out. Mm-hmm , she’s the one that’s gonna love the most. And of course she did. Yeah.

And I’m sure the rest of her life she did. So that’s a great concept. Sometimes. You wonder why my attitude’s not right. Why I can’t get along with people. Maybe you need to embrace more forgiveness from God and let some things go.

53:39 Chris Grainger
Absolutely. That is wonderful. Wow. We’re gonna take our last break and we’ll be right back.

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So Al you you’ve unpacked so much just wonderful insight for our listeners today around pro-life around forgiveness. I mean, I just think your family is the picture of forgiveness. I I’m even thinking of Jeff and, and what he went through and then how he came back and what he said. Yeah. What took you guys so long, but that’s that, that wraps your arms around.

And I just think there’s so much to learn from, from you all. And I’m just thankful that you’re willing and to be vulnerable enough to share that because that’s, we, we need more real raw conversations like this to help

54:58 Al Robertson
us grow. No, I couldn’t agree more. And, you know, we, we used to joke when we were doing the show, doing the, as we call it now, the little duck show, the little duck show that could, when we were doing that, you know, it was amazing because.

People were didn’t know, obviously know who we were, unless you were like in the hunting world. And they were like, oh, it’s this family. And so we started writing books. Well, we were telling everything about our lives and I can just remember how shocked, you know, media people were that we were so open. And so my joke for a long time was we’re families like ours put TMZ outta business, you know, because you don’t have to get shocking unearthing things from our past.

We’re willing to talk about it and show what God has done. And so I think that’s one of the reasons why our show was popular, why people loved us because we were authentic and are, and we were real. And, uh, and we have fun and we, you know, we kid around with each other. And as you know, from listen to our podcast, we’ll throw somebody in on the bus, in a heartbeat mm-hmm

But then, you know, at the end of the day, we’re all together. And so I think that’s a lot of people connected with that around the country. And, and like you said, they saw that and they, people love authenticity. People don’t like things that are fake mm-hmm and when they turn out to be fake and someone was acting like they were something that they really weren’t.

I mean, nobody can respect that, but if you’re just, you know, that’s why a dad didn’t get any grief from when we found out we had a daughter, you know, you’d think that his enemies, right. Cause there has a lot of enemies, but you think they would say, oh, look at this hypocrite, but they didn’t, you know what they said, you know, he said he was bad.

Yeah. So it’s not really a shocker that he has this daughter now, so right. I, I just think, you know, that’s what happens when we’re truthful. I always say that if you release your own and set off your own Bob, then you don’t have to have a ticking time bomb for the evil one to do it. Cuz trust me, he will.

He’s gonna bring out your issue. That’s right. The worst possible light and the worst possible way to do the most damage to you and other people around you. So let’s, don’t let’s don’t let the evil one set off the bombs. Let’s just go ahead and be truthful and talk about it ourself.

57:02 Chris Grainger
Amen of that. I can attest to that Al just for the, the line within us, the episodes that.

Get the most feedback or, you know, where, where I’m raw, like where I shared about the, the, the quiet delivery room, you know, where I share about bouts with anxiety, what that actually looks like, and just, just being real, you know, not trying to be fake and come off. Like I got this all figured out and just, Hey here guys.

Here’s what I’m dealing with. Here’s what, here’s how I dealt with it. And here’s how the Lord led me and think more conversations like that are what we need. So, you know, we, we, we wrap up the line within us with we call feeding time Al and that’s where we just kind of a quick lightning round. I just have a couple questions.

So if you’re willing to play we’ll, uh, we’ll jump in and have, have some fun with this. Let’s do it. All right. Cool. So what’s your favorite thing

57:48 Al Robertson
about God, um, is that he is relentlessly passionate about the people he’s created. Uh, and that’s everybody, you know, even the, the, the people that we would think don’t deserve, God’s love, he says, Nope. I, I want everybody to be saved and, and his passion allows us to have the opportunity to turn it around.

So that’s probably what I love by the most that he doesn’t want anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance. Amen.

58:20 Chris Grainger
What’s your least favorite thing about Satan?

58:23 Al Robertson
Oh, man. Um, my least favorite thing about Satan is that he is so good at making lies, sound like truth. Um, you know, he, he did it in the garden in the beginning.

He just, yeah. You know, three fourths of what he told E was, was on target, but, but of course skewed. Right? And so I think now you see this, what I call the course dialogue of what happens, whether it’s politics or whatever in our country, right? The cesspool that can be social media, all that is motivated, but motivated by what Satan does best make lies, sound like truth.

Amen.

59:02 Chris Grainger
What do you wish you would’ve learned sooner about.

59:06 Al Robertson
You know, I, I probably wish I had learned, uh, how far his grace reached because I spent so much of my early life feeling guilty, uh, about my mistakes and about my weaknesses. And mm-hmm , as I’ve gotten older, I realized that God’s love me through every bit of that.

And right. He never, he never like was turned, had his back, turned to me because I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. So I wish I had understood the depth of his grace. You know, I read that verse and if Jesus three, that talks about how high and love and wide right. And deep is the love of Christ.

And there’s nowhere you can go nowhere too low and nowhere too high, nowhere too far, east and west that his love is not there.

59:49 Chris Grainger
So what’s, what’s something you’re currently struggling with right now.

59:54 Al Robertson
Um, I’d say my biggest struggle these days is, is trying to, to get it all done, you know, to figure out how, how to get it all done.

I mean, we, we get a lot of opportunities to go and leasing are on the road constantly. And, and it’s just, I mean, it sounds kind of crazy. Oh, that sounds great. She’s got all this stuff, but sometimes it doesn’t in the sense that I’m just not sure exactly where we should be emphasizing. Right. Uh, and I spent most of my life in full-time ministry and now for the last nine years, I haven’t been paid by a church, but I still work for more than one.

And so, you know, I, I think it’s just trying to figure out exactly what God wants me to do, uh, and to be able to appreciate that,

00:32 Chris Grainger
understand that what’s a, what’s a new habit that you’re gonna try to create this year,

00:37 Al Robertson
new habit this year. Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that. It won’t be sports. Cause I’ve given all that up, gave all that up.

mainly cuz my body won’t allow it to, uh, anymore. Uh, I don’t know. I haven’t, I haven’t really thought about a, a, a new habit to pick up. I’ve thought about trying now that I’m, I’m actually coming to you from what we call the Southern layer. Right. Which, which is our go shores place and you know, all my early life I fished and loved it.

And then we commercial fish and I kind of didn’t love it. Mm-hmm but my neighbor is a guide and he’s been trying to get me to start fishing again and I’ve been really tempted to give it another run and kind of get, you know, forget about the other stuff. So I guess maybe fishing, uh, because you go, there’s nothing better than being on the water that’s for sure.

01:26 Chris Grainger
Amen. Amen. So the last question Al is what is one thing that you hope that the listeners out there today remember from our convers.

01:34 Al Robertson
Well, probably what we talked about in terms of, you know, being able to have the capacity to receive and extend forgiveness. Mm-hmm um, actually I think it really arched everything we talked about because even if the pro life stuff is something exciting to you, you know, that Springs out of forgiveness, because people are desperately seeking that for mistakes that were made, whether it was what got me pregnant to begin with, or the fact maybe I had an abortion.

So I think the forgiveness, um, both accepted and then extended, uh, is what I would love for your listeners to take away from today.

02:09 Chris Grainger
I love it. Is there, is there anything else you’d like to share or where would you like the listeners to go to connect and learn more and, and support you and what you guys are

02:16 Al Robertson
doing?

Well, uh, you know, you can, if you want to know more about our marriage stuff that we do, we write blogs. It’s Al and Lisa Roberton Al a and D and Lisa roberton.com uh, as our website. And so we have some tried to put some regular stuff on there and resources for people. Uh, so that might help you. And then you mentioned it, I mean the unashamed podcast, you can watch it, uh, on YouTube, cuz we film it, uh, or you can listen to it, uh, through iTunes or however you get your, your podcast.

So I, you know, I think unashamed, we’ve done now over 500 episodes. So yeah, if you start now, it’s gonna really take you a while. But if you, if you love it, like Chris apparently does, uh, you you’ll wanna listen more and I would’ve just encourage your listeners to continue, uh, doing what you’re doing. Uh, Chris, cuz I, I, I love it that.

So many people that listen to our podcasts are also podcasters because then, you know, we’re just talking about what God has done in our lives or how we want to impact people. I love that. I think that’s fantastic. We’re not competing with other podcasts. We’re just encouraging conversation. And as you mentioned, authentic, godly conversation.

So

03:21 Chris Grainger
amen brother. Well, thank you so much. And from the bottom of my heart, Al thank you so much that you shared so much for our listeners today and it’s just been an absolute honor, sir.

03:29 Al Robertson
You’re very welcome. Thank you, bud.

03:34 Chris Grainger
You win, jump in a boxing ring and expect to win without training, right? So why do you think you can win to battle, get Satan without putting in the work for the Christian man, it starts with knowing scripture and your heart to help you out and get started with your training. We created a free guide of 10 scriptures.

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guys. I warned you that I told you that was gonna be a powerful conversation. Al brought the, just so much. It was such a blessing to be able to work with him, to be able to serve him. Guys, go back and listen to it. Go back and listen to the forgiveness. Go back and listen to the way you can support.

Pro-life so much there. Check out the show notes. We’ll have links to unashamed, all the things that Al mentioned. We want to support that. If you’re not listening to UN shame, jump on it. I mean that, that’s a show I listen to every week when it comes out, I, I, I can’t get enough of it. It’s great content, guys.

It, it will help you grow in your walk in Christ. And I want you to think about this week. How do you fight for the defense list? You. How do you fight? We, the defenseless Al gave us some great ideas. So lean into that. Guys lean into it, go to the line with them, dot us and check us out there. All the resources, the Bible study, the, the, the courses, the coaching we want to come alongside of you and help you grow to be the leader, your predestined to be.

I can’t believe that we have an opportunity to speak with Al and I know his message is going to impact so many people. So again, join the lions den that’s free on, on the website, the lion within.us, check us out there. We have all the resources there to serve you guys. We’re building stuff every week to try to come out and help you be the leader, your predestine to be.

So share this with others, give us a rating and review. That would make a big difference. Thank you again for, for supporting the show and just for being. I just encourage you to keep coming back, come back on fun Friday. I’m gonna wrap all this up for us and give you some tips and some dad jokes going to your weekend.

Pray you guys have a great, great day. Thank you so much. Now get out there and unleash the lion within.