Chris Grainger
Host
00:03
Welcome to the Lion with Ennis, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I’m your host, chris Granger. Let’s jump in. All right, guys. This is me episode today, and before we get into it, let’s dive right into the word. So we’re going to be in the book of 1 John not John, but 1 John. Chapter 4, verse 4, says you, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. Can I get amen on that, fellas? Okay? So if you missed the spiritual kickoff, go check that one out. I spent a lot of time unpacking that one particular verse, guys, to give you a better insight of not just who you are, but who’s you are. You are a bloodbought child of God, and that should get you fired up and you can overcome the challenges of the darkness that are in the world. And we’re going to talk about some dark things today.
01:01
Today, a very interesting conversation I have brought in with us. We had Joshua Broome, and he experienced a six year period in his life, guys, where he was the most successful adult film star in the world and he had fame, he had fortune, he traveled the world, he could do all the things that most people dream of, right, but they all left him empty in his heart. So for the last several years, josh has been appearing on podcast TV shows you name it talking about telling the God’s redemptive story and what that looked like in his life. He overcame depression. He was on the verge of suicide. I’m telling you his emotional scars he had from making over a thousand pornographic films. Guys, this stuff, it impacted him greatly. But now he’s healed. He’s only healed through the power, the life giving power, found in Jesus. So, look, he’s now replaced all those lives of the past. What God’s truth he’s teaching others, what he’s learned. He’s just got a great spirit about him. Fellas, I’m just here to tell you he’s now married. He’s got three sons, he tells us on the episode. He’s got one on the way and it’s just like he’s got so many things that he’s living for now and he’s trying to be very intentional about pointing others to the good news of the gospel and also exposing the darkness that exists in the pornography industry.
02:38
And I know a lot of you guys are struggling with this. We hear from you. We know so many men out there struggle with the issue of pornography in their life and they feel like you know what, it’s just a part of you that you can’t overcome. I’m here to tell you you’re wrong, you can’t overcome it. You are not defined by that. You’re gonna hear firsthand Josh’s account on how he got sucked into that industry and how, in one moment, one moment, everything changed, and also you can hear the redemptive story of how, in another moment, a very holy encounter, everything changed. The point it to him. All right, fellas. So enjoy this conversation, sit back, just soak it in. Definitely be sure to go check out the show notes later and get all the links and things like that, but I hope you enjoy this one with Joshua Broome. So, josh, welcome to the Lion with Dennis. How are you doing today, sir?
Joshua Broome
Guest
03:40
I’m good man. I’m sitting in my kitchen table, which is unique for me. I’m normally in my studio. But, man, thank you for being patient with me. I’ve been kind of running around. Summer’s a crazy time. I got some young kids, lots of birthdays, lots of travel, all that good stuff. But I’m so glad that we made this happen. I think that it was providential that we had this conversation today at this time, and I’m just glad to be here.
Chris Grainger
Host
04:11
Amen, bro. Thank you. Look, I’m getting ready to move in less than a month, so my studio is going away, I’m going to be scrambling around and I have four little ones myself, dude, so no apologies needed. We made it happen. This is when we’re supposed to make a recording, so we’re just going to go with it. Man, I’m excited to have you here. Before we get into the heavy part of the conversation, man, give us a little fun fact about you that maybe not many people know.
Joshua Broome
Guest
04:37
Fun fact about me man kind of a goofy thing is I didn’t learn how to ride a bicycle until I was 15. Okay, and the way that I learned it is I was just. I was tired of lying to my friends. They’d say, let’s go for a bike ride or whatever, and I was like, nah, I don’t want to. So I got tired of it.
04:59
So my grandma had this real steep driveway. It was asphalt. I’m from South Carolina so it turned from asphalt it turns into that soft sand kind of like sand like at a beach, and I got on this bicycle and I was like I want to stay on this bike more than I want to get hurt. So I got on the bike, kind of like a bad roller coaster, and I went down and I had all the confidence in the world until that front tire hit that sand and I went over the handlebars and knocked the air out of myself. But I did it a few times and then after that I figured out. But that’s how I learned to ride a bike. Something I’m proud of and I’m excited about right now is recently found out we’ve got a fourth little one on the way.
Chris Grainger
Host
05:51
All right.
Joshua Broome
Guest
05:52
Yeah, so excited about that. So our oldest can in turns five next week. Okay, In turns five July 11th. And yeah, so three boys, maybe a fourth, we don’t know yet, but excited about it.
Chris Grainger
Host
06:09
That’s so awesome, man. So I have three girls and a boy, so a little bit of air survived. The boy slipped in at the end, so finally broke up all that estrogen at the house. Good little test top.
Joshua Broome
Guest
06:19
That’s what my wife my wife is hoping for. The latter she was a gymnast. Her whole life cheered in high school, did some dance, all that stuff. So would love to have a little girl to be able to share some of her life experience with man. That’s awesome. I’m just praying that he or she is healthy and I’ll be glad either way.
Chris Grainger
Host
06:45
Amen. We’ll be praying for a healthy pregnancy man all the way. For sure, I’m a July birthday too, so me and your son, we’re close. He only missed me by like four days. I’m the seven, okay.
Joshua Broome
Guest
06:55
My birthday is July 26th.
Chris Grainger
Host
06:57
Okay, man, july babies are the best. There we go, there we go.
Joshua Broome
Guest
07:02
And our anniversary is the 16th, so July is just the month for us.
Chris Grainger
Host
07:06
There you go, man. There you go. Well, good deal. Well, man, thanks for sharing all that stuff about your family, and where in South Carolina are you from? I didn’t realize that.
Joshua Broome
Guest
07:14
Yeah, I’m from Pageland, south Carolina, so self-proclaimed watermelon capital of the world, but it’s so. It is in between Columbia and Myrtle Beach. The closest big city is Charlotte, so I was born in Charlotte, which is in North Carolina, so it’s pretty much on the state line, but it’s about 45 minutes from Rock Hill. So if you know where Carolin’s is. It takes about 50 minutes to get to Carolin’s.
Chris Grainger
Host
07:45
Nice man. Okay, I was picking up the accent man. I’m a North Carolina guy myself, born and raised just in Virginia, though just at the line. So I always claim North Carolina. So it’s good to have a fellow Carolinian with us, man.
Joshua Broome
Guest
07:56
There we go there we go Love it.
Chris Grainger
Host
07:59
Well, let’s get into it. Man, I know I really want to just get out the way in a lot of this conversation. I know you have a powerful testimony. This is something that’s impacting a lot of our guys. I shared some scripture with them in our previous episode, the kind of leading them up to this so far as walking in in light. So would you mind just giving us a little bit about your background and your testimony and get us going?
Joshua Broome
Guest
08:20
Yeah, 100%. So, like I said, I grew up in South Carolina. My mom had me when she was 16 and my dad. He was never in our life or in our home, but he was just down the street. So he was in the same city, wasn’t a bad guy, just chose not to be my dad, and that was confusing as I got older and then eventually it was something that made me angry because there was this guy that I would see. The town that I grew up in we just got a Taco Bell super small, so one grocery store, one drug store, so I would see him around town at the gas station and stuff like that. So it wasn’t like he was on the other side of the country, he was right there. And that made me feel inadequate and created some insecurities and some trauma in my life.
09:28
And I have this achiever personality, which is a good thing if it leads you to do great things, it leads you to have good work ethic. That’s a good thing. But if you pair someone that has a high achiever personality with a lot of insecurity and brokenness, it’s going to cause you to believe that you need to validate yourself, you need to prove your word and, again, not a bad thing if you’re doing it for the right reasons. But for me I had to prove that I was worse, something because it made me feel like I wasn’t. And first it was grades had to make the best grades, had to be the best on the basketball team, all those things and then eventually started into girls had to get the girl that no one can get, or get the most girls. But it was always this conquest after conquest where I would do something and it would make me feel validated for a moment. And once I would get that dopamine hit, it would plummet and I would go back to craving that validation again because there was something broken in my heart that I was trying to fix with human ventures. And that process continued.
10:45
I got into modeling and acting when I was 13, 14. I started having a little bit of success. Someone found me at the mall. One of those mall searches ended up signing with an agent and did a lot of modeling, finally got into acting a little bit, doing some improv and stuff like that, and went to college in Florence, south Carolina oh yeah, I already did Francis Maynard University. Went there for a few years.
11:16
I was studying theater and I liked theater, but I didn’t love it, but pretty much everything that I was doing I would do this, so that I never fully committed myself to anything. I just thought, well, if I do this, it’ll help me get the next thing. And that’s what I was doing there. And I found myself traveling a little bit, doing some modeling, doing some acting, getting some opportunities. And I thought, well, if I just drop out of school and put myself in closer proximity to this industry I want to be in, then I’ll make it. How hard could it be, right?
11:58
And then I moved to Hollywood and get a place right off of Sunset Boulevard in the middle of West Hollywood, splitting a place with about six guys still paying about $2,000 a month, and I was doing okay. I got an agent started working a little bit, probably about the same amount that I was working, but I could do more things because I didn’t have to get flown anywhere, right. So I was doing okay. But I was also trying to keep up with the people around me, so living far beyond my means, going out, buying bottles, going to clubs, trying to wear all this stuff. So the combination of me not working super consistently and that I had to do the thing that most people do when they go out to Hollywood.
12:58
Anyways, you got to get a job to support the job that you’re trying to actually get. You got to get something to mediate your expenses while you’re chasing the dream. And I was working at this. It was like a. It was a steakhouse by day and then at like nine o’clock it transformed into something else. It had a mechanical bull in the middle. It was one of those places where a lot of underage people would come, because as long as you were getting dinner, you could get in. So it was like that was the caveat, like if you would get a table when you were eating dinner, you didn’t have to be 21. It was a popular place and it was like close to all the other clubs and stuff. But I was working there and it was funny, like to get a job there. It’s like you didn’t show a resume, you showed a headshot. It’s like if you had a headshot and you could, you know, had some communication skills, you’re good to go. But I was working there and everything was fine Doing okay.
14:07
So most of the people that end up making some of the life decisions that I made, they had some serious trauma in their lives. They had financial issues For me. I just wanted to preface that by saying, financially I was fine. I had. I didn’t have close friends, but I had a lot of acquaintances. I had a good relationship with my mom, talked to her often. There was no reason to do what I did, but I did it anyway. What I did was three girls. They came into this restaurant and they sat down and I thought, okay, I’m going to go put on the charm, get their number, maybe get a big tip. I start talking to them and pretty much right away they said, hey, have you ever considered acting? I was like yeah, absolutely, and I thought that it was segue into an opportunity. I thought maybe they knew a casting agent or they were working on a project, because more often than not, what’s very advantageous for people in the movie industry or pretty much any industry is.
15:21
You know someone that’s connected to someone or something and they make that introduction and you know relationship is the most valuable thing you can have. So I thought, man, this is it. And they’re like no, no, we’re talking about porn. And I was like man what? Because for me, I saw porn in an early age magazine when I was 14 years old at my cousin’s house, but it was not something that I consistently looked at, but I think because I had seen it. When I heard it it wasn’t as crazy as it would have been if I wouldn’t have been exposed to it. But they ultimately asked me would I want to do it? And my next step would be having a meeting with their agent and the language that they used when they said agent, for some reason it normalized it and legitimized it to me for some reason, because there was an agent at an agency and that was been my life for the last 10 years. So I was like all right, sure, what’s the worst that could happen if I meet with a guy? And I’m thinking this is going to be creepy, it’s going to be weird.
16:49
I go and it’s in the middle of Studio City and adjacent to where Universal Studios is. It’s this nice, complex, and I walk in and tell the receptionist who I’m there to see and they said I sit down with a guy and he’s like. I want to ask you three questions how did you grow up? No-transcript, why are you in Hollywood and what do you hope to accomplish? How’d you grow up? Why are you in Hollywood? What do you want to accomplish? Well, pretty much just me and my mom and I am out here to act, to model, and I guess what I hope to accomplish is to be famous. And he’s like great, perfect.
17:39
So in the industry it had shifted from just doing you know, just there being no rhyme or reason to what’s happening to. They started parodying these movies. So the way he sold this to me was that it would be very advantageous for me to have acting ability. It was like you’ve got acting ability, you’re a good looking guy, you can be the lead in all these movies. Like you can be the guy, I’ll make your name famous. You’ll make all this money. You’ll be the guy and man. Like I knew in my gut this was something that was not good, I shouldn’t do it, and if my mama would have got, you know, an inkling of knowledge of this, she would have wore me out. You know, even if I think it was 22 at the time, she would have wore me out.
Chris Grainger
Host
18:33
Right, right, hey, let’s take a quick break and be right back. Are you enjoying the weekly spiritual kickoff? If so, we are now offering a way to participate in our live daily spiritual kickoffs that happen Monday through Friday in our community. This is your chance to chat with me directly and other members of our community, to dive into Scripture and to leave with practical ways to simplify and apply God’s word to your daily walk. And here’s the best part you get all of this for just $5 a month. So for what most people pay for breakfast meal, you can join us on this journey of spiritual growth and leadership, which will always lead you full. Our community is dedicated to supporting each other and pushing forward in our faith. Come join me in the lion’s den and become the leader God intends you to be. Sign up now at TheLionWithInus and let’s start this journey together. Remember, it’s only $5 a month for this amazing opportunity. So visit TheLionWithInus so you don’t miss out.
Joshua Broome
Guest
19:40
So he’s asking me all these questions, tell me I’m the guy and I could be the guy. And me knowing you know got a pit in my stomach. It’s like this is a terrible idea. And he’s like, well, here’s the deal. We’ll do a trial run, you’ll get paid for it and first thing we’ll do is we’re going to send you to this lab Everyone goes to the same place and you’ll do a full panel STD test and AIDS test. We’ll get those results back in 24 hours. Everything looks good. We’ll set you up at a studio and you’ll go do your first film.
20:26
And I don’t know why I agreed to doing that, but I did. Went there, got that test, got my results back the next day and they sent a town card to pick me up, to go take me to the studio. And I was thinking the whole time. I was like I shouldn’t do this, I shouldn’t do this. And it’s weird how regardless of if you’ve been as big of a knucklehead as I have been but it’s often that one compromise will make the next compromise even easier and how any compromise in your life will impact compromise in all of your life. And how, when I compromised once with what I knew I shouldn’t do, which was saying yes to the agent, saying yes to getting the test. All of a sudden, I found myself going to you know this. I’m in the car, going to the studio, and I get there and I’m thinking, okay, how bad is it going to be? And I thought it was like, maybe it will be fun, maybe it will be cool, maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal, maybe, though, you know, I don’t know what I was thinking. And I get there and again it’s more of a business than I realize where I go in and there’s a receptionist and it’s like here’s what paperwork you need to fill out, and I was nervous, so I didn’t read it, just signed everything, right.
22:05
And I never talked to the girl, like, I think, the biggest misconception, especially, you know, people who struggle with this think that it’s some level of, or it’s intimacy, right, or you think it’s two people that find each other attractive and you know they just happen to capture them on camera, right? I didn’t even know this girl’s name, I didn’t see her, I didn’t talk to her, all I saw was, well, I saw her ID and I saw that her ID matched her STD test, and then I had you mean you signed that. It’s like I saw that she didn’t have Right, because you have to like we would get tested every 21 to 30 days and to make sure that you had a current test. So if you had a current clean test you could work. That was, you know, whatever you needed to work. So I saw that and then I walk in and like there’s this like daybed and there’s people surrounding her with like lights and cameras and all this stuff.
23:13
And all of a sudden, like I realized like this is not going to be anything, like I thought it was going to be Right. And this production assistant comes up to me and he’s like, hey, I understand, this is your first time. And I was like yeah, and he’s like, well, here’s, here’s, here’s this pill. It was a Viagra. Hands, hands me this pill. He’s like I would take half of it. If you’ve never taken this before, I wouldn’t suggest taking the whole thing. We need you in about 20 minutes.
23:44
And I’m just standing there and I got a bottle of water in this pill in my hand and then, you know, no one’s really talking to me and I’m just kind of standing there not knowing what to do and I go to the bathroom and kind of like, you know, just like any like monologue of a movie. It’s like I’m staring myself in the mirror. I’m like what have I gotten myself into? And again the enemy will lie to you. To make you believe you can’t say no, regardless of where you are in this journey of bad decisions, I felt in my bones Like I felt like it was true, because that’s the, that’s the scary thing about a lie. The scary thing about a lie is, if you believe it to be true, it’s true to you. And what I believed was that, because I would, I’d already done this and I’d already done that that I couldn’t walk out of that studio, right. So, believing that to be true, I took that whole pill, slammed the whole water and I walked out of the bathroom and the director waved me over into this sea of lights and I did that first movie and it was.
25:02
It was gross and uncomfortable and, you know, had three cameras right on me, had a boom mic like right by my head, I had lights right underneath me. I wasn’t doing anything. I was being told what to do the entire time by the director. You know, the girl never made eye contact with me. She was, like you know, often La La Land. It was the most unnatural experience that I can ever recall and the main thing that I recall is just how awkward I felt and how dirty I felt afterwards. And then I left and I had this you know, I had a check and I had. You know, it’s not dirty. There was a shower on set but I felt like they had like hand soap in the shower or something like that and took the shower in this town car that picked me up, took me back home and had a check for $500. And I thought, okay, you know, I’m never going to do that again. That was terrible, not worth it. $500, like I wasn’t making far, far. You know I was making that kind of money working at a restaurant. Why would I do that again?
26:29
And a few weeks later that scene comes out and it goes viral and at that time, 500,000 people seeing it is, you know, super viral. And very quickly I get a phone call from the talent agency that represented me, the mainstream agency, saying, hey, we understand that you’ve made a decision to do some adult work and there’s it’s clearly outlined in your contract that there’s there’s moral obligations regarding your likeness and we can’t represent you anymore. We wish you the best man. And you know so the reason I was out there up in school, you know, and it was and it was a large agency. So it’s like you know, essentially black ball from from from anything you know in that field.
27:27
And then the worst thing happened about two days later I get a phone call from my mom and my mom says to me hey, your uncle said that someone told him at work that you were doing porn movies. Is this true? And man, I felt sick. I felt sick in my stomach, I was embarrassed, yeah, and just really knowing that that one decision Right ruined so much of my life, really destroyed everything that I’d work for, Everything that I’d sacrifice, everything my mom sacrificed I mean my mom working in a restaurant 60 hours a week so that I could have a calm car, so that I could take voice lessons, acting classes, basketball camp, all these things that I did, that we didn’t have money to do, but my mom made sacrifices so that I could do them Just kind of threw them in her face.
28:29
And again I was in this moment where, you know, a fork in the road that many of us will face you make a decision or something happens to you. Maybe it’s not your fault, but something happens in your life and then your decision is do I continue allowing the decision I made to dictate the direction that my life is going or do I take the more difficult path, which for me would have been okay? I gotta take this L you know I can’t do this anymore, but it was a lie. Again, it was a lie that I couldn’t do anything else. That’s ridiculous, especially in 2006,. You know, like social media and all these things, it wasn’t what it was then, what it is today. So it wasn’t like I was canceled from doing all things the rest of my life, it just wasn’t true. But I believed that that was true. Like there’s nothing else I could do. My life is ruined, but easily I could have went back to school and got a different degree, you know, or something. But I chose to do what was what is much easier, continuing doing what I was doing. And right on time the agent calls me hey, do you wanna sign a contract? And I said yes. And that one yes turned into a six plus year career where I did over a thousand movies that nominated for 18 different awards for former of the year, nominated four times, I won it the last year.
30:12
I was in the industry and I say all those things because, again, that achiever personality I said well, even though I don’t wanna be doing what I’m doing, I have to be the best I have to.
30:26
So in that industry it’s like well, if I make X amount of dollars, it’ll justify what I’m doing and it’ll mitigate the dissatisfaction that I have in my heart Because there was a level of shame involved, obviously. Like no one that sells themselves in that way, you don’t go to bed and lay your head down on a pillow and feel proud of yourself, right, and what is the silent killer is that everyone has these passions. Each and every person is created in the image of God and each and every person have these gifts and talents. When you decide to follow Jesus and you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, there’s things unlocked in you that you may have not had access to, but there’s desires that are in you regardless, that you feel inclined to, and there’s things that you’re good at. And if you see yourself wrongly, or you see those gifts wrongly, like sure, you can manipulate those things to do the wrong things, but those things are inside of you and it’s like a gravitational pull towards something.
31:39
And it’s towards this plan that God has for your life. And what happens is is, the more you compromise and the more you do things like that if you’re selling yourself for sex, you’re gonna start to believe that, even though you still have this desire to do this thing, this thing becomes unattainable to you and you feel like, well, all I can do is stay here. Even if this hurts, even if I’m miserable, even if I hate every aspect of my life, I have to say that I love it. I have to say that there’s nothing wrong with it. I have to proclaim one thing, because how I, if my words lined up with how I felt, I would be a hypocrite.
Chris Grainger
Host
32:30
Yeah.
Joshua Broome
Guest
32:34
And that’s where I found myself stuck. I found myself stuck in that, yeah, I made over a million dollars. Well, that didn’t make me feel any better. Well, I won all these awards, but it didn’t make me feel any better. You know, I surfed on every beach I wanted to surf on. It didn’t make me feel any better. And the winning the performer of the year, like that, was kind of the icing on the cake for me, where I thought, well, I got nominated for it several years in a row and that’s like the industry and the people within me industry saying you’re the best and I won that award. But when I won it and it didn’t make me feel like I thought it would, which you can. You know you can make that argument about anything.
33:19
Well, if I had the marriage, the porn addiction would go away. You know, if I had the job, you know, the anxiety would go away. If I had this, I will feel this way. You can’t fix a heart issue, because a heart issue is a spiritual issue and there’s one thing that can fix that. But I believed I could fix it and when my ways of trying to fix it didn’t work, the depression that I was already struggling with. It deepened the anxiety that I was already struggling with. It heightened I felt like my life was falling apart, to the point where I decided to make a plan to take my life, Because I believed, with a shadow of a doubt, that I’m never going to be a husband. Like sure I could marry someone, I could convince someone to marry me, but I’ll never be a husband. I would never be a father. Like sure I can get a girl pregnant, but I don’t have the capacity to be a father.
34:24
I’ve never seen it, modeled or experienced it. How could I ever be a father? And then, thirdly, my passion in life is to create things to impact people in a positive way, and it’s like, well, who’s gonna want me to do that? Who would ever give me the ability to impact them? And what organization or business is going to want me to contribute to what they’re doing? Right, right, so if all those things are true, then all of my passions are dead, so I thought I might as well die.
Chris Grainger
Host
35:06
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36:25
I am curious to sit on, josh, with you, man, one thing that was jumping out when you were talking.
36:30
I definitely want to like to know more about your relationship with your mom, what that looked like, what she was there with you for the acting and things like that earlier, but also when you were talking about how that role you achieved, all these things which you never were fully or finally satisfied. It was bringing you down, man. I run into this all the time with guys that I work with and just their typical jobs, because so many of us we define ourselves by our career. Now, your career happened to be in the adult film industry, but you still define yourself by that. But, man, I know engineers, I know salespeople that define themselves that way and they constantly are chasing that next rung on the ladder and they don’t ever consider that the ladder’s leaning against the wrong building. It’s just like. So, man, I think your story is resonating on several levels there, because it’s not just that industry you’re in but your identity being in that. So I just want to kind of point that out for our listeners.
Joshua Broome
Guest
37:28
Yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah. So I mean I get to the point where I do a film after I do the film. It was in Atlanta. I flew back to LAX on the plane. On the way there, on the way back, I figured out what I was gonna do take my life and I get back to where I was living.
Chris Grainger
Host
37:54
And this is after you won the award, right.
Joshua Broome
Guest
37:56
Yeah, yeah, I had this plan and I knew how I’m gonna do it and I’m getting ready to do it. And then I’ve got from that shoot from the last film I did. I still got that check in my pocket. It was a gigantic cashier’s check, payroll check, and I don’t know why it was just driving me crazy in my pocket. And then I was thinking, well, if I’m gonna take my life, might as well make sure I got as much in my account as possible, that way my mom or whoever will get it. And I’m gonna go deposit this check and I go to the bank and when I would go to the bank I would never go through the line. I would go ATM or draw box, right. Because on the memo of the checks it would say what it was for. It would say this grow test. Name of the website, name of the movie, right.
38:54
So I didn’t wanna look hey, here’s this check for this. I didn’t wanna face that. But on this day I didn’t care. So I feel like the ATM was broken, something was wrong with the drop box. So I was like, whatever, I don’t care. And I went through the line, slipped the check across the counter. She asked me if I had my account number. No, it’s where I’m a card. She fills it out for me, I sign it, deposit the check, hands me my receipt and as I go to walk away, she says Joshua, are you okay? Joshua, can I do something for you?
39:43
And what she didn’t know is that I had so much shame and guilt from being in the industry that I stopped returning my mom’s call. I stopped returning her text. I unfriended most of the people that cared about me on social media because they kept saying the same thing over and over again Right, hey, man, I love you. Right, but you’re better than this. And when someone says that to you, you got two options you either gonna listen to them or push them away. That’s right. And because that’s the power of accountability, I love you. So I’m telling you this, but it’s up to you to accept it. And I rejected it.
40:28
So it had been over a year since I had heard my real name, because in that industry you go by a pseudonym, you go by stage name, right? So the person that cut my hair at the gym and at the studio and I was a recluse. I didn’t go out unless I was being paid to be somewhere. So all I heard was this stage name. So Joshua didn’t even exist. And when she said my name, it shattered this plausible reality that I created, based on shame and guilt, and I felt every bit of the guilt that came from just robbing my mom, of just knowing that I was okay, yeah, and it woke me up to my identity. I believed that I was one person and that other person Joshua, has died. And when she said my name, it woke me up and I ran across the street to where I was living and I was crying and snotting and chills and I didn’t know what to do and I called my mom and she said the same thing she had been saying for seven years I love you. You’re better than this.
Chris Grainger
Host
41:50
Yeah.
Joshua Broome
Guest
41:51
And then as long as you just come home. And then I was like okay. So I picked up the phone and I called my agent, and I called the studio that was representing me. I was in a contract. What do I need to do? Break it? Call the PR person, I quit, I quit, I quit, I quit, I quit. And then, within no time I was out of there, I’d sub-leash my apartment to the first person that would didn’t even sign anything. It’s like hey, you can have all of my stuff. I’m taking my clothes. You promised to pay rent. Okay, good enough for me, I’m out of here. And then I was gone.
42:31
But for two years, though, even though I got a job at a gym. I worked my way up in the gym and worked my way up to a management position, and I had a little bit of history in personal training and stuff like that. So that was really my only move. But I covered up my tattoos, shaved my head, deleting my social media. I wanted to believe that I could just move and sweep everything under the rug and pretend that that never happened, but the reality was so. I was working at a gym and I was working at Whole Foods, and my first day at Whole Foods. I’m walking by a department, and then a guy was like hey, aren’t you that guy? And right away I recognized me. And then someone else recognized me, because for me, as I looking in, if you watch porn, I was the most popular guy in the industry. What are you doing here? So I couldn’t run from it.
43:37
So for two years I would lie until I got found out, and when I would find out, I would just kind of well, it is what it is. I hurt so many people, because a lot of times, withholding the truth from someone who trusts you hurts equally bad as lying to their face, and that’s what I would do. Though. What were you doing in California? Just doing some modeling and acting, but please don’t look me up. And so that happened for a long time. And then, but in spite that, I had a lot of success in the gym industry, working my way up. I became a popular trainer, started working my way to creating this online personal training business I was doing really well for myself, Went, lost everything financially. I remember I had this Breitling by Bentley watch that I love so much the next year, because when I was in that industry, yeah, I was making $350,000, $400,000 a year, but I most definitely wasn’t paying taxes quarterly or just whatever.
45:01
I might die today, but I know I’m going to make $10,000 tomorrow who cares? But all of a sudden removed from that and it cost me a lot of money to get out of the industry because I broke contracts and all this stuff so very quickly next tax season come around and I had to pay taxes on something and I hadn’t been making money. So I had to sell that watch to pay taxes and I was pretty much broke. But I worked my way back up and anyway, I say all that to say I lost everything and it’s still lying, but still had success in that industry.
45:39
But at night I had the night tears. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder Every time I meet someone. It’s just a moment, it’s just a matter of time until they find me out, right, and I’m just so exhausting living my life that way. And one day this girl walks into the gym, super pretty, best athlete, and I’m like I’m going to ask her out and she’s like no, I’m okay, and I was like hey. And then she’s like, well, I’m going to run in the morning if you want to meet me at this park.
46:17
I don’t want to the run that you sound like you’re going to go on, I’ll do sprints. I don’t want to go for like a 45 minute hour long run, but I will run with you. I will run with you. And I went and I met her and I got there a little bit earlier than she did and I feel like it was a combination of like hearing my mom’s voice in my head and the Holy Spirit trying to work on me. But I just felt, man, you cannot lie to this girl. Yeah, do not, boy, don’t you lie to that girl, you know?
46:56
And then, before we even started running, we were walking and I was like, hey, I need to tell you something. I used to do a little bit of porn. She was like, excuse me, what? And I was like, man, just tell her the entire truth. And I feel like I like blacked out for five minutes. She’s like here’s everything bad about me, here’s a case for how bad of a person I am. I told her everything and she stood there for a while like pretty enamored by what I said and finally it was funny Her face kind of went from being flabbergasted to really serious and she looked at me and said do you know?
47:45
A person’s not defined by the worst thing they’ve ever done, and a person’s not defined by the greatest thing they’ll ever do. A person is defined by God. You don’t get to define yourself. Do you know who God is? And I was like for me. I live my whole life with this mask on, where I don’t know who I am, but I’m really good at pretending to be who I think you want me to be, so that you will like me, and I think that’s something that so many people do for so long. And you rob yourself of the blessing of being the person that God created you to be and you rob people that you’re in relationships with from the authentic version of yourself. But that’s where I was in my life. So I was like, yeah, this and that, yeah, sure I know God is. And then she pressed in a little bit more. She’s like, ok, well, what’s your relationship with Jesus? Look like, where are you plugged in community?
49:02
Where do you go to church, things like that, and I was like yeah, I was like OK, you got me, you got me, that’s right. And then she’s like well, I’ve been following Jesus since I was in the seventh grade. My whole family are Christians. I’m not perfect by any means, but Jesus is the foundation in which I live my life and his relationship, his relationship, the relationship I have with him, is the basis of how I make decisions. And then she was like well, do you like tacos? Like what do you like to eat? I’m like what? What? I don’t understand. I’ve been lying to people my entire life because I felt like if someone actually knew me, then they would be out of there. There would be no, there would be no interest in me. But you’re telling me that I tell you the truth and you want to be around me.
Chris Grainger
Host
50:07
Right.
Joshua Broome
Guest
50:09
And then she’s asking me what are some of your goals? What are some of your dreams? I’m like I don’t have any. I don’t know, I don’t have the ability to dream, I don’t know. And she tells me I’m a teacher, I teach English as a second language. I work with kids that English is not the first language in their home. Most of them they need help reading and writing. But I help them get on the right grade level so that they can continue learning at the level that they need to be learning. And I’m just like I help people do squats. I don’t know. You know that’s how I saw myself in a moment.
50:57
And then so this was on Easter eight years ago. And the next week she invites me to church. And I was like we’ve been texting all week. And I’m like, sure, whatever, if that place, it resembles what you’re like Sure. And I walk in and there’s this big wooden plaque it says we want to love people where they are and encourage them to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. And I’m like, okay, jesus, I’ve heard a little bit about him. He sounds cool, but love me where I’m at. There’s no way. If you knew the things that I’ve done, I have no place here. And then I walk in and it was fine from an aesthetic standpoint the music was great, all the lights and all that good stuff.
51:54
And then the little bit of church that I was exposed to when I was a kid. It was like a very strict Southern Baptist church where if you had a wrinkle in your shirt you’re going to hell, and then never even thought that someone could stand on a stage in anything other than a three-piece suit and preach. And this guy in cowboy boots and jeans and a t-shirt gets on stage and he’s the pastor of the church. He’s an older guy and he sounds like my grandpa this is in Raleigh, north Carolina and it sounds like my grandpa and he starts talking about how his relationship with Jesus changed his life and how he was a mess, but Jesus, over time and the truth of the Bible changed him. And he starts sharing this story about this dynamic between Jonathan and David and how when Jonathan died, historically, when a new king came into reign, the previous kingdom was completely wiped out. Everyone was killed because they didn’t want anyone in that previous kingdom to think they had access to this new kingdom. But David was different. David said this is out of First Samuel, the Joshua Broome paraphrase version. But in First Samuel, you’re telling, it’s a story where David says, hey, actually, is there anyone left out of Jonathan’s lineage? And they’re like actually, yes, my fellowship. And David sends his guard to find my fellowship, and my fellowship is essentially in hiding. He’s thinking I’m going to be killed. And instead of extending a spear, david’s guard extends a hand, brings him back into his kingdom, gives him a seat in that kingdom forever and even restores his land. And then the pastor pivots. He’s like you know what? Like my fellowship, he believed that he deserves death.
54:04
Romans 3.23 says that we’ve all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and Romans 6.23 says the wages of that sin is death and that death is eternal separation from God. So we’re separated from God because of our sin and we’re all guilty of it, and there’s no way to be reconciled back to God, because we need a bridge that we can’t build because we’re imperfect. God requires perfection. So what are we to do? And then he goes on. He says well, jesus comes into this world and he lives this perfect life, being fully God and fully man. He never sins. And then he goes to the cross willingly because he loves you, and he dies for all sin, for all time. And on the third day he rises, solidifying his identity.
54:56
He’s the son of God, the Messiah, the ones that takes away the sins of the world, and because of his perfection and because of his deity, and you put your faith. If you put your faith in him, then you are covered by his blood and you can be saved, you can be forgiven, you can be made new. And I hear this and I was thinking a lot of things in that moment, but I think the way that the Holy Spirit ministered to me specifically, it allowed me to see two things Jesus went to the cross, not because I was so bad and I needed to be this or that. It was nothing about me. It was because he loves us that much that, with joy set before him, he went to the cross. And then, secondly, the father that I had been desiring my entire life I actually had, and he was waiting for me with arms wide open, not because I did something, because he had done something for me. So, right there, right then, you know, just fell on my face and just wept and cried out to God. And the burden that I’ve been carrying not because of porn, because of my heart condition, my entire life, my brokenness that got worse and commoluted because of the decisions I made and things I didn’t have. I just let all that pressure go Right and this burden came off my shoulders and I felt lighter than I’ve ever felt and I felt more loved than I ever felt and I gave my life to Jesus in that moment. And so that happened, and that girl that I went on that run with, we’ve been married for seven years and so that’s my wife. We’ve got three boys and another child on the way.
56:59
And when we had our first child I remember when he was born, I walk over to the little the nurse who just wiped all the slime off of him and he was still kind of ugly and kind of cone shaped head with a little bonnet on, but just like adorable and she’s like you can touch him and I’m like I don’t know what to do. And I reached my hand towards this little baby boy and he grabs my finger and then that moment I felt God speak to me. I think I love you so much more than that Powerful right. Yeah, so, and so we named him Canon. So Canon in Hebrew means measuring sticks. So for us, me and my wife, that’s the measure of God’s grace. I never thought I would live the life that I live today, but because of his grace and his mercy. Not that I’m promised to be a father, not that I’m promised a son, but he was gracious enough to give me one. And the wildest and most important part of my story, I think, is that a few days after I gave my life to Jesus, again my personality, I’m like well, if I’m going to follow Jesus, I’m all in, that’s right. All I know, all I know is 110.
58:33
And I go to the church and I’m like hey, is there a pastor I can talk to? And this is a large, multi-site church. I go to the main office and I’m like hey, is there a pastor around in this? Ironically, the executive pastor was right there. And he’s like, yeah, come to my office and I tell him this story. He’s just like holy cow. He’s like, okay, he’s like man, we got to get you with a Bible and teach you how to read it. And I never. I was like I need a Bible, sure, but you need to teach me how to read it. I was like what does that mean? What are you reading? And he’s like, down the hall there’s this gentleman.
59:14
His name’s Andrew Yates and he recently graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary and he’s moved up here and he’s helping us, him and his family, they’re helping us launch another campus. I think he would have time to spend, you know, to spend some time with you, and he’s gonna spend 30 minutes to an hour like just teaching me how to read the Bible. And he started talking to me about context and like how to read the Bible in proper context. You know, observation, interpretation, application, stuff like that, and that 30 minutes or whatever, however long we’re supposed to be there, we stay there three hours, wow. And then from that day I wouldn’t go away because I was hungry. So at the gym I started giving, you know, clients and hours away at the gym so I could spend more time with him at church and I spent so much time with him.
01:00:06
They didn’t have an internship process, but they did after they got through with me because I just hung around and he started taking me through some of the curriculum that he went through at DTS and man, the biggest change for me was that I was a good learner, but I wasn’t a good student because I don’t think that I’d really tapped into what type of learner I was. And something the Holy Spirit did it gave me a hunger for the Word of God and it allowed me to have this, really the supernatural self-awareness where I quickly figured out, well, if I’m listening to something and I mean this is how a lot of people learn best but for me it was like this Eureka moment. But if I would hear something and I would take notes on it and then I’d regurgitate it back to him, opposed to just listening and taking notes. That’s how I’m most of college, if me learning, you know monologues and my lines and stuff like that I would just like I would read them and read them and read them and say them in my head or sometimes out loud or whatever, but I would be able to regurgitate information, which is very different than learning information and being able to apply it.
01:01:40
So I just had a supernatural hunger for the Word of God and then, all of a sudden, I found myself being able to learn and dig deeper into this stuff and actually teach it back to him and just fell in love with it. And we got a few opportunities to share my story on a radio station and then the same guy who ran this radio station. He was like hey, man, I’m having this yearly once, or this is the way he said. Once a year I have this event at this church and I would love for you to share your story. I was like yeah sure Sounds great.
01:02:14
What I didn’t know is that, like Shane and Shane and like you know, it was a huge like fundraising event that he did yearly to fund his radio station but I was going to be and I was, you know, the keynote for the night. I was speaking and but I was really just I was supposed to share my test, my testimony, and I had 17 minutes to share my story and what my life looks like today and some of the things that I’m hopeful for. And I felt I, like you know on, you know, now, following Jesus and this is probably a year into me following Jesus I felt the need to perform again. I felt, okay, I’m going to share my story. I got to.
01:03:04
You know, I want to make people feel emotional because communication was something I studied most of my life and I had a essentially have a format when I would coach or where I would do events, you know, on the on, the, on the fitness side and other stuff. No field do I want someone to know something. I want them to feel emotion and then I want them to take that knowledge and the emotion that I’ve emoted through my communication and then call them to action. What do I want you to do with those emotions and that knowledge that I just gave you Right. So that’s what I wanted to do. I want to tell a story. I want people to feel emotion, and I’m not sure what I wanted them to do, you know, and I just felt so much pressure and, as it was my turn to be up there, it was time, and I felt so stressed out and I walked up to the podium and I had, you know, these notes, you know my, my monologue that I was going to read, and I just, you know it not, not, not audibly, but I hear in my spirit um, son, I love you, amen, and it, and it just this level of you know, this feeling of peace, just washed over me and it’s like, man, um, there’s nothing that I’ll ever do that compares to what you’ve already done for me. And I don’t have to perform, you know, um, I just need to tell people how good you are, and, and so, for 17 minutes, I took about, I think I took like maybe eight minutes to tell my story, and then I fumbled through Romans road. I was like here’s the gospel, and, um, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t the best preaching that’s ever been done. It probably wasn’t the worst, um, because I was just reading it from from the text, but, um, afterwards I felt so exhilarated, um, and I was like man, that’s what I want to do. Like that’s what I want to do, like there’s nothing that fires me up more than sharing the gospel, amen. I was like, okay, I don’t know what that looks like, but that’s what I want to do forever. And uh, andrew kept, you know, working with me.
01:05:34
I ended up going to Liberty and studied biblical theology. Um, you know, uh, very early along in my process of getting my masters and uh, just you know, god’s opened up door after door after door, um, to preach but also be on platforms like Tucker Carlson, you know, candace Owens. I did Michael Knowles um, a few weeks ago and it’s insane, it’s already got almost a million views. But, just you know, they always, uh, I get so excited.
01:06:07
When they asked me the question, how did you get from here to there? I was like, yeah, the answer is Romans 10, nine. You know that, like, that’s the answer. The answer is, um, I was broken beyond repair and we actually all are and I tried my very best to make enough money to do enough things to make myself believe right that I could earn some level of satisfaction. Um, but it didn’t work. But what I found to be true was that there was a God that created each and every one of us, that loves us so much that he sent his son into this world to pay a debt that we couldn’t pay. And if we put our faith in him, move it, our trust in him, we’re giving a new heart and a new purpose and a new meaning. And then everything that didn’t make sense, that used to struggle with and wrestle with at night, it makes perfect sense when you give everything to him, because that’s what you were created to do and that’s that long game that you were wrestling with the entire time. Amen, that man.
Chris Grainger
Host
01:07:15
Well, how about the industry now? Do you, are you trying to help people in that and try to bring them out of that darkness? And just what are you doing there?
Joshua Broome
Guest
01:07:24
Yeah, so I’ve had a lot of opportunities to work with organizations like Nicosi, so the National Coalition Opposing Sexual Exploitation. I’ve spoke at Capitol Hill a few times and we’re seeing this legislation, the Earn it Act and it’s there’s a lot of facets to this legislation, but the most important part is that they’re implementing and there’s there’s three states that are actually implementing this actively today where, in those states, if you are to access any kind of sexual, any website with sexual that’s sexually explicit, you have to use a government issued ID. You have to put in that you have to like pretty much like if you’re going to get a plane ticket you got to put your.
01:08:13
You got to put government issued ID, your, your you know that level of information so that they can, you know, make sure that you’re 18. So what it does? Two things Number one obviously protects kids, but secondly, it’s a barrier. Do you really want to put you know your driver’s license number in there so that you can watch this stuff? So I’ve had some opportunities to speak on, you know, capitol Hill, about that legislation. I love to see that it’s taken flight.
01:08:51
And man, when I first got out of the industry I’m sorry when I first gave my life to Jesus, I felt like man. I need to connect with those people that still have relational equity with him. Industry and I think this is a great lesson If you’ve just came out of something, you might feel the zeal to rescue people from something, but you have to protect yourself because the enemy will use things to draw you and he can’t do anything. He can’t steal your salvation, but he can get you off course. So for me, I felt this desire to go save everyone. Connect you with people on social media, start following them, and then, all of a sudden, I’m seeing stuff that I had no business seeing and it starts, you know triggering me and you know making me think, all this stuff, and I’m like man, this is, this is just not it. And, luckily for me, I had people in my life. That number one. I was being honest with what I was doing.
01:09:55
And they love. They love me enough to say, hey, this isn’t good for you.
Chris Grainger
Host
01:09:58
Yeah.
Joshua Broome
Guest
01:10:01
So so for me that wasn’t the way, but what I love is that, because of the way that I’ve lived my life and because of some of the things, that.
01:10:13
I’m doing today. There’s people who are in the industry that see that there is life on the other side of this. Because people stay in that industry, because they believe. Well, you know, I’ve ruined my life, there’s nothing else I can do, so I have to stay stuck where I am, and that’s the case for, you know, any anyone in this struggling with anything, where it’s like, you know, if you’re overweight, this is just who I am. This is who I’ll always be If I’m stuck in this addiction.
01:10:46
I can’t you know this. This is just who I am. This is what I’ll always do, and that’s the enemy. That’s not God and like is it going to be hard? And this presence in the interוב 습? Is it going to be hard work? Yes, there’s nothing that’s worth anything, that’s just going to fall on your lap. That’s right. That’s just not how it works To follow Jesus. What do you need? You need surrender and discipline. It’s daily surrender and being disciplined to do the things that God has called you to.
Chris Grainger
Host
01:11:21
Yes.
Joshua Broome
Guest
01:11:23
You see, john 14, 15 is like if you love me, you’ll obey my commandments. An immature Christian would say see this mean dictator God saying if you love me, you’ll do what I say. But when you come to know the tone of God’s voice and you understand His character, you’ll see that God’s saying if you trust me, I’ve got a better plan for your life. If you do what I say, you’ll actually live that life that I’ve designed you to live and you’ll find that I’ve gave you gifts and talents and abilities so that you’ll be prosperous as you walk out this plan that I have for your life. That’s right.
Chris Grainger
Host
01:12:03
Now, what about the guy who out there right now is listening? He’s watched this whole podcast, he’s listened to it and he’s going to go home tonight. He’s probably got a wife. He’s going to go in the bathroom. He’s going to look at porn. Yeah, it happens all the time. What is something, a message that, coming from that industry, that you want to share with that man in this moment to help him understand the darkness that the door to that opens?
Joshua Broome
Guest
01:12:29
Yeah, I want to start with this Anytime I give a talk. I’ll start with this Do you believe that all people are worth human dignity? I’ve never heard anyone say no. If you believe that every person is worth human dignity, you’re actually robbing that person, that you’re washing of their dignity because you don’t know their level of consent. You don’t know if they want that on the internet right now. You don’t know what it costs them to be there. You don’t know if they were made to be there. You don’t know how old they are. You don’t know if they got. There’s someone in the background with a gun pointed at them, because all those things are true and they happen in their online. Then, secondly, you’re robbing yourself of your dignity. Amen, that’s right.
01:13:24
Man and, to be completely honest, man, that fact that maybe they don’t want that imagery on there. I’ve got a bunch of stuff on the internet. I don’t want it on there. I don’t want people watching her. To the extent where there’s people in my life that this was the journey. They get in the industry. This is predominantly girls. But they get in the industry. They become somewhat well-known. Their popularity starts to dissipate. Everyone that’s in the industry they have a no list. I don’t want to do these things.
01:14:03
Then, once they stay in the industry and the novelty of them wear off a little bit, there’s these things that they haven’t done. The agent goes to the studio how much will you give me if they will agree to do this thing? He goes and he finds the highest bidder and then he goes back to the girl and he says, out of nowhere, this studio offered $30,000. If you do that thing that you said you didn’t want to do I know you said you didn’t want to do it, but if you do it you’ll be relevant again, you’ll start working again and everyone will want to hire you again when they do it. Then, after they do it, it’s just another commonality. After all, those things are off the table. Then there’s escorting, which is just another name for prostitution. It’s prostitution, but it’s just what you call it in the porn industry because it’s validated, because you’re already essentially doing that, then they’re doing that. You only get called if you’re popular in the industry. The last leg is these people working at a strip club. They’re feature dancing where the strip clubs are paying them a fee. If they have a name, they’ll bring more people there. They pay them a fee to be there, but that’s kind of like the last on the list.
01:15:31
Once all those things stop happening and the phone stop ringing, you have a girl who’s aged out, which is in the industry like 30 years old. Their phone’s not ringing anymore. They’ve had everyone in their life telling them this is who you are. This is all your worth. You’ll never do anything else. You’ll always be like this because of what you’ve done. It’s going to be on the internet forever. This is going to be your life forever. No one’s going to want you. You stay in that industry and you’re dating or everything you’re doing revolves around being in the industry. Then your phone stops ringing. You believe that your behavior is indicative of your identity. You are a porn star, that’s not what you do, that’s who you are.
01:16:16
Their phone stops ringing and they’re hurting and they’re alone and they’re broken and they believe the lie that’s true to them, that this is what their lives going to look like. It’s not getting any better. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. I left the industry almost 11 years ago and over the last 11 years, 30 people that I know the names of I know them personally have taken their life. So sad, yeah. Overdose or purposely self-harm, suicide here’s what the porn industry does. When they do that, in honor of them they’ll release a compilation of all of their films. What they do is they monetize on everything that killed them.
01:17:18
Here’s another thing. Know this. Know that those are the people that you’re watching. In addition to that, the pornography industry is a hundred billion dollar industry. It’s watched more than Amazon, netflix, hulu all combined. It makes more money than the NBA, major League, baseball and NFL all combined. Those dollars and cents they come from the monetization through viewership and ads. They come from you watching it To the person that watches it. That’s where that money comes from. You know what else those Mind Geek, the large organization that’s based out of Canada that owns most of these websites. They have a relationship with traffic junkie. When you go into that website and you happen to see something inappropriate pop up on your Facebook, it’s not an accident. They sell your information to traffic junkie in Google and other places. Your information is being sold. What your funding is an organization that is openly making money off of minors.
01:18:24
Making money off of sex trafficking is impacting rape culture In Kansas City. There’s one nurse. Her name’s Heidi. She saw 100 cases in one month in Kansas City not in some crazy place In Kansas City. She saw 100 cases of a sibling being addicted to pornography and tied up and raped their sister or brother. 100 cases in one month.
01:18:56
90% of pornography has some kind of violent imagery in it. It’s destroying our culture. 57% of divorces have something to do with pornography. I say all these things to hey. A small compromise in any area of your life is going to lead to compromise in every area of your life. It’s chipping away at your mental health. It’s chipping away at your ability to have integrity In a real way. It’s ruining your mind. If you take the brain of someone who is addicted to cocaine and someone who’s addicted to pornography, you look at the brain, the dopamine level that hits to your synapse. You look at this brain, these tracks, and they look similar. It’s impacting your ability to focus. It’s impacting so many areas of your life. You’re contributing to an industry where it’s really hurting women, it’s really hurting kids. It’s destroying marriages.
01:20:15
You pick something that people are passionate about and it’s monetizing that. It’s monetizing identity. You look at the top niches of pornography. They’re taking identity aspects and they’re monetizing off of them, because they know what is the thing that people struggle with most their identity. That’s the thing that changes everything. When you realize that your identity is based off of God, who made you for a purpose, on purpose, you, you’re not just another person in the mix. There’s something that God has for you today on this earth that only you can accomplish Someone in your community. There’s something that’s in you that needs to be expressed. There’s something that God wants to do in and through your life. The struggle that you have is that you’re not doing that. Pornography and sin in general it causes you to see yourself wrongly so that you won’t live rightly.
Chris Grainger
Host
01:21:25
Right man. That is powerful, Josh. I think that was a great place right there just to our guys to think about. This is why I wanted to have you come on, just to expose the darkness that’s going on here in this industry, Josh. This has been an absolute phenomenal. Where do you want to send the guys to follow you? The types of content that you put out? I know you’re trying to help so many people. Where do you want to point them at here?
Joshua Broome
Guest
01:21:49
Yeah, the best place. I got a lot of stuff going on, but my social media across the board is I am Joshua Broome. My website is JoshuaBroomme. We’re working on a few things. We had this site helpmebefreecom me and Addison Brevere. Addison Brevere, john Brevere’s son, a great friend of mine. That content is on MessengerX, if you want to go through that curriculum. So MessengerX incredible discipleship resource. It’s free. Addison and I, we go through really in five videos, from one to five, just really expressing my journey.
01:22:34
How did I become free? And it was really just this process of number one. I couldn’t be free until I met the person who can set you free, so the gospel they’re knowing Jesus. And then I have to take inventory of my life. What are the things that I’m allowing into my life, what am I listening to, what am I watching, and also what are the voices that I’m allowing speaking? Who am I allowing to have authority into my life? And then I need to set boundaries. I tell my kids not to touch the stove because it’s hot. And then what I love is when big brother tells little brother hey, don’t touch that, it’s hot. Why would he say that? Not because he knows, because he trusts his father. So if we can come to trust what our father has said is best for us, that’s the way to live. But we need to set. We need to take that and apply it to our lives. So we need to set boundaries.
01:23:30
So what that might look like for me is having all of my smart devices locked down, having coveted eyes or some kind of something on your phone that’s preventing you from accessing anything that’s actually explicit, because it’s just irresponsible for you to make it easy to have access to those things. And it causes you, if you’ve got to put in a code or take something off or put something on what, it causes you to come to that crossroad and say, hey, why is this here? Why did I do this in the first place? Am I willing to do the thing that I wanted to protect myself from? And then, lastly, that accountability factor. And this is something that I could go on and on and on, but I’ll just say this really quickly Accountability.
01:24:22
Accountability is not me saying, if we were in this conversation, me and you, chris, and we’re like you tell me, hey, I watched something that shouldn’t have watched. I’m like, oh man, Chris, you did that again. Man, you know better than that. That’s not helpful. But if I said, hey, chris, right now, speakerphone, we’re calling your watch, that’s also not helpful. But that middle ground is, chris, you told me that this is hurting you and hurting people that you love. You told me that this was leading you in an opposite direction, that you said your life wanted to go.
01:25:09
And then the big question let’s talk about why did you say yes? Because the porn isn’t the problem. The problem is why you’re saying yes to it. Because, if you can take a step back and assess, I’m feeling an emotion and instead of contemplating why I’m feeling this way or what I’m feeling, I’m just going to medicate the emotion that I don’t want to feel. I’m not going to understand why I’m doing that. Porn in itself is destructive and it’s so detrimental to society, but porn is not the problem. Porn is the medication to the root. And if I can get to the root, that’s how I can be set free, if I can get to a place to say, hey, I have a desire to watch pornography, but the reality is, maybe I’ve got a deep rooted intimacy issue and there’s something that I’m desiring that I’m not getting and I’m trying to fill it with something counterfeit and the thing about counterfeit anything it’s fake and it’s not fulfilling and I’m just going to need more and more and more.
Chris Grainger
Host
01:26:25
Amen to that, brother. Amen. Well, man, Josh, this has been such a powerful conversation. Thank you so much. We’ll make sure those links are in the show notes for you listeners out there. Be sure to follow them out. They have a room with the E guys, so make sure if you’re you don’t check the show notes out, make sure you spell that, put that E on there. So that’s right. That’s it, man. Thank you so much for your time today and just for powerful story, and just keep. Keep up the good fight, my friend.
Joshua Broome
Guest
01:26:50
Thank you so much, Chris.
Chris Grainger
Host
01:26:54
We have a resource that allows you to test how strong of a Christian leader you are. We designed a short quiz so you can see for yourself how prepared you are for the battle. Don’t worry, it’s multiple choice and it’s a lot of fun. So, to access this free resource, visit the lion withinus slash quiz that’s the lion withinus slash quiz and see if you are ready to unleash the lion within All.
01:27:26
Right, guys, I know, I know that was that was a long conversation. I appreciate you guys for hanging out. And look, I want you to think about this. What area of your life right now do you need to bring into the light? Whatever your life is you need to bring into the light? You know, josh is walking in a very dark place. Fellas, let’s just be real. To be a not only a consumer of pornography, but to be a creator of that type of content, big time just impacted a hat on him the scars, but he’s not defined by that and you are not either. Whatever your browser, history is, it’s just. That is history. That is not to find you. Do you need to turn away from it Absolutely? Do you need to repent, or sure? Do you need some accountability? Yep, need that too, but don’t think for a second that that website that you looked at has any definition of who you are. So hopefully this conversation helped.
01:28:24
If you know someone that is struggling with this or someone that just needs to hear a message like this, I’d encourage you to share this out. Okay, you can go to our website. You can share out the link to the YouTube video or you can share it to podcast directly, but this is sent it to others. Send it to your men’s group. You can send it to just as a group chat to your men’s group, and you never know how that one step of obedience could open up an opportunity for you to have a conversation that could change one man’s life. I’m telling you, guys, you don’t know how the Holy Spirit is going to work. It works two crazy ways and a little podcast, like the Lion Within is it can definitely work. I’m seeing it work. So are you going to take that step of obedience and share it with others? I really hope you do so.
01:29:11
Go to check out TheLionWithInus. For all our resources, guys, we have all the ways that we try to help others there. We have our coaching, we have our mastermind groups, we have our community for sure, our daily spiritual kickoff, our leadership coalition program. Guys, it built so much and so many things. It’s going to serve you, okay. So go check that stuff out. Thelionwithinus Love to hear from you there. Again, a five star rating and review. That helps in the podcast world. I’m just going to be real with you. So if you haven’t left the rating and review yet, I’d encourage you do it today. Just go click on over, scroll down to the bottom, hit five stars. Give her a quick review. One or two sentences makes a big difference on the way the podcast reaches others. All right, well, come on back on Friday. We’re going to have some great tips for you on our fun Friday episode. Looking forward to seeing you then. So again, guys, lean into the word, understand it. Who’s you are that you have the power to overcome the darkness and keep unleashing the lion with him.