Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper, you are Live from the Path. Listen to Live from the Path. Thanks for joining us here on this balmy Monday evening here in the Pathway Studios. Yes, I'm diggity. It's good to be here with you. Oh, yeah. Wow. Man, I got to find out. I need something better to say. I got that, and I just say, yeah. I'm not much of a help. That's what we're going to do.

That's great. I'm for it. See that empty camera spot? Yeah. That could be you, viewing audience. That could be you. Here's the thing. Mystery guest. We have a fairly open-door policy when it comes to attending the show. You can see that on the camera. There's an open door. If you're not busy on a Monday night, just come out.

Yeah, that's a good idea. You guys want to come to the show? If you guys are hanging out there on the chat and you want to come in, just shoot me an email. Tell me you're coming in. That way we can make more popcorn for you. And then I don't have to. Yeah, that way, yeah. Oh, right. We got cookie stuff. Oh, yeah. This is going to be a way to go. Hey, anyway, heck of a show going on tonight.

Here's what we're going to do. In a couple of minutes, we're going to hook up with Nathan Grooms from the Promised Land Festival. It's a music festival. It's the end of July. It's the week just prior to the Spirit Midwest. And it sounds like there's a pretty cool story behind how this thing got rolling, both in Nathan's life and in how that kind of turned into what the Promised Land Festival is. So we're going to talk to him about that. We're going to be Skyping him in in just a few minutes. Also, we're going to catch up more on week nine of our proofs from GodIsImaginary.com. So we're going to be hitting on that. God is eight for eight. I'm going to tell you why God's not imaginary.

If you've ever read the book of Hosea, God is not imaginary. Because no one would have you name one of the children, you are not loved. You know what I'm saying? Like, you don't see Buddha doing that. You know, if you have not had a chance to read the book of Hosea, here's the thing. God does what he wants to. And you should thank your lucky stars every day that you're not Hosea. Absolutely. I mean, here's the thing. Especially, like, you read through Job, and you read through Daniel, and you read through Hosea. And who was the guy? Was it Daniel that had to sleep on the facing one direction for like a year?

Oh, that's Eliad. Ezekiel. Ezekiel, yeah, there we go. Ezekiel, right? So read some of the Old Testament and thank Jesus that he has come to save your sorry behind. Because if the Lord has to make an example of you for others, he makes it a whole example, right? Like, he has billions and billions of people to choose out through his creation. And if he says, look, I need you to be an example for Israel of how, like, the metaphor for how this is going to go down, some of it seem pretty crappy. Hosea, why don't you go ahead and marry that prostitute? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you're not. I picked out your kids' names. Yeah. I am not loved. I am not loved. That's the first part. I mean, seriously. So, you know, if every night before I go to bed I would say, dear Father, thank you for sending Jesus so you didn't have to make an example of me, you know, and so I would be plagued with boils and terrible famine just so you could show people what it's going to be like. Yep. Every night should be your prayer to start. I agree.

Hey, that reminds me, I've got a cool story about God doing what he wants. But first let's talk to Nathan Grubbs. Hey there. Hey, Mr. Grubbs, how are you today? I'm well. I'm well. All right. You are on the air, live from the path, you guys on the chat. This is Nathan Grubbs from the Promised Land Festival. And we're just going to, we'd like to sit through and just talk a little bit about, get to know you and maybe how the festival came about. So let's start with you. You actually, we talked on the phone just a little bit a while back.

And you have a pretty interesting story going from, you know, where your life was at, say, you know, a year or a few years back to where you're at today. Yeah. And, you know, I won't dive too much in my past. But, you know, God has delivered me from a lot of things, like a lot of people. But I think this event is an amazing testament to what God does with very, with individuals who think they may be meek or mild and God uses them in great ways. But I have no background in festivals. And I just started listening to Christian music about seven or eight months ago. And to this, you know, within the last six months, I have really had an amazing crash course in Christian music. And I have no background. I was basically had – I was laid off from work and had no resources. And God had put this in my path to work on this festival. And it's just been an amazing journey since then.

And it hasn't even happened yet. And it's been an amazing journey to this point. So how did you – having never done this type of thing before, I mean, what were you – what was your feeling going into it? I mean, did you feel overwhelmed a little bit? You know, how am I going to get this done? How did you feel walking into this thing? You know, overwhelmed you'd think would be a word that people would use with this. But it really hasn't. I give all glory to God. He has comforted me. He has given me very special and unique people and placed them in my path that have qualifications that, you know, I don't have. And he has just been there financially and logistically.

And I tell you that starting off, it wasn't – this wasn't an idea that I had, like, let's start a Christian music festival. It was an idea that was placed before me. And we just decided to kind of take it and run with it. But at times I'd be lying if I'd say it at times that, you know, I wasn't, you know, a little overwhelmed or maybe nervous about things. But he's really done big things as far as comforting me and giving me peace and just kind of not freaking out at times, I guess. So tell me a little bit more about the festival. It's the last week in July, right? It's the last weekend in July, July 27th through the 29th, which is a Friday through Sunday. We have 18 bands on two stages. And it's located on Promise Land Campground. And that's a 34-acre campground located on Highway 63 six miles north of Bloomfield, Iowa. And for those that may not be familiar with this area, if they are familiar with Iowa, then they're familiar with Highway 63.

And it's right on the highway. You can't miss it. If you're heading south, say you're heading to Missouri, you stay on the highway, it would be on your east-hand side on the highway. So it's in a very unique place, and it's a very unique venue in itself. It's got a lot of campgrounds. It's got 85 campsites on it, a little small lake there. It's got shower rooms, cabins. And it's – I feel like it's a perfect venue for this. And it's just nothing like this has ever been done there. So we thought that, you know, it's about time. And how are you feeling about the response? Like, you feel like you've been able to get the word out where you wanted it to be so that people can respond and show up?

We have – I personally feel, and I'm sure other people will agree with me on this, we have promoted this thing. I think, like, nothing has ever been promoted in this area. And not to say to other people that's done it, Vince, that they haven't done a great job. But we've really – I started six months out, whether it was going door-to-door, handing out flyers, or whether it was contacting local businesses, or whether it was contacting radio stations. But we've, you know, we've commercialized it. We're on commercials on secular stations. We have secular stations involved that are doing live remotes at the event. We've really – we really wanted this event to reach out to non-Christian people was our number one thing. And we know we wanted to bring Christian people in as well. But really that was our main focus. So we really tried to – everything that we've done and structured this was to non-Christian people. But we've had a really good response.

You know, only time will tell. I mean, I can only just say numbers as far as radio stations we've been on and advertisements that we've done. But only time will tell with something like this. Well, so I'm just looking behind you, and I see some of the posters. And we're pretty familiar with some of these folks you've got there. I can see Chris Day is back there, Syndrome of Fire, as a good friend of the show. Tell me about some of the other acts that you've got coming in. And is there anybody that you're really excited to see? Well, we've got – Project 86 is coming in. And we actually had – what we had was Nine Lashes was headlining Friday night, which they still are. Sent by Ravens was going to headline Saturday night. And Syndrome of Fire was going to headline Sunday night.

And about, I'd say, a month and a half ago, Sent by Ravens canceled their show. So at that point, we felt like it was so close to this date that I went into a scramble mode looking for an artist, looking for a band to fill that spot. And something that close, that list really tightens up. That list ain't very long. But we was really blessed to get the opportunity to get Project 86 and Manic Drive and kind of like a combo pack deal. And I wasn't very familiar with them, but I'm getting pretty familiar with both bands now. And I tell you, I'm pretty impressed with both, and I'm pretty excited to meet those and all the bands. But I think Project 86 was a real big slam dunk for this event. And a lot of people seem to know them, and they have a pretty big fan base. Very cool. Sounds like you've got a pretty great lineup there. How everything's coming together.

I mean, you said that people are able to camp, right? They're able to camp over the three days? Yeah, they are able to camp. We are asking for a small fee for the camps. It's $25 a night for a full hookup, which is water, electric, and sewage, and then $10 a night for a tent. But there's ample room out there. Like I said, there's around 85 camping spots. So if people come out there, we can get them set up with a camping spot. And there's going to be a lot of other things. There are food vendors, and there's going to be food, and there's going to be fishing, and activities, entertainment for adults. And then we have some amazing speakers that we really approach this from a standpoint, like I said before, that the speakers we've got are testimonial-based speakers. They're not necessarily preachers or pastors, but people that have had God deliver them in some amazing ways that they may have suffered through just life problems that a lot of people have.

And they're going to get their testimony and their stories. So those are the kind of speakers we have out there. So a lot of kids' activities. So it should be fun for everybody. Very cool. That sounds like a heck of a deal. Well, I'm trying to think. I thought there was something else today. Oh, oh. I was going to ask you about the food vendors. So, like, you've got a guy who sells a turkey leg? What are you going to have out there?

People get hungry. We've got a couple barbecue joints coming out. They've got a pretty good menu. I was actually pretty impressed for mobile food vendors. But one is Bailey's Barbecue here in southeast Iowa, and another one's Intimidated Barbecue. But they do loins, and they do a lot of smoked meats and pork. And it really sounds like some good home-cooked meals. So I'm looking forward to that as well. And then some cold drink stuff. We expect it to be pretty warm, probably, if it's anything like the past. So some iced teas and lemonades, things of that nature. So we also – I just want to throw in – we also have some people, firehouse kids,

or a ministry that goes around with a firehouse truck, and they spray water and have a great kids' show and stuff like that. So there's really going to be a lot of things for the kids. That's a cool ministry. I think if you keep the kids entertained, that'll rollercoaster into good things for everybody else as well. Yeah, I agree. That's a heck of a deal, man. Seriously, I feel like – it's kind of like the Old Testament thing, you know, where like Jesus – God had picked a guy to face one direction for years at a time, and, you know, God has picked us to be involved in, you know, growing a church and getting a church up and running, and some other guy gets to drive around a fire truck shooting people with water. I like that.

That's pretty cool. I think we should start a water balloon ministry. Just kind of a couple tiers below the – You know, I agree. I think we've put God in a box on this thing. Yeah. We go through and we – you know, you set up a church on Sunday and you preach, and really you could be shooting water at them. Yeah. Repent. I mean, it's not our building. I'm not sure whether they do that repent thing.

Well, we've been talking with Nathan Grooms from the Promised Land Festival. Now, if they want more information, where can they go? They can go to promisedlandfest.com. They can follow us on Twitter, and they can go to our Facebook page. It's all Promised Land Fest. But our website really – they want to watch videos or listen to songs, or if they have any kind of information, or if they would like to donate or maybe possibly, you know, volunteer their help, they can do all that and find all that on our website. So we encourage that. We're really trying to get people to focus to check out our website. You know, it's free.

You can't beat that. Yeah, no doubt. Well, definitely, for you guys that are listening out there, make some time. Go head out to this thing. They've got some great acts. It sounds like they've got some great food. They've got a guy with a fire hose. Nathan's going to be roaming the grounds. It seems like quite the deal. Yeah, sounds great. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to check up with Nathan a few weeks after the festival is over

and see how everything went and see what his big plans are for the following year. And, Nathan, I want to thank you for joining us here on Live from the Path. Well, hey, thank you, guys. God bless you, guys. Yeah, you too. Have a good one. All right, that was Nathan Groups from the Promised Land Festival. You're listening to Live from the Path. Go check that out, man. Dan's got us roped into this church thing, and I really feel like the water ministry was certainly the way to go. God could be speaking to us right now.

Yeah, yeah. I think he is. Drop the radio show, fellas. So here's the trend, though. Talking about God's going to do what he wants to do, and I like how he's going to reinforce this thing because coming from the Hosea aspect, I think you can get a good picture of God has a purpose for certain people to show them as a demonstration, as an example to others. He did that. You see him doing that with Ezekiel. He does that with Hosea.

And then at Church Sunday, randomly, we decide. Dan was talking about, I feel like we're going to bring the baptistry. We're in a gymnasium, so we don't have a church, but we have a baptistry that can be towed around and be taken there. So we decide we're going to bring it, and sure enough, two people are baptized. Yeah. God's going to do what he wants to do. And both of them were extremely cool. I mean, what was the one family that had just come? It was their first time there, right? It was their first Sunday, yeah, yeah. Rachel and Matt.

Matt? Mike? Matt? Matt? I'm going to say Matt. It was Matt, yeah. Yeah. Never been to Pathway. They actually were on the way somewhere else, and they saw the sign and thought, ah, let's try this place. Sweet.

And they come up after the service, they're like, I want to be baptized. Okay. Well, who am I to say no? I mean, let's do it. And pretty neat story. And they seem like a really, really neat couple. I mean, you know, like I say, we spoke a little bit then. We're friends on Facebook now, so that's like we're better. So here's the weird part, right? So she got baptized, and then a gentleman, a family that has been going to our church forever, one of the boys decided he was going to get baptized. His name was Aiden.

And, you know, he's been in the youth group and stuff, and, you know, his family's waiting until he, you know, he made the decision. It wasn't anything. And he came up after the service, and he's like, what am I waiting for? Let's do this thing, you know? And, like, so both of these people got baptized, and I saw them both, and I was really excited, and I thought, I feel like I should go hug them. I don't know. You're just not hugging. That's kind of awesome that you thought that. No, but he was trying to get people to hug him. I was trying to get other people to do it.

I tried to get Danielle to do it. She wouldn't go either. Go hug him, and I'll just kind of enjoy the sight. Yeah. I felt like it was a hugging moment, and I certainly would have hugged him. But, like, I guess I'm socially awkward, right? I couldn't decide, is this a hugging opportunity or not? You know, like, I didn't even have met the gal. So, I mean, that seemed kind of awkward. I think that would have been weird. My name's Mike. Can I hug you?

You know. I'm a hugger. But, like, I know Aiden, and I thought, maybe I should go hug him. I'm like, it's not like we've ever hugged before. It seems like there needs to be a pre-standing hug to initiate a hug at an event. You know, if you're going to hug somebody at an event, you better hug them at least one other time. You should bring your Hug Me t-shirt. Yeah. Is that what tells people it's time for hugging? I don't know. I don't know the indicator. I don't think I've ever hugged someone randomly.

I think when people take the name of Jesus and do some socially awkward stuff, you know what I'm saying? Like, if a bunch of Christians get together, the hugging starts to ramp up for some reason. Of course, this was a big deal. Well, that's what I'm saying. If people said, I want to follow Jesus, it feels like a hug to me, right? And in our setting, you know, like I say, we meet at a school. So, this is only, I think, the second time, maybe third time ever we've even had the baptistry at the school. It's just a random, hey, bring the baptistry. Okay. And Dan brought it.

And so, usually, the baptisms we have, we have, you know, quite a few, happen, you know, in some odd time here at the ministry center. Right. They decide, hey, let's do it. Let's call Dan. Dan, fill it up. Maybe a few family and friends show up. So, then we tell people later, hey, so-and-so was baptized. You know. And this was very different. It was like, we all got to just go outside and watch and participate, take part of it after the service.

It was very cool. It is extremely cool. If you haven't had a chance to witness that firsthand, not even the baptism, some even, but just like someone saying, you know what, you know, I'm with you. I'm with you, Jesus. Let's do this. You know, like, it's a moment you'll never forget. Like, it's those things that you start to build up and, you know, really reaffirms your faith. And you can see Christ doing some stuff. And it's very, very awesome. Well, because you know he's been working in the background.

You know, we don't know how or why or why, but we don't know what he's been doing. Why, Lord? Why would you do that? Why bring people to you? But, you know, he's doing something that would make someone say, okay, today's the day. I'm going to give my life to Jesus. And, of course, there's some preaching going on, and that was, you know, obviously part of the topic. But, you know, like I say, the couple who just, we're going to go here today. That's totally random. I'm giving myself to Jesus. Yeah.

All right. God's doing something there. It's a God thing. Yep. And so my topper, although long-term consequences notwithstanding, okay, so I got here around 8.30. I had to put the studio back together from being at that local day, okay, so I got everything set up. And one of the things that we have to do every week is we got to change our YouTube setup. Like, it's a fresh YouTube video every week so that it gets logged correctly. So I go through, and I create this YouTube thing, and I go to save it, and it says YouTube maintenance.

YouTube is maintenance right now temporarily down, okay? I wait, like, five minutes to try it again, same deal. And now I'm up to clicking it, like, every 30 seconds, because I'm like, week at week, this has got to work for us to fire the show. So I've been here a total of about 40 minutes, and I keep clicking it, and I tried two different computers, I tried logging out of stuff, I'm like, something's got to give here, otherwise we're not going to be able to do the show. And so I walked out, and I filled up my water, and I come back to the door, and I stopped, and I said, Lord, I really, I don't know what types of things to bother you with. This seems very petty and small. But if you could fix the YouTube so that we could broadcast the show, like, your will be done, all right?

But that would be awesome. I sat down, I clicked the button, bam, working. Working. And I thought to myself, yep. Now, that's happened to me twice that I can recall in my life. The first time it happened, I was like 10 or 11, and I was riding my bike home from somewhere, some, like, friend's house or something, and it had started to rain. I mean, poor buckets, and I had to ride the bike home, and I stopped, and I prayed, and I said, Lord, can you, would you take care of this rain? And bam, rain's gone. Now, are there natural occurrences that could explain both events? Sure.

Rain has to stop sometime, and the YouTube is likely to come back up at some point. I could acknowledge both of those being potentially true. Sure. However, I mean, this is submit to God, bam, thing has happened. It's just, it's a topper. I'm just saying, God's going to do what he wants to do. He wants to fix the YouTube. It's going to happen. It's kind of funny that actually that, I can remember the exact day when I was a teenager when I turned away from God, and it was almost the exact same circumstance. Like, I was riding my bike somewhere, and the traffic was terrible, and I was waiting to cross the intersection, and I thought I was going to pray about it.

I'm like, Lord, you know, if you could just, I just need to get through this traffic, you know, and then I thought to myself, this is so stupid. God does not give two rips about the traffic. I'm involving him too much in my life, and that is, like, I remember the day that it happened, and I was out for 10 years. 10 years. Wow. Because I made, I drew a line in the sand, and I decided what God wasn't. I can handle the traffic. And I just stopped asking, and I stopped seeking, and I stopped talking, and it was over something so stupid, like just like a traffic. I'm like, what does my life come to that I have, that I ask God every five minutes to

do something for me, or look at something for me? Like, I had, I didn't have a good perspective of God at all, and like, I remember the day when it happened, and it was funny, but like, the first time that I came to Pathway, it was to play piano, and like, that is the memory that hit me when I walked in the door. Like, the day that I said, I don't, I don't need your traffic assistance, Jesus, like, you know, and that wasn't the deal, like, I just, I thought, I'm bothering God too much with my everyday stuff. He really doesn't need to be involved with me every day. You weren't mad at him. No, no, it wasn't like a, you know, I don't believe in you, or, or, you know, screw your ideas, or, you know, I couldn't say I probably read the Bible a whole lot, but I had a faith that I got from just going to church, and, you know, being in a family that had faith,

you know? But, like, I remember the day exactly when it happened, and it was just, it was so laissez-faire, like, you know what, God doesn't care about the traffic, Mike, just stop, just stop. Could that be that little whisper from maybe the enemy? Yeah, God doesn't care about traffic, I'm like, you know what, you're right, he doesn't, he doesn't care about the traffic. And he doesn't care about me. He gives a rip, you know, but then you go find other stories, and I can probably name ten other circumstances where I've prayed about something that is probably small in the grand scheme of things, but, you know, when he's Lord of all, he's Lord of all. And so, you know, all means all. He runs everything, he knows everything, he's king of everything.

So… Well, if he knows the number of hairs on your head, he's pretty detail-oriented. How about the minute details? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So, I don't know, it's funny that, I don't know that you mentioned that deal, because, I mean, seriously, that is exactly the day that I abandoned God for about ten years over something petty. It happens. It does. It happens.

You're listening to Life from the Path, brought to you tonight by the providence of the Lord. Yeah. He fixed the YouTube, as far as I'm concerned. That's how I'm going to tell it. So, we went and hung out at that local day. Yep. Out at the Wellspring Book and Bible, or they just call it the Wellspring, I guess. The Wellspring Christian Resources. Yeah. I'm not going to call it that. You're kind of going back to the old Boone's Book and Bible back in the day. I like Book and Bible.

I feel like you should have… I think they're more than that, though. They do music, and they got food and coffee and stuff, and they say, book and Bible, that's not music and coffee and art. I can't get a turkey sandwich at the Bible place. I'm going to go somewhere else and eat a turkey sandwich, and that's how you lose business, man. That was a pretty good turkey sandwich. I thought they were pretty good. I feel like people take advantage of my love for Jesus with that Christian music. It's really expensive. I mean, really expensive.

Like, granted, there's not as much of it, and so it's probably more expensive to put out and to recoup your costs. And I should… You know, people look on you with shame, like, you know, they're doing it for Jesus. You'll pay whatever it costs. I'm like, eh, you know, like my budget only will support so many Christian artists in a month, you know? Seriously. You know, can we get this thing on the free download or something, or at least a couple so I can check it out first? You know? But it was actually a very cool event.

We met some really cool people there. We got to talk with the guy from Hidden Acres Christian Camp. We got to talk to the guy that was trying to collect mosquito nets. Nate Beard. Yeah, Nate Beard. So we're on Facebook. He seems like he's got a big announcement coming up tomorrow on his net thing. So trying to keep the malaria out. Yeah, so you can find out more information about him at happybirthdaynate.com. Basically, his 30th birthday is coming up here in October, and he's looking to raise money to send mosquito nets over to combat malaria, because when you're sleeping, you can't defense yourself against mosquitoes that got malaria on them.

What a terrible situation, you know? Like, you make it all day, you watch out for mosquitoes, you're like, they ain't gonna get me. They ain't gonna get me. You know, you're on the prowl, and then you're starting to get sleepy. And then you gotta wake up and be like, I don't have a net. And then you kind of fall back searching again. Here's the thing. I've never successfully defended myself against a mosquito. Uh-uh. They always win. Even when I'm paying attention.

Like, I get them when it's too late. I know they're there when they actually have bit me. These are like nocturnal ones, though. So they only come out at night, the ones that do the malaria. Yeah, what kind of son of the devil would make nocturnal mosquitoes? You know what I'm saying? That's terrible. I mean, can't you at least have them in the day so we can fight them out, you know? Nocturnal mosquitoes. You know, it sounds like a completely worthwhile cause, and it doesn't take much to help. It's, what's he, like six bucks, and he gets you two nets, get some shit packed. They know how to, they teach people how to hang them up and stuff.

Yeah, do it. If you can visit happybirthdaynate.com, you can donate. You can also follow him on the Facebook, and you can see the progress. So they got a substantial number of nets just from being out at the local day. Do we like them? Cool. Do we like them on the Facebook? We sure do. Yeah. Live from the podcast. We like them. Awesome.

So, yeah, yeah. We went to Hidden Acres. I checked out the website at the Hidden Acres Camp. That looks like a nice place. Yeah. It looks like a really nice joint. I mean, it's kind of his job to say it's nice, but I've literally believed him. He says that all kinds of nice stuff that it sounded pretty sweet. They had good cookies. Yeah, man. Really good. See, that's the best plan.

He's the only guy handing out friends. And they weren't just like cheap cookies either. They were big, luscious cookies. They were fantastic. They were grandma cookies. Yeah, I'm pretty impressed with that operation. Although, I kind of wish we would have hung out until like 7 o'clock, because I feel like we would have had some extra. We could have made it off with some cookies. He probably brought out the pie after supper. Oh, man. You know, here's the thing.

Life in the Path is, I mean, we're all over the place here in the next couple, three weeks. And actually, the summer is just kind of branching out. So we were at the Wellspring something resource center. That place. They have Jesus stuff there. That's all I think. It's the Jesus store. But we're heading out to the Manifest Show on Friday. We're going to broadcast live from the Manifest Show at the Indianola Community Church with opening acts saved on Sunday. And Daniel Double J Johnson is going to be playing. And so it's going to be a really good show.

I'm pretty excited. And so we're going to be broadcasting live from that. We're going to stream that action? Yeah. It's going to be streaming. So you can catch the show free on the net. Hopefully we're going to. I think we can easily grab an interview with Double J and Saved on Sunday, but Manifest. We'll have to see. Yeah. We might have to bring some of them. There's still tickets available for that, by the way.

So if you want to head on out to that, you can go to the Indianola Community Church website. You can get hooked up with some tickets. Or you could just say you're part of our show and we'll get you in. Yeah. I think they need people to buy tickets. Okay. They won't believe that we have like 10 friends. So, I mean, they'll believe we have two friends. Should we make up our press passes again? Yeah. I think that's important. People need to know who we are.

Back to the age passes. Our self-esteem is getting low, you know? Nothing says big time like face on badge. Where's the pie? So, yeah. We're going to be at the Manifest Show. That's coming up on Friday. I forgot all of our stuff for that. I'm going to have to dig that stuff up. We're going to get all the broadcasting equipment. Dang. It's on the trailer?

And then we're going to be on – we're going to be at the Spiritman West Festival August 3rd and 4th. Yeah. And that's the big time. We're going to be – we're camping. We're broadcasting. We're grilling. We're grilling. Yeah. Big Rod's bringing the grill. It's going to be sweet. Yeah. It's going to be sweet bippy down there.

Now, here's – okay. Now, here's the quandary with the Spiritman West Festival. And I'm going to tell you ahead of time, all right? We may not be able to stream the thing. Internet may be a little iffy out in the St. Charles area. We might not be able to stream it. So here's the plan is we're going to go out there anyway. We're going to do the full broadcast, and we're going to chop it up in like two or three hour blocks and broadcast it for you later on during the week so that you can check it out at your leisure and enjoy it. Just like the Olympics. I think that's probably the best way to go. So there you go.

That's the Spiritman West Festival. Here we go. We are on week nine of our tour through GodIsImaginary.com. And I'm afraid with this week, he's just getting a little bit redundant. Proof number nine is understand ambiguity. Let's imagine that you have cancer and that you are a believer. You pray to God for a cure. You undergo surgery and chemotherapy, and the cancer does, in fact, go into remission. What cured you? Was it the chemotherapy or was it God? In other words, is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray? The problem is that in this imagined case, there is ambiguity.

The Christian believes that God answered the prayer, but it could also be a simple coincidence. All scientific evidence clearly indicates that it is, in fact, a coincidence. Whenever we do a scientific experiment on the efficacy of prayer, the data shows no effect from a prayer. That is true. Well, he finds that true based upon the resources that he has chosen to believe. There are studies out there that reflect differently than that. So basically, he says, how do we figure this out? Is God answering prayers as Christians believe, or is it coincidence as science indicates? What we find when we perform an unambiguous experiment is that God never answers unambiguous prayers. Jesus promises in many places in the Bible that he will answer prayers. But what you find whenever you put Jesus to the test is that Jesus is making a false promise. What we find is that God never answers impossible prayers, even if their prayers are incredibly worthy.

For example, pray to God to levitate a car and hold it float in the air for 10 minutes. It will not happen, even if you are praying to levitate the car because a drunk driver has run over a college freshman and she is currently pinned under the wheels. Pray to God to let you fly through the air like Superman. It will not happen. Pray to God to fill your basement with $100 million in small unmarked bills. It will not happen, even if you plan to donate the $100 million to charity. Pray to God to restore the amputated limbs of a dispreting penitent believer. It will not happen, no matter how sincere you are in prayer. None of these prayers will ever be answered. We know that with certainty. If they were answered, we would see people flying through the air like Superman on the evening news. We would see amputated limbs regenerating all the time.

Every Christian charity would be fully funded. There would not be 10 million children starving to death every year. The whole idea of God answering prayers is a complete illusion because God is imaginary. Now, I do feel like we answered this one in number nine. Proof number one was try praying. Proof number nine is understand ambiguity, which is basically a rehash of number one. He seems to be very against prayer. He seems very against the ruling leadership of Christ. Like, obviously, he believes God is imaginary, right? But, like, to the greater extent, he thinks that anyone who puts God in any type of authority is foolish and has been deceived. And mostly, it's funny because, like, the things that he lists, they're all self-based. Like, you can paint them any way you want to, but levitate the car.

Like, all he's doing is putting a thing next to a thing, right? We've talked about that. He does that, right? But, like, I want to levitate the car because the drunk driver has hit a girl and the girl's pinned underneath, right? Like, you're thinking, he's thinking that, you know, this life that's underneath the car is, it needs to be saved, right? Like, it has to be saved. If the gal knows Jesus, as far as I'm concerned, I hope that she gets, you know, if that her life continues. But if it doesn't, she gets to go see Jesus. So I don't care. You know, all the better. But, like, he's taking very, he's taking things that would make, they're almost prideful wishes. You know what I'm saying?

I want to fly like Superman. I want to have $100 million. Wouldn't you fund your charities, Jesus? You know, some of those charities that are Christian charities probably don't need any money because they're not good Christian charities. They don't do well with their money, right? Like, I suppose, like, all the things that he talks about, I imagine God as a sovereign God that knows, that does what he wants, right? And does things for his own glory and for his own holiness. And so if God wanted it to be funded, he'd be funded, you know? Or if God has work for you to do for it to be funded, he'll give you the work to do to do it. Well, he wants his people to do it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Like, he wants his people to serve others. And you don't reveal the heart of God through just, like, the service of Jesus to his disciples and stuff like that by just giving that stuff. So, like, you're not demonstrating an example. You're not teaching people how to live. You're just – I don't know exactly what you'd be teaching if you gave it to them. I suppose you would be showing them – like, you're just not being a demonstration, not being an example of what it's like to serve somebody else. Because it doesn't take any effort for you to give $100 million that you found in your basement. You know what I'm saying? It takes an effort to work for it and then give it to someone out of the kindness out of your heart, out of the graciousness of your heart, right? It doesn't teach you to serve others if it doesn't end up impacting you to have done so. Yeah, actually, I find it kind of funny that he – all the examples that he has, I feel like he's saying, look, I would be – I would believe in God if God would do these parlor tricks. You know what I'm saying?

If God would do these shallow, not really – I mean, not impressive for an almighty, all-knowing God, right? The God that he wants is very silly. Yeah, yeah, like flying through the air and lifting up cars and jazz instead of sacrificing yourself for others. You know what I'm saying? Serving other people, serving Jesus Christ, humbly submitting. You know what I'm saying? Those things are impossible for a human to do without the love of Christ. You know what I'm saying? Everyone's a prideful beast. You know, like that – if you want to point to evidence of Jesus Christ and of God in general, you look at people that will humbly serve others for no gain. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

That's a pretty amazing tact. You can't find anybody that's not out to help themselves. You know what I'm saying? That's just the way that it works. And so, you know, he's more easily convinced of God's existence if he would control nature in a way that shows that God is God over nature and humans. When really – like I'd say the evidence for God is shown with his children, like with his people, although the creation stands on its own. But, like, he not only wants to say, God, you made creation, but now I want to see you fool with it to show that you reign over it. You know, and actually I show that God's – I see that God's, you know, sovereignty and his existence is proven with his people that follow him, right? I mean, because seriously, I mean, nobody humbles themselves to anybody for any reason. You know what I'm saying? Look at our entire culture. It's made up of every single bit of that.

Yeah. I don't know. You know, I think as much as he's had on prayer, I think he's been disappointed by prayer. Maybe he had a family member pass away and he had prayed for healing and it didn't happen. I mean, you know, that's just conjecture. Who knows? The things he talks about, though, Jesus, he got after the crowd once, and I was kind of trying to look this up real quick, about looking for a sign. He says, everybody wants a sign. I'm not going to give you a sign. You know, hey, come on, Jesus, do a trick, you know. It's like, I'm the living God. Who are you to ask me to do a sign for you to prove who I am?

Either you believe me or you don't. You're either going to take me or you're not. And if I do a sign, I could raise the dead and you're still not going to follow me if you're not going to follow me anyway. You just go, well, that was really neat. Yeah. I wonder how he did that. Yeah. You know, and that's in a nutshell what he said. Well, I think you run into that a lot modern day, you know, where it says that Jesus says, you'll raise from the dead. Or Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Or he fed, you know, 5,000 men with fishes and loaves. And people say, well, that didn't happen.

The Bible's not true. Right? So he gave you a sign and then you say, well, that didn't happen. Whatever that says didn't happen. Then I say, the Bible is true. And they'll say, no, it ain't. I say, you don't have any fact behind that. I just know it sounds silly. That's right. So what you're saying is, God, prove yourself by doing this silly thing. And then when you do it, I'm going to go, look, I don't believe it. That's too silly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like God wouldn't stoop down to do such things. What a benchmark. Making dinner. It's Mark chapter 8. The Pharisees came again to question Jesus, to test him. They asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it. Then he left them, got back in the boat, crossed to the other side. It's like, yeah, no thanks. And he just left.

Now, didn't he say, no sign will be given to you but the sign of Jonah? Where did he say that at? I think in another text, because that's what I was kind of looking for, and it wasn't in here. What was the sign of Jonah? The whole three days. And he'll be three days in a tomb. Jonah was three days in a fish. Oh, comparison to the whale, actually. You wait until I come back to the dead. That'll be your sign. Right. And more became believers then.

But yeah, God is God. God, he doesn't, just because, especially someone who doesn't believe, and it's kind of in a mocking way, say, come on, let's see if we can levitate the car. God's like, I'm not going to believe you. God, see if you can work your way up to Superman. Okay, now hold on. Let me play the other side of this, though. Because I actually, with his brain of thinking, I can kind of see where he's coming from, right? Like, let's say, Lord, my grandma is sick. Or take somebody who's healthy, right? Let's just say my wife. Let's say my wife is sick, and it's not looking great.

And I say, Lord, will you please heal my wife? And then he doesn't. And then I think, it was God's will that my wife die? Or then you think he just can't do it. Right. See, he can't do it. Right. See, I asked for healing, and then it didn't happen. You know? And so if you, and so what's the standard Christian answer, right? Like, God does what God wants to do. He intercedes where he intercedes.

And like, you know, most people say, well, it was just her time. Like that was, I mean, like it was predestined that she die right there. And see, I think we've talked about this a little bit too, right? God knew that if she were to pass away, that's when it was going to happen. I don't know that God said, this is going to be the day, you know, this, you know, he's like, this is the way it's going to play out. I know how it's going to play out. It's not like I kill people. He does kill people, though. Well, you know what people don't like to hear when they say, well, my prayer wasn't answered. Well, the scripture says the prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Okay. So you don't even believe in God and suddenly you're praying and you're expecting him to suddenly say, oh, oh, he wants me to heal his friend. The first prayer he's going to hear is that humbling prayer, fall on your knees before God saying, God, I'm wrong. I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? Yeah. It's like, okay, now we can talk. Yeah. And you know what? I was talking with the fellows about this at church, actually, just before the baptism,

but I just got done reading through the book of Daniel and Daniel was praying about Israel had gone astray again. And then Daniel says, you know, he was going through a prayer about, look, Lord, we've turned from you. You know, we're not following your ways, this and that, you know, and God sent Michael, the angel down to talk to him. And the first thing Michael said is, as soon as you started praying, a messenger was sent because you're dearly loved. Right. And I thought, you know what? That's pretty amazing because it's not like God was waiting for the self-esteem booster like, oh, heavenly father, you are the greatest.

You're the best. He's like, hey, Daniel's talking. Michael, I need you to go straighten this out now. You know what I'm saying? And by the time you get there, he'll be done with his rabble and we'll start talking. Now, the awesome part of that story, though, is it took, what, 21 days? There was a spiritual battle going on in the heavenlies. Remember that part? I didn't read that part. Oh, dude. Read that again. I didn't read no spiritual.

And he's fighting Lucifer. There is a spiritual, intense war. And the whole time Daniel is fasting. And it took Daniel's fasting in conjunction with the spirit. That's why I say when we fast, man, things happen. And we might not see it right away because there's things going on we can't see, battles that are happening. It is pretty intense. What is that, Daniel 9 or 6? 9. Well, I'm going to read it again. No, it's got to be like 9.

That's one of my all-time favorite stories in the scripture because you just try to imagine that thinking, whoa, what was that? Yeah. I mean, it took him three weeks. Oh, I know what happened. I think it was 21 days. See, I read the last three or four chapters of Daniel on my Holy Bible app, which is not my study Bible. I feel naked without my study Bible because usually I can read stuff and go like, I have no idea what happened here. And then I got to read the notes and kind of see what's going on. Like I get lost in the language sometimes.

And that is one of the occasions because I remember reading the last bit of Daniel going, well, that was really cool. But I couldn't explain it to you, nor do I have any idea what happened. You know, it just sounded pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah. So I'll have to reread it with my study Bible and get back up to snuff. All right. Well, there we are. There was proof number nine, understanding ambiguity, which is basically just a rehash of proof number one, he thinks prayer is shifty. Which, again, doesn't disprove God. It just means he doesn't like prayer.

This guy, this guy with the arguments, doesn't believe in prayer. Right. And so, like, it's weird again because this is, I mean, you could pose it as a philosophical discussion, but it certainly is not a proof, right? Because, like, he's attempting to say, I've proven that it's coincidence. Like, unless you can prove it's coincidence, you cannot prove that it's not God. And so what he's saying is that he thinks it's not likely that it's God. And, of course, coming from someone who doesn't believe God, then, yeah, I would assume that's the conclusion you would come to. Every Christmas, I see the Lexus commercials and I tell my wife, Cheryl, I would like to have a Lexus for Christmas. Okay.

So I ask for a Lexus. I have never got one. That does not disprove her as my wife. That just means she's like, Dan, you can't handle a Lexus. She knows me better than I do. Ain't that the truth, you know? And it feels like he's under the same misgivings as a lot, you know, that God and science are fighting, you know, because he uses science to refute God, which I think is a poor weapon. I think if you're going to fight God, there's better weapons to use other than science, you know, because, I mean, frankly, I think science backs up God way more than it fights. Well, and I think a lot of times here what the attempt to do is, like, you do not want God to exist.

Ultimately, that's the thing. Because if God exists, that means something to your life. You are acting foolishly. You are rebelling against the creator of the universe. There is a consequence to that actions. You are ignoring his gift of salvation and the ability to not face that eternal separation from God. And you are explicitly choosing to not accept any of that on the premise that he's not real. If God is real, your life changes. If God is not real, you get to live how you want to live. So, like, ultimately, this comes from a place where we're saying, if God is real, I have to make some serious changes with my life.

I have to think differently. I have to live differently. The things that I've believed are not true. So, if God is real, that causes people a problem. So, like, you fight hard to not have to give up your idols, the things that you want to worship, the things that you want to do, including yourself and your relationships and your money and whatever it is. And if I don't want to give up the idols, the only way that that is okay, morally okay, is if there is not a God that I otherwise should be focusing on. It's funny. It's kind of funny that people take that tack towards God anyway. You know, like, I'm fairly certain the Loch Ness Monster is not real, right?

But I spend no time refuting evidence of the Loch Ness Monster. But I just, I completely ignore them. You know what I'm saying? It's just not a part of my day. Same thing with everything else that I don't believe in. If I don't believe in it, I spend no time investigating it to prove it's not there. I'm just like, it's just not there. I don't care. I've got better things to worry about than the Loch Ness Monster. I don't care. And you find this, this used to make me so mad when I was a teenager. You know, I listened to a lot of different kinds of music.

And every once in a while I'd hear a song and they're just like, they're hammered on God. They're like, you know, like Jesus was a phony or, you know, whatever. I'm like, what do you guys even care? What do you even care? You know, if you don't believe in God, what, is this all you have better to write a song about? Like, I don't go around writing how the Oompa Loompas aren't real, you know, and write a tune about it. And then spend all my days reigning against the Oompa Loompas and be like, you guys are ruining my life with your non-existence. You can tell that's makeup. Yeah, like who gives a crap? If you don't believe in it, I can't understand why you rally against it so hard. And I think probably that's probably a very good evidence for God, right? If you want to prove that God exists, look how much people fight against his existence.

Because if really, if it didn't exist, no one would care. No one would care. It'd come and go, and the devil wouldn't fight so hard to try to prove that he's not there. He's not even, I mean, he's the great deceiver, right? But like, his deception starts to look obvious after a while, right? When you fight something so hard, it comes to the phrase, I think thou doth protest too much. Is that right? Yes. Right? I think you protest too much, right? People are like, you know, like, this is my secret Santa gift. It didn't come from me.

No, really, it didn't. It didn't. Yeah, right. Everybody knows it came from you, right? And so that's the exact same thing here, right? When you see a bunch of hard rock bands or the, you know, some other forms of music that are coming out and they're like, they're nothing but God is evil and Satan is the way to go. And you're like, hell yeah. This looks pretty obvious to me. You know what I'm saying? Why are you fighting God so hard if he doesn't exist? What should you care? You shouldn't.

You shouldn't at all. All right. Well, I'm going to give this week to God. That's nine to zero on godisimension.com. We'll give a shot. He's got 50 shots. Next week. Oh, that's going to be a good one. Proof number 10. Watch the offering plate. He's got a problem with money. All right.

So we'll hit him next week. The God is Imagineering guy wants to talk about putting money in the offering plate. That's like my favorite subject. Why do they need it? I love talking about the offering. All right. So there we go. Pull them out. That's him. Godisimension.com. You've been listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org or possibly our YouTube feed. Which is hip technobabble for somewhere else.

You should go check out our YouTube clips, Ben. We have them aplenty, right? Yeah. As a matter of fact, we've got a couple of clips that we recently have thrown out there. We put the interview out there for Nate for happybirthdaynate.com. He's out there. Also, Ruth from the Life Care Pregnancy Center. We talked to her and that poor woman. It's hot. She looks to be at least seven months pregnant and she has to talk to us. We're hot and awkward and abrasive. Yeah.

But God bless her. She came by. She did a great job. That Life Care Pregnancy Center actually sounds like a pretty cool deal. They provide prenatal direction counseling education. Also, postnatal, they do post-abortion counseling for people who've had that experience. That is intense. Yeah. No doubt. I can't imagine walking into a situation like that and feeling like I could speak to it in any relevant way to someone and to have people that are doing that or reaching out to folks. I think that's awesome and I think it's a need that sometimes it's one of those things that you'd rather sweep under the rug.

Even one of those things that you'd rather come to Christ and say, I'm forgiven and say, okay, you're free. Move on as opposed to you need to digest this, what this has been for you to be able to move on and be productive both in your life and your life for Christ. And so that's an awesome thing. But you can find out more about them if you go to lifecarepc.org. You can find more information about them. And they can use help. They take donations. You can give monetarily. Or I think they also take things like used or new or gently used items for both mom and baby. Man, you should donate money. I think you should. I feel like you don't donate enough money.

No, I agree that I don't donate enough money. We got that straight. Yeah, no, no. I'm going to agree with that. You know, while you guys were talking to her, I was being accosted as I was trying to order my turkey sandwich by some guy saying I was a very large man. And I kind of look at Daniela, is he talking to me? Because he's larger than I am. At least in the midsection. There was a couple of weird altercations at that fun day. We got, I mean, I got, I mean, finger shaked at by an old lady. Oh, yeah. We were too loud.

That was awesome. Yeah, I mean, it was an extremely awkward moment because they said they invited us to come out and broadcast. So usually we come out, hook up the microphones, turn the speaker up, and we start talking, you know. Not obnoxiously loud, just enough for people to hear. Most people enjoy our friendly banter and, you know, lackadaisical Jesus. You know, we put Jesus in real life and see how it goes. And boy, but this gal did not appreciate us at all. She turned around and she goes, I can't hear the music. You wily old bat. She was 50 feet away from the tunes. Yes. And you kind of wanted to say, well, she's playing a CD.

Yeah. See, seriously. Go buy the CD. The tunes were 100 feet away. She sat 95 feet away right by us and then yelled at us because she couldn't hear the tunes. And I thought, okay, what's the right response here? Because, right, if we're not on the radio, I would say, why don't you move closer? Then I'd say something else. But I didn't. We just sat and looked at each other like, well, what's the right Jesus thing to do? We're at a Jesus, we're at the Christian bookstore listening to a Christian artist standing in front of Christian people. And this gal says, I can't hear the music.

And I'm like, oh, what's the right way to handle this? I don't know. I don't know. I figured, I thought we kind of, we chickened out. That's what I thought. Yeah, we'll probably do. Well, that's respectful. We submitted. We did. Out of reverence for Christ. It's not usually our style, you know. That's what Jesus says to do, yeah.

We'll work on it. She's more important than we are. I guess. That's what I hear anyway. Wait a minute. Is she going to heaven? She'd pray sooner than us. She's going to have a… You ain't going to let your boys up in here, isn't she? She's going to have dominion. We're in big trouble. I'll erase their names.

There we go. They're alive from the path. I'm the owner of a small boutique for women. My only full-time employee is everything an employer could ask for. However, she often comes in looking like she just crawled out of bed and doesn't own an iron. What can I say to her to help her become more aware of her appearance? I don't want to hurt her feelings. I jokingly told her to retire a pair of slacks she frequently wears because they are too tight and the rear end is shiny. But this week, she came in wearing them again. So evidently, she didn't get the message. Please help. I can't believe how many of the people who ask us for help, it boils down to simple communication.

Yeah. It just boils down to simple communication. How about you have the conversation and say, hey, you know what? We're working with the public. We're a service industry. We really have a certain level of excellence we need to have in our wardrobe. Are you saying that… People are distracted by your butt shining. Don't wear the shiny butt pants. Are you saying that I'm not meeting that standard? You know, I'm not the one who sets that policy. But it wouldn't even hurt to have a policy and say, here's what we expect at our boutique.

Go ahead, Ben. Try this out. What am I going to supposed to try? Hey, Annie. I'm the employee. You get to be the boss. Okay. What's your name? You're Annie. Oh. I'm Todd. Hi, Todd.

Hey, look, Todd. Here's the deal, man. Man, some shiny butt pants are distracting for our folks. Oh, I don't think it's a big deal. Well, I run the place and I do. So here's what I kind of expect. First of all, you need to stop wearing those shiny butt pants. Whoa. I thought we were friends. We're friends. That doesn't have anything to do with you wearing the butt pants. Secondly, you need to iron your clothes.

When people come in here, and I'm not saying it's right that people make judgments like this, but we're trying to sell something. And I need every advantage I can. And they come in and they see your wrinkled clothes. They think things. Whether it's a perfect judgment or not, I need you to iron your stuff. Excuse me. Excuse me. Look, I show up every day. I cut good hair. I bring this place to business. All the repeat customers are my customers.

You say you want to take me to the wall about these pants? Is it that big of a deal? It's big enough that I'm talking about, yeah. And it has nothing to do with you being of the nationality that you are. What does that have to do with it? I said nothing. How long can you go to harp on this issue? Okay, what if I'm going to tell you, look, I'm going to keep wearing the pants. I'm afraid I'll have to fire you. That's it? You're going to fire me over these pants? I told you to stop wearing them.

Yeah. If I hired you and I say, hey, man, you stop wearing those pants, you say, well, I'm going to keep wearing the pants. And I'm going to say, well, then I'm going to fire you. I'm going to call everybody that I cut hair for, and I'm going to take them with me. That's the point of having a principle. I'm going to stand on it. I'm afraid if I thought it wasn't beneficial, I wouldn't enforce it. I think that your hair has become a problem. Well, here's what you can do. Open your own boutique. Hire me on it.

You can harass me about it. I feel like you're coming down on me because you have out-of-fashion taste. You know what I'm saying? Like the skinny jeans and the shiny bum, that's in. And your corduroy slacks from the mid-'80s are out. Now, I'm not saying that that may or may not be true. Whether I'm hip or not really isn't the question. Ultimately, it's my store, and frankly, I have a certain standard of what I want worn and the appearance of the folks working here. I'm packing up my stuff. I'm sorry to hear that. Okay, then.

I guess this is done. I think maybe it's time for some company uniforms. I feel like it went well. Yeah, why don't you provide my clothes if you don't like my stuff? Give me some more slacks and a nice shirt with the logo. Now, to your point earlier, I don't think you really want me picking out what you're going to have to wear. I want to give you freedom. I just can't give you ultimate freedom. Well, I don't want you picking through everything in my clothes and saying yes and no. Just because I let you use a butter knife doesn't mean you get to stab a guy with it. I'm just saying, if you don't like it. Obviously, I don't have good discernment when it comes to clothes.

Why don't you just give me clothes to wear? You don't wear those shiny butt pants every day. That's specifically the item that I picked out. You should see the other stuff I'm not wearing. I'm glad you're at least making an attempt to discernment, but you just need to move the needle a little bit. I'm just saying I don't own any clothes that I think you're going to find acceptable. You obviously do have clothes that I find acceptable because we only have the conversation about the butt pants and your wrinkly shirts. Okay, what you're doing is discriminating against me because of my clothing. That's what you're doing. Hold on a minute. Your clothing is a choice. If you want to keep this up, you can talk to my lawyer because I'll take this right to court.

I mean right to court. I'm half there. No chiaro shiny butt pants. It's not going to happen. Go ahead and sue me for your clothing choice. Okay, I feel like this hasn't gone well. This is why she doesn't want to have this conversation. It's because the people on the other end are going to… She's the owner. She pays the bills. Okay. You want the secular response?

I feel like I won that, Dan. Don't you think? Yeah, because I tend to agree with what you're saying. I came out on top. You just lost your only employee. You're back to one man in it. Everything you've built. Your wife's going to be mad at you because you can't spend time at home anymore because now you're back slaving at the office for 80 hours a week to think that she almost left you for the first time and now you've gotten rid of your only employee because you're affriended by butt pants. You'll come back.

I won't. You're not going to be able to get hired on with that decor anywhere else either. You can't be a Subway sandwich artist wearing them butt pants. Secular advice is because your employee didn't take the hint, you must be more direct with her, which you tried and failed at. Explain that you expect her to dress more carefully for work because, one, her attire represents the image of the shop, and two, a salesperson who is sharply dressed inspires customers to shop. Then tell her exactly what you expect from her. That's not true. No, it doesn't. In fact, overdressed people freak me out.

I don't trust them. I find, hold on a minute, I find that to be more true than not. That might just be a personality deal, but I don't trust anybody in suits at all. They seem like they're overcompensating for something and they're trying to talk. Like, you can tell when people start getting that salesman language and they look like they got their hairs combed perfectly and they're wearing a nice suit. I automatically don't trust them because I feel like they're trying to shine me on. Dan, do you get that impression? I don't know. I kind of enjoy a nice suit. Like yourself in a suit? I am rarely in a situation, though, when someone's wearing a suit that I, you know.

Like the perfume salesman at the JCPenney. Yeah, there's no reason to be wearing a suit for that. People don't. You're not the common man. Here's what people think, right? Like, I could smell like that good-looking guy in the suit. And you could very well smell like that man, but that doesn't make you either A, good-looking, or B, you own a suit. So all you've done is taken a scent and absconded it and tried to parade it around town like you're hip like that guy and you're not. Yeah. Then tell her exactly what you expect from her and offer to help her coordinate some acceptable outfits.

Perhaps by giving her a discount on some items from the store. If that doesn't work, consider putting together a uniform for her to wear. Oh, wait, it's a clothing shop? She doesn't. Little boutique. Well, okay, I think that's completely fair. I'll give you a hundred bucks. Buy stuff from our shop. If I, if I, it has to be appropriate if I'm selling it. I have no right to say you can't wear the stuff that I sell. Yeah, I agree. God, it seems like simple.

I thought you were cut hair. I thought boutique meant hair. Does it not? No, it's like a little shop, like a gift shop, little items. You made on like you were a hair cutter. You've been deceiving me for years. You're double fired. No wonder you can't sell anything. Put those scissors away. Let's see here. I got one more. Ready?

Yeah, we got one minute. You better put a spank on it. Forget it. We're not possibly racist. Who says that? I said, should I have handled that differently? And the response was, you need a woman's point of view. You guys are blunt and possibly racist. Ugh, boys. Well, what's the lady's point of view? Hey, Jacqueline, their pants are crazy. You just can't wear them here.

Is that racist? No wonder they think we're racist. All my impersonations have an accent to them that come up as a different nationality. All you have to do is say, you know, you look kind of fat in those pants. She'll never wear them again. Yeah. Really, I do? Yeah. Misty could wear those, but you can't. Oh, that's not nice at all. I don't know how ladies, I don't know how women get things done, right? I don't know how to do the passive aggressive.

I just know straight to it. So like, I don't know how to get anything done with any type of tact. Those pants remind me of my grandmother. That should do it. My grandma used to own those pants. Yeah. Did you get those with Salvation Army? That's a lot. They're the same ones. That's a lot. People, I don't know. We use those pants as a mirror at my grandma's house.

Man, maybe we should have a lady in there. That's why. I don't have any idea how to do something. That's a nice shirt. Are you wearing a topographical, Mac? Or do you just not iron your clothes? Ah. Okay. Would you get the point if someone came in and said, hey man, is your iron broken? You'd say, why? No, no reason. No, I would just be awkward.

I'd say, dude, this is an unironed shirt. Some guy at work tried to tell me, like I wore a shirt that hadn't been ironed. And they said, hey Ben, your shirt is not ironed. I said, I know. Thanks. And that's kind of where it ended. I had someone do that and they said, hey, you got cats, huh? I'm like, yeah. And it was because I had cat hair on my shirt. But he wouldn't say that. Like I had to go in the bathroom, take off the shirt, look at it. I'm like, oh, that's how they know.

I wish they had just said, man, you got cat hair all over you. You better turn that thing inside out or something. Yeah. Now, see, in response to this, in response to this blunt, like Dan said that people are calling in or writing in because they need advice and it's mostly communication. I would suggest then that perhaps our way would be the better way. People wouldn't have these problems. They also wouldn't have any employees. Yes, they would. No, people don't put up with that. They can find new ones. People are too sensitive.

No, no. They wouldn't put up with some kind of strict cuts. I refuse to work here anymore. I'm going to go take a job wearing that blue vest at the Walmart to stay on principle that I should be wearing my shiny butt pants when I want to. Yeah. That's ridiculous. Even McDonald's has standards. People quit all the time for stuff like that. Well, that's dumb. That's right. That's the way it is.

You want to pull your door, don't you? I can get people to work for me that aren't like that. But you didn't. You hired shiny butt pants. He wasn't wearing them when we talked about it. It's a gal, I hope. You said his name was Todd. I said… It changes everything. Yeah, you better give it a room. That's why I thought I agreed he would cut hair. All right, here we've got to go.

You've been listening live from The Path. Thanks for hanging out with us. We will see you Friday for the Manifest Show. Start broadcast probably somewhere close to 6.30. Saved on Sunday. Double J Manifest. Rocking out the Indianola Community Church. Catch us during the week on the YouTube channel, youtube.com, backslash, livefromthepath. Also, if you want to watch the rehash of this week's show, you can catch it during the week at livefromthepath.org. Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful week.